Koo Kyo Hwan, Go Youn Jung, Oh Jung Se, Kang Mal Geum, and Park Hae Joon have been confirmed for a new JTBC drama!
JTBC’s upcoming drama “Everyone Is Fighting Their Own Worthlessness” (literal translation) follows the story of a person who, surrounded by successful friends, thinks they are the only one whose life will not work out—driven mad by anguish, envy, and jealousy—as they search for peace. The drama will mark the return of writer Park Hae Young, who received much love for dramas such as “My Mister” and “My Liberation Notes.”
Koo Kyo Hwan will take on his first leading role in a television series through “Everyone Is Fighting Their Own Worthlessness.” He will play Hwang Dong Man, an aspiring film director who is the only member who has yet to make his debut among the well-known film-industry gathering “The Eight.” Like an uninvited guest, he constantly lingers on the fringes, barely hanging on as he masks his ever-present anxiety with nonstop rambling and bluster.
Go Youn Jung will reveal a new side of herself as Byun Eun Ah, a producer at the film company Choi Film who is nicknamed “The Ax” for her razor-sharp script reviews. Eun Ah hopes to find balance and hold herself together calmly in any situation, but in reality, she battles trauma, suffering nosebleeds whenever she becomes emotionally overloaded. Eun Ah heals her own wounds through Dong Man, who may seem left behind by the world’s standards but is stronger inside than anyone, and in turn transforms Dong Man’s sense of worthlessness into the most radiant kind of value.
Oh Jung Se will take on the role of Park Kyung Se, a director at the film company Gobak Film who is entangled with Hwang Dong Man in an intensely love-hate relationship, helping calibrate the drama’s tension. Kyung Se is a successful director who has made five feature films, but after his latest project flops at the box office, he becomes especially shaken and tormented by inferiority and insecurity—strangely rattled by Dong Man, who is “nothing.”
Kang Mal Geum will play Go Hye Jin—the CEO of Gobak Film and Kyung Se’s wife—anchoring the drama’s center of gravity. Hye Jin runs the restaurant that serves as The Eight’s hideout, and while she has the broad-minded composure to accept Dong Man’s long-winded tirades with ease, she is also an all-around powerhouse producer who at times shows firm, blunt leadership.
Actor Park Hae Joon will portray Hwang Jin Man—Dong Man’s older brother and a former poet—adding depth to the story. Jin Man once wrote poetry, but after reaching the very end of his own incompetence and collapsing, he now cuts ties with the world and scrapes by, drifting from one day-labor job site to another.
The production team remarked, “’Everyone Is Fighting Their Own Worthlessness’ focuses on the process of people who have come to a stop in the face of worthlessness embracing one another’s deficiencies and, for the first time in their lives, finding room to breathe.” They added, “By neither denying universal emotions like envy and jealousy nor looking away from them—instead facing them transparently—we want to deliver both piercing relatability and warm comfort to viewers at the same time.”
They continued, “An acting showdown from Koo Kyo Hwan, Go Youn Jung, Oh Jung Se, Kang Mal Geum, and Park Hae Joon combined with writer Park Hae Young’s insightful lines and director Cha Young Hoon’s warm point-of-view will come together to offer a magical time in which even the shabbiest moments of life feel meaningful.”
“Everyone Is Fighting Their Own Worthlessness” will premiere in the first half of 2026. Stay tuned for more updates!
Until then, watch Koo Kyo Hwan in “Escape”:
Watch Now
Source (1)