Yunjin Kim is an American actress who was born in South Korea. She is best recognized for playing a recurrent part in the critically acclaimed television program “Lost.” She was born in Seoul and spent the opening days of her life there, before migrating to New York at the age of 7. She earned a drama degree from the esteemed “Boston University” and graduated. Following graduating, she began acting in theater and received her first significant break in the high-profile South Korean action hit “Shiri.” She appeared in a number of South Korean programs and movies during the ensuing years, and the series “Lost” catapulted her to international stardom. She has also appeared on Maxim’s “Hot 100” list and is usually linked to a number of popular starring roles in South Korean movies. She was hired in 2013 to play the lead role in the American TV show “Mistress.” She won multiple honors for her roles in “Shiri” and “Milae.” She also received praise from all over the world for her outstanding performance in “Lost.”
Early Childhood & Life
On November 7, 1973, Yunjin Kim was born in Seoul, South Korea. When she was ten years old, her family relocated to New York, and she claims that it was a very difficult transition for them because of their South Korean ancestry.
Due to his military duties, her father spent most of his time away from the family home. Her mother also held a job. Early in her adolescence, Kim enrolled in dancing courses and learned a variety of dance styles, including ballet and jazz. Although dance remained her first love, she finally joined a theatrical company to pursue her dream of becoming an actress.
After graduating from New York’s “Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts,” Kim joined a few theater companies to polish her acting abilities. She eventually studied at “Boston University” and graduated with a bachelor’s in drama.
She aspired to begin her career in the US because she had grown up watching American dramas and movies. She paid close attention to her accent, grammar, and other American actor-specific details. She not only practiced dancing, but she also trained in martial arts to build her physical strength.
She focused on acting entirely after finishing her graduation. She began performing in “Off-Broadway” plays and musical theater, and she trained rather well. After a brief stay in New York, she returned to South Korea, where her acting career really took off.
Career of Yunjin Kim
Yunjin appeared in the brief South Korean drama “Splendid Holiday,” which was filmed in New York, in 1997. After that, she started auditioning in the film industry in Seoul, and soon enough, her acting career took off.
She made two minor TV drama appearances, in “Foreboding” and “Wedding Dress Drama,” before landing her first significant role in the 1999 movie “Shiri.” Kim received praise for her performance and went on to win the “Grand Bell Award” and the “Korean Association of Film Critics Award” for it.
She then began to become known in the business after the release of “The Legend of Gingko.” Kim ultimately received a “Blue Dragon Film Award” for her outstanding performance in the 2002 movie “Milae.”
She made her debut in the main parts of the science-fiction movie “Yesterday” in 2002, and shortly after that, she received another prominent role in “Ardor.” The movie, which was an enormous critical and financial success, was based on the book “A Special Day That Comes Only Once In My Life.”
The creators of the mystery-drama series ‘Lost’ were hunting for a South Korean female actor to play a significant part in the series and their search concluded with Kim. It turned out to be a career-transforming move for Kim, as the series turned out to be a great international hit.
She was nominated for various national and international accolades as a result of her appearance in the series, and she ultimately took home the “Asian Excellence Award.” Along with the entire ensemble cast of “Lost,” she was also the recipient of a “Screen Actors Guild Award.”
Kim had the opportunity to participate in various American projects as a result of the enormous success of the six-season television series, but she always favored her South Korean roles because there weren’t many compelling American projects available.
The first project Kim worked on after her appearance in “Lost” was the South Korean crime drama “Diary of June.” In South Korea, she was already a great star thanks to her time on “Lost,” and the movie had a phenomenal opening weekend. It was one of the top-earning movies of the year by the time its box office run was over.
Kim plays the character of a lawyer whose daughter is abducted in the crime thriller movie “Seven Days.” To get her back safely, Kim’s character then has to purposefully lose a case. An international hit, the movie paved the door for several remakes elsewhere. For her portrayal, Kim later went on to win the “Best Actress” prize at the “Grand Bell Awards” and garnered a few further nominations.
Kim’s rousing success continued in 2011 with the release of the movie “Heartbeat.” The emotive drama, which dealt with the trafficking of human organs, had a triumphant debut at the local box office before going on to become one of the most popular movies of the year.
In the action-packed crime thriller “The Neighbor” from 2012, she had yet another fantastic performance. Kim played the lead part in the movie, which focused on the tenants of a tiny building and how their lives change after they learn that a serial murderer is secretly holed up in their building.
Kim was given the opportunity to play the main character in the American mystery-drama soap opera series “Mistresses” in 2013. Kim played the part of “Dr. Karen Kim” in the series, which took its name from a British drama of the same name. She played a psychiatrist who develops feelings for one of her patients, and the performance was lauded by the critics.
All 51 of the show’s episodes featured Kim as the lead, and it rose to fame in South Korea, finally winning the “Seoul International Drama Award” for “Best Foreign Drama.” Kim herself accepted the honor.
She then had appearances in “Ode to My Father” and “House of the Disappeared,” both produced in South Korea.
Individual Life of Yunjin Kim
Yunjin Kim had a committed relationship with Jeong Hyeok Park, her former manager. In 2010, after wrapping off her final “Lost” shot, she got married to Jeong.
She cherishes the moniker “Korean Julia Roberts,” which she received as a result of her stunning appearance and because she is a huge fan of Julia.
Kim once claimed that she was more of an American than a South Korean because she had spent the majority of her youth in New York; this claim did not sit well with her South Korean followers.
Yunjin Kim’s Net Worth
An American actress who works in both cinema and stage, Yunjin Kim, has a $4 million dollar fortune. She was born on November 7, 1973, in Seoul, South Korea. In the English-speaking world, she is best known for her roles as Sun on the American television drama Lost and as Karen Kim in the present ABC drama series Mistresses. She studied acting at the London Academy of Performing Arts before attending the famed Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, a public high school in Manhattan, New York. She eventually received a BFA in drama from Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts. She has also had martial arts and dancing training. After receiving her degree, Kim committed herself to act full-time and was cast in a number of small roles on MTV, in a few ABC dramas, and on off-Broadway stages. In May 2006, Kim was included in Maxim’s yearly list of the Hot 100, and in October of the same year, she was featured in a spread within the magazine as well as on the cover of Stuff. In March 2010, shortly after filming her final scenes for the television reality series Lost, she wed her longtime manager Jeong Hyeok Park.