Hoyeon on Top: From Major Model to Ascending Actress, the Artist Is Unstoppable

With the sound of cicadas performing their high-pitched rhythmic symphony on an especially humid summer morning in Seoul, Hoyeon arrives early at our October cover shoot fresh-faced and all smiles—despite having just endured a 13-hour flight from Los Angeles. The lower two-thirds of her naturally curly hair that were previously dyed cobalt blue are now a gorgeous cherry hue, perhaps as a nod to the bright-red locks that were once her signature. It's an ambitious day ahead with over nine looks, four hair changes, and a video interview on the schedule, but the South Korean actress and model doesn't even bat an eye or break a sweat. (Sweltering temps be damned.) Ever the professional, she's up for the challenge and ready to put in the work. That tenacity, it turns out, is a through line in all of Hoyeon's artistic pursuits.

To be fair, Hoyeon is no stranger to an arduous shoot day. It's par for the course for someone who has been working as a successful model for over 14 years. Hoyeon, who describes herself as an extrovert, turned to a career in front of the camera as a way to get outside of her home and start working. She started with a few classes, and by 16, she was already walking in shows during Seoul Fashion Week. In 2013, she competed on the fourth season of Korea's Next Top Model, where she placed as the runner-up and was soon appearing in spreads for Korean Vogue, Elle, and W.

Hoyeon's parents, both restaurateurs, imagined different career paths for her. Her dad wanted her to be a pharmacist because it offered job security, while her mom thought she could be a TV news anchor. "When out of the blue I said 'I am going to be a model,' I don't think they took me seriously," she says with a chuckle. Once Hoyeon signed with The Society Management and moved to New York, her career took off.

Traveling frequently for modeling gigs and living on her own in New York City away from her parents for the first time, Hoyeon quickly learned how to spend a lot of time alone. She turned to books and movies as hobbies and became entranced by the fictional worlds and actors she was watching on-screen. She tells me, "I was really mesmerized by this form of art and was naturally drawn to it and wanted to be a part of it."

So she put in the work.

During downtime between jobs, Hoyeon participated in acting classes. It wasn't long before she signed with a manager in Seoul and submitted her first-ever video audition for, you guessed it, Squid Game. She got the part, playing the reclusive and fan-favorite Kang Sae-byeok. Little did she know at the time that her performance in the Netflix mega hit would make her a breakout superstar, thrusting her to international fame (she gained nearly 15 million followers on Instagram in the weeks preceding the show's premiere) and making her one of the most in-demand new actors in Hollywood.

In the midst of the Squid Game frenzy, dozens of scripts were piling up for the newcomer, and Hoyeon's American agent sent her an offer for an audition for an English-language TV series. It was for four-time Oscar-winning director Alfonso Cuarón's next project, which was later revealed to be the Apple TV+ thriller miniseries Disclaimer.

Hoyeon needed no introduction to Cuarón's work. Roma and Y Tu Mamá También were among the influential films that shaped her passion for acting. "I started dreaming of becoming an actor because of those many films [I watched back in my modeling days], including his films," she says. "The fact that one day I would be sitting across from him speaking to him, that's just something that was completely out of anything I could have ever imagined for myself. The whole experience felt so surreal, and it was just unbelievable."

Understandably, Hoyeon's nerves were at an all-time high during that first meeting with Cuarón. She remembers the Zoom call vividly. Like a swan gliding through water, she appeared cool, calm, and collected from the waist up, but just outside the camera's view, her hands were shaking uncontrollably. She impressed Cuarón with her audition and nabbed the part. "When I got the news that I was cast [in Disclaimer], I was overjoyed and elated. I think I let out a scream and almost collapsed when I heard it. It was just an inexplicable level of joy," she says.

Cuarón has equated his television debut to a seven-hour-long film broken up into seven episodes. Based on the 2015 best-selling novel of the same name by Renée Knight, Disclaimer follows well-respected documentarian Catherine Ravenscoft, played spectacularly by Cate Blanchett, who at the height of her career discovers she is the prominent character of a novel that reveals her darkest secret. What unfolds is a beautiful and gut-wrenching depiction of grief, human fragility, and betrayal.

It took Hoyeon around 10 days to read through the entire script, which is standard for the native Korean speaker when going through any English-language project, especially a series. "It was just so gripping, extremely immersive, and very intense. [It's] mentally intriguing and engaging, and it really won my heart over," she says.

Hoyeon immediately cleared her busy schedule and got to work. If she was going to properly embody Jisoo, Catherine's ambitious assistant, she needed to give the character her full, undivided attention.

There's that tenacity again.

