"100 Days My Prince" PD Talks About Casting EXO's D.O., Filming Kiss Scenes, And More

Producing director (PD) Lee Jong Jae recently talked about casting EXO’s D.O., filming kiss scenes, what the actors were like behind the scenes, and more during interviews.

“100 Days My Prince” is about an amnesiac crown prince who ends up in a village where he begins a romance with the oldest single woman there. The drama was a success as it concluded with viewership ratings at 14.1 percent, making it the drama with the fourth highest viewership ratings in tvN history.

In an interview with OSEN, Lee Jong Jae explained that he hadn’t been worried about casting D.O. because he is someone that enjoys acting and is acknowledged as an actor. He remarked that D.O. has a very quiet, serious personality, and holds a lot of weight to his words but is also bright. He added that he thought that there were parts of Lee Yool and Won Deuk (D.O.’s characters) to his personality.

The PD shared, “In the beginning, after a script reading, D.O. shared that he felt pressured about his first leading role. So I told him what was in my heart. I told him, ‘We met because of this drama, but the important thing is for me to believe in you and for you to believe in me.’ I said that acting or directing well came second, and that it was important to trust each other. That way, everything that we do would be out of sincerity. We talked about things like this, and D.O. responded positively right away, so we were able to film comfortably. It’s the same with Nam Ji Hyun. In that way, the two of them felt quite mature.”

Lee Jong Jae named the kiss scene as the most difficult scene to film. He explained, “We discussed the emotional scenes between Won Deuk and Hong Shim (Nam Ji Hyun’s character) a lot, and they took the longest as well. Since it’s an important part of the story, we had no choice but to pay a lot of attention to it.”

He added, “It was probably very awkward between D.O. and Nam Ji Hyun when we filmed the first kiss scene. It could have been more [awkward] because I didn’t call cut [because I wanted to film a good scene]. Still, I thought there would be a lot of NGs, but there were less than expected. I think it’s because everyone was actually more focused.”

In another interview with Ilgan Sports, the PD talked about the mood on set. He remarked, “There were difficult aspects to filming, but there was also a lot of laughter. In particular, it was funny just watching Lee Joon Hyuk. Nam Ji Hyun is young, but she also had such great energy that I never saw her frown. D.O. didn’t talk much, but he had a great balance as I saw him chat and smile now and then. Lee Min Ji and Jo Sung Ah were so friendly with each other.”

He continued, “I think this drama itself is quite unusual. The things you see on the outside are completely different from the personalities they have on the inside. It really was quite unexpected. I guess it’s because difficulties and happiness coexist. Though the work was hard, the people made it less so.”

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