[Namsan Ddalggakbari] 'My Mister' Writer Park Hae-young: "Cherish and Love Characters. Love Does It All"

[Asia Economy Reporter Seomideum] There is such a thing as a life drama. A work that goes beyond mere entertainment to draw bold and vivid lines across a person’s life. Park Haeyoung’s My Mister is such a work for many people. Even after its finale, it continues to be talked about endlessly, leaving big and small meanings in someone’s life. Not only the video but also the script proves the solidity of its narrative like a well-built structure through writing.

My Mister centers around Hugye-dong and lists differences based on the common denominators of various human figures. The nominal protagonists are Park Donghoon (Lee Seon-gyun), a structural engineer and corporate manager, and Lee Jiaan (Lee Ji-eun), who lives alone with her sick grandmother and has a murder record, but in fact, this drama reveals the stories of all the cast members, each unfolding their own life dramas.

“Doing nothing for half a century, just eating and pooping and eating and pooping...” says Sanghoon (Donghoon’s eldest brother), which may seem somewhat pitiful but reflects a life most people face; “Family is what you want to throw into the trash when no one’s watching,” says Gihun (Donghoon’s younger brother), expressing his life philosophy; and “Life isn’t lived so neatly,” says Jecheol (Donghoon’s acquaintance) with a calm remark. These words evoke nods of empathy toward life’s coexistence of sameness within difference.

In the My Mister (Segyesa) collection, the writer said, “I worked on sitcoms for a long time, and in sitcoms, every character takes turns being the protagonist. I think that habit remains.” He added, “Once a character appears, I believe they must live their life within the story. (...) Since drama scripts are written for visualization, there are actors who perform them, and all of them have their own worlds, so I thought they should be treated humanely.” He emphasized, “If you try to write well, you’ve missed the zero point. Cherish and love the characters. Love does everything.” In that sense, My Mister is a script rich in love beyond just good writing.

The highlight of My Mister lies in its lines that compress life stories. Gihun’s words to Donghoon: “Strangely, I’ve always felt sorry for the eldest brother... A person who always leans strongly toward conscience between desire and conscience. The most pitiful.” Jiaan’s words: “How can someone who earns five or six million won a month look so bored... Under a junior from college, pretending not to know even though it’s obvious that junior wants to fire him... Like a diligent life-term prisoner, trudging... trudging... (looking around) The most boring and unhappy person here... I think life sucks as much as mine...”

To them, Donghoon retorts, “Do you think I haven’t caused trouble because I’m strong against temptation? ...There was no temptation. ...So I don’t know. Whether I’m strong against temptation or not.” About Jiaan, he says, “Rigid people are all pitiful. They tell the story of the days they lived. (...) Wounded children grow up too fast. I can see that. So they’re pitiful. (...) I’m scared to know her past.”

Then, which lines does the writer remember? In the book, the writer recalls crying out loud for thirty minutes after writing Donghoon’s line, “Call me when grandma passes away.” He said he was so overwhelmed that he sat down and cried again, pacing for a long time. The line by Chundae in the drama, “Does the heart follow logic?” was also impressive. This was a phrase sent by the producer’s mother who liked the drama, and the writer said, “Actually, I want to act rationally and logically when making decisions, but when I look closely, I realize I’m someone who tries to attach logic after the heart has already made up its mind.”

The book contains various stories from the drama’s beginning and end, character-building processes, and an extensive eight-hour conversation exclusively for the collection with director Kim Won-seok, and actors Lee Seon-gyun and Lee Ji-eun. It includes the director’s direction and concerns while filming, behind-the-scenes stories from Lee Seon-gyun, and reflections from Lee Ji-eun in the form of dialogues, prose, and first-person essay interviews.

The greatest advantage of the script collection is that it allows readers to ponder over drama lines that might otherwise be quickly forgotten. Donghoon comforts readers by saying, “The internal force is always stronger than external force... Life, in a way, is a battle between external and internal forces. No matter what happens, if the internal force is strong, you endure.”

My Mister Set | Written by Park Haeyoung | Segyesa | 808 pages | 49,600 KRW