Hoyeon Jung Is the First South Korean Solo Cover Girl of US ‘Vogue’
Hoyeon Jung might not have won Squid Game, but she’s certainly won the hearts of many fans — and this month, she’s the first South Korean woman to grace a solo cover of American Vogue. The model turned actor is no stranger to photo shoots, and she gets candid about her Netflix breakout role. Before the series dropped last fall, Jung had only 400,000 Instagram followers (what, like it’s hard?). Today, she sits at 23.7 million. The rapid rise to stardom hasn’t always been easy, however. Jung tells Vogue, “I don’t know why, but I couldn’t eat. I was so confused, and it was so chaotic. I didn’t believe it. I didn’t trust it.”
When Squid Game premiered last September, Jung’s character, Kang Sae-byeok, became everyone’s gganbu (close friend). Viewers were heartbroken after Sae-byeok met her deadly fate. While Squid Game Season 2 is in preproduction, fans are speculating about which characters will return. “I keep saying to do it like Penthouse,” Jung says, referencing a Korean drama where it’s common for characters to return from the dead. “I want to dye my hair like in Eternal Sunshine,” she adds. “But crazier. Purple? It’s my favorite color. You can write that: Please give me a character that dyes her hair purple.”
Whether we’ll see Sae-byeok again — with or without purple hair — there’s no denying that we will be seeing more of Jung herself. “I have always wanted to go to Hollywood and to act in America, and I still do, but Squid Game changed my mindset,” Jung says. “It doesn’t have to be an American movie or a European movie; it’s the story and the message that are more important.”
