Key takeaways
- Suzy attributes her casting appeal to her ordinary, unassuming face that allows audiences to project their own emotions onto her characters.
- She constructs characters by imagining unseen backstories, relationships, and environmental influences beyond what appears in the script.
- She employs a compartmentalization method, metaphorically treating past characters as closed rooms and current projects as wide-open spaces.
- Her role selection process relies on instinct and an unexplained pull toward projects rather than systematic criteria.
Suzy has worked across projects like “Architecture 101,” “Anna,” “Doona!,” and “Genie, Make a Wish,” each revealing different dimensions of her talent. In her recent interview with ELLE Korea’s October issue, she reflected on why her face became her casting advantage, how she constructs psychological depth into characters, and the ambitious slate of projects currently reshaping her career—including the film “Seven O’Clock Breakfast for the Brokenhearted” arriving in December, the drama “Portraits of Delusion” premiering in the second half of 2026, and “The Men of the Harem,” which she is actively filming.
Why Casting Directors See More in Her Face
An Ordinary Canvas for Projection
Suzy initially puzzled over the repeated casting feedback about her appearance. “I didn’t understand why people used to think of first love when they looked at my face. Then I was told that because my face is ordinary and unassuming, it’s easy to project the emotions from a film onto it, and I thought, ‘I guess I can contain various characters in my face.’” The explanation shifted her understanding entirely. What she had perceived as a limitation—a face without distinctive features—had become the mechanism by which audiences could see themselves in her characters, their own emotions reflected back through her neutrality.
A Perpetual Discovery of Self
She resists the notion of fully understanding her own visual expression. “As time passes, there are moments when I discover expressions or sides of my face that I didn’t know I had. I’m really happy at those times, and I think there are still sides of myself that I don’t know about.” Rather than feeling that she has mastered her instrument, she speaks of acting as a process of perpetual self-recognition, where the work of exploring characters becomes inseparable from the work of discovering hidden aspects of herself.
The Psychology Behind a Character
Relationships and Environments as the True Subject
Her method extends far beyond the dialogue and action described on a page. “Rather than looking only at the character itself, I now think more about what kind of relationships the character has with the people around them and what kind of environment they grew up in. Even if it isn’t included in the script, I imagine what kind of time this character has gone through and create my own reasons and backstory for them.” This invisible structure—the unlived experiences, the formative moments never shown on screen, the connections that shape her character’s choices—informs every gesture and inflection she brings to a scene, creating a coherence that audiences sense but may not consciously recognize.
Managing Multiple Emotional Lives
Suzy employs an architectural metaphor to describe her interior relationship with the characters she has inhabited across her career. “I’ve always thought that there are multiple rooms in my heart. I have both affection and regrets for every character I’ve played, but I’m someone who values the present, so I think I’ve closed all the rooms well. Right now, only the room for ‘The Men of the Harem,’ which I’m filming, is wide open.” Rather than carrying her past roles forward as emotional baggage, she has developed a practice of closure and compartmentalization, honoring what each character gave her while maintaining psychological space to live fully in the present project. This discipline allows her to avoid the trap of revisiting old performances or letting one character’s emotional signature bleed into the next.
Three Projects, Three Emotional Territories
December’s Meditation on Shared Vulnerability
“Seven O’Clock Breakfast for the Brokenhearted” arrives in December, focusing on the particular kind of intimacy that forms between strangers bound by loss. Suzy was drawn to this specific premise: “I was very drawn to the fact that you can actually share things more honestly with strangers who have experienced similar sadness.” The film explores how shared grief can create a space where people lower their defenses and communicate truths they might never tell those closer to them. For Suzy, this emotional dynamic offered the opportunity to explore vulnerability as a form of honesty rather than weakness.
Director Han Jae Rim’s Vision of Delusion
“Portraits of Delusion” will premiere in the second half of 2026, pairing Suzy with director Han Jae Rim. She plays Song Jeong Hwa, a character whose psychological complexity required sustained exploration and collaboration. “The mysterious atmosphere I felt in director Han Jae Rim’s writing and the woman’s story contained within it deeply resonated with me. While playing Song Jeong Hwa, I feel like many different sides of me were captured on screen. It wasn’t an easy process, but I enjoyed it that much more and learned a lot.” The role pushed her not only to perform but to excavate aspects of herself she had not accessed before, making the production itself a form of artistic growth.
The Present: An Unfinished Room
“The Men of the Harem,” currently in production, occupies her full attention in a way her closed rooms do not. Unlike her past characters—meticulously compartmentalized and put to rest—this project remains alive and open, still unfolding, still demanding her presence. This is where her emotional energy resides right now.
Trusting the Unexplained Pull
When asked to articulate her criteria for selecting roles, Suzy offered no systematic framework. “Honestly, I still don’t really know what my criteria are. I want to act in projects and play characters that I feel drawn to at the time. In the end, I think I trust that next ‘pull’ a lot.” She prioritizes instinct over analysis, allowing a project to call to her in ways she does not fully articulate or examine. This approach—following the unexplained magnetism rather than checking boxes—has generated the varied body of work that defines her recent trajectory, from earlier projects to the three ambitious works now underway. It is a philosophy that resists prediction and remains, like her ordinary face itself, open to whatever emerges next.
Frequently Asked Questions
What upcoming projects is Suzy working on?
Suzy is currently filming "The Men of the Harem," has the film "Seven O'Clock Breakfast for the Brokenhearted" arriving in December, and the drama "Portraits of Delusion" premiering in the second half of 2026, where she plays Song Jeong Hwa.
How does Suzy build character depth?
Rather than focusing only on the character itself, she imagines the character's relationships, environment, childhood, and formative experiences—creating an invisible backstory that informs her performance even when those details don't appear on screen.
What does Suzy say about her face and casting?
Because her face is ordinary and unassuming, audiences find it easy to project their own emotions onto it, allowing her to portray diverse characters with different personalities and emotional landscapes.
