[Limelight·Woo Young-woo②] "The Hope of Symbiosis Launched by a Whale"

Actor Park Eun-bin as Woo Young-woo
Struggling to balance reality and fantasy, "I expressed it through heartfelt acting"
Hopes viewers remember final episode's conversation with mother, "My life is strange and unique..."

Woo Young-woo comes up with ingenious ideas in every episode. Without fail, a whale appears and breaches (leaps out of the water). At the peak of the leap, it twists its body or does a somersault. This skillful movement is known as a way to remove barnacles, seaweed, and other organisms clinging to its body while moving. Dr. Robert Harcourt, who studied the southern right whale, overturned the conventional view and argued that it is a form of auditory communication. He speculated that the whale produces a thunderous slapping sound to communicate with distant members of its species.

Woo Young-woo's brilliant ingenuity serves as a bridge for smooth communication. Everyone listens carefully because it is a clue that can solve the case. Reactions vary. Some are genuinely grateful, while others try to exploit it maliciously. Actress Park Eun-bin finds the carefully crafted acting challenging. Although praise predominates, there is considerable criticism that it ridicules people with autism spectrum disorder. Some parody the rhythmical acting to provoke laughter. Park Eun-bin confessed, "Every time a reaction different from my intention comes out, I worry deeply."

"When unintended reactions occur, I have a lot to think about. I reflect on my past performances. I didn’t approach it easily from the start. It was a role with a heavy burden. In reality, it was a continuous struggle. I don’t want to go back to that. I hope people don’t imitate the appearance or speech patterns I painstakingly built. It can hurt others. Woo Young-woo should exist only in Woo Young-woo’s world. What matters is not the form but the essence."

To Park Eun-bin, Woo Young-woo was like a whale. In Herman Melville’s 1851 novel Moby-Dick, the narrator Ishmael says, "A whale’s eye is like a man’s ear hanging on the side." It is a physiology that requires looking sideways. Scholars have wondered how whales appropriately combine and analyze completely different information transmitted from both sides. Park Eun-bin also faced an unsolved mystery: the balance between realism and fantasy. If the focus is on portraying autism, defensive expressions alone suffice. However, Woo Young-woo’s potential and possibilities might be overlooked. On the other hand, emphasizing various traits too much makes it strongly fantastical.

"After reading the script, I first questioned whether I was fit for the role. After long contemplation, I changed my approach to acting. I decided not to be the actor portraying Woo Young-woo but a tool conveying his heart. If sincerity connects, I thought I could seek understanding from people with autism and their families. But standing in front of the camera, it was difficult to express a strange yet not strange appearance. After the first shoot, I was lost in deep thought. Suddenly, I was convinced that if people grasp who Woo Young-woo is in episodes 1 and 2, he wouldn’t seem strange afterward. Some will always see him as abnormal. But the drama features many strange people involved in various cases. The line between normal and abnormal becomes blurred."

Even without balancing the center of gravity, Woo Young-woo is a difficult role to play. She has to deliver vast lines like a rapid-fire. She must convey legal texts and other content precisely and clearly like artificial intelligence (AI). Park Eun-bin revealed, "Every day felt like taking a test." "I’m usually good at memorizing lines, but this time it was burdensome. Woo Young-woo recites a whole page of legal text fluently. In my head, the sentences kept breaking up (laughs). I copied the text onto A4 paper one by one and memorized the entire legal text."

When awe rushes in, a noble world hidden before us reveals itself. We realize there are more diverse dimensions than the relationships we have understood so far and more vivid ways to experience them. Woo Young-woo is no different. Every time the whale leaps out of the water and drops its body, he cannot suppress his wonder. It is not merely an emotion arising from solving a mystery. He rediscovers his existence while awakening social senses and taking a big step toward coexistence.

Perhaps that is why Park Eun-bin urged viewers to remember the conversation with the mother (Jin Kyung) in the final episode. She said she traveled a long road of 16 episodes for that scene...

"I once saw a lost narwhal living with a pod of beluga whales in a documentary. I am like that narwhal. I live with unfamiliar beluga whales in a strange sea. Everyone is different from me, so it’s not easy to adapt, and many whales dislike me. But that’s okay. This is my life. My life is strange and peculiar, but it is valuable and beautiful."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.