Lee Bo-young (이보영)

This two-time Daesang (Grand Prize) awardee and mother of two has proven that it is possible to maintain a successful career while raising a family. Nearly two decades since her television debut in the 2003 drama Escape from Unemployment, Lee Bo-young is a role model for young actresses who aspire to achieve that elusive balance.

Photo from Noblesse Magazine, May 2021

Birthday: January 12, 1979

"Once I was on a plane and an old lady patted my husband on the shoulder saying 'good job'. At that moment I realized again that it's compulsory for a mother to be looking after the child and it's such a wonder to see a man wearing the baby strap. This has to change,” Lee Bo-young shared in an interview while promoting her 2018 drama Mother. The anecdote underscores how much more challenging it is to be a working mom, and this is especially true in an industry always on the lookout for the next young star.

Lee Bo-young is best known for work in television, having acted in 24 dramas. Her first notable project was the 2004 drama Save the Last Dance for Me, where she met her husband, Ji Sung. Between 2004 to 2009, she acted in five films, most notably the noir action film A Dirty Carnival with Jo In-sung (2006), and the 2009 melodramas More Than Blue with Kwon Sang-woo and I Am Happy with Hyun Bin.

She became a household name in 2012, when she starred in the widely popular weekend family drama My Daughter Seo-young, with Korea’s “National Father” Chun Ho-jin. Her tenth year in the industry proved to be a phenomenal one for her, as she won two Daesang awards and the Baeksang Best Actress award for her role as a lawyer in yet another successful drama, the legal fantasy series I Can Hear Your Voice.

Having established herself as a reliable and bankable leading lady, she starred in a number of popular and well-loved dramas: the time-travel crime thriller God’s Gift:14 Days (2014), legal thriller Whisper (2017), Baeksang Best Drama winner Mother (2018), melo-romance When My Love Blooms (2020), and high society mystery Mine (2021).

She recently starred as an advertising agency executive in the JTBC drama Agency.

Lee Bo-young is set to lead Coupang Play's new original mystery thriller k-drama Hide adapted from the popular BBC series Keeping Faith. She will portray a woman who digs into the disappearance of her husband, to be played by Lee Moo-saeng.