January 22, 2026
SEOUL – Han So-hee had a diary on the table. Not a planner or a notebook for jotting down schedules — an actual diary, complete with handwritten entries and decorations and the whole bit.
Press junkets are typically sterile affairs, a parade of identical questions and rehearsed talking points cycling through the room. But here was Han, flipping through pages of her own private thoughts as a room full of journalists looked on.
She balked when asked if she might share a bit of what was inside. “It’s mostly negative stuff. I’m not exactly an optimist.”
But she read some anyway. The day’s entry mentioned the interview itself, plus a passing thought about wanting business cards like the reporters in front of her.
“I write down what I’m feeling in the moment,” she said. “What state I’m in when I show up to work. Acting means living someone else’s life, so I need to know where mine is at first.”
It is not every day you get this kind of glimpse into Korea’s most inescapable celebrity, one whose trajectory to stardom over the past decade remains unmatched among her peers. Han started out modeling and picked up bit parts on TV before “The World of the Married” made her a household name in 2020 — a deliriously over-the-top revenge drama about infidelity that smashed cable ratings and turned her into a symbol of seductive treachery.
Netflix’s “My Name” followed, a blood-soaked hardboiled noir that proved she had more grit than her looks might suggest. Then came “Gyeongseong Creature,” a creature feature set during the Japanese occupation that drew lukewarm reviews despite its ambitious scope.
But the list of credits only tells part of the story. “Iconic” is the word that trails her these days: a bona fide celebrity for celebrity’s sake, the kind of star whose mere existence commands its own attention. Hers is a face that’s hard to forget, both for its beauty and its ubiquity — ads everywhere, brand deals stacked high.
The 33-year-old shrugs off any suggestion that her life has been turned upside down. “People say I live this extravagant life, but I really don’t. The only thing that changed is that I can order whatever food I want. That’s about it.” She still picks up shifts at a friend’s coffee shop on her days off, she said.
Her latest project pulls her into darker and seedier corners of society than anything she’s done before. The upcoming film “Project Y” casts her as Mi-sun, an escort tangled up in Seoul’s criminal underworld — a milieu of dirty money and organized crime where nobody can be trusted. It is a bleak vision of a world that wallows in brutality, where characters meet their end drowned in tar pits, an image that recurs often enough to function as the film’s central visual motif.
Han So-hee stars in “Project Y.” PHOTO: PLUS M ENTERTAINMENT/THE KOREA HERALD
This one is far from a safe pick, playing an escort as one of the biggest actors in the country, but Han went in with her eyes open. “This was the script that pushed me the most. It’s heavy subject matter, and I knew playing an escort could draw criticism. But it felt like now or never. A couple of years older, and I couldn’t have played this character.”
Heavy subject matter indeed, though director Lee Hwan frequently struggles to do it justice. Presenting itself as a hyper-polished neo-noir, the film lifts liberally from Hong Kong crime cinema and Western genre templates without ever settling into a reality of its own. What remains is serviceable but synthetic stuff, a high-concept premise deployed in service of a standard revenge narrative centered on the all-too-familiar themes of familial love and underdog solidarity.
It’s a gap the performers must fill on their own, which might explain Han’s focus on making things seem “convincing,” both for herself and the audience. The heist at the center of the plot carries enormous stakes, yet the two women pulling it off seem hopelessly short on plans or any clear sense of what comes next.
Han brought her own wardrobe to set: A leopard-print piece, a beat-up makeup pouch, anything to give the role some texture. “I wanted stuff that looked used,” she says. “Something with wear on it.”
What saves the day, at least in part, is the pairing at its center. Han and Jeon Jong-seo are close friends off-screen, and you can tell when that bond translates into something genuinely electric. Two of Korea’s most magnetic young actors sharing the frame, each pulling focus without canceling the other out — what’s not to like?
Han So-hee (right) and Jeon Jong-seo star in “Project Y.” PHOTO: PLUS M ENTERTAINMENT/THE KOREA HERALD
“She overflows with warmth,” Han says of her co-star, visibly lighting up. “She shows it freely, which I struggle with. But on set, when she became Do-kyung, none of that softness was visible. She just transforms.”
Their friendship, Han explained, is what made the implausible feel so real to her. “I asked myself: strip away the circumstances, the jobs, everything. If the only person I had left were this one friend, would I follow her into danger? I would.”
“I live and die by the people around me. That’s just how I’m built.”
Han talks freely, without hedging. There is nothing guarded about her, but nothing cold either; her words come out warm and direct. You can see that openness in the blog she’s kept for years, in her habit of showing up on social media to talk to fans whenever she gets the chance.
In an industry where one wrong comment can set off a firestorm, that candor has landed her in uncomfortable spots. Last year, a messy back-and-forth with her then-boyfriend’s ex played out on social media and took off from there, dominating tabloid headlines for weeks.
Han seems to have made her peace with it — or at least found a way to live with it. Dwelling on it doesn’t help, she says. “Not everyone is going to like me. I’ve stopped asking why. I try to take it as feedback now.”
There’s more to it than just the openness, though. There’s a sincerity to how she discusses her own work, a willingness to name her limitations and build from there.
“Early on, I leaned hard on whatever instincts I had,” she said. “Just winging it, going off gut feeling — things I was born with.
“But that stuff doesn’t last. If you keep painting every character with your own colors, you lose range.” She’s working now, she said, on emptying herself out, on turning herself into a “blank slate,” to use her own words.
“When someone asks what they think of Han So-hee as an actor, I want them to say she’s good. Not pretty, not whatever else. Just: ‘She’s good at that.'”
So what does Han want to do next? A psychopath, she says without hesitation.
“I’ve played so many characters who solve everything through emotion. I want someone who doesn’t feel anything, for whom trouble comes and doesn’t land.
“You know, it’s exhausting, being emotional all the time.”
“Project Y” opens Wednesday.