Lim Ji-yeon

Lim Ji-yeon is a South Korean actor born on June 23, 1990, in Seoul. She studied acting at the Korea National University of Arts and emerged from its School of Drama before reaching a wider audience in the 2014 period film Obsessed. In Kim Dae-woo’s erotic melodrama, set in 1969, she played Jong-ga, the wife of a subordinate officer whose affair with Colonel Kim Jin-pyeong drives the story. Her first major screen role brought her nominations at South Korean film award ceremonies, including the Blue Dragon Film Awards. Her early career included the 2015 historical film The Treacherous, directed by Min Kyu-dong. She portrayed Dan-hee, a woman drawn into the court of Yeonsangun, the Joseon king depicted in the film. The film was released in South Korea in May 2015 and featured Ju Ji-hoon as Yeonsangun. In 2015, she also headlined the television melodrama High Society as Lee Ji-yi, a supermarket worker who becomes involved with a chaebol heir. On television, Lim later took leading parts in the MBC dramas Blow Breeze (2016) and Welcome 2 Life (2019). In Blow Breeze, she played Kim Mi-poong, a North Korean defector who settles in Seoul. Welcome 2 Life cast her as Ra Shi-on, a principled detective whose life is contrasted with an alternate reality. She also appeared in the 2022 Korean adaptation of Money Heist: Korea—Joint Economic Area, playing Seoul, one of the robbers in its hostage heist. Lim achieved major international recognition as Park Yeon-jin in Netflix’s The Glory, written by Kim Eun-sook and released in two parts between December 2022 and March 2023. Yeon-jin is the wealthy former school bully whose violence helped devastate Moon Dong-eun, played by Song Hye-kyo. As an adult, Yeon-jin works as a television weather presenter while Dong-eun methodically seeks revenge. Lim’s portrayal won Best Supporting Actress in television at the 59th Baeksang Arts Awards and brought her a new level of international public attention. In 2023, she led the psychological thriller Lies Hidden in My Garden as Chu Sang-eun, a financially troubled nurse married to an abusive doctor. That same year, she played police officer Joo Hyun in The Killing Vote. In 2024, she returned to historical television drama in The Tale of Lady Ok, portraying a servant woman who assumes another identity in Joseon. Her work ranges from provocative period cinema to contemporary revenge thrillers and broadcast melodrama, with The Glory becoming her most widely seen.