Youn Yuh-jung

I'll be honest — I didn't fully appreciate Youn Yuh-jung until Minari, and then I felt kind of embarrassed about that, because this woman has been one of South Korea's finest actors since the early 1970s. She won a BAFTA, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress all in the same season, and she accepted that Oscar with more wit and charm than most people half her age could muster. What gets me is the sheer arc of it: she retired in the mid-70s, moved to the US, came back to Korea in 1984 and rebuilt her entire career from scratch — and then, at 73, swept the awards circuit. That's not luck, that's craft and resilience fused together over decades. She doesn't perform gravitas; she just has it.

Name (English)

Youn Yuh-jung

Name (Japanese)

ユン・ヨジョン

Reading

ゆん・よじょん

Born

June 19, 1947 (age 79)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Gemini / Boar

Origin

Kaesong, North Hwanghae Province, North Korea

Occupation

actor / film actor / television actor / stage actor

University

Hanyang University

Awards & achievements

• 2021 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
• 2021 BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
• 2021 Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role
• 2021 Time 100
• 1971 Sitges Film Festival Best Actress award
• Grand Bell Awards
• Blue Dragon Film Award for Best Actress

Motto

Private

• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%A6%E3%83%B3%E3%83%BB%E3%83%A8%E3%82%B8%E3%83%A7%E3%83%B3

Tags

• North Hwanghae Province
• actor
• film actor
• television actor

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.