Lee Do-hyun breaks away from previous role in new drama 'The Good Bad Mother'

From left, actors Lee Do-hyun, Ra Mi-ran and Ahn Eun-jin pose for a photo during an online press conference for ″The Good Bad Mother″ on Wednesday. [JTBC]

Lee Do-hyun is ready to break away from his most recent character Joo Yeo-jeong in the hit Netflix drama “The Glory,” with the role of Choi Kang-ho in the new JTBC drama “The Good Bad Mother.”

Accompanied by Ra Mi-ran as his mother Jin Young-soon and Ahn Eun-jin as love interest Lee Mi-joo, Lee is starring in the new drama about a mother who has to be “bad” in order to protect and nurture her son.

“I think my character Kang-ho is completely different from the one I played in ‘The Glory,’” said Lee during an online press conference for “The Good Bad Mother” held Wednesday.

“Kang-ho is a very dynamic character and he has elements of being bad too. I guess perhaps that both Kang-ho and Yeo-jeong studied very well is the one commonality.”

“The Good Bad Mother” follows Kang-ho and Young-soon as Young-soon faces hardships raising Kang-ho in a remote country village. Kang-ho becomes a prosecutor eventually, but gets involved in an accident that makes him turn mentally into a seven-year-old.

“Honestly the acting was very hard,” said Lee. “I was worried that my acting a seven-year-old would come across as too much. So I had a lot of conversations with Ra and the director. I think I became brighter in person while acting someone so young.”

Ra said that the title of the drama reflects that “all mothers are good and bad.”

“We judge mothers so much but all mothers in this world are different,” said Ra during the online press conference. “I myself am a person before being a mother. I wanted to tell this story of a ‘bad’ mother to console all types of mothers.”

“The Good Bad Mother” is written by star screenwriter Bae Se-yeong, who wrote or edited the scripts for hit films such as “Intimate Strangers” (2018), “Extreme Job” (2019), and “Life is Beautiful” (2022). The drama series is directed by Sim Na-yeon, who directed “Beyond Evil” (2021) and “At Eighteen” (2019), both for JTBC.

“The Good Bad Mother” airs its first episode at 10:30 p.m. Wednesday on JTBC.

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