Kim So Hyun has two roles in "Who Are You 2015?" She is the pampered and popular student Ko Eun Byeol, who attends a private school. But she is also Lee Eun Bi, the bullied and unhappy girl who was raised at an orphanage.
In this "Prince and the Pauper" drama, it looks as if the unhappy Lee Eun Bi will be mistaken for the missing Ko Eun Byeol and get a chance to live a happier life, at least temporarily. So far, Kim So Hyun has done a good job of playing both a girl who has nothing and a fortunate girl whose good fortune is threatened.
Playing one k-drama role can be tough enough but acting in more than one role in the same drama has its own challenges. A few other k-drama actors have played dual roles.
Yang Jin Sung, who currently stars in "My Unfortunate Boyfriend" played dual roles in "Bride of the Century." She was the cold-hearted girl that Lee Hong Ki was supposed to marry but did not care for. And she was the sweet girl recruited to pretend to be her cold-hearted lookalike. Lee Hong Ki could not tell the difference at first but fell for the sweet girl's personality.
Jang Geun Suk and Yoona each got to play two roles in "Love Rain." They played present-day lovers and they also played their parents decades earlier. Their parents fell in love but wound up marrying other people. They never forgot each other. Then in a bizarre twist of fate the children fell in love. They looked just like their parents and had similar qualities but the characters were also different. Then the parents met again and fell in love. Fortunately, in the present-day part of "Love Rain," different actors played the parents or audiences would have been really confused.
And with the recent spate of multiple personality dramas, Hyun Bin and Ji Sung got to play individual characters that had more than one personality. It's not quite the same as playing two different characters but since they had to portray very different sides of themselves, it can also be a challenge. Hyun Bin played two sides of himself in "Hyde, Jekyll and I" but Ji Sung played seven different personalities in "Kill Me Heal Me" with one of them being a child, one of them being a tough guy and another being fan girl named Yona.
Have you seen any of these dramas? What do you think of the actors who took on this challenge?
