Kim Hye-soo on Playing a Million-Follower Influencer in 'Nothing Serious'

Even in her 42nd year on screen, Kim Hye-soo still approaches a role like she is starting from scratch. For the new Coupang Play original series "The Affair Was Just the Beginning" (Jigeum Bullyuni Munjega Animnida), she plays a million-follower influencer, a world she says she knew nothing about. So she studied YouTube, leaned on her stylists, and rethought how her character should look on camera.

She spoke with reporters on August 13 at a cafe in Seoul's Samcheong-dong.

"The Affair Was Just the Beginning" is a dark comedy about a popular influencer couple who have built a picture-perfect family image online and a neighboring doctor couple going through a divorce. An unexpected secret pulls them together. Kim Hye-soo plays Kyung-hee, an interior design company CEO and a top influencer.

To build Kyung-hee, she watched real influencers for hours.

"It was a world I knew nothing about, so after taking the role I watched a lot of YouTube," she said. "I had only ever heard the number one million as an audience count. When I looked into it, even getting 100,000 subscribers turned out to be really hard. I borrowed and studied a lot from people who get that kind of attention and love from the public."

She was careful not to let the role turn into a showcase for herself.

"I held back a lot so people wouldn't think, 'Look at Kim Hye-soo showing off,'" she said. "I followed the stylists' opinions more than my own. When a character's look really needs to stand out, I actually step back. This time it was a flashy influencer role, so the stylists got to do whatever they wanted. They had a blast. Haha."

She said the harder question was how to show what was happening under the surface.

"I thought a lot about how to show the split inside someone who has run only toward success as the head of her household," she said. "A picture-perfect family doesn't actually exist. Families always have another side. Kyung-hee is someone who built her success by selling the outer shell of that picture-perfect family, so she wasn't a simple character."

She said the show is not really about cheating, even if that is where it starts.

"It starts with an affair, but it isn't only about affairs," she said. "I thought the core of the story is how many different sides a person shows in a given situation, and how you end up exposing yourself."

Kim Hye-soo also praised her co-stars. Kim Ji-hoon plays her husband, Jae-hong.

"As the episodes went on, it stopped feeling like Kim Ji-hoon was playing Jae-hong. It felt like Jae-hong was just who he is," she said. "I was proud of how much this project showed how far he can stretch as an actor. He deserves the praise."

Working with Cho Yeo-jeong was a reunion 26 years in the making. They last shared a set on the historical drama "Jang Hui-bin."

"We were both young then," she said. "Since then we each built ourselves up on our own paths and expanded our range, and now we've met again. She always does more than her share. I was grateful for the chance to work with her again."

Even after debuting in 1985, she said she still gets nervous going into a project.

"There were times I only slept during the drive to set," she said. "Even when I prepared ahead of time, there was never enough time on set. The time you get with a script before shooting is limited, and the shoot is right there, so there is real pressure."

"I don't think it's just me. A lot of actors cut into their sleep to do this. You have to show up with visible preparation, so you're always chipping away at something under a low-level anxiety. The script for this one was so good that I felt I had to do it justice. Managing the pace and intensity mattered a lot, and the cast and crew all thought hard about it. In the end, I think the show came out surprisingly well. I'm satisfied."

She closed by saying she keeps looking for ways to push herself.

"A lot of what I do is meant to push myself a little more," she said. "Even when I talk about what's good about someone else, it's because I want my brain to snap to attention one more time and take it in. One of the biggest goals in my life is to disarm the biases I might have. I want to keep giving my all with that mindset."