Reports claim that veteran South Korean actress Lee Joo-sil has died. She had worked as an actress since the 60s and appeared in numerous movies, TV shows, and plays, garnering widespread recognition for portraying Hwang Jun-Ho’s mother in Season 2 of Netflix’s Squid Game.
Lee Joo-sil passes away at 81, claims report
Lee Joo-sil passed away on February 2, 2025, due to complications related to stomach cancer, according to a report by the South Korean newspaper The Chosun Ilbo. At the time of her death, the actress was reportedly 81 years old.
Joo-sil received her cancer diagnosis in November 2024, per her agency, 1230Culture and this wasn’t the first time Joo-sil had to deal with such a diagnosis. About three decades earlier, her doctors told her she had breast cancer and that she had a year to live. After reportedly going through treatment for 13 years, she received the good news that she was cancer-free. Joo-sil recalled the ordeal in a broadcast in July 2023, stating that she got the diagnosis “at the end of stage 3 and it soon became stage 4.” She also noted that she believed she overcame the disease because she had children.
Joo-sil elaborated, “If you let everything go, you become helpless. When I was contacted by a film company to work with them, I said, ‘I’m sick,’ and they said, ‘That’s an illness, and we’re working.’ I was grateful for that kind of thinking.”
Joo-sil had been active in the South Korean entertainment industry since the 60s, starting her career on stage before making her way to movies and television. Besides Squid Game, her extensive filmography includes projects such as A Single Spark (1995), The City of Violence (2006), The Sword with No Name (2009), Train to Busan (2016), and The Uncanny Counter (2020 – 2023).
Her funeral is reportedly planned to take place on February 5 at the Severance Hospital funeral hall in Sinchon, Seoul.
