Rookie Actress Park Hye Eun Fired From Upcoming Hong Sisters Fantasy Drama Return Reportedly Due to Poor Acting, Jung So Min Courted to Replace Her Immediately

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• It wasn't nice that they released because of bad acting. But I think if she didn't fit the role, it was for the best. I just don't understand why they don't audition before to choose and make some test camera with the rest of the casting...

  Now, Jung So Min is older and it's really weird to imagine her taking the role of a 20 years old woman. She looks young but not so young.

  It was nice they chose not famous actors, so it will be nice they continue by giving the chance to a 20 years old actress but with more experience.

  Park Hye Eun doesn't have a lot of experience except The Nurse School Files.

  • I agree. Why can't they be professional and polite by just announcing that she was UNSUITABLE instead of poor acting. Take example of Eric Stoltz replaced by Michael J.Fox (though Fox was always the original choice) shortly after filming Back to The Future. They are ruining her career prospect, reputation even when she is go green and inexperienced. I still hope she will have some chances to prove herself in the future.

  • I think age doesn't matter here as the role is somewhat like a psychic or a magician where no age is required. Besides Jung So Min at her early age of 21 she was already a lead actress in Playful Kiss and Bad Guy wherein she won 2 awards in Bad Guy. She is already a seasoned lead actress and a very versatile actress. The rookie actress is already 24 yrs old which is supposedly capable to be a lead actress. Maybe the role in this drama is too heavy that she was so pressured to meet expectations of the production team, the reason why she dropped the project. But vloggers speculated that it was due to poor acting which was not the statement released by the network. Reporters and journalists ruined the character of the rookie actress by making the news so controversial. Jung So Min or whoever will take over has nothing to do with the decision of the rookie actress. Let us be broad minded and don't point any finger to anyone. And I hope writers or reporters or journalists will use the right word in their articles so as not to ruin one's character.

• Goddamn, they totally threw her under the bus with that announcement. That is a super rude and unprofessional announcement.

  • That announcement was just rude and reeks of power-trip and imbalance. We've seen tons of idol actors and actresses and now Rookie Actors who have poor acting skills from their debut Lead roles, and made each succeeding dramas they have as Leads serves as a training ground for them to improve (unfortunately, some are still are mediocre). But we don't get this news titles. Is it because she's an Actress (not Actor), Rookie Actress (not Idol Actress) and coming from a starting agency? I heard that she auditioned for the role, so if she's not up to par, its the casting directors fault. Then they should handle it quietly, as has been done countless times (use personal or health reasons instead).

    • Agree. When Kim Jung Hyun was let go from Time, they bent over backwards to protect his reputation but when an actress got let go, the reporters went all harsh on her. Double standards for actresses without idol background.

  • I'm surprised Koala is taking this at face value - if anyone thinks she was really fired for "bad acting" when any number of truly godawful idols and actors kept getting lead roles all these years, I have some snake oil to sell you.

    (Rumour is her standing up to someone powerful is what cost her the job and got her this smearing - even the netizen comments seem aware that someone has the knives out for her).

    • I thought the same. There must be more to this for them to publicly shame her like this.

  • yes you right....i don't know park hye eun but i feel bad for her.I think the production cast her after some audition.How come when first filming production said her acting on at par they expected.
    I'm not anti for idol actor or actress but i hope both the other lead which are minhyun nuest and arin oh my girl really perform well. If they are not perform well but only park hye eun was fired, it so fishy.

• Thanks koala for posting this quick! Lol. You must have read my earlier comment in Melancholia post.

• I think Nam Ji Hyun can fit in nicely in this Hing sisters drama. She did the super dark Witch's Diner. In terms of visuals with LJW, she may look a tad older but JSM's casting offer was completely left field for me. I dunno whether JSM's visual could work well with LJW's looks. Hmmm, more of a noona-dongsaeng vibe + 9 year gap.

  • Hong sisters not Hing.

  • NJH and LJW both look older than their age. Could work too unless they want LJW out too & replace all the main leads. Expensive penalty though for the acting fees.

  • I was waiting to see how well she acted before replying you guys JSM aced the role so whoever feels otherwise should just take a rest abeg

• How does JSM fit in immediately if she's filming Wolf hunting now? Doesn't make sense unless movie is canned? Head scratching.

• Can Kim So Hyun jump in to replace PHE? There's no shortage of 20 something actresses, nothing against jsm btw.

• Wow. The production did a dirty on Park Hye Eun. I concur with others, screen test first & multiple meetings with writers & PD to get a sense of whether she can work well with them. Can't believe the director, writers & casting producers mess things up.

• For those who feel Jung Somin's (possible) casting comes from left field, here is more context on why she was most likely chosen:

  Jung Somin has worked with this PD (Park Joon Hwa) before in BTIMFL and cameo'd twice in his previous works ("My Roommate is a Gumiho", "What's Wrong w/ Secretary Kim") which is probably why PD Park reached out to JSM in this "emergency" situation of recasting so quickly since she's like his go-to person. I think they have a good relationship together & have always wanted to work together again but the timing wasn't right until now. I think JSM is an excellent, veteran (scandal-free) actress who could probably absorb into this new role quickly, and most of all, she's a reliable actress who always delivers, which is exactly what this new drama is looking for at the last minute (This is truly a nightmare for the production staff & they're probably looking for a FL asap to recoup production cost delays).

