what strikes me about Lighter and Princess is that Zhang Jingyi and Chen Feiyu are both young actors without a ton of experience, but they're very effective at what they do, especially for the standards of an idol romance drama

and i do think it matters that the creators decided to cast two promising movie actors

because they have the freshness of newcomers, but they also have cinematic qualities to their acting: they have strong line delivery, and they understand shot framing and how to emote onscreen, and they obsess over details, and they inhabit their characters’ worlds, and they’re used to a filming environment where you play around with multiple takes so they’re not afraid to improv and change things up! there’s also a surprising realism to their acting, because even though idol romances have cartoonish plot points, these two never resorted to cartoonish acting.

another thing is that movie actors tend not to rely so much on filters, so the filters in this drama are honestly pretty mild. you can actually see when an unshed tear wells up in the corner of someone’s eye (compared to other dramas where the actors might be bawling their eyes out and you’re still not sure if you can see tears)

& without getting into specific rumours, there's a strong possibility that both have been in relationships before. i do think it's beneficial when actors have real life experiences, and it's a problem for cdramas if romantic stories are being told almost exclusively by idols who aren't allowed to actually experience romance.