KO SUJI
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ABOUT MUSE
NAME: ko suji. STAGE NAME: FACECLAIM: moon gayoung. BIRTHDAY: october 29th, 1997. DEBUT DATE: july 21st, 2012. LABEL: adagio. OCCUPATION(S): acting, directing. CAREER PAGE: link. BACKGROUND:
ko suji doesn’t feel a sense of belonging. born the only girl in a family of two intelligent, closely-nurtured boys, suji grows up feeling like the odd one out.
her feelings are only amplified when she realized the difference in the way she’s treated. the boys are showered with love and affection and enrolled in countless extracurriculars. their needs and wants are closely-nurtured, while suji finds herself often having to fight for even a second of her parents’ attention. she’s not asked about what she wants to do, nor is her education nurtured by her parents. while her family isn’t poor, they’re nowhere near being comfortable. suji’s given the necessities to succeed and to survive, but she’s not given much else. extra income is spent on her brothers’ education and her mother’s own selfish splurges, while suji finds herself dressed in hand-me-downs, trying to hide the holes in her clothing from the other kids. it’s clear to suji from a young age that she is and will never be their priority.
her mother drags her to the market one morning when she’s twelve. she’s dragged along to help her mother with the groceries, but they’re stopped by a smiling man in a fancy suit. suji finds him off-putting, but he hands her mother a business card which her mother happily accepts. the man goes on to shower suji with compliments. everything he says has to do with the way she looks and how he could plaster her face all over the city — no, the world — and, for some reason suji can’t quite understand at that age, her mother seems thrilled.
suji swears she sees dollar signs flashing in her mother’s eyes, but suji can’t remember ever seeing her mother give her such a big smile before. so, suji just accepts it when she hears her mother call the agent later that night — even though something in her gut makes her want to barge in and rip the phone out of her mother’s hand.
she’s pushed into beauty pageants and campaigns for a ridiculous amount of children’s clothing brands. she’s not really happy about it, but she continues to grin and bear it. when she’s fifteen, her agent pushes into auditioning for korea’s next top model. seeing how her mother’s face lights up at the idea, suji agrees to do it. she passes the auditions and manages to finish the gruelling competition as the runner-up. her mother is happy, even though she lost — because her daughter’s name is on everybody’s lips. suji isn’t that happy, but the attention from her parents is new. it’s nice.
she continues to work hard at modelling, even if she really isn’t that fond of it. it’s worth it to finally get some attention, after all. after she finishes with korea’s next top model, she starts getting regularly booked for fashion week, music video appearances, and several big campaigns. after a year of modelling exclusively in seoul, she starts getting booked for campaigns and shows in new york and london.
suji doesn’t feel a spark of passion until she’s given a very specific instruction on the set of a music video. the director has instructed to cry, and to cry hard. he tells her it’s okay to look messy, to look crazy, to look broken. suji found the instructions strangely cathartic. having been instructed to always look prim, proper, and pretty, it was strangely freeing to be asked to let herself come completely undone. getting the chance to let her emotions overflow like that was healing, to say the least — and it inspired suji to consider a career in acting as she was desperate to feel that release again.
so, suji manages to land herself a couple small roles here and there in a couple upcoming films. while she’s still modelling and appearing in various music videos, her focus is now entirely on building a career in acting. her breakout role comes in 2017 as im sang-mi in save me, which she receives a nomination for a baeksang arts award. the role puts her on the map, bringing love calls from many directors — but it isn’t until late 2018 that her career begins to truly take off. cast in both sky castle and burning, she receives an outpour of praise when the two projects are released. adagio, wishing to capitalize on the moment, orchestrates an appearance for suji on a counselling-style variety show. they instruct her to play up her upbringing and lack of a real childhood for sympathy points with the general public. she doesn’t want to, but she has no choice but to oblige. adagio’s strategy worked, as the public appreciated her for her hardwork and the struggles she had overcome. they call her hardworking, humble, good-natured, and so much more — but no matter how many flourishing praises she reads, suji doesn’t feel that great about it.
her career continues to flourish over the next few years. she’s steadily booked, despite how carefully she cherry-picks her projects to find the projects that move her the most. however, her career seems to come crashing down overnight when she’s revealed to be a part of dispatch’s “new year’s couple”. revealed to be dating a conversational figure in the public’s eyes, she has no choice but to watch as the public turn their backs on her overnight. adagio quickly tries to deny it, claiming the pair had just been working on a “project” together — but their lies provoke dispatch to come out with even more receipts. the attempt to cover the relationship only sours suji further in the public’s eyes.
suji started her career with nothing, and with no one. and now — with very few projects lined up for 2023 — she’s back to having nothing and no one.
IMAGE:
when suji first began her acting career, she was well-received within the public’s eyes. she had a pretty pristine, proper image, which was only amplified by adagio’s push for a “sob story”. the public considered suji hard-working, although she maintained a rather mysterious and cool image. she didn’t do many variety appearances and most of her “content” were vlogs, which barely ever feature much talking. people who met her spread stories about how kind and quiet she was, which only helped her look better in the public’s eyes.
her dating scandal tanked her reputation. after dispatch’s reveal, netizens tried to dig up anything and everything possible to tear suji down even further. the gritty, dark, and sometimes risqué nature of her short films — which were hardly known, prior to the scandal — were brought into question. they dug up photos of her tattoos, combed through her instagram for anything they could criticize, and shone a light on some of the gritty and questionable roles she chose to play throughout her career. adagio choosing to deny the relationship only backfired when dispatch came out with more proof — painting suji herself as a liar in the public’s eyes.
since the scandal emerged, the public’s perception has remained rather poor and suji has opted to lay low — taking on just a few projects throughout the year. she’s had no variety or public appearances — other than a few fashion shows internationally. people still do sing praises about her modelling and her acting, but the public has lost a lot of trust and respect for her since the scandal.
