[OSEN=Ha Su-jeong Reporter] Actor Kim Hee-jeong shed tears as she recalled the past.
On the afternoon of the 29th, the tvN STORY entertainment show ‘Chairman’s House People’ featured actors Lee Jong-won, Kim Hee-jeong, and Lee Jung-yong visiting Yangchon-ri.
Kim Hee-jeong said, “My nickname in college was ‘Yuk Gong Cage'” and added, “I was chubby when I weighed over 60kg.” Kim Hee-jeong and her junior in the Department of Theater and Film at Chung-Ang University, Im Ho, said, “It felt very different from now during our college years. I had a bit of a chubby figure.”
Kim Hee-jeong, who strictly dieted, said, “One day after my debut, we had a company dinner, and the director flicked me and said, ‘Don’t you have any dreams?’ At that time, there was a standard for actresses to be slim. After hearing that, I wanted to lose weight because I didn’t want to conform to that standard, so I started dieting. Now I am at the lowest weight of my life,” she said, mentioning that she is in the mid-40kg range.
Kim Hee-jeong made her debut as an SBS first-generation talent in 1991, but she experienced a long period of anonymity for over 10 years. She gradually gained recognition through her appearance in KBS2’s ‘Love and War.’
Watching ‘Love and War,’ Kim Hee-jeong thought, ‘Couldn’t I have done that?’ and wished to appear on it. She said, “I thought, ‘I wish I could go out there,’ while watching ‘Love and War,’ and one day I was cast,” and added, “I did more castle roles than adulteresses. Adulteresses cannot be the main character because they have to go to court. Even though I did more castle roles, I always seem to have an adulteress image, which is unfair.”
However, at that time, ‘Love and War’ was produced by the General Arts team and classified as a bid drama, so actors were hesitant to appear on it. The view toward Kim Hee-jeong was not favorable.
She said, “I thought that if I worked hard for 10 years, I would be promoted as an actress. As I grew older, I thought I would become a middle-aged actress and move up somehow. But when I went to the broadcasting station and worked for 10 years, nothing changed. Even though I worked hard as a minor character, I always felt thirsty. In the end, I couldn’t even get a regular role. I realized that working hard doesn’t necessarily lead to advancement. I made up my mind that I couldn’t do this job unless someone called me. Many actresses of my age appeared in the drama ‘Love and War’ at that time, but there were too many views like ‘Hee-jeong, are you hungry? Why are you doing that?’ I deeply contemplated and found myself in a dilemma,” she revealed.
Kim Hee-jeong met writer Moon Young-nam at that time and said, “I was cast in Moon Young-nam’s ‘Legendary Seven Princesses’ through that program. On a practice day, the teacher said, ‘I saw your acting. I’ve been watching you. I even watched the subtitle of ‘Love and War’ go up to find out who Kim Hee-jeong was.’ I was surprised. Thanks to that, my relationship with the teacher began,” she reminisced.
Kim Hee-jeong escaped from anonymity through works like KBS2’s ‘Legendary Seven Princesses’ in 2006, ‘Castle Club,’ ‘Strange Brothers,’ and ‘The Wang Family,’ known as Moon Young-nam’s persona. She wiped away tears, saying, “If I hadn’t appeared in ‘Love and War,’ the teacher wouldn’t have discovered me, there wouldn’t have been that relationship, and I wouldn’t be who I am today,” she said, adding, “During that time, I thought happily, and my mother liked it a lot because I appeared a lot.”
“It’s already 20 years ago, but there are still people who cautiously talk or say ‘I watched ‘Love and War’ very well.’ There are times when I think, ‘I did so many dramas but I’m still an adulteress,'” Kim Hee-jeong expressed her concerns. In response, Lee Jong-won said, “I’m still talking about chairs,” Kim Hye-jeong said, “My mother still waits for me at the crossroad,” and Im Ho added, “I’ve been a king for 30 years. It’s been a long time since I haven’t been there,” eliciting laughter.
/ hsjssu@osen.co.kr
[Photo] ‘Chairman’s House People’ broadcast screen capture