The actor said the sudden creation of a public “Lee Min-ho image” left him feeling disconnected from the person he had always known himself to be.
Boys Over Flowers Gave Lee Min-ho Everything, but He Still Needed to Step Away
For many actors, landing a career-defining role is the moment they spend years waiting for.
For Lee Min-ho, that moment arrived so suddenly that he needed time to understand what had happened to him.
During the September 14 episode of the YouTube talk show Zzanbro Shin Dong-yup, Lee reflected on the extraordinary change that followed his role as Gu Jun-pyo in the 2009 KBS drama Boys Over Flowers.
The series transformed him from a relatively unknown actor into one of the most recognizable faces in Korean entertainment. Advertising offers, media attention and new projects followed almost immediately.
Yet Lee’s first reaction was not simply excitement. It was a feeling of distance between the person he knew and the celebrity image the public had created.
“It wasn’t that I was scared,” Lee explained. “Suddenly, another version of me, an image of me that had never existed before, appeared.”
He said the difference between that image and the life he had previously known created a sense of disconnect.
Success Arrived Before He Had Time to Process It
Before Boys Over Flowers, Lee had appeared in several productions, including Secret Campus, Mackerel Run, I Am Sam and Get Up. None had produced anything close to the attention that followed Gu Jun-pyo.
Lee was still in his early twenties when viewers across Asia began associating him with the wealthy, arrogant and romantic heir at the center of the drama.
That role did more than make him famous. It created a clearly defined public identity around him.
Lee told host Shin Dong-yup that he needed time to adjust, but the volume of work surrounding him made that difficult.
“I needed time to adapt, but there was too much work,” he recalled.
After completing major commitments, including important advertising schedules, Lee told his company that he wanted to rest for a year.
The decision surprised the other guests, but it also revealed how deliberately Lee approached his sudden fame. At the exact moment the entertainment industry would normally encourage a rising actor to accept every opportunity, he chose to pause.
The Risk of Becoming the Image Everyone Else Created
Shin Dong-yup observed that explosive fame at a young age can become dangerous when a person loses control or begins living entirely inside the identity created by public attention.
Lee agreed.
He said actors need opportunities to examine who they are, what they value and what they genuinely want.
That reflection adds new meaning to his break. Lee was not rejecting the success of Boys Over Flowers. He was trying to prevent that success from defining him before he had decided who he wanted to become.
Gu Jun-pyo remained one of the most recognizable characters of his career, but Lee’s later choices gradually expanded his image beyond the wealthy romantic lead.
He returned to television in March 2010 through Personal Taste, approximately one year after Boys Over Flowers. The romantic comedy paired him with Son Ye-jin and gave him a lighter, more grounded character than Gu Jun-pyo. Contemporary reports described the series as his return to television after roughly a year away.
He then moved into action with City Hunter, historical fantasy through Faith and another enormously popular youth romance with The Heirs. Later projects such as The Legend of the Blue Sea, The King: Eternal Monarch and Apple TV+’s Pachinko allowed him to work across different genres and international platforms.
Why His Confession Feels Different Now
Actors frequently speak about the pressure of fame, but Lee’s explanation was unusually specific.
His problem was not simply exhaustion or fear that his next drama would fail. It was the appearance of a second identity, one created by television, advertising and public expectation.
For audiences, “Lee Min-ho” had suddenly become inseparable from Gu Jun-pyo’s confidence, wealth and larger-than-life romantic appeal. For Lee himself, that public figure had arrived before he had time to understand it.
His decision to step away suggests that rest can serve a purpose beyond physical recovery. It can give a young performer enough distance to separate personal identity from a character who has become culturally dominant.
That may also explain why Lee described the period as a chance to clarify his values. Continuing to work without reflection could have made the public image increasingly difficult to distinguish from the actor behind it.
Lee Min-ho Is Now Entering Another New Chapter
Lee appeared on Zzanbro alongside Ryu Hye-young and Kim Dae-myung while promoting the film The Assassin(s).
Directed by Hur Jin-ho, the political mystery thriller is inspired by the 1974 assassination of South Korea’s first lady, Yuk Young-soo. The film follows characters investigating unresolved questions surrounding the shooting and combines historical records with fictional interpretation.
Lee plays rookie reporter Han Young-il, marking another departure from the polished romantic characters with which international audiences often associate him.
The film is scheduled to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival before opening in South Korean theaters on September 23.
His comments about Boys Over Flowers therefore arrive at an appropriate point in his career.
Seventeen years after Gu Jun-pyo made him a Hallyu star, Lee is no longer speaking as a young actor trying to escape one defining image. He is looking back as someone who has spent years learning how to carry that image without allowing it to become his entire identity.
The year he stepped away may once have appeared risky. From today’s perspective, it looks more like an early attempt to protect the person behind the celebrity.