Actress Baek Jin-hee looked back on a shocking rookie-era double-contract ordeal and the brutal grind of her 20s that left lasting scars.
On July 6, Baek uploaded a new video to her YouTube channel. Asked about the toughest moment of her career, she began, "It was always painful and hard."
"This may sound arrogant, but I lived way too intensely back then. I don’t want to go back," she confessed. "Even if I did, I don’t think I could push myself like that again. That’s probably why my 30s feel easier now." She added that she desperately wanted to do well but lacked experience, and trying to fill that gap with sheer effort alone made everything overwhelming.
The sudden spotlight after the MBC sitcom High Kick: Revenge of the Short Legged wasn’t easy either. "I was an ordinary person until that project," she recalled. "After it aired, I couldn’t go to supermarkets or subway stations for a while." Crowded places made her feel frozen while the world rushed past. "I think that was the start of my panic attacks," she admitted, adding that learning ceramics helped her endure that period.
She also brought up a double-contract issue from her debut days. "It was right when High Kick: Revenge of the Short Legged had just started. I still had time left on my contract with my agency, but a manager told me it had ended, so I signed with another company. It turned out that wasn’t true," she explained.
As a result, she suddenly found herself with two contracts, and certified letters started arriving. "I was just starting to get known, and something like that could have blown up into a major problem," she said. "I ended up paying all the money I earned from projects as penalty fees."
Baek called the incident a life lesson. "It happened because I didn’t know better. Through that, I learned you shouldn’t trust people too easily," she said, leaving a bitter aftertaste.
Baek Jin-hee debuted in film in 2009 and has appeared in a wide range of projects. This year, she starred in the MBC drama The Judge Returns.