Oscar-winning actress Youn Yuh-jung is a recognisable name nowadays due to her notable works including films Minari (2020) and The Wedding Banquet (2025) as well as drama series Pachinko (2022 – 2025), but there was a time when she accepted any acting role just to earn an income to raise her sons.
The 79-year-old South Korean was in Singapore on Dec 6 and 7 for the Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF), a part of Infocomm Media Development Authority’s (IMDA) Singapore Media Festival, where she was presented with the Screen Icon Award.
Speaking to the media on Dec 7, Yuh-jung, who has close to 60 years of acting experience, shared she wasn’t formally trained as an actress before entering showbiz in 1966. When she won Blue Dragon Film Awards’ Best Actress and Best New Actress at Grand Bell Awards in 1971 for her first film Woman of Fire, she thought she had made it in life.
She said: “I felt like I had everything in my hand. I was wrong as I realised later. I got married. During my time, people had to get married by a certain age… I thought I would live happily ever after, but it didn’t happen. I failed.
“When I came back to acting after nine years or so, many people had already forgotten about my fame or existence… Then I realised I was not a good actress and the fame was just fake, so I don’t believe in it anymore.”
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Yuh-jung was married to South Korean singer-songwriter Jo Young-nam from 1974 to 1987 and they have two sons together. According to a Korea JoongAng Daily’s report in 2021, he was known for having multiple extramarital affairs throughout their marriage.
Yuh-jung, who won Best Supporting Actress in the Academy Awards among others for her role in Minari, also attended the In Conversation With public event on Dec 6 where she told the audience that her divorce then was a “big scandal” in South Korean society.
“I was devastated, but they didn’t care about it, it was just gossip for them. I was thinking about returning to the United States for my children and living there privately. But a drama screenwriter gave me strength by telling me this, ‘You are very different from other actresses, you shouldn’t escape. You didn’t do anything wrong, you should stay here and rise like before,'” she said.
With the encouragement, she returned to acting and took up any role offered to her, so that she could earn a living.
She told reporters on Dec 7: “I became a survivor, because I would take any role, I didn’t care about supporting roles or just small parts… I only thought about feeding my two boys when I became a single mother… I was hungry for the roles and the money.”
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When asked how she juggled motherhood and her acting career during that period, she said: “I was working for both of them financially. But as a mother, I felt very sorry for them because I was mostly working. They never had ‘mummy’s cooking’. Most of the time they were living with the helper.
“When one of my boys was going to college, I told him I was so sorry because I was always not home and he never had me cooking for him. My son told me, ‘Don’t worry mum, that’s why we are all skinny’.”
Yuh-jung chuckled as she said this, and when she was further asked if she had felt heartbroken hearing her son’s response, she added: “There’s always both sides. While it’s a sad story, we can still laugh about it.”
She also shared during the In Conversation With session: “The Americans always say, ‘I love you’, but in the Korean way, love means sacrifice and devotion… I sacrifice my life for my boys, but I don’t expect them to sacrifice for me.”
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Yuh-jung said when she turned 65 years old, she promised herself she would live a “luxury life”.
She explained: “I am not talking about clothes or jewellery. During that time, I worked so hard for my two boys… After they graduated from school, I promised myself I would be free and do whatever I wanted to do. If I liked the director or if the screenwriter wrote a good script, I would do it. I will make my own choices.”
She added that not chasing after fame or the main role gave her freedom in choosing her own projects.
Yuh-jung was also asked if she had thought about retirement, which she told reporters: “I have seriously thought about it because of my health. On the set, working with young and energetic actors, they can’t treat me differently because of my age.
“But when I think about (life after) retirement, all I could do is watch television or read books at home. I will get bored if I do that. I don’t want to get bored, so I won’t complain about my situation and just do it.”
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yeo.shuhui@asiaone.com
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