Song Yoon-ah (송윤아)

Don't let the serene countenance fool you. Song Yoon-ah is equally at home in gentle and motherly roles as she is in controversial ones, and she's got the awards to prove it.

Birthday: June 7, 1973

Instagram: songyoona2015

In k-dramaland, Song Yoon-ah is known for her memorable performances in the romance Hotelier (2001), the behind-the-industry-scenes drama On Air (2008), the action romance The K2 (2016), and the mystery thriller Secret Mother (2018), but it is in cinema that she really earned her stripes and went from model to bona fide actress.

She starred in 2002's Jail Breakers with Cha Seung-won and Sol Kyung-gyu, then in the 2004 horror film Face, and in the 2010 tearjerker Wedding Dress. After getting married to her Jail Breakers co-star Sol Kyung-gyu in 2009, she went on an acting hiatus in 2010, becoming an adjunct professor at the Seoul Arts College.

Song Yoon-ah then returned to acting in a big way, winning multiple best actress awards, including the coveted Baeksang, for her titular performance as a terminally-ill single mother in the 2014 drama series Mama.

Never one to be pigeonholed in "safe" roles, she then cranked up the heat as the "noona" and boss opposite Ji Chang-wook in The K2, and then joined the powerhouse ensemble composed of Yoo Jun-sang, Bae Soo-bin, Kim Sung-oh, and Kim Hye-eun, in the 2020 murder mystery Graceful Friends.

Her performance as a scorned wife in the 2021 infidelity drama Show Window: The Queen’s House, co-starring Lee Sung-jae, Jeon So-min and Hwang Chan-sung, helped lead to record-breaking ratings for cable network Channel A.

When not acting, she's known for being a mentor and good friend to fellow k-drama queens Son Ye-jin and Song Hye-kyo, and for taking close friends around Jeju Island, where she and her film star husband Sol Kyung-gu have a second home.