"I let my team know that I wanted to take the time to prepare for the role, and I say that, of course, knowing my role or screen time overall wasn't that big in the show," Hoyeon says. She flew to London a month prior to filming, which she approached like a meditation period, to isolate herself from any other distractions. Once there, she started working with a dialogue coach and interviewing personal assistants—friends of friends and Korean expats who moved to the States and took on assistant jobs. "It was really interesting because Alfonso asked me, 'What do you think would be on the top of your character's desk when you arrive on set?' I thought that was a really interesting question because I had never thought of it from that perspective," she tells me. "When I was interviewing these people who had experiences being assistants, I would ask them, 'What's your daily life like? What are the things that you do as a personal assistant? What is your daily work filled with?'"

Hoyeon was a sponge soaking in every detail. Sharing most of her screen time with Blanchett, she received a master class in both craft and poise on set. On top of the warmth and patience Blanchett showed Hoyeon during filming, she was in complete awe of the Oscar winner's professionalism and sense of inner self. "When it comes to Cate—no matter what the circumstances are, no matter what changes on set—she is someone who is so consistent," Hoyeon says of her co-star. "I would love to also be someone who, very much like her, is considerate of others."

At the end of August, Hoyeon reunited with Blanchett for the show's Venice Film Festival premiere, where both hit the red carpet in custom looks by Louis Vuitton. Hoyeon wore a stunning red sequin bias-cut gown. Following a screening of the first four episodes at the famed Lido di Venezia, Disclaimer and the cast received a six-minute-plus standing ovation accompanied by rave reviews from critics, positioning it as one of the most anticipated shows this fall.

First Squid Game—now Disclaimer. Hoyeon is two for two in hit series, and it's no coincidence. The success of Squid Game has certainly opened more doors for Hoyeon, but she's playing it smart and being purposeful in her choices by surrounding herself with industry greats she can learn and grow from. "When I think about the sort of ambitions I have about my career, I would say it's not so much about the characters or roles that I get to play but [rather] the people I get to work with," she says. It's the creative process of different artists coming together and influencing one another that keeps Hoyeon coming back for more. She adds, "If there is one thing that I truly aspire to achieve in my career, [it] is to be able to meet and work with as many great artists who have their own unique views of the world and their sense of values." Her next project—the Na Hong-jin directed Korean film Hope, in which she stars alongside Alicia Vikander, Michael Fassbender, and Taylor Russell—is another testament to this.

With her acting career on hyperspeed, it begs the question: How does modeling still fit into the equation? Hoyeon is adamant that one doesn't take precedence over the other, telling me she approaches both with the same attitude and mindset. However, she tells me there was a point, for just a moment, that she did question whether she should be approaching them differently. The question came up so much at one point that she started to doubt herself. Good friend and Louis Vuitton Creative Director Nicolas Ghesquière offered her a new perspective. "He would tell me what [I'm] doing is amazing and that it's not about "Is it modeling, or is it acting?" but about expressing yourself in your own form of art," she says. These words of reassurance gave Hoyeon the courage she needed to proceed with equal measure.

Ghesquière, Louis Vuitton, and Hoyeon go way back—since 2016, to be exact, when she made her Paris Fashion Week debut as an exclusive for the house. In 2021, she was named a global ambassador for the brand, and earlier this year, she closed out its F/W 24 show celebrating Ghesquière's 10-year anniversary. The LV team has long been championing Hoyeon's burgeoning career, for which she feels extremely grateful. It's an ideal match, as Louis Vuitton's androgynous aesthetic and the unique values that Ghesquière embodies through his designs align with Hoyeon's own values. "I hope for a very long-lasting relationship with them in the future," she says.

Between runway shows, international premieres, and filming, moments of "me" time and solitude are infrequent for Hoyeon these days. While she has somewhat adjusted to her new normal—often getting recognized and approached on the street—she cherishes the quiet time she has at home with her two cats. When I ask how she stays grounded through it all, she lights up and starts telling me about an epiphany she had just the other day: She loves cleaning and housework. On a recent rare day off, she spent hours deep-cleaning her bathroom, meticulously covering every inch of the room. She tells me the intense tidying grounded her and unlocked "this level of confidence and self-awareness." "I feel like that act of cleaning your space really has a huge impact on how you're feeling about yourself, and I actually think it's really good for your mental health as well," she adds.

Cleaning, acting, modeling—it doesn't matter. Whatever Hoyeon puts her mind to, she goes all in.

Talent: Hoyeon

Photographer: Heejune Kim at @co.op.dot

Stylist: Aeri Yun at @thewallgroup

Editorial Director: Lauren Eggertsen

Hairstylist: Seonyeong Lee at @agency_garten

Makeup Artist: Huijung Hwang at @dinnerout_

Manicurist: Eunkyung Park at @co.op.dot

Prop Stylist: Darak

Director of Video: Samuel Schultz

DP: Andy Iere Kim

Sound Editor: Yujin Seo

Creative Director: Alexa Wiley

Producer: KNT Production

Executive Director of Entertainment: Jessica Baker

Copy Editor: Jaree Campbell