Delving into the extremes of life! Gypso Ariyakanta in the Prime Cast program delves into the subject of body shape and societal expectations, sharing her experiences of suffering from Eating Disorder that no one knows about, once being obsessed with being thin to the point of almost losing her life, to learning to find the balance between extremes and moderation, especially in the matter of exercise, understanding and accepting the nature of the body and mind, and dealing with hormones with difficulty.
What is Yibso doing now? I didn’t ask your age.
Gypso: I’ve never been embarrassed about my age. I’m 36 this year. I’m really happy.
Which version of yourself do you like the most?
Gypso: It’s not necessarily a year, but overall, like when you’re 32 or 35, there will be a time when you like different things. But overall, I still insist on my original statement that no matter how old you were then or how old you are now, you’ll like that the most. I’m someone who doesn’t dare change anything because I feel that if I do, things won’t be like this anymore. I feel like it’s going to be like this no matter what.
What are you doing these days?
Gypso: These days, I’m working normally. In terms of social media, I have work, but I haven’t been working on any drama or acting projects right now. I’ve also been doing more art work. Like at the beginning of last year, in 2025, I started doing something like Exhibition Join. It’s like taking things I’ve drawn since I was a kid, which I’ve never really done seriously, and turning them into Exhibitions. And ever since then, I’ve been trying to be more consistent with it. And lately, I’ve been really into exercising. I’m having so much fun, it’s starting to have some karmic consequences.
What do you do that you like?
Gypso: You could say you’re doing a lot of things, but you’re not finding balance. There’s a difference. I don’t know where the balance is lost.
But is it true that bringing in more art helps heal our minds more?
Gypso: A lot. It’s like healing my mind, but not so much financially. I do what I want to do, but right now I’m trying to find that balance: how do I do what I want to do, and how do I do it wisely so that I can support myself? I do what I love, but what I love should also support my life. I feel like the era of having to compromise is over. I feel like the two should come together to be sustainable. I feel like it’s easier to do that these days. I feel like everyone, whether they’re young or old, has different skills at finding balance in their lives. Just because we’re adapting like we’re at this age doesn’t mean that we’re better at finding balance than others because it also depends on each person’s nature. Some people have been good at balancing their lives since childhood, but I’ve been very extreme since childhood. If you’ve known me all my life, I’m someone who goes all the way, like trying things out first. And most of the time, I go all the way, but it comes with consequences.
So, what did we learn from it?
Gypso: Yes, but even now, the most recent workout I did was extreme. It’s like you can’t stop your instincts, and when you do it, the results of that extreme will come out. Have we learned anything? We have, but at the same time, we also have to learn that no matter what category you’re in, don’t go too far. You should move around a bit.
Throughout your long career in the industry, do you feel that society or the standards of expectations people have for you have an effect on your mental health?
Gypso: Brutal. I consider it stubborn. It’s like, if there’s a certain standard that exists, it’s not like everything is okay. But we didn’t go so far as to rebel against anything. I believe that in the past, when we were in the industry, the beauty standards, whether you were a person in the industry or an actor, in the past, it had to be 1, 2, 3, 4. It was more stressful. When it comes to what we’re in, we feel like there’s a kind of rebellion. At least in our hearts, we feel that we don’t have to be exactly that way. We don’t have to have a folded image. We don’t have to look this pattern or that pattern. Because, to be honest, in our past, beauty was like a mixed-race Westerner. And we appeared in the industry with that exact face. And luckily, combined with the arrival of Korea, it made it possible for people like us to thrive in the industry. At that time, beauty standards had changed. And luckily, at that time, we were able to go with the flow, knowing that we wouldn’t change ourselves in any way. But if you ask if it had an impact, it was quite a lot. Especially back then, if we were working as ourselves, as Gypso, who was who we were, it wasn’t that serious. But when it came to acting, we felt incredibly pressured because we’re already stressed out when working. We’re naturally prone to stressing out about any work.
Are you a person who puts pressure on yourself?
Gypso: More than cute, quite a bit. It’s like doing something is serious. If we don’t do it fully, we feel guilty because I’m basically an extreme person. I want to do my best. When this is combined with the pressure of things that aren’t talked about much, of course, when you work in the acting industry or anything, we’re lucky to have the opportunity to get a lead role. You’re the heroine, even if no one tells you you have to weigh this much or look like this or anything, it’s automatic that we should fulfill something that follows the pattern that they want.
Which at that time had a lot of effect, right?
