Anything & Everything

THE BOUN OF BOUNPREM

Boun Noppanut Guntachai | July 10, 1995

Famously, Boun was involved in the industry for seven years before he was cast in the defining role of Win in "Until We Meet Again" (2019).

Before being cast as Win, Boun had promised himself that this would be his last attempt to make a career in the industry since his single mother had been supporting him until then and he didn't want to become a burden to her.

The runaway success of "Until We Meet Again" in 2019 and 2020 launched Boun and Prem to fame in the Thai BL sphere, but Boun was still cautious about it. In those preceding seven years, he had endured a great deal of hardship from auditions that went nowhere to cameos and side roles for which he was never paid what he was owed. He also witnessed and experienced quite a bit of the dark side of the industry without any of the protections he has today, which made him very protective of younger artists under his care when he joined Studio Wabi Sabi. (Including and most importantly his imaginary couple partner, Prem.)

Boun joined Studio Wabi Sabi roughly around 2019(?) when he was approached by its CEO New Siwaj (director of "Love by Chance," "Until We Meet Again," and "We Are"). New essentially offered Boun a safe environment with guaranteed payment, and it cannot be overstated how instrumental both New and his agency/studio were in both the launch of Boun's career and the creation and survival of BounPrem as a brand.

In 2020, Boun often described himself as short-tempered and unenthusiastic about spending time with younger people, but his onscreen partnership, offscreen dynamic, and then professional relationship with Prem was instrumental in changing his attitude. As he and Prem worked more and more together, Boun told the public that he shifted his mindset because he realized that anything he did would have a direct impact on Prem's reputation and prospects, too.

Boun was born with a chronic heart condiiton:

Translation Source: "I had my annual heart check-up. The leak is still the same, 2 millimeters. There's a slight arrhythmia (irregular heart rhythm), and the same old problem with my chest bone being misshapen, causing my chest to be flat and pressing against my heart. Normally, there should be a gap between the chest and the heart, but mine is compressed. Last year, I had three episodes of chest pain. That’s the end of the report."

He updates fans regularly on his health, spends a fair amount of time in and out of the hospital for checkups, and it's widely understood by fans that while Boun is often extremely enthusiastic and energetic, he does have physical limitations due to his condition, and he does need to be cautious.

Boun is also extraordinarily thoughtful toward his fans. In the "Until We Meet Again" promotion era, he was often the last one of the cast to leave their outdoor fan gatherings, lingering to talk and take selfies until one of the staff came back to physically drag him away. More recently, he's taken to Twitter to encourage fans to organize meet-up points after events that end late in the evening so they can accompany each other home safely. (He even called out some of those meeting points onstage so fans who didn't see it on Twitter would know this was happening.)

Since joining GMMTV, Boun has become close to many artists but none more important than my other biological adult son Krist Perawat, a bond for which I am solely responsible by my super real magic of friendship powers that are not made up.

[I literally did this.]

THE PREM OF BOUNPREM

Prem Warut Chawalitrujiwong | March 8, 1998

Prem's first role was Team in "Until We Meet Again," and his charisma and comedic timing solidified him as a strong actor.

Early in life, Prem and his older brother and younger sister all trained to become professional golfers. By his teens, however, Prem wanted more than the solitary life such a sport promised, so he shifted gears to try his hand in the entertainment industry instead. (Look up his former boyband Goblin.)

Prem is more reserved than Boun off-camera, and in early interviews, Boun would sometimes express concern that Prem was hesitant to uphold his boundaries with others. While Prem was outgoing with the tight-knit "Until We Meet Again" cast during promotions, and he grew especially close to Boun over time, he tended to be quiet in interviews and depended on Boun to do most of the talking if Boun was there.

Signs of Prem's intelligence and industry savvy were clear from the start, with him asking his agency to forward Boun's headshot to the director of "Longkhong," a horror series he had been cast in before he and Boun met at the auditions for "Until We Meet Again." They filmed both series together concurrently in 2019 and got to know each other best on the set of "Longkhong."

Prem's friend group is called the "Space Gang" (you'll notice that Prem's handle on most social media platforms is @.prem_space). They were present the day Boun and Prem "met" at the Kasetsart Cultural Festival, and Boun went out of his way to befriend them once he and Prem decided to continue their partnership after "Until We Meet Again" finished.

