Kim Hye-ja
{{Short description|South Korean actress (born 1941)}}
{{family name hatnote|Kim|lang=Korean}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2024}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Kim Hye-ja
| image = Kim Hye-ja in Feb 2019.png
| caption = Kim in February 2019
| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1941|10|25}}
| birth_place = Keijō, Korea, Empire of Japan.
| education = Ewha Womans University (dropped out)
| occupation = {{hlist|Actress|humanitarian}}
| years_active = 1963–present
| spouse = {{marriage|Im Jong-chan|1961|1998|reason=d}}
| children = 2
| honours = File:ROK_Order_of_Cultural_Merit_Eun-gwan_(2nd_Class)_ribbon.PNG Eungwan Order of Cultural Merit (2019)
| module = {{Infobox Korean name/auto|child=yes|headercolor=transparent
| hangul = %김혜자
| hanja = 金惠子
}}
}}
Kim Hye-ja ({{Korean|김혜자}}; born October 25, 1941)Profile on [https://movie.daum.net/person/main?personId=726 Daum 영화] is a South Korean actress and humanitarian. Best known to South Korean audiences as the archetypal mother figure in popular television series such as Country Diaries (1980–2002), What Is Love? (1991), My Mother's Sea (1993), and Roses and Beansprouts (1999). Kim drew international critical acclaim in the noir thriller Mother (2009),{{cite web|title=Kim Hye-ja|url=http://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/jsp/films/index/peopleView.jsp?peopleCd=10006390|website=Korean Film Biz Zone|access-date=February 4, 2015}} The Light in Your Eyes (2019), Our Blues (2022) and Heavenly Ever After (2025).
Early life
Kim was born on October 25, 1941, in Keijō, Korea, Empire of Japan (present-day Gyeonggi Province, Seoul, South Korea).{{citation needed|date=April 2025}}
Kim was studying Living Art at Ewha Womans University when she dropped out of college to pursue a career in acting.{{citation needed|date=April 2025}}
Career
Kim made her acting debut in 1963, and went on to star in more than 90 television dramas, including I Sell Happiness (1978), Sand Castle (1988), Winter Mist (1989), What Is Love? (1991), My Mother's Sea (1993), You and I (1997), and Roses and Beansprouts (1999).{{cite web|title=Actress Kim Hye-ja: the Audrey Hepburn of Korea|url=http://www.hancinema.net/actress-kim-hye-ja-the-audrey-hepburn-of-korea-2900.html|website=KBS Global via Hancinema|access-date=February 4, 2015|date=May 18, 2005}} Country Diaries, in which she appeared for 22 years, is particularly notable for making Kim into a household name and cementing her image among South Korean audiences as an iconic, unconditionally loving and self-sacrificing mother. Because of this wholesome onscreen persona, CJ CheilJedang hired her to endorse their products and appear in their advertisements for nearly 30 years, from 1975 to 2002.
Though she won Best Actress at the Manila International Film Festival in 1983 for Late Autumn and occasionally acted in stage plays and musicals, Kim was most active in television for four decades. She holds the record of having won the Daesang ("Grand Prize," or highest award) at the MBC Drama Awards the most times (3): in 1988, 1992, and 1999. Kim is the first and only person to have won the Daesang four times at the Baeksang Arts Awards: in 1979, 1989, 2009, and 2019.She tied with Kim Young-ok in 1979.
