Im Soo-hyang

The risk of being the new face

Im Soo-hyang arrived at the casting for New Tales of Gisaeng in 2011 with barely any prior experience in the Korean industry. She had only a minor role in a 2009 thriller, but producers were looking for an unknown face who could carry a fifty-episode drama. The bet was risky for a national network.

She won the lead role over hundreds of hopefuls.

That 2011 production required a crash course in traditional dance and ancient court protocol. Critics noticed her ability to keep her composure in long dialogue scenes. And it paid off. Ratings topped 20% in her final episodes. But the road wasn't easy after that initial breakthrough, since the industry tends to typecast actors who debut amid so much media buzz.

During 2014, she took on a role in Inspiring Generation, trading melodrama for physical action. It was a costly production with shoots in China that ran into budget problems. She played a woman caught in clan conflicts during the Japanese occupation of Shanghai. She learned to handle swords and shoot fight scenes without stunt doubles during workdays that stretched past eighteen hours.

Surgery as a Narrative Driver

In 2018, she accepted the script for My ID is Gangnam Beauty, and the project initially raised doubts among those close to her. The story followed a young woman who undergoes plastic surgery to escape school bullying. It was a taboo subject treated head-on. But she decided that the weight of the plot lay not in the operating room but in the psychology of insecurity.

Filming 2018 became a digital ratings hit among younger viewers, and her name began to resonate well beyond South Korea. Yet she kept a low profile in the media. The advertising contract she signed that year with cosmetics brands reflected the show's social impact.

And then she changed strategy.

In 2019, she starred in Graceful Family for a small cable network called MBN. She played an arrogant, rude heiress who returns to her homeland to investigate a family murder. Her character was loud and unlikable. The series broke every record in the channel's history and ended with a viewership unheard of for pay television at the time.

Mastering the TV schedule

Before filming, she reads the script looking for the cracks in the character. In 2022, she juggled two very different projects: Doctor Lawyer and Woori the Virgin. In the first she played a prosecutor of medical crimes, and in the second a woman who gets pregnant due to clinical negligence. The overlapping air dates sparked a small controversy between the TV networks SBS and MBC over the direct competition.

The dispute over broadcast schedules in 2022 did not affect her on-screen performance.

During 2023, she immersed herself in fantasy with Kokdu: Season of Deity, where production took especially long due to the visual effects. Still, the fantasy genre didn't keep her from returning to traditional family drama shortly afterward. She is a methodical worker who prefers long shoots to short appearances on variety shows or fashion events.

In 2024, she took the lead role in Beauty and Mr. Romantic for the KBS2 network. It's a weekend drama designed to run for months on air, with a total of fifty episodes confirmed in its original production plan. Filming began in the first months of the year, with shooting days split between two camera units running simultaneously.