Our actress Kim Hye-ja's acting, her life
“Nevertheless, I am grateful for life.”

Kim Hye-ja, the representative actress of Korea and the actress we love.
She has lived through countless roles over the past 60 years, conveying the contradictions, pains, joys and delights of life.
When I took on a role, I had to completely become 'that person', and I struggled and acted dozens, hundreds of times to become that person.
With the belief that if you make a life-or-death decision, God will take care of the rest, I immersed myself in it, considering the praise I received for my acting skills to be the greatest gift.
Although she is an actress who always presents herself with a comfortable image, behind her life there were many intense times and prayers of gratitude.

An actress who considers every work she does as her 'last work', an actress who chooses works based on whether there is a glimmer of hope, even if the reality is painful and hopeless, an actress who thinks about death herself but only chooses works that give hope to those in despair, Kim Hye-ja.
This book is an autobiographical account of her acting life, a confession on stage about life's immersion and passion, gratitude and joy, and the inexplicable emptiness and sadness behind the fame of 'national actress' and 'national mother.'
Whether you know her well or not, when you finish reading the book and close the last page, your heart will be moved as you think, 'Kim Hye-ja is still Kim Hye-ja.'

There is one thing I am most grateful for in life.
As an actor, I have had many moments of immersion.
God, who knows very well that I live my life half-asleepwalking, unable to give much meaning to anything, has continued to bring me works of art so that I can immerse myself in them.
Then, I, who had existed like a faint spark, could burn with a hot fire.

---From "In God's Script, We Are All Actors"

There is no reason not to work hard when you are doing it with your own face and body.
As I study what the author has written, my eyes will deepen and my hands will move a little more.
If I don't do this myself, no one else can.
I didn't know it when I did it yesterday, but if I find out today, I'll be happier than if I discovered some gold or silver treasure.
There is no reason for me to keep that joy at bay.
That's why I want to taste that joy again and again.
That joy cannot be taken away by anyone.


I read the lines a hundred times until I am convinced.
Because what I did before and what I'm doing now are different.
Because there are things you feel the hundredth time you do something you didn't know the ninety-ninth time you do it.
The more I read, the more I feel it, so I want to keep reading the script.
A well-written script becomes deeper the more you read it.
As with any work of Shakespeare, there are things we cannot understand if we read it superficially.

---From "To Hyeja"

God never let the life I experienced just disappear.
Whether I had really depressing thoughts, really sad thoughts, or really petty and shameful thoughts, all of that helped me a little bit when I was taking on the role.
All the things I've experienced and all the emotions I've felt have been projected into my acting.
---From "Live, Live with Your Own Strength"

"Mother" is a movie that woke up my dead cells.
Director Bong Joon-ho often said things I hadn't even thought of, and he also often spoke to me when I lacked the words to express the same thoughts.
It was nice of you to wake me up and tell me what was on your mind.
While filming, things that had been rigid, fixed thoughts, and mannerisms became new.
It was as if they were tilling the land and fertilizing me again.
I thought I'd lost my passion for work, but as I traveled around the country on location shoots, my chronic headaches disappeared and I was amazed at how a new passion and joy emerged.
I am so grateful to Director Bong Joon-ho for rekindling my passion, which had been simmering.
---From "I Lived Every Life as if It Was My First Time"

Without a manager to manage my schedule or a wardrobe coordinator, I just showed myself to the world by doing just 'myself'.
When choosing a piece, I chose something I could handle and something I thought I could do well.
When choosing a role, I chose a role where the woman can see a ray of hope even though her current reality is very sad and painful.
I didn't want to play a role that would make the viewers despair.
There are already many despairing parts in life, and I didn't want to add to that despair with the role I was given.
Even though it may seem hopeless now, I played a role that allowed me to overcome it by seeing a glimmer of hope in the distance.
It doesn't matter if the station is in a bad state.

'Is there any hope for that woman?'
I followed it.
Everyone wishes to have wings.
No one gives you wings.
It just breaks through my flesh.

---From "My Manager"

I am actually a very enterprising person, and in some ways I have had many unusual ideas.
It's just that I didn't express it.
I also wanted to make a movie with a unique content.
I wasn't interested in or excited about ordinary movies or ordinary love stories.
Also, at that time, it was boring to only appear on television as the wife of actors Choi Bul-am, Park Geun-hyung, and Oh Ji-myeong.


So, of course, I thought I had to make a movie like "Manchu."
It was a very striking movie for Kim Hye-ja, who was in prison for murdering her husband and had an affair with a stranger she met on a train while on leave for a few days.
But I didn't mind it.
It's not surprising that I'm a woman who reads so many books and has such peculiar thoughts in my head.
Inside, I imagined all sorts of things, but I just didn't feel the need to tell people about them.
But I was looking forward to playing that role.
I was always given the role of a quiet person, so I really liked being asked to do that.