As Kim grew older, she expressed her disappointment in being relegated to supporting roles.{{cite web|last1=Kim|first1=Hyo-eun|title=In with the old, out with the new|url=http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/Article.aspx?aid=2951603|website=Korea JoongAng Daily|access-date=February 4, 2015|date=April 18, 2012}} Then in 2008, screenwriter Kim Soo-hyun cast Kim in the leading role of a woman who declares a one-year break from her family after spending decades as a housewife looking after her three children, a husband and a widowed father-in-law in Mom's Dead Upset. Kim's character broke free from stereotypical South Korean TV mothers in her desire for independence, and initial misgivings that viewers would find her unsympathetic turned out to be unfounded, with the series recording a peak viewership rating of 42.7%.{{cite web|last1=Chun|first1=Su-jin|title=TV Review: Runaway moms swap drudgery for liberty|url=http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/Article.aspx?aid=2893281|website=Korea JoongAng Daily|access-date=February 4, 2015|date=August 6, 2008}}{{cite web|title=Mom's Dead Upset Ends with 40.6% Viewer Rating|url=http://english.kbs.co.kr/hallyu/entertainment_news_view.html?No=1826|website=KBS Global|access-date=February 4, 2015|date=September 30, 2008}}
But 2009 marked another turning point in Kim's career, when she was cast in her first film a decade after Mayonnaise (1999).{{cite web|last1=Chung |first1=Ah-young |title=Actress Kim to Star in Bong's Film |url=https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/special/2008/04/178_22106.html |website=The Korea Times |access-date=February 4, 2015 |date=April 7, 2008 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150204040133/http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/special/2008/04/178_22106.html |archive-date= February 4, 2015 }} Acclaimed director Bong Joon-ho had long been an enthusiastic admirer of Kim's, and he said he'd wanted to make a film centered around the veteran actress, then it occurred to him that being the national symbol of motherhood might be as much a burden for Kim as it was an honor. So he decided to craft a role that would showcase Kim's talents and depict the duality of motherhood, then spent four years convincing her to take the role.{{cite web|last1=Adams|first1=Sam|title=Interview: Bong Joon-Ho|url=http://www.avclub.com/article/bong-joon-ho-38936|website=The A.V. Club|access-date=February 4, 2015|date=March 9, 2010}} In Mother, Kim surprised Korean audiences with her intense performance as a middle-aged single mother who obsessively loves her mentally handicapped son and sets out to prove his innocence when he's accused of murder. Bong said he would have given up the project if Kim had not accepted his offer, "Without Kim Hye-ja, Mother wouldn't exist."{{cite web|last1=Ki|first1=Sun-min|last2=Park|first2=Sun-young|title=Director drew inspiration from a maternal muse|url=http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/Article.aspx?aid=2905431|website=Korea JoongAng Daily|access-date=February 4, 2015|date=May 29, 2009}} Kim returned the compliment, saying Bong helped her "reactivate all the cells that have been dormant in (her) body."{{cite web|last1=Yang|first1=Sung-jin|title=Director Bong back with mother-son tale|url=http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=200904290047|website=The Korea Herald|access-date=February 4, 2015|date=April 29, 2009}} The film received critical acclaim from domestic audiences and international film festivals, and Kim won numerous acting awards. She was the first ever Korean actress to be named Best Actress by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.{{cite web|last=Lee |first=Hyo-won |title=Kim Hye-ja named best actress by LA critics |url=https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/art/2010/12/141_77925.html |website=The Korea Times |access-date=February 4, 2015 |date=December 13, 2010 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150204042308/http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/art/2010/12/141_77925.html |archive-date= February 4, 2015 }}{{cite web|last1=Kang|first1=Seok-ho|title=Korean Actress Kim Hye-ja Wins Best Actress from LAFCA|url=http://www.arirang.co.kr/News/News_View.asp?nseq=111519|website=Arirang News|access-date=February 4, 2015|date=January 16, 2011|archive-date=February 4, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150204035018/http://www.arirang.co.kr/News/News_View.asp?nseq=111519|url-status=dead}}{{Cite web | url=http://news.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2019/06/05/2019060502585.html |title = [단독인터뷰] 국민엄마 김혜자의 눈물 "미투라니?... 세상이 사람들이 괴물같다"|date = June 5, 2019}}
