Kim Sun-young

Kim Sun-young is a South Korean actress famous for warm, funny and deeply real supporting roles. She is one of the most loved neighbourhood mothers and aunties in Korean drama. Global fans know her as Na Wol-sook in Crash Landing on You (2019) and from the classic family drama Reply 1988 (2015).

Kim Sun-young is 167 cm (5 ft 6 in) tall.

Early life

Kim Sun-young was born on April 10, 1976, in Yeongdeok, North Gyeongsang Province, South Korea. She studied philosophy at Hallym University. She made her stage debut in 1995 in the play After the Play Ends and spent many years in theatre, where she became known as an actress of rare skill and honesty.

Career and breakthrough

Her big television breakthrough came with Reply 1988 (2015), where she played a widowed mother raising two sons in a poor but warm neighbourhood. The role made her a household name. She then appeared in Because This Is My First Life (2017) as Kim Hyun-ja and in When the Camellia Blooms (2019) as Park Chan-suk, adding hit after hit to her name.

Popular roles

In Crash Landing on You (2019), Kim Sun-young plays Na Wol-sook, a North Korean village woman whose sharp tongue hides a soft heart. The role won her the Best Supporting Actress prize at the 2020 Baeksang Arts Awards. In Backstreet Rookie (2020), she plays Gong Boon-hee, and in Her Private Life (2019) she plays Eom So-hye, always bringing comedy that feels true to life.

Recent work and why fans love her

In film, she won the Grand Bell Award for Best Supporting Actress for Concrete Utopia (2023), and she joined The Trauma Code: Heroes on Call (2025) as Kang Myeong-hui. Fans love Kim Sun-young because she never acts down to ordinary people. She plays mothers, workers and neighbours with pride, humour and real tears.