It was announced on May 20th that Riku Hagiwara will star opposite former Nogizaka46 member and actor Mizuki Yamashita in the drama series W-30: My Murdered Husband Has Returned (WOWOW). The two co-starred in the 2019 drama series Video Girl Ai 2019 (TV Tokyo), and also co-starred in last year's drama series Fall, Pile Up, Lonely Death (NTV). This will be their third time acting together, and they will play a married couple.
The drama is a suspense mystery based on the novel of the same name by Sakurai Mina (Shogakukan, 2021). The protagonist, Suzukura Mana (Yamashita), takes the first step towards her dream of becoming a designer while hiding the secret of having killed her abusive husband, but the husband she thought she had killed appears with no memory of it... and so the story unfolds. There are 6 episodes in total. It will be broadcast and streamed on WOWOW Prime and WOWOW On Demand from 11:00 pm on July 11th (the first episode will be broadcast and streamed for free).
Hagiwara plays Kazuki, the "murdered husband" of Mana. Looking back on the filming, he said of his role, "As the title suggests, he's the 'murdered husband,' so there's no need for him to appear to be a clean-cut person. In acting, it was difficult to find the right balance between the suspenseful portrayal and the realistic portrayal of Kazuki."
Regarding his third co-starring role with Yamashita, he said, "The first time we co-starred was six years ago, when we played a high school student and an AI girl. This time, we're co-starring in a unique setting, where a husband is murdered and the wife who murders him (laughs). So, the scenes I co-star with Yamashita often involve heavy conversations and difficult situations, but she is a very cheerful person who laughs a lot, and even when we are filming serious scenes, she is always talking right up until the last minute, and the moment the filming begins, she quickly gets into character, which I always admire and find amazing."
Regarding the story, he appealed, "The story is full of unexpected things. From beginning to end, various elements interact with each other and everything is connected, so I would like you to watch it in an environment where you can concentrate as much as possible on the screen, from the first episode to the final episode."
