ProfileWho is Moon Ga-young, Korean actress known for K-dramas True Beauty and Law and the City?

This is shaping up to be an eye-catching year for Moon Ga-young on the small screen. The rising actress, also known as Mun Ka-young, is currently starring opposite Lee Jong-suk in the slice-of-life legal drama Law and the City – already her second K-drama of the year, following My Dearest Nemesis. Moon, who turned 29 this week, was born in Karlsruhe, Germany to South Korean parents who were studying there. She grew up in a trilingual household speaking German, English and Korean. She became a child model for a clothing magazine after she was discovered on the street as her mother pushed her around in a stroller. When the family moved back to South Korea in 2005, Moon and her older sister entered a modelling competition, and Moon was selected for a photo shoot for a children’s fashion catalogue. She acclimatised to Korea and its film and drama industry quickly and, shortly after arriving in the country, became a child actress, making her screen debut in the K-horror film Bloody Reunion when she was just 10 years old. Why we love her Moon has been active on the big and small screen for the past two decades, successfully transitioning from child to adult actor, but she has not neglected her academic pursuits. She enrolled in the department of acting and arts at Seoul’s Sungkyunkwan University in 2015, at a time when she was already a well-known performer. While there, she nurtured her interests in acting and classical literature. Moon remains an avid reader today, citing texts like the work of psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan as some of her favourite reading material. At university, she became friends with Kim Nam-joo of the K-pop girl band A-pink and actress Shin Ye-eun (Jeongnyeon: The Star Is Born). Other notable friends she made in her youth include fellow child actors Kim Yoo-jung (My Demon) and Kim Min-jae (Poong, the Joseon Psychiatrist). Moon’s magnetic screen presence is only one of her many talents. In addition to being multilingual, she is also a prolific instrumentalist and can play the piano and flute – no doubt influenced by her mother, who studied piano in Germany. The star-making roles Moon’s first major leading role in a drama was opposite Kim Dong-wook in the romantic Find Me in Your Memory. Moon plays an actress who has forgotten her past, while Kim stars as a broadcaster who suffers from a condition that allows him to recall every moment in his life. The young actress’s true breakthrough was in the hit webtoon adaptation True Beauty. She plays a high school student who is bullied in school for her looks. When she transfers to another school, she reinvents herself through make-up and becomes the most popular girl in class, drawing the notice of hunky classmates played by Cha Eun-woo and Hwang In-yeop. Bubbly and magnetic, this was a character that allowed Moon to show off her natural screen charisma and earned her a legion of new fans. The iconic parts Moon then appeared opposite Yeo Jin-goo (Beyond Evil) in the serial-killer and food-themed romantic drama Link: Eat, Love, Kill. She plays a young jobseeker whose life is turned upside down when Yeo’s handsome young chef opens up a restaurant across the road from her family’s eatery, and murders start to take place in the neighbourhood. Next for Moon was a role as a banker in the workplace romantic drama The Interest of Love opposite Yoo Yeon-seok (Hospital Playlist), Keum Sae-rok (Soundtrack #2) and Jung Ga-ram (Love Alarm). Earlier this year, Moon appeared alongside Choi Hyun-wook (Twinkling Watermelon) in the romantic comedy My Dearest Nemesis. The series is about two online gamer friends who meet again in person years later as employer and employee when they start working for the same department store. The unheralded performance Arguably one of Moon’s breakthrough roles as a teenager, though not one that gets talked about much today, is Killer Toon, a big-screen Korean horror film about a webtoon writer, played by Lee Si-young (Sweet Home), whose gruesome stories start to happen in reality. Moon plays a young woman linked to the crimes. Killer Toon was in many ways a transitional role for the young actress, as she shed her image as a child actress and looked to her future as an adult screen actress. Tomorrow’s turns After Law and the City wraps up this month, we should not have too long to wait for our next dose of Moon. She will appear in the romantic drama Once We Were Us, opposite Koo Kyo-hwan (D.P.), which is currently in post-production and is expected later this year. A remake of the Chinese film Us and Them, the film project is directed by Kim Do-young, who debuted to acclaim with the drama Kim Ji-young, Born 1982. Once We Were Us follows lovers who endure a difficult break-up and meet again years later.

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}A former child actress and model, Moon has been active in TV and film for two decades and is set to appear next in Once We Were Us

A former child actress and model, Moon has been active in TV and film for two decades and is set to appear next in Once We Were Us