Actor Lee Hyoje said that the reason If Wishes Could Kill became a global hit was because of his own ghost sighting.
Lee Hyoje met global viewers as Hyung-wook in the Netflix young adult (YA) horror series If Wishes Could Kill, which was released on Apr. 24.
If Wishes Could Kill tells the story of high school students who are warned of sudden death by the curse of the wish-granting app If Wishes Could Kill and struggle to avoid the curse. With a fast-paced plot that deals with smartphone apps and teenagers' anxieties, friendship, jealousy and desire, it captured genre fun and other elements and drew a hot response, rising to No. 4 on the global non-English TV shows Top 10 shortly after its release.
In the drama, Lee Hyoje played Hyung-wook, a prank-loving boy who enjoys hanging out with friends and is the first to get involved with If Wishes Could Kill, firmly showing his face to the world. He portrayed the character's diverse facets, from the appearance of an ordinary high school student to moments of anguish in unexpected reality. In particular, he compellingly expressed Hyung-wook's gradual descent into fear over time by finely tuning his gaze, facial expressions and the tremor of his facial muscles.
At the audition, after seeing only part of the script, Lee Hyoje said, "I thought it was something like mafia," and he immersed himself in the unfamiliar genre of young adult horror. To portray the playful otaku side of Hyung-wook, Lee Hyoje played games himself and devoured animations.
The possession scene, which especially made global viewers' skin crawl, was the result of meticulous calculation. "When possession happens, I thought the inner self splits into two. I wanted to express the energy of collision between the spirit's force that twists the body to kill it grotesquely and Hyung-wook's self struggling and saying, "don't toy with me.""
Thanks to his deep immersion in the work, Lee Hyoje said he also had unusual experiences. Even though he had fully memorized the script, he had the dream of not being able to remember the script when anxious, or he experienced sleep paralysis for the first time in his life, having spooky and varied experiences through If Wishes Could Kill.
Among them, the anecdote that he saw a ghost piqued interest. "The scariest was when we filmed at a closed school. The new building of the closed school had no power and the doors were locked tight. I was standing alone by the playground looking at the building when suddenly a bright light turned on inside the new building, the curtain snapped shut and the light went off. My body froze and I couldn't say anything. Later, seeing its success, I thought, 'ah, what I saw then was really a ghost. Is that why it became a hit?'"
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