Kim Hyang-gi (김향기)

Boasting a career spanning over a decade and starting at 29 months old, Kim Hyang-gi has grown not only in age, but also in the maturity of her roles—a curious widow, a Korean spy, and a confident doctor.

Photo from HanCinema / Marie Claire

Birthday: August 9, 2000

At 3, she worked with Jung Woo-sung in a Paris Baguette ad in 2003. She later debuted as an actor in the 2006 movie Heart Is…, opposite Yoo Seung-ho. This was followed by her small-screen debut in the 2007 SBC melodramatic series Salt Doll. Since then, she has proved to be not only a prolific child actor, but also an accomplished one.

She starred in the MBC dramedy The Queen's Classroom (2013), winning Best Young Actress at the APAN Star Awards and the Seoul International Youth Film Festival. She then co-starred with Kim Hee-ae in the movie Thread of Lies (2014) as a bullying victim, earning a Baeksang Best New Actress award.

Opposite Ju Ji-hoon and Ha Jung-woo, she played a grim reaper in Korea’s third highest-grossing film of the year, Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds (2017), bagging the Blue Dragon Best Supporting Actor award. She also won a slew of popularity awards for the movie and its sequel, Along with the Gods: The Last 49 Days (2018).

It wasn’t long before she won three Best Actress awards for her role as a teen with Asperger’s Syndrome and the sole witness to murder in the legal mystery film Innocent Witness (2019). Reuniting with Jung Woo-sung after 16 years, she recreated with him the baguette commercial for a cute photo.

Photos from Soompi

Last year, she took on the role of a Korean spy in the Korean-Japanese naval battle film Hansan: Rising Dragon. Told from the perspective of the Japanese, the second movie in Kim Han-min's trilogy became a critically acclaimed box-office hit.

She transformed from a mystery-solving widow in Season 1 (2021) to an experienced doctor in Season 2 (2022) of Poong, the Joseon Psychiatrist opposite Kim Min-jae and Kim Sang-kyung. The tvN romance sageuk (historical show) is based on the 2016 Korea Story Contest Excellence Award winner, a novel of the same name by Lee Eun-so.

She is set to star as an aspiring webtoon writer in the film Just Breathing Together Is Enough and as a university student by day and a music YouTuber at night in the romance series Secret Playlist.