Shin Hye-sun usually says she’s been “lucky”, but in fact, hers is an old-fashioned tale of how hard work and perseverance can take a girl with a dream to the halls of Hallyu fame.
Photo from YNK Entertainment/HanCinema
Birthday: August 31, 1989
Instagram: @shinhs831
In 2012, to audition for a small role in the k-drama School 2013, she cut her hair short to stand out among other hopefuls. It paid off, and she achieved the dream she had since she watched Autumn in My Heart (2000) as a young girl—to debut as an actress. Yet, instant success was not in her cards. Having gone to a performing arts high school and having majored in film in college, she saw classmates like Lee Jong-suk and Kang Ha-neul get major or leading roles when she was still starting out. In her early days without an agency, she would drive herself to film locations in the countryside, wait for hours to shoot her scenes, drive herself back home late at night, and do it again the next day.
Finally, after years of playing supporting roles in dramas like Oh My Ghost (2015), She Was Pretty (2015), The Legend of the Blue Sea (2016), and Stranger (2017), she finally got her first leading role in the weekend drama My Golden Life (2017). She didn’t waste the opportunity, and delivered a performance worthy of the best actress nod from the 2017 KBS Drama Awards.
She continued delivering one award-winning performance after another. She was named best actress by SBS for her role in Still 17 (2018), and again by KBS for her portrayal of a former ballerina who lost her sight in Angel’s Last Mission: Love (2019)—a role she prepared for by going through six months of intense ballet lessons.
In 2020, she bagged her first leading role in a movie in Innocence, playing a lawyer defending her estranged mother from murder charges. And in 2021, she delivered a highly acclaimed portrayal of a modern man trapped in a Joseon queen’s body in the hit rom-com Mr. Queen, earning her a Baeksang nomination.
Last year, she starred opposite Ahn Bo-hyun in an adaptation of the fantasy romance webtoon See You in My 19th Life and alongside Ji Chang-wook in the rom-com set in Jeju Island Welcome to Samdal-ri. After starring as an unlikely hero in 2023's action comedy film Brave Citizen, she will soon lead the romance melodrama Dear Hyeri (2024). It seems there's no stopping Shin Hye-sun now!
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