---From "The Deepest Season of Life"

Emotionally, I liked Kim Jeong-su's works more because they were more pure and heartwarming.
And as an actor, I definitely preferred writer Kim Soo-hyun's works.
Of course, writer Kim Jeong-su is also a writer, so he has some extreme aspects, but he tries not to show them.
So it is expressed more heartbreakingly.
Author Kim Soo-hyun expresses things in a way that scratches, scrapes, and makes you shudder.
And it's lovely.
The two women are at odds.
I was truly happy thanks to you two.
When I think about it, as an actress, I am an incredibly happy woman.


For me, acting is not a job, it's my life, it's everything.
An actor should not stop by thinking, "I've done this much," or "I've succeeded to this extent."
You should be able to start over from that point.
Because it is life itself.
You have to risk everything.
You have to do it with that kind of mindset.

---From "You Have to Risk It All"

People only know me as a good wife and mother.
No, it isn't.
I couldn't even manage a household, and as soon as I received a script, I became the character in the script from that day on, and I lived my life forgetting about my family.
But my husband and children accepted it as a given because I was an actor.


So I had to do well as an actor.
So that the small wounds I left on my family don't fade away.
It would be truly embarrassing if I were to walk the path of an actor while hurting my family, and not be able to stand up for myself as an actor.
I am who I am today because of the dedication of my family who recognized me as an actor.
I always thought that I had to do my best to become an actor that I would not be ashamed of.
I thought that way I wouldn't feel sorry or ashamed towards my family.
Because I was concentrating on acting, I didn't have enough time to spend with my family.

---From "Forgiveness"

It seems like life has no answer other than just living.
It's not just Oscar who is sick and living with a limited lifespan.
The same is true of our lives, even though our bodies are holy.
We must look at the world as if we were seeing it for the first time every day.
We often waste our lives too much.
Even if you live for a few days, what matters is how fully you live.
We must never forget that life is a gift.


The play suggests that life and death are not so far apart.
That's why I don't plan anything.
Because there are no set answers in life.
That's the answer for me.
There is a line in the script that says, 'If only I could look at life the way I first saw it.'
If you don't lose your first love, every moment can be filled with newness and joy.
There's nothing better than being able to approach something familiar yet new.
Our life, borrowed for a moment, is a dazzlingly beautiful life, even if many things happen.

---From "There is no other answer than living"

A person like a wild grass standing alone over there, that's how I felt about her.
A few days ago she texted me this:
“Teacher, please don’t act so hard again.”
So I answered.
"Who would tell Noh Hee-kyung, 'Don't write so skinny as a middle school student,' and she'd end up like that? She'll always end up like that."
Someone I know sent me a video where a rooster crows with all its might until it collapses in exhaustion.
And then it happens again.
That rooster looked so much like the two of us, writer Noh Hee-kyung and I, that I sent the video to her too.
It's about pulling out everything you have, screaming, and then collapsing.
But it will happen again after a while.
---From "A Man Like Wild Grass Standing Alone Over There"

One time, a director advised me not to turn down any project that comes my way, saying, “How can you only eat the rice cakes you want to eat?”
I said without hesitation.
“I will still eat only the rice cakes I want to eat.”
Because I was so picky about my work, someone said, “Television isn’t art anyway.”
I was so upset that I said firmly.
"Even if you think of it as art and put your whole body into it, it's still hard work. How can you say no from the start? I can't do that."
I only did CFs that I liked.
'Even if I starve now, I will eat the rice cakes I want to eat later.' This was my stubbornness and thought.
It's like holding back from eating what you don't want to eat, and then eating the rice cake you want when it comes out.
That's how I chose my roles.
---From "God Has a Plan"

Even after my stint as a model for CheilJedang's seasoning advertisement ended, I received several offers from other companies to become a model for seasoning advertisements.
But there was something more important to me than money.
It's about protecting me.
In that respect, I am a very smart woman.
Sometimes I may seem foolish and unrealistic, but I know that if I don't protect myself, I will quickly fall apart.
In a way, rather than being clever, it's more like their 'intuition' is developed in that direction.
I loved myself very much.
---From "Me Who Protects Me"

Growing old is a strange thing.
How can the same phenomenon happen to everyone? It doesn't matter whether you're the most beautiful or the most unattractive, the rich or the poor.
So, whenever I think, 'Ah, this is what it means to grow old,' I feel a little sad, but also a little happy.
Sometimes I feel anxious because I don't get enough sleep at night.
Sometimes I feel lonely.
It is an emotion that comes to everyone as they live their lives, regardless of age.
But I push away that anxiety by thinking, “Someone is probably thinking of me right now, writing a script and planning a piece.”


I don't know what kind of work I will do in the future, but I want to live a dignified life until the day I die.
I also wrote it on the calendar on my desk.
'I will live uprightly until the end of my days.'
Even when I'm tired and annoyed and have collapsed, I gather my strength and get up, thinking, "No, I want to show and tell myself how I live a neat life even if no one is watching."
I want to feel that way myself.

---From "Until the Curtain Call"