Hoyeon Jung is the first Korean to appear solo on the cover of Vogue

(CNN) – The past few months have been a whirlwind for Hoyeon Jung.

The South Korean model-turned-actress rose to international fame almost overnight after the release of the dystopian Netflix series “The Squid Game.”

Her performance as North Korean defector Kang Sae-byeok made her one of the show’s rising stars. In a matter of weeks, he amassed millions of followers on Instagram, becoming the Korean actress most followed on the platform.

Jung is now the Vogue February Cover Star, the first Korean person to appear on the cover of a solo American fashion magazine.

In an interview with writer Monica Kim, Jung talks about his rise and fall and new rise: his rise through the ranks of the fashion world, the isolation he felt when modeling jobs declined, and global recognition in the wake. from the success of “The Squid Game.”

“The feeling … there is a limit to what words can express,” Jung told the magazine, adding that he lost four kilos. “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.”

The support of her family kept her sane, she said, while her overnight fame also made her reflect on the professional challenges she had been experiencing up until the release of “The Squid Game.”

A few years after Jung took second place on Korea’s “Next Top Model” at age 19, she moved to New York, where she became known on the runways for her dyed red hair. He had some impressive years, in which he worked with brands such as Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs and Chanel. But after 2019, job openings began to decline. So Jung filled his time with English classes and streaming, discovering films such as “Frances Ha” and “Incendies”, as well as a new interest in acting.

“Looking back, if it weren’t for those quiet, lonely moments, I don’t know if I’d ever dreamed of acting,” she told Vogue.

Now that Jung is enjoying a new level of success, he looks to the future and has some ideas about what he might want from his next project.

“I want to dye my hair like ‘Eternal Sunshine,'” she told the magazine. “But crazier. Purple? It’s my favorite color. You can write that: please give me a character who dyes her hair purple.”