Actress Sa Mi-ja left viewers shocked after sharing a heartbreaking story about facing pay discrimination due to her educational background.
During her appearance on the JTBC variety show ‘Knowing Bros’ on the 9th, Sa Mi-ja opened up about an unforgettable incident from the early days of her acting career. When Seo Jang-hoon asked if winning awards leads to higher pay or a higher grade, Kim Young-ok replied that there wasn’t much change. This prompted Sa Mi-ja to share her own experience of visiting a production company to request a pay raise.
Feeling upset over her low pay at the time, Sa Mi-ja visited the production company and boldly told the manager, “Please raise my pay. I heard Lee Soon-jae gets the most.” However, the response was as sharp as a dagger. The production company discriminated against her, saying, “How can we pay someone who only graduated high school the same as someone who graduated from Seoul National University?”
Sa Mi-ja revealed that she burst into tears the moment she heard those words, saying, “I felt it was hopeless, so I just said goodbye and left.” She confessed that the wound remained so deep that it still haunts her even after all this time.
To overcome her inferiority complex and prove herself, Sa Mi-ja dedicated herself to studying more fiercely than anyone else. She focused on self-development, attending English and Chinese academies to the point where people around her called her “too much.” As a result, she surprised the cast on the show by effortlessly conversing in English with comedian Kim Young-chul. She proudly shared, “I’m at a level where I can have free-talking conversations with foreigners.”
Born in 1940, Sa Mi-ja graduated from Ewha Girls’ High School and began her acting journey in 1963 as a first-generation voice actor for Dong-a Broadcasting. Since then, she has established herself as a “National Actress,” delivering unique performances in numerous works such as ‘You Are My Destiny’, ‘Love You Ten Million Times’, and ‘Birth of a Rich Man’.