Gypso: Seriously, to the point where I used to have an eating disorder. It’s like a person can be anorexic, bulimia, or all of these. Sometimes they influence each other. At that time, it started with anorexia first. At that time, I was filming a lakorn and was determined to lose weight. I was around 20 years old, playing my first lakorn. Back then, acting in movies wasn’t that fixed. But when I acted in a lakorn, I wanted to make the role real. So if one day I became this kind of person, it shouldn’t be this body. So I tried to lose weight. It was written on the label 45 kg. I was determined. It was like one of my missions at that time. So it turned out that I lost a lot of weight. While filming the lakorn, the people on set were worried because I hardly ate anything. I ate very little, only vegetables. At that time, I was a mess, I was really fragile. My arms were tiny and completely flabby. My bones had gone up and down almost 10 kg. But it was 10 kg that wasn’t healthy. I didn’t do it the right way.
And who confirmed that it was anorexia at that time?
Gypso: No one confirmed it. We didn’t even know back then. It took years to find out. Many people with eating disorders don’t even realize it at the time. I was anorexic for a bit, and then my body finally refused. It’s like my body is so smart. It’s like I’ve been starving myself for so long. Eventually, it finds a way to fight back. Once it fought back, and we finished filming, my hair started falling out and everything. My period didn’t come because my body was dying from the lack of food. My body started to crave it a lot. Now that I’m stuck with the mentality that it’s a disease, the thinner the better. It’s like when people on set come to talk to me and say I’m already thin, and the director comes up with a concerned expression, it doesn’t work very well. But I can feel it from the eyes of the people around me that if I were thinner, it would be good. But it wasn’t said. Okay, I know. I accepted the challenge without anyone saying anything. And then I did it until the director came up and said, “You’re too thin,” no matter who else said it. It’s good. It’s like winning. It feels like winning. This isn’t a cool symptom. It’s a symptom of being sick. Thinking that the thinner you are, the better you are, it feels satisfying, like it’s right, like you’ve won, isn’t a symptom of someone with a normal mental state. But at that time, this disease wasn’t talked about or understood much because this is an abnormal symptom. People shouldn’t come to win over their smaller bodies. They didn’t care whether they looked beautiful or not at that time, they only cared about whether they were smaller. They didn’t eat, and later, when their body reacted, it forced them to crave it no matter what. After eating, they felt guilty. Later, it became bulimia. This disease isn’t cute, it doesn’t look clean, and it’s a disease that makes us hate ourselves a lot. Actually, bulimia is when we eat and we cut it out, we force ourselves.
How to overcome bulimia
Gypso: I spent a lot of time trying to remove myself from situations that put too much pressure on me because I felt like I wasn’t mentally strong enough to discern. That’s when I had to take a break from acting. Back then, those around me and those I worked with didn’t know I was sick. But if you ask if what happened today was good, looking back, I still say that I chose to go back and not change it. Because I’ve been through it all, it made me understand what it was like. Back then, I still couldn’t find a way out for myself to get better. I just knew that things were gradually easing up and getting better. But it didn’t go away on its own without me trying. I had to try to adjust my mental state as well. I tried to choose not to do things that I knew would harm me.
It ends with self-acceptance.
Gypso: It’s about bringing yourself to accept certain truths. I believe that if we feel that we have to be exactly this way in order to be good, to be accepted, to be called beautiful, or whatever, that’s not the truth. It’s stressful. Basically, everyone just wants to be good, to be loved, no matter what era.
After a lot of things happened to my body, I feel like I need to take care of my body. Is this the case?
Gypso: I don’t think it’s that bad (laughs). Ultimately, what really needs to be fixed is our habits. We still have to learn to adapt. The word “all out” isn’t always the best thing.
I heard that you have had severe menstrual cramps since you were a child?
Gypso: But hormones and I have talked about it since childhood. It seems like there was a period of improvement when I did Pilates and Zen. My body was great, very chill. But when I felt like having fun and wanted to do Hyrox, and then I used my body too hard, these days after graduating from Hyrox, my body is completely out of whack. Acne that I normally don’t have is back. At first, I had ovarian cysts that had been removed. I was hoping that they wouldn’t come back. At that time, they were chocolate cysts. But recently, I felt that I had cysts. They were so painful, so I went for another checkup. They came back. I believe it’s because I put myself through a lot of stress, both physically and mentally. I exercised too hard, ate poorly, and didn’t sleep well. It’s also a physical form of stress that the body perceives. So many people feel that they’re not stressed, but that doesn’t mean their body isn’t stressed.
Is your period usually on time?
Gypso: Luckily, my period is still on time these days. No matter how stressed I am, it still comes on time. But there are other symptoms. It could be skin issues, mood issues, weight issues, it tends to go in that direction more. Acne appears, I eat everything, I eat a lot, it’s like my body is telling me to eat now. So these days, I’m trying to tune back in, trying to live my life by forcing myself that I must sacrifice everything I’ve trained myself to do. I have to do whatever it takes to get my body back to a state where I’m as stress-free as possible. These days, I have to constantly worry about whether my body will be okay, will cysts appear again even though I’m not using birth control pills. I feel that if I’m not seriously ill, I don’t want to use hormones to stimulate it.
