Netflix's latest coming-of-age series promises to be your next binge-watch. Here, we chat with the show's cast and crew to find out more about this unmissable K-drama.

In spite of all the challenges that 2020 continues to bring, Netflix has managed to make the most out of these unprecedented&nbsp;circumstances. The online conference of the streaming giant&#39;s new original series,&nbsp;The School Nurse Files, was an exciting and immersive experience. Against a CGI backdrop where&nbsp;Jellies &mdash;&nbsp;one of the lead characters&nbsp;in the show&nbsp;&mdash;&nbsp;floated around,&nbsp;we chatted with actors&nbsp;Jung Yu-mi&nbsp;and&nbsp;Nam Joo-hyuk, writer&nbsp;Chung Se-rang, and director&nbsp;Lee Kyoung-mi&nbsp;over&nbsp;a video call to unwrap the making of the story.&nbsp;

&ldquo;I feel very much at home now.&nbsp;Here&rsquo;s my favourite Octopus Jelly,&quot;&nbsp;said&nbsp;Yu-mi, who plays&nbsp;Ahn Eun-young, a character who possesses&nbsp;the ability to see&nbsp;Jelly &mdash; the remnants of human desires.

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We were among the select few to receive a sneak peek from Netflix earlier this month, and the three episodes we watched have already left us awestruck.

Don&#39;t expect any stereotyping&nbsp;in&nbsp;The School Nurse Files.&nbsp;The offbeat plot delivers a multi-dimensional portrayal of youth, and&nbsp;emotional nuances are depicted via explosive imaginations and&nbsp;unpredictable characters. It may&nbsp;remind you of&nbsp;the show&nbsp;<a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/80990668">Extracurricular</a>, as it unfolds the hard&nbsp;truths we had to learn as children&nbsp;and the vulnerability we often try&nbsp;to camouflage as adults.

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&quot;You&nbsp;see the creators&#39; will to realise a world where we love [others] despite their flaws and faults.&quot;

&mdash;&nbsp;Director Park Chan-wook

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&quot;Director Lee has been creating never-seen-before and never-heard-before female characters who make you laugh and cry at [their] story and eventually understand [them] as a person.&quot;

&mdash;&nbsp;Actress Gong Hyo-jin

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Co-created by&nbsp;Chung Se-rang, the writer of the titular&nbsp;novel, and Lee Kyoung-mi, the director of&nbsp;Persona: Love Set,&nbsp;The School Nurse Files&nbsp;has an incredible team on board to realise&nbsp;a world of unlimited imagination and endless wonder.

It brings Jung Yu-mi and Nam Joo-hyuk together for the very first time, featuring a soundtrack assembled by&nbsp;Jang Young-gyu, who composed the film scores of&nbsp;Sympathy for Mr Vengeance,&nbsp;The Wailing&nbsp;and&nbsp;The Yellow Sea.

The School Nurse Files&nbsp;also introduces a cast of new faces that make&nbsp;the characters their own with raw, realistic portrayals of the dazed and confused.&nbsp;

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On their characters:

Jung Yu-mi:&nbsp;Ahn&nbsp;Eun-young is an ordinary person with the extraordinary ability to see the remnants of the greediness of humans, known as the Jelly. She starts working in a school as a nurse, where she comes across several mysterious occurrences&nbsp;and decides to find out the truth.&nbsp;She always carries a BB gun and a rainbow knife with her, which help her to defeat those harmful Jellies. Eun-young is in a constant battle with the Jellies, and also with her&nbsp;destiny of having to see things that other people cannot.

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Nam Joo-hyuk:&nbsp;My character Hong In-pyo is the Chinese&nbsp;Characters teacher,&nbsp;and also the grandson of the school&#39;s founder.&nbsp;He is surrounded by a protective aura, and because of that, he can protect Eun-young from the Jellies and recharge her energy. In-pyo becomes a kind of assistant to Eun-young, and together they defeat the harmful Jellies in the school.

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Chung Se-rang:&nbsp;The school nurse and Chinese Characters teacher are very unusual characters. The reason I bring these two together&nbsp;is because they&rsquo;re not the most conspicuous,&nbsp;even though they play extremely important roles.&nbsp;A school nurse is&nbsp;the first person&nbsp;you see if you get hurt, while a Chinese Characters teacher preserves and passes down knowledge and heritage &mdash; they might not be giving you the pass to top colleges, but they are&nbsp;figures that people need in their lives.

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On the Jelly:

Chung Se-rang:&nbsp;What I first thought of was the slime trail of a&nbsp;snail &mdash; I felt like all living creatures leave&nbsp;traces behind even when they leave. And I wondered how&nbsp;it might be like to live in a world full of the residues of emotions.

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Lee Kyoung-mi:&nbsp;I had a lot of thoughts on how to make them convincing. I started to study novels and films about them, and there are actually a lot of Jelly-type creatures out there, like Ditto from&nbsp;Pok&eacute;mon. I spent time mulling over the genealogy of the Jelly, and to make it more fun for&nbsp;the audience, I decided to add certain characteristics to it.

I found this private organisation online, called&nbsp;SCP Foundation, which has built a huge database to categorise the (mythical) creatures that can threaten human&nbsp;life. After considering how far imagination could&nbsp;take us, I brought them together with the wild elements of nature,&nbsp;which I&#39;ve learned from&nbsp;documentaries, and&nbsp;it added a sense of realness for&nbsp;our audience. To my surprise,&nbsp;some creatures that only appear in our imagination&nbsp;might actually exist, it&#39;s just that we&#39;ve never come across them.