From 2011 to 2012, Kim headlined Living Among the Rich, one of the inaugural programs of newly launched cable channel jTBC. It was Kim's first sitcom in her 48-year career, and it followed her character as she and her family move into a rundown building in the wealthy area of southern Seoul and struggle to keep pace with their well-off neighbors.{{cite web|last1=Sung|first1=So-young|title=TV enters new era with launch of four networks|url=http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=2944909|website=Korea JoongAng Daily|access-date=February 4, 2015|date=December 1, 2011}}
She returned to the theater in 2013 to 2014 with Oscar, Letters to God, a Korean stage adaptation of the French novel Oscar and the Lady in Pink. In the one-woman show, Kim played 11 roles, including Oscar, a 10-year-old boy dying of leukemia, and the nurse (named Jang-mi or Granny Rose) that he confides in.{{cite web|last1=Kim|first1=Min-hye|title=Kim Hye-ja: I Want to Share Preciousness of Life|url=http://engsales.yonhapnews.co.kr/YNA/ContentsSales/EngSales/YISW_PopupMpicPreview.aspx?CID=MYH20131031010400345|website=Yonhap|access-date=February 4, 2015|date=October 31, 2013|archive-date=February 4, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150204040122/http://engsales.yonhapnews.co.kr/YNA/ContentsSales/EngSales/YISW_PopupMpicPreview.aspx?CID=MYH20131031010400345|url-status=dead}}{{cite web|last1=Lee|first1=Ji-young|title=No answers for Kim Hye-ja|url=http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/Article.aspx?aid=2988386|website=Korea JoongAng Daily|access-date=February 4, 2015|date=April 25, 2014}}
In late 2014, she played a rich and fussy widow in How to Steal a Dog, based on the same-titled novel by Barbara O'Connor.{{cite web|last1=Lee|first1=Do-eun|title=Kim Hye-ja sheds motherly image for latest film|url=http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/Article.aspx?aid=2998015|website=Korea JoongAng Daily|access-date=February 4, 2015|date=December 3, 2014}}
Other activities
=Ambassadorship=
Kim has been a goodwill ambassador for the nonprofit Christian relief organization World Vision Korea since 1991.{{cite web|last1=Yim|first1=Seung-hye|title=Actress Kim Hye-ja honored for charity work|url=http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=2943407|website=Korea JoongAng Daily|access-date=February 4, 2015|date=October 29, 2011}} She has visited refugee camps in war-torn and poverty-stricken regions in more than 20 countries around the globe, including Ethiopia, Kenya, India, Bangladesh and Sierra Leone,{{cite web|title=Kim Hye-ja: Harnessing Fame to Help Children in Poor Countries|url=http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2009/03/26/2009032661001.html|website=The Chosun Ilbo|access-date=February 4, 2015|date=March 26, 2009}}{{cite web|title=Ethiopian Child Welfare Center Named for Kim Hye-ja|url=http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2010/03/02/2010030200860.html|website=The Chosun Ilbo|access-date=February 4, 2015|date=March 2, 2010}} and sponsors 103 children from underdeveloped countries.{{cite web|title=Kim Hye-ja's Bangladeshi son enters graduate school in Korea|url=http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20120319001176|website=The Korea Herald|access-date=February 4, 2015|date=March 19, 2012}} In 2004, she wrote and published a book based on her experiences titled Don't Beat Someone, Even with Flowers, and donated all proceeds from its sales to underprivileged children in North Korea.
