We Are All Trying Here Cast & Review Guide | 모두가 자신의 무가치함과 싸우고 있다

※ Member of the ‘Group of 8’, aspiring director for 20 years

• Among the members of the university film club ‘Group of 8’, he is the only one who hasn’t made his debut in the past 20 years.

• To prove his existence, he is the most cynical and talkative about films at gatherings, but he harbors feelings of isolation and anxiety internally.

• However, in front of a woman who is the only one to genuinely listen to his words, he begins to learn silence for the first time, and his identity of being ‘scattered but not unhappy’ starts to shift.

※ Planning PD at Choi Film

• She is a character who experiences physical pain by being transported back to the emotional state of being abandoned at the age of nine whenever she breaks up with a boyfriend or relationships worsen.

• Possessing a keen intuition for detecting weakness, she discovers Hwang Dong-man, who has become obsolete and abandoned after failing to make his debut for 20 years.

• However, despite his suffering, she finds hope that she might overcome her fear of abandonment through him, as she strangely fails to detect the scent of weakness in a man who maintains a pure, youthful heart.

• In the end, she sincerely roots for his success, having found hope for healing through him.

※ Member of the ‘Group of 8’, director at Gobak Film

• He is a character who strictly tries to differentiate himself from Hwang Dong-man, his contemporary and former member of the same film club.

• As a successful director with five films released, he despises Dong-man’s incompetence, criticizing others while remaining stagnant for 20 years without debuting.

• He wishes for Dong-man to never make his debut so that the gap between them is maintained, but simultaneously, he is caught in a complex love-hate relationship, feeling guilty after cruelly trampling over him, and longing to live in a world without Dong-man.

※ CEO of Gobak Film and wife of Se-kyung

• Having compromised with reality to work as a reporter before jumping into the film industry, she is a character suffering because of the pitiable film club ‘Group of 8’.

• She wants to eliminate both Hwang Dong-man, the problem child of the film world, and her shameful husband Park Se-kyung, who feels inferior and becomes angry every time he deals with Dong-man, from her life.

• Possessing a decisive personality, she warns her husband of divorce and delivers harsh criticism to Dong-man, threatening to make him debut by pushing him onto the field before he is even ready.

※ Dong-man’s older brother, currently a welder

• Possessing exceptional writing skills, his life began to go downhill after winning a new spring literary contest, despite having taken an elite path.

• He attended graduate school hoping to become a university professor to support himself through poetry writing, as it wasn’t enough to make a living, but things didn’t go as planned, and he fell into a deep sense of incompetence and crumbled.

• Dong-man also heartbrokenly stood by his brother’s side and cried. He knows that Dong-man living in his former apartment is also for his own precarious sake… He carries a heavy stone in his heart and barely gets by each day with alcohol.

※ National actress, mother of actress Jang Mi-ran

• She is a character who could completely forget her unhappy past and her true self, Oh Jung-hee, while acting.

• Hoping to live as someone else to escape her violent home environment on the outskirts of Seoul, she has now risen to the position of South Korea’s top actress.

• However, her dark past of 20 years ago, which she believed she had thoroughly hidden and severed, begins to resurface, and she faces a massive crisis.

※ Oh Jung-hee’s daughter, lead actress in Se-kyung’s film

• She is an actress and stepdaughter obtained through Oh Jung-hee’s remarriage.

• Unlike her mother who is at the top of her game, Jang Mi-ran remains a step below and receives great stress due to her mother’s shadow.

• She constantly clashes with her mother, who values aura and demands mystique, and has a fatal weakness of immersing herself too deeply in her roles, confusing the emotions in the script with reality.

• Not discriminating against people, she mingles casually with Hwang Dong-man and Byun Eun-ah, who are known as ‘outsiders in this industry’.

※ CEO of Choi Film

• He is a character who believes there is a clear ‘grade’ between people and wants to get rid of all the incompetent humans buzzing before his eyes.

• Particularly, he delivers scathing words that stab Hwang Dong-man in the heart without even flinching.

• He might lower himself for people who bring in money, but thoroughly despises incompetent individuals, embodying a classic ‘strong against the weak, weak against the strong’ behavior.

• However, by openly displaying such snobbishness, he is a character who evokes a peculiar sense of gratification.

