Youn Yuh-jung (Korean: 윤여정; pronounced [jun jʌdʑʌŋ]; born June 19, 1947) is a South Korean actress. She started her career in Korean television in the late 1960s and rose to prominence with the film Woman of Fire (1971). She retired in the mid-1970s and immigrated to the United States before returning to Korea in 1984 and rebuilding her career. Known as the "Godmother of Chungmu-ro", Youn appeared in The Housemaid (2010), The Taste of Money (2012), The Bacchus Lady (2016), and Canola (2016).
On television, Youn is known for her matriarch roles in dramas such as Men of the Bath House (1995), Be Strong, Geum-soon! (2005), Daughters-in-Law (2007), My Husband Got a Family (2012), and Dear My Friends (2016), as well as the reality programmes Sisters Over Flowers (2013), Youn's Kitchen (2017–2018), and Unexpected Journey (2022).
Youn gained international acclaim for her role in Minari (2020), becoming the first Korean actress to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress as well as numerous other awards. She subsequently appeared in international productions, such as the Apple TV+ series Pachinko (2022–2024), the American film The Wedding Banquet (2025), and the Netflix series Beef (2026), the last of which earned her a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie.
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Early life
Youn graduated from high school in 1966. She then enrolled at Hanyang University and majored in Korean language and literature. When she passed open acting auditions held by TBC in 1966, she dropped out of college.
Career
After dropping out of college, Youn made her acting debut in the television drama Mister Gom in 1967. She shot to stardom in 1971 with two memorable portrayals of femmes fatales. Her first film, Kim Ki-young's Woman of Fire, was a critical and commercial hit, for which she won Best Actress at the Sitges Film Festival. This was followed by the MBC historical drama Jang Hui-bin, in which she plays the eponymous royal concubine. Kim was considered Korea's first style-conscious, experimental director, and Youn did not balk at playing risqué, provocative characters that explore the grotesque in the female psyche in collaborations with him, such as The Insect Woman (1972) and Be a Wicked Woman (1990). Audiences found Youn's fast way of speaking and atypical appearance refreshing and she frequently took roles in TV dramas depicting a modern woman of the new generation, notably in Kim Soo-hyun's Stepmother (1972).
At the peak of her career, Youn married singer Jo Young-nam and retired from acting to immigrate to the United States. The couple lived in St. Petersburg, Florida, for ten years until their marriage broke down due to Jo's extramarital affairs. Youn returned to Korea in 1984 and divorced Jo in 1987.
Youn struggled to resume her acting career because of the stigma attached to being a middle-aged divorcée in South Korea. Unlike many actresses of her generation, who were confined to typical maternal or ajumma roles, Youn’s versatility enabled her to push the envelope. In A Good Lawyer's Wife (2003), she drew critical acclaim for her nonchalant portrayal of a woman who neglects her husband who is dying of liver cancer and enjoys extramarital affairs. Her frank and confident persona again manifested in E J-yong's mockumentary Actresses (2009).
Youn reunited with director Im Sang-soo for the fourth time in The Taste of Money (2012), as a cruel chaebol heiress at the center of the drama that unfolds and touches upon themes of corruption, greed, and sex. Youn said, "I don't mind being called an old actress, but I do worry about how to carry on my acting career without looking like an old fool."
In 2013, she was cast as a loving mother to three loser children in Song Hae-sung's Boomerang Family. Later that year, Youn appeared in her first reality show, Sisters Over Flowers, in which she and other "sisters" travel to Croatia. She then appeared on several more reality shows, revealing a warmer, more approachable side of her personality.
Personal life
In December 1973, at the height of her career, Youn and her fiancé, singer Jo Young-nam, immigrated to the United States, when evangelist Billy Graham invited Jo to perform at his crusades across the country. The couple married in 1974 and have two sons. They lived in St. Petersburg, Florida for 10 years, during which Youn worked at a supermarket to help raise family. She returned to Korea in 1984 and divorced Jo in 1987 due to his repeated extramarital affairs.
Youn has two younger sisters, one of whom is Youn Yeo-soon, a former executive at LG Group.