=Philanthropy=
In March 2023, Kim donated {{KRW|100 million|link=yes}} to help 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquake, by donating money through World Vision.{{cite web|url=https://entertain.naver.com/read?oid=241&aid=0003261317 |last=Lee|first=Se-bin|script-title=ko:김혜자, 튀르키예·시리아 구호 성금 1억 원 기부|trans-title=Kim Hye-ja donates 100 million won to Turkey and Syria relief fund |publisher=Ilgan Sports |via=Naver|date=March 9, 2023|access-date=March 13, 2023|language=ko}}
Filmography
=Film=
| class="wikitable sortable" | ||
| Year
! Title ! Role | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1982 | Late Autumn | Hye-rim |
| 1999 | Mayonnaise | Mom |
| 2009 | Mother | Mother |
| 2014 | How to Steal a Dog | Old lady |
| 2017 | The Way | Soon-ae |
=Television series=
Theater
| class="wikitable sortable" | ||
| Year
! Title ! Role | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1987 | Before the Rooster Crows Over Judah | |
| 1991 | 19 and 80 | Maude |
| 1997 | King David | |
| The Marriage of Figaro | ||
| Our Broadway Mama | ||
| 2001 | Shirley Valentine | Shirley Valentine |
| 2007 | Doubt{{cite web|title=Events Calendar: Doubt|url=http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20070303000020|website=The Korea Herald|access-date=February 4, 2015|date=March 3, 2007}} | Sister Aloysius |
| 2013–2014 | Oscar, Letters to God | Oscar/Jang-mi/Parents/Peggy Blue etc. |
Books
| class="wikitable sortable" | |||
| Year
! Title ! Publisher ! ISBN | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1994 | Kim Hye-ja's Small Voice | People | {{ISBN|8985947028}} |
| 2004 | Don't Beat Someone, Even with Flowers | Ancient Futures | {{ISBN|8995501405}} |
| 2011 | Small World (Watching the World Unfold Before Becoming an Adult) | Darim | {{ISBN|9788961770514}} |
Awards and nominations
= State honors =
| class="wikitable plainrowheaders sortable" style="margin-right: 0;"
|+List of State Honour(s) ! scope="col" |State ! scope="col" |Award Ceremony ! scope="col" |Year ! scope="col" |Honor ! class="unsortable" scope="col" |{{Abbr|Ref.|Reference(s)}} |
| scope="row" rowspan="1" |South Korea
| rowspan="2" |Korean Popular Culture and Arts Awards{{efn|Since 2010 Honors are given at the Korean Popular Culture and Arts Awards, arranged by the Korea Creative Content Agency and hosted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.}} | style="text-align:center" |2019 |
|---|
=Listicle=
| class="wikitable plainrowheaders sortable"
|+ Name of publisher, year listed, name of listicle, and placement ! scope="col" | Publisher ! scope="col" | Year ! scope="col" | List ! scope="col" | Placement ! scope="col" class="unsortable" | {{Abbr|Ref.|Reference(s)}} |
| scope="row" | KBS
| 2023 | The 50 people who made KBS shine | style="text-align:center" | 27th | style="text-align:center" | {{Cite web |script-title=ko:송혜교·송중기·BTS·아이유...시청자 선정 'KBS를 빛낸 50인' 발표 |trans-title= Song Hye-kyo, Song Joong-ki, BTS, IU... Announced '50 people who shined KBS' selected by the audience |url=https://v.daum.net/v/20230302141856027 |access-date=August 8, 2023 |website=언론사 뷰}}{{cite news|url=https://n.news.naver.com/entertain/article/009/0005099491|script-title=ko:'연중' 고두심→최불암, '50주년' KBS를 빛낸 50인 ★ 재조명|last=Park|first=Jung-soo|work=Maeil Economy|via=Naver|date=March 9, 2023|access-date=August 6, 2023|language=ko}}{{youTube|bYLsHk4HY9U|KBS 뉴스9: KBS를 빛낸 50인|link=no}} |
|---|
Notes
{{NoteFoot}}
{{notelist}}
References
{{reflist|2}}
External links
- {{KMDb person|00000647|Kim Hye-ja}}
- {{IMDb name|1067547|Kim Hye-ja}}
- {{HanCinema person}}
{{Navboxes
|title = Awards for Kim Hye-ja
|list =
{{Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress 2001-present}}
{{Paeksang Arts Award Grand Prize Television}}
{{Paeksang Arts Award Best Actress Television}}
{{Asian Film Award for Best Actress}}
{{Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Actress}}
{{Busan Film Critics Awards for Best Actress}}
{{Director's Cut Awards for Best Actress}}
{{KBS Drama Awards for Grand Prize (Daesang)}}
{{MBC Drama Awards for Grand Prize (Daesang)}}
}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kim, Hye-ja}}
Category:South Korean television actresses
Category:South Korean film actresses
Category:South Korean stage actresses
Category:South Korean musical theatre actresses
Category:20th-century South Korean actresses
Category:21st-century South Korean actresses
Category:Best Actress Asian Film Award winners
Category:Asia Pacific Screen Award winners
Category:Best Actress Paeksang Arts Award (television) winners