How the writer & director of Extraordinary Attorney Woo brought the show to life
An in-depth interview translated from Korean to English by Anisa Khalifa
The original Korean article published on Naver can be found here. Below is Anisa’s translation. We hope fans of Extraordinary Attorney Woo find this interview as interesting as we did. Note: We have preserved the literal translation of the original title, Strange Lawyer Woo Young-woo, because that word choice comes up in the article (and because we wish they'd kept that nuance in the official English title).
"Everyone relates to love and intelligence": Director & Writer Reveal Everything about Woo Young-woo [Q&A]
By Newsen Reporter Lee Min-ji
The writer and director of Strange Lawyer Woo Young-woo talked candidly about the various discourses surrounding the drama.
A press conference for the ENA channel Wednesday-Thursday drama Strange Lawyer Woo Young-woo was held at Stanford Hotel Korea in Mapo-gu, Seoul on the afternoon of July 26th. Both the director Yoo In-shik and the writer Moon Ji-won attended.
Strange Lawyer Woo Young-woo depicts the survival story of a new lawyer, Woo Young-woo, who has both a genius brain and Autism Spectrum Disorder. Strange Lawyer Woo Young-woo, which started with a rating of 0%, has been creating a sensation by breaking its own highest ratings with every episode. Its 8th episode recorded 13.093% of the viewer share among households that subscribe to nationwide paid platforms (Nielsen Korea).
Director Yoo In-shik and writer Moon Ji-won had a serious conversation about this viral drama's huge popularity, the writing and production process, and the various discourses surrounding the show.
[EXCERPT]
After the movie Innocent Witness, you again wrote a person with Autism Spectrum Disorder as the main character.
▲ Moon Ji-won: The reason why this drama started is that three years ago, people from AStory came to visit me and asked if I thought Kim Hyang-gi's character Ji-woo could become a lawyer when she grew up. They asked me if I thought it would make an interesting drama. I said it I thought it was possible and it would make a good drama, so they gave me a chance. It may sound strange, but after making something, I sometimes get the feeling that the characters in that movie or drama continue to live somewhere in a parallel universe. Woo Young-woo is unlikely to see the movie Innocent Witness, but it's nice to think that Ji-woo is avidly watching Woo Young-woo somewhere in her world, imitating Young-woo's actions and being the one viewer who isn't mocking her. Rather than one character being a grown version of the other, I think that Ji-woo is living her own life, and Woo Young-woo is living hers.
I myself have not been diagnosed with autism, nor are there people with autism around me. The first reason I became interested in this was when I was putting together a thriller and wondered what it would be like if a witness was autistic. At that time, I started researching Autism Spectrum Disorder, and I was surprised to realize how charming many characteristics of autistic people are: their unique ways of thinking, eccentricity, a strong sense of ethics or justice, an excessively extensive knowledge of a particular area of interest, a tremendous memory, their perspective and patterns and ways of thinking. This is not the case for all people with autism, but these traits are often reinforced by ASD. So I felt a pull to the subject.