Ahn Hyo-seop

Ahn Hyo-seop (Korean: 안효섭), also known as Paul Ahn, was born on April 17, 1995, in Seoul, South Korea. He moved to Canada with his family when he was seven and later returned to South Korea to pursue acting. Before acting, he trained at JYP Entertainment and was considered for the future group GOT7, but did not debut with it. In 2015, he joined the project boy group One O One under Starhaus Entertainment. The group’s activities ended in 2017. His television acting debut came in the 2015 MBC fantasy romance drama Splash Splash Love, in which he played a supporting role.

His early screen work included the 2016 SBS drama One More Happy Ending and the 2016 web drama After the Show Ends. He gained wider notice in KBS2’s 2017 weekend series My Father Is Strange, playing Park Chul-soo, a former idol trainee who becomes involved with Lee Mi-young. He also led the fantasy web drama Queen of the Ring as Park Se-gun. In 2018, he played Yoo Chan in the romantic comedy Thirty But Seventeen, opposite Shin Hye-sun. The series follows a violinist who awakens after thirteen years in a coma. His performance earned him an SBS Drama Award.

In 2019, Ahn took his first leading role in the tvN fantasy drama Abyss. He portrayed Cha Min, a cosmetics heir revived in a different body after death, alongside Park Bo-young’s prosecutor character. In 2020, he became surgeon Seo Woo-jin in the second season of SBS’s medical drama Dr. Romantic. Woo-jin is a gifted but debt-burdened doctor who joins Doldam Hospital and works under exacting Kim Sabu, played by Han Suk-kyu. Ahn reprised the part in Dr. Romantic 3, released in 2023. His work in the franchise earned him the Top Excellence Award at the 2020 SBS Drama Awards.

He starred in the 2021 SBS historical fantasy romance Lovers of the Red Sky as astrologer Ha Ram, who loses his sight after a supernatural incident and becomes connected to painter Hong Cheon-gi. In 2022, he played food company CEO Kang Tae-moo in Business Proposal, adapted from a webtoon and web novel. The Netflix-distributed romantic comedy centers on Shin Ha-ri, who impersonates her friend on a blind date with her employer. In 2023, Ahn led Netflix’s A Time Called You, the Korean adaptation of Taiwan’s Someday or One Day. He played Nam Si-heon and Koo Yeon-jun, characters linked by time travel.