Kim Min Ha: "I have the resilience to get back up after falling"

Actress Kim Min Ha confessed that there is a significant gap between the strong image she presents to the public and her actual personality. While she is often perceived as capable and smart, she candidly admitted her imperfections, stating that she is someone who makes mistakes daily and struggles with doubt and frustration before making decisions.

On the 25th, magazine Cosmopolitan released a photoshoot for its September issue featuring Kim Min Ha. In the photos, she revealed her signature natural charm. Her freckles were captured naturally as a defining element of her unique look, rather than being artificially concealed.

In an interview following the shoot, Kim spoke about the public image surrounding her, saying, "Many people tell me that I look very strong, capable, and smart."

She continued, "While I am grateful for those words, the truth is that I am someone who is clumsy every day and experiences a lot of doubt and frustration before deciding on something."

However, she does not view her vulnerabilities in a purely negative light. "It is important to stand up again if you fall," Kim expressed, adding, "I am a soft person who can sink deeply if I am even slightly shaken by the process."

At the same time, she noted, "On the contrary, there is a side of me that can bounce back. That is why I believe I am a person with the resilience to rise again."

This "resilience" is deeply connected to the self-awareness she has developed throughout her career. Marking her 10th year as an actress this year, she defined her past decade not as a time that changed her, but as the period that built who she is today.

"Rather than changing me, that time seems to have made me who I am today," Kim recalled. "It was a time of steadily building experiences and firmly establishing my values and tastes."

She continued, "It was a time when I failed so much, learned, and gained so much. I don't want to go back, but it was a necessary period for me and a beautiful, precious time."

For an actor, a decade is more than just an increasing number of credits. It is a process of learning which roles to choose, establishing personal standards, and balancing public perception with personal desire. For Kim, the past 10 years were a period of growth where she solidified her own values through repeated cycles of success and failure.

During this journey, she expressed gratitude to those who provided both inspiration and comfort. "I received a lot of comfort from watching people who stay true to their convictions while expanding their own domains," Kim said. "Seeing people like that gave me the drive to expand my own reach as well."

Her family and friends have been her closest sources of strength. "My family is very close to me. I receive so much love and support from my mom, dad, and older sisters that I cannot imagine life without them. And my friends—they gave me both the carrot and the stick to make me who I am," she said.

As she continues to expand her professional reach, Kim is preparing for new projects. Having been cast in the film Let's Shake Our Sun, she is expected to showcase a different side of herself through the production.

Let's Shake Our Sun depicts a brilliant survival romance where a group of people wishing for miracles but withering away without a tomorrow meet Taeyang, an unpredictable and eccentric individual who promises them a future. Bound by a chance promise, the characters' worlds begin to collide.

The photoshoot, which embraced her natural freckles, and the interview, in which she did not hide her imperfections, offer a glimpse into the current state of Kim Min Ha. She is not a person of perfect, unshakable strength, but someone who falls and rises again. This "resilience" is the most honest self-introduction of her 10-year career.