‘Behind Every Star’ Delivers Korean Take On French Hit ‘Call My Agent’

If you saw the French hit series Call My Agent aka Dix Pour Cent, you pretty much know what to expect from Behind Every Star. At least in the first episode, the Korean adaptation very closely follows the original. Set in a star management agency, the plot revolves around the agents and their attempts to deal with their sometimes less than mature star clients.

There are some differences. The Andrea Martel agent character, played originally by Camille Cottin, does not seem to be romantically attracted to women. Played by Kwak Sun-young, the character is also not quite as vicious, but is still mean enough to make her assistants cry. Seo Hyun-woo plays the morose agent originally played by Gregory Mortel. When the drama starts, he’s worried because he can’t admit that his star client did not get a juicy part in a Quentin Tarantino film. Lee Seo-jun plays the director originally played by Thibault Montelambert. His character has a secret born-out-of-wedlock daughter, who shows up wanting to work in the business. His wife does not know about his daughter and he’d like to keep it that way.

The daughter So Hyun-joo, played by Joo Hyun-young, lands a job as Kwak Sun-young’s new assistant, much to her father’s chagrin. She is as determined to make it in show business as he is. Viewers may recognize Joo from her previous role as Park Eun-bin’s quirky best friend in Extraordinary Attorney Woo.

Compared to the version set in Paris, everyone in the k-version is immaculately groomed. Hyun-joo and Cho Yeo-jeong are not as carelessly coiffed as their French counterparts. Shim So-young seems less old fashioned than the French agent she mirrors and Seo does not have Mortel’s endearingly rumpled “I slept in my clothes” appearance.

The original French series featured famous French actors in every episode and Behind Every Star follows suit with well-known Korean actors in every episode. The first episode features Parasite star Cho Yeo-jeong as an actress slated to appear in the Tarantino film.

If you missed the French version, the k-drama offers a fun peek into the complex world of star management (also explored earlier this year in Shooting Stars). And even if you saw the original it might still be interesting to see which Korean actors make cameos and what the Korean spin on this series is. While the basic premise of Behind Every Star doesn’t deviate far from the original, some of the mirrored situations are resolved in different ways.

Behind Every Star is only one of the international adaptations of Call My Agent. Adaptations have already aired in India and the United Kingdom and are in the works in countries that include Italy, Indonesia, Malaysia and Poland.