Moon River actor Kim Se-jeong said she sought advice from senior actress Ha Ji-won for the soul-swapping role.
MBC held a production press conference for the new Fri-Sat drama Moon River (written by Jo Seung-hee, directed by Lee Dong-hyun, abbreviated as "Moon River") on the morning of Oct. 30 at its headquarters in Sangam-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul. The event was attended by the leads Kang Tae-oh, Kim Se-jeong, Lee Shin-young, Hong Su-ju and Jin Goo, and director Lee Dong-hyun, who, under the moderation of broadcaster Park Kyung-lim, discussed the program.
Moon River is a historical romance fantasy about a soul swap between a crown prince who has lost his smile and a high official who has lost his memory, an empathy-through-role-reversal (易地四肢) story. Kim Se-jeong, who plays Park Dal-i, takes on her first historical drama in this work. Was there any difficulty with that?
Kim Se-jeong said, It turned out there was so much for Park Dal-i to do once I actually started. I had to study the changed body and also the dialect. There were fewer scenes than I expected in which Dal-i uses historical speech, so the tension about how to research the character Park Dal-i to make it interesting was much greater. Instead, I tried to make sure the beautiful hanbok silhouette and Korea's culture, which a historical drama should cover, were handled properly.
She added, It's really fortunate that the tones Kang Tae-oh and I have are similar. We received similar help in appearance, but we also shared a lot in terms of gaze. There is a legendary drama of one actor in two roles, so I asked a senior about it. I asked senior Ha Ji-won how it was when she filmed Secret Garden. She told me that exchanging a lot of chemistry with the co-actor is the most important thing, so I spent a lot of time reading the script separately, which raised expectations.
Kim Se-jeong continued, As my co-star said, we referenced each other's expressions, actions and the things that come out unconsciously. The atmosphere on set was most important, and it was applause-worthy. Even in scenes that were not originally comedic, if someone said, Shall we try to be funny?, everyone synced up without being told and created the comedy. So we completed the comedy and made it fun. Romance especially depends on the eyes, and among the many actors I have met, he is one with truly expressive eyes. While we were shooting many romance scenes on set, unexpected romantic moments or scenes where I thought the depth was about a five could reach about an eight with his gaze, so even scenes not planned as romantic turned romantic. That led to three rounds of applause, "clap clap clap," which added warmth.
Moon River is scheduled to premiere on Friday, Nov. 7, at 9:50 p.m.
[Photo] OSEN reporter Min Kyung-hoon.
[OSEN]