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 Reply 1988 (2015).

She is 167 cm tall and works with Kang Entertainment.

Early life

Kim Sun-young was born on April 10, 1976, in Yeongdeok, North Gyeongsang Province, South Korea. She studied philosophy at Hallym University.

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. She then appeared in Because This Is My First Life (2017) and When the Camellia Blooms (2019).

Popular roles

In Crash Landing on You (2019), she plays Na Wol-sook, a North Korean village woman whose sharp tongue hides a soft heart. The role won her Best Supporting Actress 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.

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 her because she plays mothers, workers, and neighbours with pride, humour, and real tears.