I noticed there’s quite a lot of Suzy posts happening recently around there, but then again there is a lot of Suzy happening going on in K-ent so one begets the other I suppose. All I can say is Suzy haters to the left please, or at least refrain from the solo “I hate Suzy” comments and add more substantive critiques, of which there are plenty I’m sure. I’m one of those ambivalent about her popularity and talent, I find her relatively harmless thanks to a natural effervescence and sweet charm, but asked to deliver in dense meaty acting projects and she stinks up the joint. So maybe Suzy only in small and light doses for me?

Suzy was all over the drama casting news cycle last week after being confirmed to have been offered the leading lady role in the upcoming tvN adaptation of popular college romance webtoon Cheese in the Trap, which already has leading man Park Hae Jin signed on. The typical response trajectory happened after Suzy’s offer went out – collective howls of outrage from netizens claiming she’s the worst choice EVER, official response that Suzy is merely considering the offer, and now comes the final bell as K-news is reporting that Suzy has officially declined the role. Well that was fast.

Any time a popular source material gets a drama or movie adaptation, fans of the original work get all hot and bothered by names floated for the lead roles that don’t fit the image of said characters. I’ve been there done that, but in this case I haven’t read the webtoon so have no feelings either way with Suzy being considered, other than generally bracing for her to be just alright on her best acting day. But let us not be myopic and forget the lessons of recent drama casting past, when sometimes netizen howls of outrage gets a supposedly perfect actress casting as a leading lady only to have the performance not work and the drama suck.

I’m of course talking about the K-adaptaion of Nodame Cantabile, called Tomorrow’s Cantabile, when netizens basically bum-rushed Yoona off the production and got their seemingly perfect Nodame in Shim Eun Kyung, only for the end result to totally not gel in any way. I suppose an ideal casting in paper is still a better starting point than a casting that seems way wrong on initial impression, but if Cheese in the Trap ends up with a female lead that doesn’t deliver then who knows if hindsight makes Suzy look like a way better choice. Last week also dropped news that Oh Yeon Seo and Chun Woo Hee were offered the same role but the agencies of both actresses denied those reports. I guess this means back to square one.