Kim Ji-won

Kim Ji-won is a South Korean actor born on October 19, 1992, in Seoul. She entered entertainment through advertisements and appeared in music videos before building an acting career in television dramas and films. Her early screen work included the sitcom High Kick: Revenge of the Short Legged, where she played Kim Ji-won, and the 2013 teen drama The Heirs. In The Heirs, she portrayed Rachel Ryu, the wealthy fiancée of Kim Tan (Lee Min-ho), whose brittle rivalry and social expectations helped make her a prominent supporting character. Her wider recognition came with Descendants of the Sun, the 2016 military romance written by Kim Eun-sook and Kim Won-seok. Kim played army surgeon Yoon Myung-ju, whose relationship with sergeant Seo Dae-young (Jin Goo) runs alongside the central romance between doctor Kang Mo-yeon and captain Yoo Si-jin. The series became a major hit in South Korea and elsewhere in Asia, and its four principal actors received the Best Couple Award at the 2016 KBS Drama Awards. In 2017, Kim took her first leading television role in Fight for My Way. She played Choi Ae-ra, a department-store information desk worker who wants to become a television announcer. Park Seo-joon co-starred as Ko Dong-man, Ae-ra’s longtime friend and eventual romantic partner. The drama follows four friends pursuing ambitions despite precarious jobs and setbacks. Kim later played Tanya, a spiritual leader from the Wahan tribe, in Arthdal Chronicles, a fantasy series set in the fictional Bronze Age land of Arthdal. She returned for the drama’s 2023 second season, Arthdal Chronicles: The Sword of Aramun. In 2021’s Lovestruck in the City, she starred opposite Ji Chang-wook as Lee Eun-o, a freelancer who uses the alternate identity Yoon Seon-a after a complicated encounter in Yangyang. In My Liberation Notes (2022), she portrayed Yeom Mi-jeong, the youngest child in a family commuting from Sanpo Village to Seoul. The drama follows Mi-jeong and her siblings as they seek escape from emotional and economic weariness; Son Suk-ku played the enigmatic Mr. Gu. In 2024, Kim starred as Hong Hae-in in Queen of Tears. Hae-in is the executive of Queens Department Store and the heiress of Queens Group; Kim Soo-hyun played her husband, Baek Hyun-woo. The series begins with their marriage in crisis and develops through family conflict, illness, and a struggle over corporate control. Queen of Tears became tvN’s highest-rated drama in South Korea, ultimately surpassing Crash Landing on You.