Shin Hye Sun is reflecting on her long-awaited reunion with Lee Jun Hyuk, eight years after Stranger, this time in Netflix’s mystery thriller The Art of Sarah.
The two actors recently posed for an ELLE Korea photo shoot, capturing the tense, understated chemistry between their characters. In the series, Shin Hye Sun plays Sarah Kim, a woman desperate to become the real thing even if she starts as a fake, while Lee Jun Hyuk portrays Moo Kyung, the man chasing her ambition.
“I was really happy when I heard Lee Jun Hyuk was cast,” Shin Hye Sun said. “I did wish it had been a romance,” she added with a laugh. “But on set, he completely became Moo Kyung.”
Lee Jun Hyuk said he could not imagine anyone else in the role of Sarah Kim. “There’s no other actor I could picture but her. I’ve watched her work for years, and I trusted she would pull it off.”
He explained that what drew him to The Art of Sarah was its structure. “Some projects follow an actor’s emotions, but this one feels like the actor moves inside a carefully built framework. Rather than digging into one person’s inner world, it feels like we exist inside situations the audience is watching. That made it a new challenge.”
Shin Hye Sun pointed to a line that defines the series. “There’s a line that says, ‘If you can’t tell the fake from the real, is it really fake?’ While filming, it became genuinely hard to tell whether the character I was playing was real or not. I kept wondering who Sarah Kim truly is, why people feel drawn to her, and whether those around her are speaking the truth or lies.”
Both actors said the project demanded intense focus and trust. “I often asked, ‘Are you okay today?’” Lee Jun Hyuk said. “We had to read each other’s eyes and breathing rather than predict emotions.”
“That’s our chemistry,” Shin Hye Sun added. “We watched each other closely. Instead of releasing emotions all at once, we were moving forward step by step through shared rhythm and exchange.” Lee Jun Hyuk summed it up simply. “I really focused on her. In this project, the only person we could lean on through our acting was each other.”
Netflix’s The Art of Sarah premieres February 13th.
>> Shin Hye Sun and Lee Jun Hyuk Reunite in Netflix Thriller ‘The Art of Sarah,’ Premiering February
In the meantime, watch Shin Hye Sun in High School King on Amasian TV for free.
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