I Hear Your Voice: Musicians and Actors Collide

This week, the number one drama across the country for the past six weeks, I Hear Your Voice (너의목소리가들려) wrapped up production and aired the final episode. The after party for the very popular show was probably as you would expect: very famous people with lesser famous people with a bunch of staff that wanted photos with each one of the famous people.

I was in attendance with the music team and let’s be honest, the show would not have been nearly as great without the amazing musical talents of Sung-nam Moon and Jae-oo Jeong of Every Single Day, Sung-hoon Choi of Romantisco, Cha-sik Jung of Rainy Sun, Hee-chan Kang formerly of Ann and Rainy Sun and rounded out with the musical abilities of Gyung-sik Lee. As the musicians are involved with the show in the afterhours of filming, most of the staff and actors had no idea who these talented guys were though they have written and produced hits for all told five dramas now including Pasta, My Princess, Golden Time and Cheongdamdong Alice.

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The setting: A barbecue restaurant with three large rooms. One room was for the main actors of the show and of course this room was a bit more difficult to get in with only one doorway from the main room while the two other rooms for the hardworking staff had a couple different access points. It was noisy and food was quickly devoured. The restaurant staff was busy trying to satisfy everyone’s needs while a-list actors trying to get in and out were surrounded by people trying to get pictures which made it difficult for anyone to move around.

The first star we saw was Jong Suk Lee (이종석). He rushed past us with people with cameras on his heels while we were making our way into the restaurant. He smiled and a couple girls who he seemed to know well, I imagine his make-up artists or style assistants, stayed by his side for the remainder of the dinner. He didn’t sit down for long with the actors and instead seemed to always be on the move not letting anyone get too close. He didn’t let anyone take any pictures with him, which I found rather snobbish considering all of these people had worked hard on this drama for months. Also because he wasn’t allowing photos Bo Young Lee (이보영) had a lot more pushy people wanting to take photos with her. I definitely felt for her and she looked a bit stressed at times as she couldn’t sit down for even a moment and certainly couldn’t enjoy any of the delicious food everyone else was devouring. But overall she was very poised and quite gracious to everyone and tried to give as many autographs and photos as she could.

Once everyone was inside and seated one of the actors with a smaller part stood up to play MC. He got everyone to toast together and was in charge of getting the director and producer and the actors up to give and get thanks. The director and producer gave their thanks,

had everyone toast together and sat down to a lot of deserved applause. Bo Young Lee gave her thanks and had a bit to say about the show and how successful it’s been. Jong Suk Lee was out so next up was Sang Hyun Yoon (윤상현). He thought he deserved a lot more applause than he got it seemed as he expressed that he would say hello once again and expected everyone to get loud and possibly stand. He said hello once again and it was at this point that he zeroed in on our table of musicians who were applauding politely but weren’t as awe struck as Sang Hyun Yoon thought they should be. I’m pretty sure it was all a joke on his part, but it was slightly awkward for him to call out the guys the way he did in my opinion. He asked who they were, in the impolite Korean form, and when the head of the table Sung-nam Moon (문성남) replied that they were the musicians, Sang Hyun Yoon expressed some surprise and then took a step back and bowed to the table. He invited Sung-nam Moon, who is also the singer of Echo the headlining song of the show, to stand with him and then Sung-nam Moon sang a part of the song to great applause. By that time Jong Suk Lee had come back in, said a very short thank you and before too many people could get pictures disappeared again. About five more actors stood to give their thanks and do a little comedy stand up to the glee of those in attendance and that was that.

Personally, I had a lot of fun getting some of the b-list actors to pose with me and since they didn’t have nearly the entourage following them around they all seemed excited, if also a little surprised, that a foreigner wanted to get a picture with them. The musicians and I ate our fill and had fun with the people we met and clinked glasses to celebrate the ending of another successful drama.