[Photo &] Kim Hye-soo: “No one will watch just once” After “Now Affairs Aren’t the Problem” Tops the Cumulative #1

“Kim Hye-soo,” one of South Korea’s leading actresses, has pushed past another limit through the Coupang Play original series “Now Affairs Aren’t the Problem”. The work, which achieved a landmark as the No. 1 in cumulative viewership among all Coupang Play series, is a daring black comedy that breaks the formula of the usual melodramas about affairs and romance. His bold promise—“There won’t be anyone who watches just once”—has already become reality.

Unpacking a tightly woven narrative and audacity, opening a new chapter for “black comedy”

When asked during an interview in Jongno-gu, Seoul, on the 13th, she said, “Among the scripts I recently came across, it was the most original,” explaining the deciding reason she chose the project. From the title alone, this provocative series depicts the chaos unleashed by a couple next door—an insider doctor pair—caught up in messy divorce litigation alongside a show-window influencer couple with 1 million followers. Playing the successful interior design influencer “Gyeong-hee”, she portrays a perfectly matched visual couple with her younger husband Jae-hong (played by Kim Ji-hoon). In addition, the elegant dermatologist clinic director Soo-jung (played by Jo Yeo-jeong) and his husband Bo-sung (played by Kim Jae-chul) join in, driving the story forward with unpredictable twists.

Desire hidden behind the show-window, dissecting the raw face of a ruthless “imposter”

To the public, Gyeong-hee appears as pure splendor, but beneath the surface lies the face of a desperate “imposter” who fights tooth and nail to protect her family. She is the kind of person who clawed her way up to the top—turning even a leaky attic room into a “selling point.” The reason she refuses to lose her spine even amid her husband’s infidelity and repeated crises comes down to “survival instinct”—the need to make it work, no matter what. For the sake of embodying the character perfectly, she said she did in-depth analysis of real, well-known influencers in Korea and abroad. Through costumes, she visualized a warped desire aimed at the upper class. The setup of a flamboyant tweed jacket and a pink ribbon—worn even as she walks to the house next door where the two residences are close enough to touch noses—lays bare her inferiority complex and competitive drive toward the real upper class.

Even after 40 years of know-how, she keeps evolving—“Box-office momentum built by perfect teamwork”

The momentum exploded as the strong script by writers Jeong Eun-kyung and Park Soo-rin—who reportedly began writing with her in mind more than a decade ago—met the director Lee Chang-hee’s sharp, stylish direction. But she credited the success to her fellow cast members. While praising Kim Ji-hoon’s potential—shaped into the role through intense deliberation—she also recalled that fierce, wide-ranging debates with fellow actors who formed an ensemble, including Jo Yeo-jeong and Kim Jae-chul, raised the work’s level of completion. Even as a top-tier actor who has guarded her spot at the top for nearly 40 years since debuting in 1985, her confession—“On set, I’m always afraid, and I feel self-reproach over the gap between ideals and reality”—proves just how uncompromising her acting philosophy is. The Coupang Play original, which has reached the halfway point of its total eight episodes, is set to foreshadow even more shocking twists going forward. Her confidence that “the immersion only grows stronger” will keep pulling viewers to the screen until the very end.