Actress Kim Hye Yoon has candidly shared her struggles before her debut, revealing that she was rejected from more than 100 auditions largely because of her short stature.
On January 14, a preview clip was released on the official YouTube channel of tvN’s variety show 'You Quiz on the Block.'
In the video, Yoo Jae Suk opened by saying, “So I was told that you think that I seem to find you kind of adorable.” Kim Hye Yoon responded honestly, “Is that not so? I thought you did. I just personally thought that. I’m now embarrassed,” drawing laughter with her frankness.
Yoo Jae Suk agreed, adding, “That’s true, I do find you adorable. Whenever you appear on a program, you work incredibly hard. Also, you are cute in real life. The writers told me about this, and I laughed, thinking about you.”
Yoo Jae Suk asked how her childhood was like and how she was as a student. Kim Hye Yoon explained, "I had a lot of friends. What I remember from junior high school is that I would go around all the classrooms, there were 10 classes, just to say hi. I would enter a classroom through the front door, say hi to all the students, and leave out the back door. And I would do that again with the next room. I went through all ten classrooms. I had no reason to go except to say hi to everyone." She added, "Also, if my friend had a friend, that friend would be my friend. I knew everyone."
Kim Hye Yoon also revealed that she began auditioning seriously at age 17, during her first year of high school, and went through more than 100 auditions. “At one point, I was auditioning up to three times a day,” she recalled.
After experiencing countless rejections, she admitted, “I started going in thinking, ‘I’m going to get rejected again today.’” Yoo echoed her mindset at the time, saying, “Even when you prepare so much and keep getting rejected, you start thinking, ‘Maybe I’m just someone who gets rejected.’”
Kim also spoke openly about the feedback she heard most often. “Almost every audition, I was told, ‘You’re too short,’” she said. “That gave me a real complex about my height.”
She continued, “I knew the roles didn’t really suit me, but I wanted to pass so badly that I started embellishing things about myself. I’m 158cm tall, but I wrote down 160cm. It always got found out, but I went around adding about 2cm,” revealing just how desperate she felt at the time. Kim Hye Yoon further surprised viewers by sharing that she appeared in 50 minor roles over seven years.
When Yoo Jae Suk commented, “That’s not easy to endure,” Kim Hye Yoon nodded in agreement. “It felt overwhelming. I kept wondering if I was doing the right thing, and it was also hard to balance acting with my studies,” she said, looking back on the difficult period.
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