  While I would love to see JSM & PD Park reunite again, I'm not super ecstatic about her casting & prefer for her to choose another drama & co-stars (age isn't a factor; it's more like she'd be leading a group of rather 'green' actors aside from Oh Na Ra, etc.), but I'd still definitely watch it to see how everything turns out!

  • Thanks for the background info on JSM but other commenters said she's filming a movie. So how does she fit in if they don't want to further delay shooting the drama?

    • She is indeed confirmed to be filming the movie "Wolf Hunt" right now in Busan so I'm also a bit confused on how her schedule will work. Here are my 2 guesses:

      1) JSM's role in "Wolf Hunt" is small w/ limited screen time so she'll be finished filming rather quickly. (A realistic assumption considering it's a pretty large, star-studded cast and I'm sure she'll be unfortunately be given less screentime than SIG & Jang Dong-yoon in the movie).

      2) This drama may delay the start of shooting a week or two (Or longer?) to re-start pre-production and hopefully re-write bits of its script to accommodate for the change of casting.

      It's hard to predict Korean movie and drama filming schedule these days since COVID through everything into whack and have made some filming schedules last twice as longer than usual. So who knows! Time will tell as JSM hasn't been officially confirmed yet either.

    • @Tak, interesting assumptions. They sound logical & make sense to me. Do you know the synopsis/premise of the Hong sisters drama? Is it a romance-based fantasy? It's a hard sell for me if she's paired with LJW although I'm willing to give them a chance. Please, after the Doom debacle (shudder), I hate to see JSM fail in a fantasy drama though I really love her in TSHLYE with SIG. I'm also rejoicing she's in an action movie with him no matter how small her role is.

    • @Aquarius Aside from the limited two-lines of description for "Return" that I've been reading on every site, there's not much else to be garnered expect that it's supposedly a "historical fantasy romance." Despite being labeled 'historical,' it's possible the timeline switches between modern day and saeguk period, kind of like what they did in Hotel Luna (which, of course, was also written by the Hong sisters.)

      I'm also not keen on the possible JSM & LJW pairing not because of age factors, but more b/c I'd like to see her paired off with someone within the same acting range & experience as her. (No diss on LJW as he's shown great potential thus far, but his oeuvre is about a fourth of JSM's, and comparitively speaking, he's not at his peak just yet.) The silver lining is JSM still looks incredibly young and LJW looks mature for his age so visually speaking it's not too bad.

      I absolutely adored JSM & SIG together in TSHLYE because they both gave top-notch acting performances individually, and of course, when you put them together in the same scene, you get chemistry and acting that's batting off the charts! (I have yet to see this level of chemistry & acting replicated in any other drama since then, definitely not in Doom sadly.)

    • @Tak, thanks for the drama info however little but my reply not coming up. Maybe later. lol.

    • No disrespect to ljw but if the pd wants jsm, they could have offered the ml role to sig instead of ljw in the first place. This is a case of "darn this pairing doesn't work, what do we do now?" Sig was in master's sun so hong sisters know what he's capable of. Then he could have turned down that god awful days. I suppose it's really hard for sig to turn down pby if she wants to work with him. Any actor would be flattered if pby likes him, right? lol.

    • @watcher JSM & SIG together in this new drama would be dream casting indeed! Ha! But seeing as it's a miracle that they're even reuniting for "Wolf Hunt," never in a million chances would they reunite again for the third time...at least not so soon. I can dream though! (I would LOVE to see them in a comedy next, they are such talented comedic actors!)

      I do think Hong sisters & PD really did initially want to work with a group of young actors for the roles to fit whatever image they had in mind (super risky, imo, especially when you throw in idols...), but yeah, good luck fixing this mess you created yourselves, Production Team!

  • @Tak, if lsh can team up with sig 3x why not jsm? Time for gender equality in kdrama otp pairing. Jang nara & Jang hyuk did 2 comedies together so who knows jsm & sig could reunite for a comedy with a happy ending? Hong sisters and pd are not Shin Won Ho of Reply series with the midas touch. He has the talent * knack of casting a bunch unknown idol actors/actress that fit perfectly with the roles & setting he envisioned complete with Busan dialect. This drama however missed the casting mark partially I think.

    • Well, both of Jang Hyuk and Jang Nara's collaborations were much more successful than TSHLYE by objective metrics.

• Too bad Go Mi Si & Hyeri are tied up in other projects. Errrr Suzy is available. Lol.

  • No, she's not. The next article will be about her being casted in another drama.

    • I know. Hehe. Just being my usual cheeky self.

• Hye and Hae are different hangul entirely so the name should be Park Hye Eun. It drives me crazy when I seen Hyun Bin and Jeon Yeo Been since both incorporate the same character.

  As for Jung So Min, this production has disaster written all over it. I really enjoyed her in her drama with Shin Ha Kyun - will hope for the best.

  • In Jeon Yeo Been's case, she spells it that way herself on her insta (though could be just her having an English pun with her name like Son Ye Jin calling her ig yejinhand)