"Jang Seo-hee as the lead?"... The casting story behind 'Miss Mermaid,' as male actors dropped out one after another

[Sportschosun reporter Jo Yoon-sun] The difficult casting story behind actress Jang Seo-hee's selection as the lead in 'Miss Mermaid' will be revealed.

MBC's 'Docuprime: Life Needs a Script' returns with its second story, featuring 'Miss Mermaid,' the beloved drama that changed the landscape of Korean television by recording a peak viewership rating of 47.9%.

MBC's 'Docuprime: Life Needs a Script' is a new health and culture program that uses MBC's classic dramas, which have remained in viewers' memories for decades, as a medium to naturally explore health issues through the lives of its characters.

Jang Seo-hee, the lead of 'Miss Mermaid,' was then a supporting actress with no lead roles to her name. However, she was cast on the strong trust of writer Im Sung-han and went on to become the first daily drama actor in the history of the MBC Drama Awards to win the grand prize. The rare feat of one actor winning five awards for a single work remains unbeaten to this day.

This week, MBC's 'Docuprime: Life Needs a Script' shares the difficult casting story that Jang Seo-hee, then close to an unknown, went through. It recounts the crisis in which the casting nearly fell apart after the synopsis was passed to another actor, the story of male actors dropping out one after another when they learned Jang Seo-hee would be the lead, and the episode in which writer Im Sung-han took a hard line, saying, "If it isn't Jang Seo-hee, I'll scrap the drama."

Song Il-kook also adds to the empathy by sharing his own experience as an actor, recalling how he once waited 24 hours just to deliver a single line during his days in minor roles.

The program also revisits Jang Seo-hee's memorable scenes of anger in 'Miss Mermaid,' which have been discussed for years. In the studio, Song Il-kook demonstrates from an actor's perspective why it is difficult to portray rage by shouting, and what the key points are in acting out a slap.

The episode then turns to the characters' obsession with skin care in 'Miss Mermaid' and examines health signals hidden in a familiar change: wrinkles. Vertical lines on the neck may indicate poor blood circulation, dark wrinkles on the back of the neck can be an early sign of diabetes, and the diagonal crease on the earlobe known as Frank's sign has been repeatedly linked to cardiovascular disease.

It also explains, with medical experts, how a decline in collagen, the main cause of wrinkles, can threaten not only the skin but also overall health, including blood vessels, joints, and bones.

MBC's 'Docuprime: Life Needs a Script' airs on Sunday, June 14, at 7:40 a.m.