[The Space Gang + Prem's older brother]

In 2022, Prem left his agency Starlatiz. Even though he'd been closely associated with Studio Wabi Sabi for the past three years through "Until We Meet Again" and the much-delayed "Between Us" as well as his plentiful imaginary couple work with Boun, Prem chose to continue his career as a freelancer. For many working partnerships, serious issues might have cropped up from this choice and led to the end of BounPrem, but the relationship between Prem and Boun as well as Prem and Studio Wabi Sabi's CEO New Siwaj were so strong that he navigated the transition and the path ahead brilliantly.

Since joining GMMTV in 2024, Prem has navigated yet another massive shift in his career incredibly smoothly. While he has preferred to spend his free time decompressing at home with his cat Piccolo in the past, he's made a number of good friends among the ranks of artists under GMMTV, most notably Off, who in winter of 2026 gave Prem a nudge to be a little more openly weird on main. The results have been beautiful.

[Oh look it's Krist again how weird what a coincidence.]

THE GOOD SHIP "BOUNPREM": 2019 TO 2026

Boun and Prem "met" at the Kasetsart Cultural Festival in early February of 2019. Prem was a student at the time, and they worked at separate booths: Prem with the Space Gang selling barbecue pork and Boun with the Wabi Sabi folks selling milkshakes.

The exact story is nebulous and has changed many times over the years, but to paraphrase in the loosest way possible: Prem decided Boun was an arrogant jackass who thought he was hot shit because he's gorgeous, and Boun was slightly terrified of the dudes at the barbecue pork booth who kept scowling at him. Prem apparently invented an internal narrative that the Wabi Sabi booth was stealing their customers, because obviously barbecue pork and milkshakes are natural enemies in the wild. At one point, they passed each other on their way to and from the toilet, and Prem used that barely-an-encounter to talk shit about Boun when he got back to his friends. Boun's only reliable memory of that day is that one of the Wabi Sabi crew said nice things about the barbecue pork booth, so he went over to buy some for himself. Prem saw this as a direct taunt and hated him more for it, and Boun, still confused why this man absolutely despised him for no reason, took his skewers and retreated.

They met again (heh) three months later at the audition for "Until We Meet Again" in April of 2019. I don't have a source for this anymore, but if I'm remembering my lore correctly, Prem's manager Paaty told Prem that Boun was there, and when Prem didn't recognize the name, Paaty said, "Milkshake guy," and Prem grew fangs and a tail and hissed out green venom. Something like that.

As I mentioned in Prem's section, they were then also cast in "Longkhong" together based on Prem's initiative, and they filmed both series at the same time. Noticing their awkwardness around each other at workshops for "Until We Meet Again," LazySheep suggested that they go out to eat together, and while that helped the ice break a bit, they've said they got most comfortable with each other on the set of "Longkhong." No idea why.

["Longkhong" (2020)]

Many, many viewers of "Until We Meet Again" were smitten with Boun and Prem and enthusiastically supported an adaptation of the same author's parallel novel (not sequel) "Hemp Rope" about Boun and Prem's characters WinTeam. It was given a green light and announced in May of 2020 on Win's birthday a few months after the end of "Until We Meet Again," but due to the pandemic and government-imposed limitations on the number of people allowed in public spaces, filming the full production with the crew and cast needed was impossible.

In the meantime, to keep Boun and Prem in the public eye and consciousness, Studio Wabi Sabi and Prem's agency Starlatiz worked together to get BounPrem work as an imaginary couple (คู่จิ้น). It cannot be overstated how much New Siwaj is singularly responsible for the survival of BounPrem's brand and individual careers at this time. Even when Prem chose not to renew his contract with Starlatiz and continued as a freelancer, New treated him like an honorary artist under his agency and sometimes even promoted Prem's solo work apart from Boun.

In 2024, Boun was invited to join GMMTV, but he waited to ask Prem to come with him until Prem's event in Korea was finished to avoid distracting him. As Prem is close to his family and takes their opinions seriously, he flew to Ubon in northern Thailand to discuss it with them.

By this point in their careers, with only one full series as the main couple under their belts, BounPrem had miraculously become one of the most stable imaginary couples in the Thai BL world with an incredibly loyal and powerful fanbase. One telltale sign of their success and GMMTV's faith in their brand is that Boun was able to transition his passion project "Revamp" from production under Studio Wabi Sabi to GMMTV.

["Revamp" (2025)]

As of 2026, they're due to begin production on their third main series together, "Plan B to U," written for them by author Jittirain and produced by Parbdee. (For them to get a series produced by Parbdee this soon out of the gate, it's very impressive to me.)

They remain very close, equally committed to their career together, and these are their biological children Piccolo (Prem's enormous cat) and Giant (Boun's teeny dog):