hey everyone, happy opening!! i'm jade and here with my boy wonshik in the role of baek harang (main-02), child actor (turned adult actor). if you'd like to plot, like this post - or, preferably because i'm sure this blog will get sniped, let's talk on discord. i look forward to plotting with you all <3
links: profile / wiki / filmography / biography / quiz: which movie wonshik was in should you watch next?
basics first: chae wonshik, august 13 1996, born in seoul as the third child of two korean-americans.
wonshik is two years old when he's first face to face with a camera. your muse might've seen the clip: he's playing a sick toddler in the gift (1999). wonshik likes to pretend that everyone on set hasn't seen him in diapers, but, well, one minute of screentime can really stick with you!
to the general populace, that role is quickly forgotten though. wonshik's dad really pushes the acting: he gets roles as the youngest son in feel-good romcoms (oh no! my dad was turned into a goat! and other bangers). the role that puts him on the map is in angel's last heart (2005), playing the titular angel's ward. it's a supporting role with a good bit of screentime.
he's in a lot of different stuff after that. you can check his fake wikipedia (linked above) or his filmography with a bit more info; what you need to know is that he establishes himself as a popular love interest and sometimes delves into more whacky concepts. wonshik speaks fluent english (it's the language they use at home), so he also picks up a few credits in american productions. it's all going very well.
tw: drug (mis)use
then... he drops out at school at age 16 and moves to LA with his dad. and wonshik, who had already been drinking back in seoul, gets into the party scene in earnest. he shows up on sets hungover and sometimes still high. he gets into coke. it's a classic child actor off the rails type story.
for three years he's stuck in this limbo where he goes to rehab, gets out, makes new friends who bring him to new parties... you get the idea. he finally gets his act together in 2018, and moves back to south korea to fulfill his military service. when he comes back from that, he's left trying to rebuild all the bridges he burned - it's not like he feels like he has any other option but going back to acting.
someone he'd worked with on a prior movie reaches out, and thus wonshik ends up giving the performance of a lifetime in open wide. it's surrealist horror (think the lobster), and wonshik's performance receives overwhelming praise. he ends up picking more indie projects again and rebuilds his career - by 2023 he's back on top of his game. somewhere in there his dad dies, too. short relapse, then realisation that he's got a lot more money without him sending over great sums to his dad. you get the vibes.
and then his agent tells him about the casting for the mask of all hearts! and wonshik, who basically owes his career to these movies and certainly feels very connected to the franchise, goes 'i have to get this role'. and he did! so here he is : )
tldr: child actor who goes off the rails in his teens and manages to get back on the right track as an adult - but if he starts acting erratically on set, can we really trust he's not on something again?
as far as personality goes: the guy's a flirt. not the pushy kind, but he likes to do it for fun. a tiny bit of a people pleaser, but he's pushed that wayyy down. he's pretty social and affable (he doesn't have as huge an ego as his career might suggest), but you can tell he's never lived a life out of the spotlight and that the experience has shaped the way he behaves; him acting out in his teens was definitely part of that too. also, he likes to party! if anyone was interested, he for sure would've been there at the bar with the rest of the crew after a long day. huge extrovert, a bit of a bro. i'm big on chem as far as plotting goes, but i'd love for him to have had a few hookups here and there too... i need help to solidify that manwhore lifestyle. he lives in seoul and does all the regular people things like working out and getting groceries, so we can plot around that too!