On March 12, Lee Chung Ah met reporters at a café in Cheongdam-dong, Seoul, for an interview following the finale of Honor: The Courtroom of Her (working English title)’ (written by Park Ga Yeon, directed by Park Gun Ho), which aired its last episode on March 10. The drama ended on a high note, recording its highest viewership rating of 4.7% nationwide according to Nielsen Korea.
In the series, Lee Chung Ah played Hwang Hyun-jin, an action-driven lawyer at the law firm L&J (Listen & Join) who specializes in defending female crime victims. Known for her fiery personality and tendency to act before thinking, Hyun-jin often finds herself at the center of major conflicts in the story.
One of the most dramatic plot points involved Hyun-jin accidentally spending a night with her ex-boyfriend Lee Jun-hyuk (played by Lee Choong-joo) and later discovering she was pregnant, leaving the identity of the baby’s father uncertain. The character also caused trouble by losing a laptop containing crucial evidence tied to the case.
Reflecting on the role, Lee Chung Ah explained that Hyun-jin was designed to drive the drama’s major events forward.
“I’ve rarely seen a drama end with only peaceful and beautiful stories,” she said. “There are always conflicts and incidents that shake the characters. When I read the script, I felt that Hyun-jin was a character whose role was to create events that push the story in the direction it needs to go.”
Despite frequently being scolded by her friends in the drama — including Yoon Ra-young (Lee Na-young) and Kang Shin-jae (Jung Eun-chae) — the characters ultimately continued to trust her. Even her husband Gu Sun-kyu (Choi Young-joon), though deeply disappointed, reaffirmed his love for her.
Lee Chung Ah said making Hyun-jin likable despite her mistakes was something she discussed extensively with the director.
“I wanted viewers to still empathize with her,” she explained. “If the audience couldn’t relate to my character and abandoned her, that would have been a problem.”
The storyline became even more complicated when Hyun-jin conceived during a time when she and her husband were trying to have a child, but the timeline overlapped with the night she spent with her ex. This left both the characters and viewers shocked.
Lee Chung Ah noted that Hyun-jin’s decision to bring up divorce first — before her husband even did — was tied to a deleted scene.
“There was actually a scene that got cut,” she revealed. “Hyun-jin went to the police station to meet Sun-kyu and saw divorce papers on the desk. They actually belonged to someone else, but she thought he wanted a divorce but was too kind to say it first.”
In the drama, the baby is ultimately lost due to miscarriage, leaving the mystery of the child’s father unresolved.
Sharing her own interpretation, Lee Chung Ah offered an interesting theory.
“If the baby had been born, we could have found out,” she said. “But no one actually answered who the father was.”
She added that one scene made her think the child might still have been the husband’s.
“There’s a moment when Hyun-jin can’t eat anything because of morning sickness, but she manages to eat the food Sun-kyu made for her and says, ‘Why can I eat this?’ When I saw that scene, I wondered if maybe the baby could have been her husband’s after all.”
The drama’s ending also left open the possibility of a second season. However, Lee Chung Ah said no official discussions about Season 2 have taken place yet.
Still, she expressed interest in returning if the opportunity arises.
“Creating a character that audiences love isn’t easy,” she said. “When a well-made character disappears after just one drama, it feels a bit wasteful. If there’s a good story, I’d absolutely welcome returning for another season.”
Sources: Daum | 엑스포츠뉴스
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