With ‘The Affair Was Just the Beginning,’ Kim Hye-soo channels Kim Kardashian

For Kim Hye-soo’s flashy social media influencer character in Coupang Play’s “The Affair Was Just the Beginning,” one reference point was hard to miss: Kim Kardashian and her camera-conscious clan.

“Kyung-hee is someone who doesn’t simply blend in. I thought of someone like Kim Kardashian,” she said of developing the role’s look in a roundtable interview with reporters on Thursday.

"The Kardashian family — they’re all different, of course, but they all have that kind of image — very trendy and chic, but also bold and attention-grabbing," Kim said.

The black comedy and crime thriller series follows Kyung-hee, an ambitious influencer-turned businessperson who, after living in poverty with her failed actor husband and daughter, moves into a luxury house after making it big. 

For Kim, beyond Kyung-hee’s flashy appearance, her priorities as the family’s breadwinner were central to how she approached the character, the actor said.

"She’s someone who has lived very fiercely […] At the very foundation of Kyung-hee’s desires is the desire to protect her family,” Kim said. 

That desire to protect her family, combined with Kyung-hee’s self-interest and hunger for upward mobility, pushes her and her family into increasingly absurd situations. Living directly across from Kyung-hee is Su-jeong, played by “Parasite” (2019) star Cho Yeo-jeong, the director of her own skin clinic who is embroiled in a divorce and custody battle with her openly unfaithful husband.

Kyung-hee is desperate to get closer to Su-jeong and the world she represents, even when her efforts become comically excessive — at one point dressing up her entire family for a visit to the neighbors despite their homes being barely a meter apart. As Kyung-hee tries to climb the social ladder, the two families become increasingly entangled and their lives twist into ever darker territory — so much so that an extramarital affair really is just the beginning of their problems.

“Everything in the family seems to revolve around Kyung-hee — her will and her goals," Kim said. "You could say the family goes along with her desires, but whether their desires actually align with hers is another question. If they don’t, I think Kyung-hee’s desires ultimately take precedence.”

That self-interest, Kim says, is a human "instinct" that she can also recognize in herself.

“I definitely have a selfish side,” Kim said. “I’m more aware of my shortcomings than other people probably realize, so I’m always trying to make up for them. Underneath that is a kind of selfish instinct that, for me, actually works in a very positive way.”

That is why Kim said she makes a habit of dwelling on positive things, including praise, rather than brushing them aside.

“People may say I’m always hearing nice things and receiving compliments, but […] I use those compliments to wake myself up,” Kim said. “When I stop and take note of something good, it wakes me up again. I think that has become a habit.”

“I want to be motivated in a positive direction, to remind myself of the good things, to become a slightly better person and a better actor,” she added. “I think that desire is what lies underneath it all.”

The R-rated Coupang Play series, released on July 31, has become the streaming platform’s most-watched original series of all time, just four episodes into its eight-episode run. The title generated buzz even before its release, not only for its provocative name but also for the creative team behind it — director Lee Chang-hee, known for “Strangers from Hell” (2019) and “A Killer Paradox” (2024), and Firstman Studio, the production company co-founded by “Squid Game” (2021–25) creator Hwang Dong-hyuk.

Kim also gave high praise to the writers — Jung Eun-kyung and Park Soo-rin — for making familiar material feel unexpectedly fresh. She said she “started reading [the script] at night before going to bed and ended up reading straight through until dawn,” finding it compelling in a way she had previously experienced with projects including “Under the Queen’s Umbrella” (2022), “Signal” (2016) and “Juvenile Justice” (2022).

"[In Korea] we have so many great series these days, including foreign shows, so something can be entertaining without necessarily feeling fresh," Kim said. In "The subject matter itself isn’t new, but the way it’s structured and the way it keeps turning in unexpected directions felt very unique.”

Even knowing that the series was designed to misdirect her, she said she managed to "guess just one thing right," Kim said.

“It keeps going beyond what you expect,” she said. “But the amazing thing is that it all makes sense [in the end].”

"The Affair Was Just the Beginning" releases new episodes every Friday, with global streaming available through Rakuten Viki.

BY KIM JU-YEON [kim.juyeon2@joongang.co.kr]