Friday, December 08, 2017

Production press conference of FujiTV Autumn 2017 drama "Orphan Black ~ Nanatsu no idenshi ~"

The production press conference of FujiTV Autumn 2017 drama "Orphan Black ~ Nanatsu no Idenshi ~" was held on 29 November which was attended by cast members Jiyoung, Takenaka Naoto and Nishime Shun. The drama began its run from 2 December in the Saturdays 11.40pm timeslot.

This is the first Japanese remake of the hit BBC suspense drama "Orphan Black" which has 5 installments to date since its launch in 2013. The drama features Jiyoung as the lead character Aoyama Sara who is a 27-year-old single mother with a 6-year-old daughter. Her mother-in-law turns up suddenly to snatch away her daughter as Sara is crumbling from the stress and fatigue of working day and night to make ends meet and fails to notice that her daughter is sick. One day, Sara happens to witness a woman named Shiina Maoko (also played by Jiyoung), a police detective who looks exactly like her, jump onto the railway tracks in front of her so as to commit suicide. When Sara comes to know about Maoko's rich background after picking up the latter's bag, she decides to impersonate Maoko so as to lay hands on her fortune and be able to live with her daughter in future. However, Sara starts to come across various women from different backgrounds who look exactly like her for some strange reason and the people around Maoko notice something strange with Sara and start to suspect her.

When asked about having to play 7 different characters in this drama, Jiyoung admitted that she was apprehensive about whether she could handle the roles when she got the offer. However, after she watched the original drama, she was motivated to do her best as she was struck by how interesting the original drama was. Jiyoung also revealed that she is actually not good at interacting with people who are younger than her since she has always been the youngest be it at home or in her previous idol group KARA. However, she got along very well with Nishime who plays her younger brother in the drama and claimed to have listened to KARA's songs in the past.

In line with the theme of the main character Sara having to juggle various jobs as a single mother, Jiyoung was asked if there was any other occupation she would be interested in. She remarked that it would be nice to take care of pandas in the zoo and expressed interest in seeing the latest panda baby Xiangxiang at the Ueno Zoo soon.

Jiyoung was recently mentioned in the Korean media for having gone on a date with an older guy in October but she denied that rumour and said that she will be filming during Christmas instead of going anywhere.

Sources: Nikkansports / Sanspo

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