Why Jang Yeong-nam Needed Sleep Aids for One Film Scene

When Korean actress Jang Yeong-nam explains why she once had to take sleep medication on set, the story is both funnier and stranger than anyone might expect. It had nothing to do with exhaustion or stress. The problem was that she simply could not stop blinking — even when she was supposed to be dead.

Jang Yeong-nam and her longtime colleague Jang Hyun-sung sat down for a candid interview on MBN's talk show Kim Joo-ha's Day and Night on March 28, 2026, and the two veteran actors did not hold back. Appearing together while both are currently performing in the Seoul stage production The French Safe (불란서 금고), they pulled back the curtain on years of memorable and often hilarious moments from the set of the historic Korean blockbuster The King's Warden (왕과 사는 남자).

The Eyes That Refused to Stay Closed

For most actors, playing dead is a passive task — stay still, close your eyes, hold your breath. For Jang Yeong-nam, it turned into a technical nightmare. During filming of her death scene for The King's Warden, her eyes kept moving involuntarily. No matter how hard she concentrated, the camera kept catching small flickers and twitches beneath her eyelids that made the scene impossible to complete.

Her solution was unconventional: she took sleep aids before filming the scene, reasoning that a genuinely drowsy state would naturally calm the involuntary muscle movement. The plan worked — but only to a point. “The sleep aids helped,” she admitted on the show, “but then I almost actually fell asleep on set.” The admission drew laughter from the studio audience, but it also painted a vivid picture of the lengths professional actors go to in order to get even small details right.

Jang Yeong-nam, known for her nuanced performances across Korean film and television, has built a reputation for deep commitment to her craft. The anecdote captures something essential about that commitment: even a scene the audience watches for only a few seconds is approached with the same rigor as a climactic monologue.

The One-Minute Cameo Behind Korea's All-Time Blockbuster

Jang Hyun-sung's story from the same film lands somewhere between absurdist comedy and genuine professional trust. His character in The King's Warden — which surpassed 15 million admissions on March 25, 2026, making it the third Korean film ever to reach that milestone and the highest-grossing Korean film of all time — dies in what he calls a “one-minute cameo.” He appears on screen, his character is killed, and he disappears from the story entirely.

What made it memorable was the way director Jang Hang-jun recruited him. The director called with no details, telling Jang Hyun-sung simply: “Come out and you'll understand.” Intrigued enough to show up, the actor arrived on set to find a professionally constructed human dummy modeled after his own likeness — a prop made to stand in for his corpse in subsequent shots. “When I saw the dummy of myself,” Jang Hyun-sung recalled on the show, “I felt like my death was somehow predetermined.”

Despite the brevity of his screen time, he joked that when he learned about the film's runaway success, he made sure the director knew how much his cameo had contributed — in a mock-threatening way. “I told him: if this doesn't do well at the box office, I'm coming for you,” he said, laughing. The film ultimately became the highest-grossing Korean production in history, drawing over 15 million viewers and setting an all-time revenue record at the Korean box office.

A Stage Reunion Audiences Won't Let End

The two actors are now sharing a stage together in The French Safe, a black comedy written and directed by Jang Jin — the celebrated playwright and filmmaker who is also a 30-year close friend of Jang Hyun-sung and whose return to the stage marks his first original theatrical work in approximately a decade. The production, which opened at Seoul's Daehakno NOL Seokyung Square Skkon Hall 1 on March 7, 2026, tells the story of five strangers who gather in front of a secret bank vault and must cooperate to open it, despite trusting no one.

The play features a roster of respected Korean stage and screen performers, including legendary actor Shin Koo, along with Seong Ji-roo, Jung Young-joo, Choi Young-joon, Joo Jong-hyuk, Kim Seul-gi, and Geum Saeroc. Originally scheduled to close on May 31, the production announced a one-week extension through June 7, citing overwhelming audience demand. Remaining tickets became available through NOL Ticket on March 31.

For Jang Hyun-sung, the decision to join the production was straightforward: he wanted to share a stage with Shin Koo. “The fact that Shin Koo sunbaenim was in this production was reason enough for me to say yes,” he said. Jang Yeong-nam echoed the sentiment in her own way, describing Shin Koo as her “tears button” — the actor whose presence on stage consistently moves her to genuine emotion, regardless of the scene.

The play marks a milestone for director Jang Jin as well. In a pre-production interview, he stated that Shin Koo was “the starting point” of the entire project. His reunion with Jang Hyun-sung, a friend and collaborator of three decades, adds a layer of personal history to the production that extends well beyond the script.

Legacy, Fathers, and Sons

The conversation on Day and Night also touched on the intergenerational threads that run through both actors' lives. Jang Hyun-sung revealed that his own father had initially opposed his decision to pursue acting — going as far as threatening to remove him from the family register. The irony, which Jang Hyun-sung has apparently made peace with, is that his father had secretly participated in theater himself.

Now, the cycle continues. Jang Hyun-sung's younger son is currently involved in his school's drama club, taking early steps down the same path his father once walked into despite family resistance. Whether that will develop into a professional career remains to be seen, but the actor seemed moved by the parallel — a quiet acknowledgment that the pull toward performance sometimes skips no one in a family.

For two actors who have spent decades navigating the intersection of craft, commitment, and the occasional need for pharmaceutical assistance on set, the conversation felt like a natural resting point: a moment of reflection from performers at the height of their careers, still willing to laugh at themselves and still driven enough to sign onto plays they know will demand everything they have.

The French Safe continues at NOL Seokyung Square Skkon Hall 1 in Seoul's Daehakno district through June 7, 2026. The next episode of Kim Joo-ha's Day and Night airs April 4 at 9:40 PM KST on MBN.