Actress Kim Hyun-joo has opened up about why she stepped away from acting for three years — and how burnout, not money, drove the decision. On the October 11 episode of Jung Jae-hyung’s YouTube show “Yojung Jaehyung,” filmed alongside actors Lee Moo-saeng and Jin Seon-kyu, she traced the break back to exhaustion after years of nonstop work.
Kim said about five straight years of filming left her desperate to escape. “Even when I was lying down asleep, the makeup artist would wipe my face with a sponge and redo my makeup,” she recalled, adding that her “soul was completely burned out.” She told her agency she was done, and after wrapping the drama “Toji,” she halted all activities for three years.
She admitted the acclaimed drama weighed heavily on her. “I won many awards with ‘Toji,’ but it was a heavy work for me. It still gives me goosebumps to think about it. I felt like I had ruined a great masterpiece,” she said. At around age 27, she flew to England, where she spent months alone for the first time — an experience she said crumbled her confidence and showed her how little she could manage on her own.
At her lowest point, she even considered buying a cargo truck and selling fruit instead of acting. But back in Korea, she found herself missing the set. A new project arrived, and she resumed work with a firm rule: only one project per year.
When host Jung Jae-hyung worried she must have struggled without income, she waved it off. “I had savings, so it wasn’t hard,” she said, adding that she now puts herself first and largely avoids variety shows and interviews outside her work.
No further projects have been announced. For now, the veteran actress appears content keeping her schedule — and her boundaries — firmly on her own terms.
