Actor Shin Min-a said Tuesday she tried to portray Empress Navier in the upcoming Disney+ series “The Remarried Empress” as a strong and unwavering character but also as a human being who finds new love.
Based on the web novel of the same name, the Korean fantasy romance epic follows Navier and her husband, Sovieshu (Ju Ji-hoon), as their seemingly peaceful marriage is unsettled by the appearance of Rashta (Lee Se-young), a former runaway slave.
Rather than succumbing to her fate and vying with Rashta to reclaim her husband’s love, Navier seeks to choose her own course of life, with the help of Heinrey (Lee Jong-suk), a mysterious prince who can transform into a bird named Queen.
“Although the emotional transition had to be subtle, given the weight of Navier’s character as an empress, I was determined to show the humane side of her as a woman who finds new love and makes new choices,” Shin said at a press conference held in Seoul ahead of the series’ release later Tuesday.
“I felt I had to balance that very well for audiences to relate to Navier and support her … there was a lot of pressure coming from it but it was also what led me to concentrate (better),” the actor said.
Given the immense popularity of the original work, which has also been made into a webtoon and racked up nearly 3 billion views as of July, turning it into a live-action series was not an easy job.
“Setting the tone for the drama was the most difficult job,” Director Cho Su-won said. “The webtoon is more bright and playful than the original web novel, which is more serious. I tried to aim for the middle range.”
While the original web novel has been packed into 10 episodes in the Disney+ series, Cho said he tried to preserve the original work as much as possible, adding he hopes fans of the original work will enjoy the series.
As part of efforts to create a fictional world that resembles a Western kingdom, the production team also put in a lot of effort into the visual style, such as shooting some scenes overseas and creating delicate costumes for the characters, Cho said.
In comparison with the web novel and the webtoon, another challenge in creating a live-action adaptation was the visual effects for Queen the bird.
“I understand that when designing the visual effects, the team factored in my moves and intentionally designed Queen as resembling Heinrey,” Lee Jong-suk said, noting how it must have been difficult for Shin to act while imagining as if she was interacting with a real bird.
With Sovieshu and Rashta being the obvious villains in the story, Ju, who plays the emperor, said he is more than ready to receive criticism for his character.
“Having been in the entertainment industry for more than 20 years and reading hundreds of thousands of online comments, my mental state is ready to receive the criticism,” the actor said jokingly. “Feel free to criticize me all you want as long as you enjoy the show.”
