K-Drama for Healing

Kim Yoo-jung: Every Drama and Film, From Age Four to 2026

Have you ever followed an actor for so long that watching them feels like flipping through your own photo album? You remember the child in the hanbok, the teenager in the school uniform, the woman in the tailored coat — and somewhere in between, you got older too.

That is what watching Kim Yoo-jung is like. She has been on Korean screens since she was four years old, which means many of us have quietly measured out two decades of our own lives alongside hers. This month she does something that makes that feeling impossible to ignore: on September 16 and 23, 2026, KBS2 airs Love in the Moonlight, Drawn Again (구르미 다시 그린 달빛), a two-part special in which she, Park Bo-gum, Jinyoung, Chae Soo-bin and Kwak Dong-yeon take a one-night trip together to mark ten years since the drama aired. In the poster, the five of them are wearing the actual costumes they wore in 2016.

So here is the full record: every Korean drama and every film she has appeared in, what she played in each, and which ones were child roles. Then the leading men, and one question fans keep asking about her hobbies.

Who Is Kim Yoo-jung?

Kim Yoo-jung was born on September 22, 1999, in Seongdong District, Seoul. She started as a model for a confectionery brand at four and her acting debut is dated to 2003, with her earliest surviving credits appearing in 2004 and 2005 — so yes, a five-year-old really is on that first line of the list. By fifth grade she had already appeared in thirteen dramas and fifteen films, which earned her the nickname gungmin yeodongsaeng, the nation's little sister.

She graduated from Goyang High School of Arts in January 2018, is signed to Awesome ENT, and has an older sister, Kim Yeon-jung, who is also an actress. Because so many of her teenage roles were in period dramas, Korean outlets began calling her the sageuk fairy — sageuk meaning a historical costume drama. In 2017, at seventeen, she placed eighth on the Forbes Korea Power Celebrity list, the youngest person ever in that top ten.

Kim Yoo-jung Drama List: Every Korean Series, With Her Role

Child roles, 2004–2013

In Korean television, a ayeok is a child actor cast to play the younger version of the adult lead, usually in the first two or three episodes. Kim Yoo-jung did this more often, and for more famous actresses, than almost anyone of her generation.

The in-between years, 2014–2015

Leading roles, 2016–present

She also starred in two web series: Love Cells (2014) and Love Cells 2 (2015), as Ne-bi.

Kim Yoo-jung Movie List: Every Film, With Her Role

Child roles, 2004–2013

Teen and adult roles, 2014–present

Cameos, Special Appearances and Voice Work

These are worth separating out, because they are brief and it is easy to mistake them for full roles.

Kim Yoo-jung's Leading Men

Briefly, the actors she has shared top billing or a central romance with:

Does Kim Yoo-jung Really Love Fishing? Yes — Seriously.

This one is true, and more serious than most fans expect.

On JTBC's Knowing Bros in 2018, her co-star Yoon Kyun-sang brought it up before she could, saying her hobbies were remarkably grown-up for someone twelve years younger than him. She explained that she does boat fishing — heading out to sea for a couple of hours of what anglers call big game — and named bluefin tuna and yellowtail amberjack as her catches. Asked about the largest fish she had landed, she said it was around 1.2 to 1.3 metres.

In 2019, promoting the travel show Half Holiday, the producer said something telling: normally the crew explains an activity to the cast, but on that shoot they spent the whole time listening to her explain fishing to them. She also pushed back gently on how she looked on camera, saying fishing is a sport heavily affected by outside conditions and that what viewers saw was not her real form.

And on tvN's House on Wheels 2 in 2021, she went trout fishing, mentioned that she had done a lot of sea fishing and had regular spots she liked, then went back to the house and made kimchi sujebi — hand-torn dough soup — by eye, without measuring. On that episode she said the line that explains the whole hobby: she built up several hobbies so that she could be happy on her own.

The Healing Point: Ten Years Later, Someone Still Saves You a Seat

Five actors who worked together for a few months in 2016 agreed, a decade later, to put the same costumes back on and go away together for one night. Nobody has to do that. Careers diverge. People get busy, or famous, or tired. The fact that all five said yes suggests those months were not only a job.

Most of us carry a low hum of regret about people we worked alongside and never followed up with. The colleague from the project that ate a year of your life. The classmate you meant to call. We assume the window closed. Usually it did not close; nobody picked up the phone.

The fishing matters for the same reason. A young woman who had been working since she was four, whose entire childhood was scheduled by other people, went and taught herself to sit alone on a boat — not to perform a hobby, but to be able to enjoy her own company. That is a skill, and most of us postpone it until something forces it on us.

Living without regret is rarely about the big swings. It is about two small habits: learning to be content by yourself, and keeping the door open with the people who once mattered.

Where to Start If You Are New to Her

Start with 20th Century Girl if you want to cry. Start with Love in the Moonlight if you want the classic. Start with Dear X if you want to see how far she has travelled from the nation's little sister, though be warned, it is bleak. Then wait for October and the pickpocket in 1932 Gyeongseong.

Now I want to hear from you. Which Kim Yoo-jung role do you go back to — the child in Dong Yi, Ra-on in Love in the Moonlight, Bo-ra in 20th Century Girl, or someone else? And be honest: do you have a hobby that makes you happy on your own, the way fishing does for her, or is that still on your someday list? Tell me in the comments. I read every one.

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