※ Eldest member of the ‘Group of 8’

• By coaxing, comforting, and scolding Dong-man, he is a character who resolves the small and large conflicts within the ‘Group of 8’ every time.

• Maintaining balance among members with strong personalities and precarious situations, he serves as the core emotional anchor and a reliable leader who tightly binds the club together.

※ Film director at Choi Film

• He is a character who sincerely cares for and worries about Hwang Dong-man.

• Amidst the criticism and indifference of others, he is the only one who takes Dong-man’s side and genuinely looks after him, displaying a warm friendship.

• Among the members of the ‘Group of 8’, he provides the greatest comfort and emotional stability to Dong-man.

※ Planning PD at Choi Film

• In the cold reality of the film industry, where incompetent humans are despised, she is a character who gets involved with Hwang Dong-man, who has been wandering for 20 years without making his debut, either professionally or emotionally.

• Observing Dong-man’s precarious path, she coordinates the practical affairs of film production and plays a role in bringing tension and new vitality into the conflict structure focused around the ‘Group of 8’.

※ Film director at Choi Film

• He is a character who solidifies his position as a director in the fierce film industry and continues his work.

• Entangled with Hwang Dong-man, who hovers around without making a debut for 20 years, and planning PD Choi Hyo-jin, who deals with cold realities, he adds a sense of reality to the drama.

• Amidst conflicts surrounding film production, he plays a role that showcases the professionalism and realistic burden of a director.

※ Film director at Choi Film

• As a character who survives in the fierce film world to create his own works, he contrasts with the reality of Hwang Dong-man, who has failed to make his debut for 20 years.

• Under the same roof of Choi Film, he is entangled with planning PD Choi Hyo-jin and colleague director Lee Gi-ri, vividly depicting the bitter reality and conflicts of the cold film production environment.

※ Byun Eun-ah’s grandmother

• She is a character possessing a sturdy inner self hardened through a long and tumultuous life.

• Although not related by blood, she serves as Byun Eun-ah’s most reliable pillar and warm sanctuary.

• Embracing and comforting Eun-ah with unconditional love amidst a cruel world, she is a presence that adds deep emotional resonance and the warm value of family to the drama.

※ Byun Eun-ah’s ex-boyfriend

• He is a character who formed a ill-fated relationship with Hwang Dong-man during their past days at the Korean National University of Arts while receiving mentoring for his scenario from Dong-man.

• Currently, with the scenario ‘knock knock knock’, he has achieved the feat of winning the support of the Korea Film Council’s production support project, beating out Dong-man.

• With this as a stepping stone, he is on the verge of making his debut as an official film director at Gobak Film, setting a sharp adversarial position with Dong-man, who has been unable to debut for 20 years.

※ CEO of Oh Jung-hee and Jang Mi-ran’s management agency

• Using exceptional information gathering skills, he uncovers hidden details about Byun Eun-ah’s past, including her address, her changing her name to Eun-ah, and her living alone with her new grandmother (the mother of her father’s second wife) instead of a biological grandmother since middle school, and delivers this to Jung-hee.

• While coolly gathering information, he feels a complex emotional state upon seeing Eun-ah’s unfortunate life, remaining a character who never loses loyalty and humanity until the end.

※ New PD at Choi Film, Byun Eun-ah’s sole colleague

• Unlike the jealousy around her, she genuinely treats Eun-ah.

• To the typically silent Eun-ah, Sae-bom is the only person Eun-ah feels comfortable sharing her worries and intimate requests, such as changing her grandmother’s address.

• She is a warm listener who silently accepts Eun-ah’s words.

• Recognizing Eun-ah’s feelings for Hwang Dong-man, she comments that Dong-man “looks cool,” providing support for Eun-ah’s feelings just as they are.

※ Planning PD at Choi Film

• Pretending to comfort Eun-ah after she was reprimanded by the CEO, she is, in reality, an opportunist who agrees with the words of her senior, Hyo-jin, trying to gain favor.

• Possessing quick wits and strong information skills, she is the employee who first shared an interesting SNS post about the film ‘My Mother’ within the company.

• She serves as the office’s go-to information source, promptly answering most of the questions thrown her way.