Gong Yoo Opens Up About Anxiety After ‘Guardian: The Lonely and Great God’ Success

Gong Yoo might be an accomplished actor but the “Train to Busan” star revealed that the success also made him anxious. The actor, whose real name is Gong Ji-cheol, has just revealed that he suffered from anxiety after the positive response to his drama “Goblin: The Lonely and Great God”.

Gong Yoo Discusses Anxiety Over ‘Goblin’ Success

In the Chuseok special of “Pinggyego”, Gong Yoo was a guest and he discussed his career. When asked about his success, Gong admitted that he experienced anxiety when he was younger.

“Of course,” he said. “I’m not sure how you’ll take this, but I think I experienced it once in my twenties and once in my thirties.”

The “Coffee Prince” actor then added, “I don’t think I can explain clearly why I was anxious.” He then discussed how the success of his famous tvN drama caused his anxiety.

“For example, ‘Guardian: The Lonely and Great God’ did very well, but I wasn’t happy,” Gong said. “I was happy it did well, but apart from that, there was a time when I felt so empty and I couldn’t wake myself up. It’s not that the work was hard or that it went well, I wasn’t able to enjoy the spotlight when projects were a success.”

Suffering from anxiety isn’t the only problem he had. Gong admitted that he had some difficulty opening about his situation.

“It’s hard to say this openly,” he said. “It should be a time when other people would be so happy they feel like they’re floating in the clouds, but if I say that my heart felt strange, it feels like I’m not grateful. After going through a hard time like that, the way I look at people around me changed. I felt like I was more nosy in that I didn’t want them to go through the same hurt.”

Gong Yoo is set to reprise his role as the Recruiter in Netflix’s “Squid Game” Season 2 next year.