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On their favourite Jelly:

Jung Yu-mi:&nbsp;The Octopus Jelly and Standing Jelly are my favourites!&nbsp;

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Nam Joo-hyuk:&nbsp;I really like the Standing Jelly. This tiny friend in blue here [gestures], it has my heart.

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Lee Kyoung-mi:&nbsp;My heart goes out to the Mite Eater, which appears in the episode I love most. I wanted to make her&nbsp;strange but cute at the same time. In fact, when we started&nbsp;pre-production, the Mite Eater was the first one I cast, and we have her&nbsp;on the casting board right next to Yu-mi and Joo-hyuk.

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Chung Se-rang:&nbsp;I think the Toad Monster is my favourite! It&#39;s&nbsp;somewhere between a fish and an amphibian &mdash; it must be so challenging to visualise and I&rsquo;m so impressed by the outcome.&nbsp;When I was writing the story, I was thinking that those Jellies who don&rsquo;t harm people would appear&nbsp;in white or&nbsp;as transparent, while the bad ones would be&nbsp;in&nbsp;colour. The production of this series has taught me a lot about&nbsp;visualising the details of a story.

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On challenges:

Jung Yu-mi:&nbsp;I was a little taken aback when I first saw the weapons&nbsp;[laughs].&nbsp;But as soon as we started filming, I felt&nbsp;like they were made for me and I have as much faith in&nbsp;them as Eun-young!&nbsp;How Eun-young uses the&nbsp;BB gun and rainbow sword might&nbsp;come across as&nbsp;awkward to people,&nbsp;but I found that it&nbsp;came&nbsp;naturally to me.

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Nam Joo-hyuk:&nbsp;My character is ordinary compared to Yu-mi&rsquo;s. For me, it is quite comfortable to not see the Jellies&nbsp;[laughs].&nbsp;&nbsp;As you know, In-pyo doesn&rsquo;t have any weapons, so it&rsquo;s more of using your own superpowers. To In-pyo, simply being able to help others is very fulfilling, and he never hesitates to step up whenever someone needs him, and that&rsquo;s his greatest charm.&nbsp;

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Jung Yu-mi:&nbsp;I&rsquo;ve always wanted to do an action movie, and to be frank, this is not what I expected&nbsp;[laughs].&nbsp;I was thinking of&nbsp;Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, you know. But then I met Eun-young, and she taught me that action scenes&nbsp;can&nbsp;be done&nbsp;differently, and I&rsquo;m so happy that I am making&nbsp;my action debut as Eun-young.&nbsp;

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Nam Joo-hyuk:&nbsp;He&rsquo;s a Chinese Characters teacher, but... Can I actually mention this? He&rsquo;s not been teaching much&nbsp;[laughs]. He&rsquo;s&nbsp;spending a lot of time outside the classroom, fighting Jelly with Eun-young. So I didn&rsquo;t have difficulties preparing for my role as a Chinese Characters teacher.

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Jung Yu-mi:&nbsp;The School Nurse Files is strange, but I love the way it is also bubbly and quirky. Many stories are being told within the series, and every chapter completes another. I&#39;m so thankful to have been given the chance to play Eun-young. I want to make sure the story is delivered in a heart-warming way that will touch viewers as much as the novel inspires its readers.

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On their takeaways from the series:

Jung Yu-mi:&nbsp;There were many things that I enjoyed while portraying Eun-young. Whenever I stand in Eun-young&rsquo;s shoes, I feel a lot of empathy for her. She has&nbsp;to see things that others cannot, and I don&rsquo;t think those are&nbsp;amusing experiences for&nbsp;her. Her loneliness is relatable, but she has the biggest heart. She&rsquo;s like a friend who pats you on the back.

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Nam Joo-hyuk:&nbsp;In-pyo is someone who doesn&rsquo;t really understand himself until he meets Eun-young. He is rediscovering and growing into a better version of himself when he realises he can be the support system for others.&nbsp;

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On the story:

Chung Se-rang:&nbsp;In order to recreate the story in&nbsp;a&nbsp;six-episode series, we decided to underscore the sense of duty, desperation and happiness.&nbsp;It gave&nbsp;me the unexpected opportunity to revisit a&nbsp;story I wrote between 2015 and 2016. The School Nurse Files is a story that connects lonely people, and I hope&nbsp;it will become one of your best friends.

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Lee Kyoung-mi:&nbsp;It is my first time directing a story written by someone else. The experience of realising a world created by another was truly amazing, and it allowed me to borrow a different imagination and form of expression.

The ending of season one will probably leave people wondering: What kind of adventure awaits? What is the untold story between Eun-young and In-pyo? I want these questions to linger in the minds and hearts of our viewers. And whenever you feel that life is hard, remember how Eun-young meets her destiny, and even though there are challenges along the way,&nbsp;In-pyo is right there next to her.

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The School Nurse Files is available to watch on <a href="https://www.netflix.com/sg/">netflix.com</a> now, and you can view the trailer below:

5 Minutes With Jung Yu-Mi, Nam Joo-Hyuk And The Crew Of 'The School Nurse Files'

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