My earliest recollection of Youn Yuh-Jung is from 1991 when she starred as a chatty and overbearing mother in the television series "What is Love," which currently holds the record for the third greatest average viewership of any Korean television broadcast in the United States.

It appeared to me that Youn was a far cry from the conventional Korean mothers I'd seen on television as a child of nine years old.

It wasn't simply because she played a snooty character that she was disliked. Kim Hye-ja, who also played a mother in the same drama, was more noticeable for her stiff appearance and deep voice, which made her stand out in stark contrast to her.

Kim gained national recognition as an ideal mother figure in a number of television shows, thanks to her approachable charm and beneficent smile.

Youn has also been well-liked by audiences and producers, albeit not in the same degree as the other characters. Since her debut in 1966, she has been in 36 films, including the Academy Award-winning film "Minari" (2021), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award, and over 100 television dramas, the most recent of which was "Pachinko" on Apple TV+.

The roles she played in what has grown to be an extensive résumé, on the other hand, were not always glitzy. In 1987, after her divorce from her husband, she had to start from the bottom by taking minor roles in order to make a living and provide for her two sons. At the time, divorcees were stigmatized in the entertainment industry and elsewhere.

Yoon has admitted that she has been bogged down by self-doubt and trapped by stereotypes and expectations of what female performers should look like at various points in her career. And she didn't try to keep it a secret.

She has stated on numerous occasions that her inferiority problem was the driving force behind her efforts to become a better actor.

"I'm not really attractive. "I don't have a nice voice, and I didn't go to film school," she admitted in an interview, and this has remained a phrase that she has repeated over and over.

Whether it was her artistic aspirations or her will to survive that enabled her to stay in the profession for more than 50 years, her individuality drew the attention of filmmakers who cast her in roles that were both versatile and experimental in their approach.

"I just wanted to stand out from the crowd. "For example, I didn't think it was necessary to have a 'Youn Yuh-jung who is similar to Kim Hye-ja,'" she stated in a 2015 interview on the character.

The mantra of living as your "true self" can be found everywhere, from advertisements for youth clothing labels to self-help books and everything in between.

Despite this, the 74-year-old actor's words of wisdom strike a striking chord with today's young people. That she is more credible than others may be due to her integrity and willingness to take chances in order to pursue new opportunities.

Movie directors recall her as an actor with a serious demeanor who doesn't sleep until she has memorized and analyzed all of the lines in order to become thoroughly involved in the lives of the people she plays on screen.

She also didn't back down when confronted with awkward situations. Yoon first voiced dissatisfaction with the casting of her in the 2016 film "The Bacchus Lady," in which she plays the primary character, an elderly prostitute. Still, she accepted the position, stating, "We require a film that deals with the concerns of the elderly and their loneliness in their final years."

After winning the Oscar, more and more people look up to her as a role model, but she continues to refuse to offer advise to aspiring performers, encouraging them to simply live their lives in her trademark funny and forthright manner, as she has done for decades.

Messages are the thing that I despise the most. What exactly am I? "Do you think I'm the Pope?"

In the event that she had chosen to become a carbon copy of someone else, we would not have had the Youn Yuh-jung that we know and love today.