'Not Others' with Jeon Hye-jin celebrates nontraditional mother-daughter relationships

Eun-mi doesn't quite fit the image of a traditionally acceptable mother figure, but that's the type of mother that Jeon Hye-jin plays in the ENA drama “Not Others,” which wrapped up this week.

Actor Jeon Hye-jin [HODU&U ENTERTAINMENT]

Imagine walking in on your mother masturbating by herself in the middle of the living room. It doesn't quite fit the image of a traditionally acceptable mother figure, but that's the type of mother that Jeon Hye-jin plays in the ENA drama “Not Others,” which wrapped up this week.

In “Not Others,” Jeon plays Eun-mi, a mother seemingly not old enough to have a fully grown daughter, and the one who gets caught masturbating by her daughter Jin-hee, played by Girls’ Generation’s Choi Soo-young. Eun-mi had Jin-hee out of wedlock when she was still in high school and raised her on her own. “Not Others” has been praised for depicting an atypical mother-daughter relationship and dealing with a topic not often touched upon in Korean media: single mothers.

Jeon Hye-jin plays Eun-mi, a single mother, in the ENA drama ″Not Others″ [ENA]

“I played a person who is not the kind of mother we have come to know in many fictional works,” Jeon said during an interview with local reporters at a cafe in Gangnam District, southern Seoul, on Tuesday. “My character Eun-mi is her own person, beyond her identity as a mother. That is what drew me to the character in the first place. And I believe that we need to talk more about the issue of single mothers and what their lives are like in our society.”

The scene where Eun-mi gets caught masturbating by Jin-hee drew a lot of attention from viewers for its faithful adaption from the webtoon of the same name on which the drama is based.

“I worried a lot about filming that scene when I first read the script,” Jeon said. “I asked the director how we were going to execute it. But when we did get into filming, I found myself really wanting to get it right.”

The director and staff on set were surprised by Jeon’s performance for the scene in question, according to Jeon. More scenes from “Not Others” required Jeon to adapt to the character of Eun-mi, such as in the scene where Eun-mi dances alone at the hospital where she works.

“In each episode there were a lot of scenes that required a lot of energy from me, and I had to put myself down to play Eun-mi well,” said Jeon. “In the dancing scene, I asked the director for a lot of time to practice so that I could do it well.”

Jeon Hye-jin, right, plays Eun-mi, the mother to Choi Soo-young's character Jin-hee in the ENA drama ″Not Others″ [ENA]

“Not Others,” airing on channel ENA, which hasn't had much of a hit since the 2022 drama “Extraordinary Attorney Woo,” started off with a humble 1.3 percent viewership rating but ended with a 5.5 percent rating for its last episode. This jump is in large part attributed to the performances by the actors and especially to the chemistry between Jeon and Choi for their mother-daughter duo.

“It was so natural to act together with Choi,” Jeon said. “She started calling me mom even off set, and I told her to stop,” she laughed. “We have become very good friends, and I think that was what made the synergy on screen as well.”

Mothers and daughters have a special relationship with each other, different from that between mothers and sons, which is something Jeon wanted to highlight in “Not Others.”

“Mothers and daughters may fight with each other and quarrel, and it would be great if daughters could respect their mothers, who are also women,” Jeon said. “There is a complicated nature of relationships between mothers and daughters, which ‘Not Others’ touches upon.”

Actor Jeon Hye-jin [HODU&U ENTERTAINMENT]

Jeon is known for her many roles as charismatic women in a number of works, including her performances as policewomen and high-ranking government officials in films and dramas such as “The Terror Live” (2013), “Search WWW” (2019) and the second season of “Stranger” (2020). Jeon is instinctively drawn to such characters and finds that now is the perfect time for strong women characters to be introduced more into film and dramas, according to the actor.

“I used to be so angry when I was in my 20s because well-written female characters could not be found frequently in scripts,” Jeon said. “But times have changed, and now there are many female directors and writers who are coming up with a more diverse array of female characters. ‘Not Others’ is also a part of that change. I hope more works like this come out for actors and audiences.”

BY LIM JEONG-WON [lim.jeongwon@joongang.co.kr]