Born in 1990, Kim Taeri knew she wanted to work in an artistic domain but didn’t have anything specific in mind. She went to a specialized high school in order to study graphic design, but when she was accepted into Kyung Hee University her dream was to be an announcer. As she wanted to get more involved in campus life, she decided to join the theater club. She was enjoying producing plays so much that it eventually dawned to her that this was her calling. Having joined th...More

Born in 1990, Kim Taeri knew she wanted to work in an artistic domain but didn’t have anything specific in mind. She went to a specialized high school in order to study graphic design, but when she was accepted into Kyung Hee University her dream was to be an announcer. As she wanted to get more involved in campus life, she decided to join the theater club. She was enjoying producing plays so much that it eventually dawned to her that this was her calling. Having joined the Iru Theatre Troupe after graduation, she spent her first year working backstage, until she was officially cast in 2012 to serve as an understudy for the monologue <Spoonface Steinberg>, although she ultimately didn’t have to appear on stage. She finally took part in <Pansy> and <To ask about love>, and she was double cast one year later for the rerun of <Spoonface Steinberg>.
Meanwhile, she also appeared in a few short movies, such as <Moon young> (2015) which premiered at the Seoul Independent Film Festival (a feature cut of the film was later released in 2017). Kim went to many auditions for films and faced many rejections, due in part to her being deemed by many already too old to start a career in mainstream movies. However, persistence paid off big time as it was through one of these auditions that she was chosen among 1’500 candidates by Park Chanwook himself for the lead role in <The Handmaiden> (2016). Her first appearance in a feature film also marked her breakthrough role, as not only did it allow her to walk the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival, but she was also later named Best New Actress at the Director’s Cut Awards, the Blue Dragon Film Awards, and the Asian Film Awards.
Having become the new face of Korean cinema overnight, Kim was cast in Jang Joonhwan’s historical drama <1987: When the Day Comes> (2017) and Yim Soonrye’s <Little Forest> (2018). Whereas the former managed to fare very well against competing Korean blockbusters with 7.2 million admissions, the latter was a sleeper hit that benefitted from positive word of mouth. After a cameo appearance in the series <Entourage>, she made her big television debut in 2018 with the critically acclaimed and hit period drama series <Mr. Sunshine>, which is set against the backdrop of the Korean Empire and its fight to remain independent from foreign powers. She was then set to star in the blockbuster <SPACE SWEEPERS> (2021), which eventually released as a Netflix original show to popular success. In 2022, she made her television comeback in another hit TV series, the 1990s-set <Twenty-Five Twenty-One> (2022) and won Best Actress in Television Award at the Baeksang Arts Awards. Just a few months later, she reunited with her <Little Forest> co-star Ryu Junyeol in Choi Donghoon’s high concept blockbuster film <Alienoid> (2022), the first installment of a planned duology.
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