Born in 1977, Kim Hyun-joo has dreamed of being a TV celebrity ever since she was in high school. After an unsuccessful participation in a contest to become a cover model for a magazine when she was in her junior year, she was later contacted again by the magazine and appeared within its pages. In 1996, she appeared in the music video for Kim Hyeoncheol’s song Lifetime, and the next year she made her acting debut playing a barmaid of a 1970s’ port town in the limited seri...More

Born in 1977, Kim Hyun-joo has dreamed of being a TV celebrity ever since she was in high school. After an unsuccessful participation in a contest to become a cover model for a magazine when she was in her junior year, she was later contacted again by the magazine and appeared within its pages. In 1996, she appeared in the music video for Kim Hyeoncheol’s song Lifetime, and the next year she made her acting debut playing a barmaid of a 1970s’ port town in the limited series <The Reason I Live For>. Kim continued to gain recognition through various roles and even landed a few roles in film, with <If It Snows on Christmas> (1998) soon followed by <Callia> (1999). She then starred alongside then-newcomers Cha Taehyun and Kang Haneul in the coming-of-age drama series <Into the Sunlight> and eventually hit the jackpot when she was cast as the titular character in the biopic drama series <Deoki> (2000). She suddenly rose to international stardom when she starred in the drama series <Glass Slippers>, which was a hit not only in Korea but also in Greater China. This led her to be offered the female lead role in the 2003 Hong Kong movie <Star Runner>. After a short hiatus, she made a brilliant comeback in 2007 with her acclaimed turn as an ex-convict who tries to start a new life in <Insoon is Pretty>. With the 2013 period drama <Blooded Palace: The War of Flowers>, she was cast against type as a royal concubine who stops at nothing to gain political influence over the King. Kim scored hits after hits with the family drama series <What is Happening to My Family?> in 2014 and the romance <I Have a Lover> in 2015. She expanded once again her acting range when she took on the role of a prosecutor-turned-lawyer in the thriller series <Watcher> (2019), before starring in the Korean remake of British series <Undercover> in 2021. Also in 2021, she played an attorney in Yeon Sangho’s Netflix fantasy series <Hellbound>. Less