Why Lee Yoo Ri Took Home The Daesang
Lee Yoo Ri has played some good characters and some bad ones. The character that won her the 2014 MBC Drama Awards Grand Prize was just plain evil.
Her role as Yeon Min Jung in the weekend drama "Jang Bo Ri Is Here" has been described as "the most evil woman in the century." Yeon Min Jung is not even the main character in the drama but her evil ways made quite an impression on viewers.
Yeon Min Jung is a bitter woman. She is the child of a poor single mother. She is sure she deserves a better life and pursues it without remorse. So she steals designs and uses them to win a college scholarship. She abandons her baby and betrays those who love her. But such bad characters must pay the price for their wicked ways.
Lee Yoo Ri made her character very wicked and yet somehow relatable. Audiences love it when an actress does a good job of playing a bad character. She won the Grand Prize with 54.1 percent of the vote.
Lee Yoo Ri was humble about receiving the award, crediting her win to the support of the other cast members and production crew.
"I would not have been able to bring the Yeon Min Jung character to life without the excellent screenplay, production and Oh Yeon Seo. I'd like to give huge thanks to the viewers as well."
She also thanked actresses Geum Bo Ra and Kim Hye Ok for helping her appeal to viewers even though her character was so mean.
Lee Yoo Ri may not yet have accepted what the award will mean for her career and future drama prospects.
"Popularity comes and goes," she said. "Like other actors and actresses I worry about whether or not I will be cast. I hope I will come back to greet you in a good role next. I have to let the character of Yeon Min Jung go now. Thank you for loving me this year."
Her road to success has not been an easy one and in the past she described being rejected at more than 100 auditions. But she refused to give up. It was a long slow climb to winning the Daesang but she says that comparisons to other people's careers are pointless.
"Compared to others I'm all right," she said in a recent Nate interview. "I have many friends who debuted with me but are not yet on TV. I am grateful to be able to appear on TV like this when there are a thousand people acting on TV every day."
She appeared in more than two-dozen dramas since her 2001 debut, including "Loving You," "Yellow Handkerchief" and "Precious Family."
Her days of worrying about casting may be over.
