Kim Hye-soo

Kim Hye-soo debuted in the 1986 film Ggambo when she was a first-year high school student.[2] Over two decades, she amassed a sizeable filmography of leading and supporting roles, notably in the television series Did We Really Love? with Bae Yong-joon and Revenge and Passion with Ahn Jae-wook, as well as the films First Love (1993) and Tie a Yellow Ribbon (1998).

In the 2000s, Kim started to appear more on the silver screen, appearing in movies such as Kick the Moon, YMCA Baseball Team and Three.[3]

However, it was when she reinvented her image as a glamorous and confident femme fatale in films Hypnotized (2004),[4] The Red Shoes (2005)[5][6] and Tazza: The High Rollers (2006) that she gained acting recognition and entered the Korean film industry A-list.[3][7] Various film roles followed, such as a housewife who secretly dates a college student in A Good Day to Have an Affair;[8] an unaffected aunt in Shim's Family;[9] a prostitute in Eleventh Mom[10] and a bar singer in Modern Boy (2008).[11] She considers her collaboration with Han Suk-kyu in 2010's Villain and Widow as one of the highlights of her acting career.[12][13]

In 2009, Kim returned to television with Style, which is set in the fashion industry.[14][15][16][17] She followed that with the mystery melodrama Home Sweet Home in 2010.[18][19][20]

A frequent host of film awards ceremonies and TV variety shows, Kim was signed on as the host of MBC current affairs show W.[21] The production team said that in a bid to make changes in the program as it marked its fifth anniversary, they found that Kim was interested in environmental and other global issues and an avid watcher of documentaries about them.[22] W with Kim Hye-soo premiered in July 2010, but was cancelled in October 2010, with Kim criticizing the network's decision.[20]

Kim with Yoo Jun-sang at the 34th Blue Dragon Film Awards in 2013.

In 2012, she reunited with Tazza director Choi Dong-hoon in The Thieves. Set among the casinos of Macau, the star-studded heist film became the all-time second highest grosser in Korean cinema history.[23][24][25] This was followed with a supporting role in Han Jae-rim's historical film The Face Reader.[26]

In 2013, she headlined the romantic comedy The Queen of Office (also known as Goddess of the Workplace), an adaptation of 2007 Japanese drama Haken no Hinkaku ("Pride of the Temp").[27][28]

Kim next starred in Coin Locker Girl (also known as Chinatown) in 2015, a rare female-driven noir film. She said she didn't mind looking unattractive for her role as a ruthless crime boss, with makeup artists adding age spots to her face, gray to her hair, and flab to her stomach and hips with prostheses. Kim said it was "mentally agonizing" deciding whether to accept the role, but once she did, she felt "a surge of excitement" every time she stepped onto the set, and considered the film "a new challenge that makes my heart race and scares me at the same time."[29][30][31]

Kim made her small-screen comeback in 2016 with tvN's Signal,[32] which was both critically and commercially successful. She won Best Actress at the 52nd Baeksang Arts Awards and the tvN10 Awards for her performance.[33]

Kim then returned to the big screen, starring in the family drama film Familyhood[34] followed by noir film A Special Lady.[35]

In 2018, Kim starred in the IMF crisis film, Default, alongside Yoo Ah-in.[36] She has also been cast in the science fiction film Return.[37]

In 2020, Kim starred in the legal drama Hyena.[38]

Kim is a budding artist, having displayed her pop art at the Seoul Open Art Fair.[39][40] One of her collage paintings was sold for ₩5 million, and Kim donated the money to charity.[41]

Kim and character actor Yoo Hae-jin first met in 2001 after shooting the film Kick the Moon and became close in 2006 after appearing together in Tazza: The High Rollers. Rumors of the two dating surfaced starting 2008 although both continuously denied any romantic involvement until early 2010 when paparazzi photographs of the two were released,[42][43] and the couple officially confirmed their relationship.[44][45][46][47][48] Kim and Yoo broke up in 2011.[49][50][51]

Kim has a Theater and Film degree from Dongguk University and a master's degree in journalism and mass communications from Sungkyunkwan University; she also taught performing arts at Sungkyunkwan University as an adjunct professor in 2001. In 2013 Kim admitted to having plagiarized her master's thesis "A Study on Actor Communication," with parts copied verbatim from at least four different books. She apologised for her actions, and said she was willing to forfeit her master's degree.[52][53][54]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kim Hye-soo.

• Kim Hye-soo at HanCinema
• Kim Hye-soo at the Korean Movie Database
• Kim Hye-soo on IMDb