Kim Hye-soo Admits She Has Zero Talent for Being an Influencer

Kim Hye-soo has played doctors, prosecutors, and detectives. But an influencer? That, she readily admits, was a different challenge entirely — and not one she turned out to have a natural gift for. The veteran actress made the candid confession at a press conference for her upcoming Coupang Play series It's Not the Affair That's the Problem, held in Seoul on July 28. "I have absolutely zero talent for it," she said, drawing laughter from the assembled press. "Absolutely none."

The admission only made fans more eager to see how it all came together on screen. The eight-episode black comedy series premieres on Coupang Play on July 31 at 8 p.m., and if the press conference was any indication, the production has leaned into the gap between Kim Hye-soo's natural self and the polished, performative world her character inhabits.

The Role She Had to Study — From Scratch

In It's Not the Affair That's the Problem, Kim Hye-soo plays Gyeong-hui, a wildly successful lifestyle influencer who has built her entire public identity around the image of a perfect life. It is, by most measures, a far cry from how Kim Hye-soo — a three-decade industry veteran known for grounded, emotionally demanding roles — typically operates.

To close that gap, she went back to basics. She immersed herself in Korean influencer content, studying the personalities, cadences, and visual habits of real creators. She absorbed their particular energy: the ease they project, the way they speak to cameras, the calculated spontaneity that makes curated moments feel authentic. She borrowed those observations heavily for her performance, she said, and distilled them into the character.

The clothing required its own separate operation. Gyeong-hui's wardrobe — the kind of fashion-forward, brand-conscious looks that are a core part of any top influencer's identity — was custom-designed and produced for the shoot. The effort placed an additional load on the production team, and Kim Hye-soo acknowledged that directly. "The staff carried a huge amount of work," she said. "It's because they gave everything so wholeheartedly that the outer shell of the character came together."

The character herself is not static. Kim Hye-soo described Gyeong-hui as someone who changes significantly over the course of the series — a person whose beginning and ending look very different. "I thought a lot about how to vary the nuances of the performance as she moves through events and encounters different people," she explained. "How to manage the character's density, how to calibrate the intensity." The result, if the show delivers on its premise, should be an arc from confident surface to something more complicated underneath.

The Black Comedy at the Heart of It

The drama's setup is built around two couples who couldn't be more different on the surface — and who turn out to have far more in common than they'd like. Kim Hye-soo and co-star Kim Ji-hoon play the influencer couple: people who have made careers out of selling the appearance of domestic happiness, turning their relationship into content. Cho Yeo-jeong and Kim Jae-cheol play their neighbors — a doctor and his wife locked in a contentious and very messy divorce lawsuit.

When these two households become entangled — through secrets too big and too tangled to stay hidden — the series shifts into what its creators describe as a chain-reaction black comedy. The premise asks a darkly entertaining question: what happens when the people performing happiness come face-to-face with the people who have stopped pretending? The title offers its own wry answer: the affair, if there even is one, might turn out to be the least of anyone's problems.

Director Lee Chang-hee is at the helm, working with an ensemble that includes four of the more respected actors currently working in Korean screen. Cho Yeo-jeong, who earned international recognition for her role in Bong Joon-ho's Palme d'Or-winning film Parasite, brings the kind of controlled presence that makes domestic comedy land with unexpected weight. Kim Ji-hoon and Kim Jae-cheol, both reliably watchable in ensemble pieces, round out a cast that appears to have genuine chemistry — at least judging by the press conference's energy.

What Coupang Play Is Building

The series marks another significant original investment from Coupang Play, the streaming arm of Korean e-commerce giant Coupang. Over the past several years, Coupang Play has accelerated its slate of original Korean content, competing with domestic broadcast networks and international streamers for the attention of Korean-speaking audiences worldwide. Landing Kim Hye-soo and Cho Yeo-jeong together — two actresses with distinct but complementary screen presences — is precisely the kind of casting move that signals a production betting on quality over volume.

For Kim Hye-soo, the project continues a period of varied and well-regarded work. After earning critical praise for her role as a family court judge in the Netflix series Juvenile Justice, she has demonstrated a willingness to move across genres and platforms rather than settling into a comfortable formula. An influencer playing at happiness in a black comedy about secrets is a sharp left turn — which may be exactly the point.

Cho Yeo-jeong's casting, meanwhile, adds a layer of intrigue. Her international profile following Parasite has made her one of the more globally recognizable names in the project, and her character — an estranged wife in the middle of a bitter legal battle — sits at the opposite end of the glamour spectrum from Kim Hye-soo's Gyeong-hui. That contrast, and whatever sparks when the two women's worlds collide, may be one of the series' central pleasures.

Premiering July 31

Eight episodes means a tightly structured run — long enough to build genuine momentum but short enough to demand efficiency. Coupang Play has confirmed the first episode will go live on July 31 at 8 p.m., with a release schedule to be confirmed. The platform has become known for releasing episodes in batches rather than one at a time, a format that suits binge-friendly content and tends to generate concentrated social media activity around launch weekends.

Whether It's Not the Affair That's the Problem leans into the darker edges of its premise or ultimately delivers something lighter will likely become clear very quickly. The genre — black comedy blending domestic drama with escalating secrets — is one that Korean creators have executed well in recent years, and the combination of a sharp cast and a director with a clear vision gives this production the ingredients it needs.

As for Kim Hye-soo, the admission that she had no natural influencer instincts seems almost like a narrative asset at this point. There's something appealing about a performer of her stature tackling a role built on studied artifice — learning from the outside in, building a character from observation rather than instinct. Whether Gyeong-hui ends up as a vehicle for comedy, pathos, or something in between, the preparation alone suggests Kim Hye-soo took the challenge seriously. Even if the selfies, she says, were never quite right.