Actress Lee Joo Bin opens up about 10 years of struggling as an aspiring actress: "I worried about phone bills since middle school"

26 May 2026, 23:34 by K-Soul · allkpop

Actress Lee Joo Bin candidly opened up about her long years of obscurity and the anxiety she still feels despite achieving success.

On the May 26 broadcast of SBS’s 'Sunim & Sonim: Soul Trip in India,' Buddhist monk Beopjeong counseled Lee Joo Bin as she shared her personal concerns and life story.

Sitting across from the monk on a train, Lee Joo Bin carefully began speaking about her childhood after being asked about her early years.

“To be honest, I don’t remember much about my childhood,” she said.

She continued, “I started working part-time jobs in middle school to pay for school expenses. When I was 21, my mother and younger sibling immigrated to the United States, where my maternal relatives lived, and my father also left to work at a factory, so I ended up living alone. I’ve always lived with anxiety.”

Lee Joo Bin also revealed that she only officially began acting at the age of 30 after spending a decade struggling as an aspiring actress.

When the monk remarked that he thought she had been acting since childhood, Lee Joo Bin clarified, “I spent 10 years just trying to become an actress.”

She recalled attending countless theater, short film, and independent film auditions without landing any roles. “Later on, I endured it with the mindset of, ‘Let’s just film one project and then quit,’” she said.

Lee Joo Bin added, “Whether I got an office job or got married, I kept telling myself to hang on for just one or two more years. Then, in my 10th year, I was finally cast in a good project. Since then, I haven’t stopped working.”

However, she admitted that fear continued to follow her even after finding success.

“I was terrified that work would stop coming in. I didn’t want to miss any opportunities, so I kept running nonstop,” she confessed.

Speaking about her current concerns, Lee Joo Bin said, “In the past, I worried about paying my phone bill and couldn’t even freely order the delivery food I wanted to eat. It’s been quite a while since I’ve had those worries.”

“But even though this was always the life I dreamed of, achieving it didn’t make me feel overwhelmingly fulfilled, nor did it completely erase my anxiety,” she continued. “These days, I keep wondering, ‘What do I truly want?’ and ‘What would actually make me happy?’ That’s my biggest concern lately.”

In response, the monk summarized her worries by saying, “Before success, people think they’ll become happy once they succeed, but even after success, happiness is not automatically completed.”

He advised her not to force herself to find one definitive answer to what she truly wants, adding that desires can naturally change over time.

The monk also emphasized the importance of self-reflection.

“Like the book 'Hope for the Flowers,' what ultimately matters is the process of looking back at yourself,” he explained. “When your mind feels anxious, quietly observe how your emotions move. Through reflection, you won’t become excessively excited or deeply discouraged, and your mind can become calm like a still lake.”

Toward the end of the conversation, the monk noted that Lee Joo Bin seemed to have “slight obsessive tendencies,” to which the actress quietly nodded while listening attentively.

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