An idol-turned-actress revealed the reason why she decided to leave her group to focus on acting and the relationship she has with her ex-members now.
Recently, an interview following the finale of tvN‘s hit drama Four Hands, Two Sonatas was conducted with female lead Jang Gyuri.
Jang Gyuri debuted in 2018 as a member of fromis_9 and left the group in 2022 to pursue acting. She said acting had been a dream she held since high school. Although she had the option to continue both singing and acting, she explained that managing both simultaneously did not suit her personality.
“I’ve always wanted to act. It’s something I thought about since high school,” she said. “I could have done both singing and acting, but I’m not good at multitasking.”
Before leaving the group, she tried to juggle both activities and felt the difficulty firsthand. “Before I left, I was doing fan meetings, preparing and promoting albums, and filming Cheer Up all at the same time,” she recalled. “That’s when I really felt it.”
Jang Gyuri said, “It was very hard to adjust schedules. There were many times when the members had to practice without me. I wondered if I was causing trouble everywhere. That’s when I thought it would be better to focus on just one thing.”
Even after leaving, she has maintained good relations with the members of fromis_9. Regarding her current relationship with the members, she replied briefly, “We just get along well overall. We also keep in touch individually.”
The biggest change she felt after leaving the group and working solo was having to take responsibility for everything on her own. She said, “When I was in the group, we could complement each other’s weaknesses. I’m quite shy, so when I appeared on variety shows, I tended to stay quietly in the background since many of my friends are so good.”
As an actress, she said, “The biggest difference now is that wherever I go, I have to take full responsibility on my own.” Her eyes sparkled as she added, “In a way, that only makes me want to do better.”