One of the most-talked-about K-drama at present, The Queen Who Crowns, concluded on February 11, but it is still making headlines for all wrong reasons. The show grabbed eyeballs due to some explicit steamy scenes between the lead pair, Cha Joo-Young and Lee Hyun-Wook, and the former has now ended his silence on the same.
In the pilot episode itself, the two actors were seen indulging in scenes that involved nudity, and that was not received well by the Korean audience. They were slammed for the explicit nature of the scene, and several reports later claimed that even the actors weren't informed beforehand to what extent they will have to engage in intimacy on screen.
As the show ended, actor Lee Hyun-Wook revealed that the reports were indeed true and that information about the nudity and intimacy in the said scenes were not communicated to the lead actors in advance.
"I tend to avoid mature nude scenes. For this drama, the characters were real historical figures. Since their actual names were used, I felt such scenes could be disrespectful. There should have been more communication between the actors and production team, but after watching the broadcast, I realised it wasnāt enough, which was surprising," he told Spotvnews.
He went on to reveal, "I cried a lot after watching the broadcast. It was painful, and I started doubting my own acting. In a way, speaking out like this is scary. People outside say they enjoyed it, but internally, I felt like I was walking on a knifeās edge. It was extremely difficultāso much so that I wondered if I would ever recover."
Lee stated that once a project is signed and gets announced, there is only little that is left in an actor's control, and his experience on The Queen Who Crows was one such example.
"Even when a project didnāt do well or my performance wasnāt great, I never regretted it. But this time, I found myself doubting my own acting while watching the broadcast. Still, as time passed, I started to accept it, and my perspective has broadened," he stated.
Earlier, actress Cha Joo-Young had also opened up on the controversial scenes and had stated that she was not aware of the "high level nudity" in the script until the storyboard discussion took place right before filming.
The makers of The Queen Who Crows are yet to react to Lee and Cha's statements.
