Actor Koo Kyo-hwan is captivating viewers every week with his one-of-a-kind character portrayal.
On the 23rd, the JTBC Sat–Sun K-Drama We Are All Trying Here (hereafter “Mojamussa”) released stills of Koo Kyo-hwan as Hwang Dong-man, an aspiring film director.
Hwang Dong-man has failed to make his debut for 20 years. Koo Kyo-hwan steals the spotlight by toeing the razor-thin line between relatable and blatantly obnoxious. Stuck in place while his friends soar, Hwang tries to smother his mounting anxiety with nonstop rambling. Through Koo’s tightly wound performance, the series captures the raw survival struggle of a man who isn’t chasing “success,” but simply a state where he’s “not as anxious.”
In a previous episode, Hwang crashed the after-party for director Park Kyung-se’s (played by Oh Jung-se) film premiere and doused the mood with, “There isn’t a single usable scene.” It was peak obnoxious behavior. Yet he’s hard to hate because his barbed, relentless words ultimately come off as a desperate defense mechanism—a fragile flail to avoid confronting his own sense of worthlessness, portrayed with convincing nuance.
After the broadcast, online communities and social media exploded with praise: “His razor-sharp emotional acting is incredible,” “No one but Koo Kyo-hwan could play Hwang Dong-man,” and “Koo Kyo-hwan is Hwang Dong-man.”
Meanwhile, “Mojamussa” airs every Saturday at 10:40 p.m. and Sunday at 10:30 p.m. KST on JTBC and is also available on Netflix.