An Eun-jin reveals Bell's palsy diagnosis mid-filming on '나쁜 엄마', shot scenes from one side only

Water leaked from her mouth while brushing her teeth

An Eun-jin got a Bell's palsy diagnosis mid-shoot on JTBC's 나쁜 엄마. She first noticed it on a filming day — water kept leaking from one side of her mouth while brushing her teeth. She went to set anyway, grew more concerned, told the director, and was sent to a hospital where doctors confirmed facial paralysis.

The production adjusted immediately. That day's scenes were shot using only her less-affected side profile, because her face moved with a time delay. After that, her schedule was suspended entirely, buying roughly one month of recovery time.

Treatment meant daily acupuncture at a Korean medicine clinic plus strong steroid injections from Western medicine. The steroids came with a cost: her face and knees swelled whenever she went for a walk. She finished 나쁜 엄마 with a swollen face.

"Every day it didn't improve and got worse, so I was depressed," she said. "That drama ended with me getting more and more swollen. I had to film, so there was no choice."

The miscast backlash she walked straight into

Before 나쁜 엄마, An Eun-jin faced a different kind of pressure. Early in MBC's 연인 — the drama that eventually brought her syndrome-level popularity — a miscast controversy broke out around her casting. She was, by her own account, terrified.

Her solution was blunt. She went directly to the director and said: "I cannot act on set unless I am loved. If you don't love me, my self-esteem won't build up, so please help me." The director responded with individual script study sessions and intensive readings.

연인 became the hit it did. Looking back now, she says the difficulty of that period is only clear in hindsight — at the time she was just grinding through it. (Every project, she says, has come with something hard. That tracks with the timeline.)

An Eun-jin is currently starring opposite Seo Kang-jun in KBS2's Saturday-Sunday drama 너 말고 다른 연애. The YouTube episode where she made these disclosures aired on the 13th on the channel 요정재형.