Jang Geun Suk, who gained widespread fame with KBS2's "Love Rain" as Seo In-Ha in 2012, talks about his on-going TV series called "Jackpot" also known as "The Royal Gambler." The 28-year-old actor spilled the beans on chewing a live poisonous snake for the said historical period drama.
"Jackpot" recently hit the SBS' airwaves on March 28 for a total of 24 episodes. It takes over the Monday & Tuesday 22:00 (KST) time slot of the giant network, which was previously occupied by "Six Flying Dragons."
In the drama, Jang is playing the number one gambler in the Kingdom of Joseon, Baek Dae Gil, who pledged to take vengeance after his adoptive father passed away bafflingly. In the show's episode 6, aired on April 12, there was a scene where Baek Dae Gil (Jang) snatched a snake from the tree and instantly took a nibble on it.
Recently, it was revealed that the snake is real, and actually is poisonous. For his safety, the fangs of the snake had been removed prior to filming, Soompi reported. Thus, many viewers were awed by Jang's acting in the show, stating that it was beyond imagination for the actor to be able to chomp the snake with no faltering.
In the midst of the press conference for the drama on May 20, Friday, the actor stated that he was given by the production team a heads up of the numerous intense scenes in the drama. He added that he officially heard the script writer's exhaustive explanations beforehand filming "Jackpot."
"It wasn't that hard eating snakes and stuff. When the red light comes on the camera, there is a pressure to portray something," All K-pop quoted the actor as saying. "At first, I doubted that it'll be a real snake, but they actually brought one."
Further, the actor went ahead to say that the scene really allowed him an ideal opportunity to reevaluate his job as an actor, especially that the scene requires shots from several point of views. Hence, Jang was required to rehash gnawing on the snake a few times. Even so, his expressions never swayed and successfully portrayed the vigorous snake chewing scene without a single No Good (NG).
Check out the video below: