Today on TOAD – Two Weeks with Jesse Day! Ok, so you guys have been requesting that I review Two Weeks, and as I thought about reviewing it, I saw on my Facebook feed that our friend Jesse Day was on the set of Two Weeks with Lee Jun Ki. Wait, WHAT?!?!?! I honestly was flabbergasted, I know that the guy is an actor but why couldn’t I be Jesse Day and just chill it with the man himself?? After suppressing the little green monster of jealousy I immediately knew that we had something and asked him to be on the show.

It was actually a really cool experience for me. While we have been friends with Jesse Day for years, I’d never really see the man in action live other than some casual free-style rapping here and there. Not only was he a really great sport, but also he’s totally full of high energy, nails his takes and I got a bit more insight into what it’s like behind the scenes in dramas. In watching dramas that tackle the aspect of Korean drama production and in reading drama news I’ve gotten a bit of an idea what it’s like backstage, but I learned a lot more about how hard working Korean drama actors are from Jesse.

There are a lot of Korean dramas that come out every year and in many cases dramas are still being filmed while they are being aired. I remember when watching the Korean drama ‘On Air’ (I only saw a few episodes) I saw the stress that the actual editors and camera men had in filming quickly and then rushing film over to be edited in a time crunch so that it could air the next day. In ‘Secret Garden’ Ha Ji Won’s character has to film a scene over and over again to make the director happy and all the while he’s criticizing her for causing them to do NG’s or retakes. In drama news they always praise actors and actresses who can do intro takes without NG’s. AKA a lot of your Korean drama scenes are filmed in one take! But also, you can see where sometimes filming sessions can be gruelingly long. For example, one of the news bits for Gu Family Book was that Suzy was stuck out getting wet in somewhat cold weather for hours and still smiling. There’s also a lot of dark stuff that happens when you push your body to the limits and stuff happens like Moon Geun Young having to stop filming for an eye injury during ‘Goddess of Fire’ or Yoon Eun Hye ending up in the hospital after a particularly grueling filming schedule for ‘Missing You’. Both of who are ok, but wow!

Acting in Korea is no joke, and in talking to Jesse Day he really helped to put things into perspective and reaffirm a lot of my tabloid news. At the same time however, he also gave great insight into the character of some of my favorite actors and actresses. A lot of your Korean entertainers both on TV and in the music industry are really great people who are super kind and down to earth who like to give back to fans, cast and crew, families and those in need. I don’t know about you, but that makes me love Korean dramas all the more!