Choi Ji-woo
Choi Ji-woo (born Choi Mi-hyang on June 11, 1975) is a South Korean actress. Considered one of South Korea's most beautiful women, she has received critical acclaim for her work in a wide range of melodramas, most notably "Beautiful Days" (2001), "Winter Sonata" (2002), "Stairway to Heaven" (2003), "Air City" (2007), "Star's Lover" (2008), "The Suspicious Housekeeper" (2013) and "Temptation" (2014), as well as the romantic comedy series "Twenty Again" (2015) and "Woman with a Suitcase" (2016)". Career. 1994–1998: Beginnings. Choi Mi-hyang was first discovered when she won a talent audition organized  by MBC in 1994, then made her acting debut in the drama series "War and Love" in 1995. Afterwards, she adopted the stage name Choi Ji-woo. She was cast in her first major role in 1996 film "The Gate of Destiny", but her limited acting skills resulted in her being replaced during filming. In the next couple of years Choi continued to star in both TV dramas and films, including "The Hole" (the Original version of Hollywood thriller "Hush"), as well as the romantic comedies "First Kiss" with Ahn Jae-wook and "The Romantic President" with Ahn Sung-ki . It was her portrayals on TV of tragic heroines with a pure and innocent image—notably in "Truth" opposite Ryu Si-won and "Beautiful Days" opposite Lee Byung-hun—that boosted her rising popularity. In 2002, she reunited onscreen with Bae Yong-joon (she previously had a supporting role in his 1996 drama "First Love") that she would star in her most famous, iconic role. Directed by Yoon Seok-ho as the second installment of his "season dramas," "Winter Sonata" became a phenomenal hit throughout Asia and has been credited as one of the initiators of the Korean Wave. As  a result, Choi gained wide pan-Asian recognition, especially a huge following in Japan where she acquired the nickname "Ji-woo Hime" ("Princess Ji-woo"). In 2009 she and Bae reprised their roles as voice actors for "Winter Sonata Anime". She continues to be a lucrative star and brand in Japan, fetching high licensing/broadcasting rights for her dramas and selling out concerts and merchandise (tvN's "E News" compiled a list of the top "Hallyu" stars in Japan based on their approximate gross incomes for the first half of 2011, and Choi was number five with approximately ). After the  success of her 2003 melodrama "Stairway to Heaven" with Kwon Sang-woo, Choi again attempted to break into film. She played a terminally ill heroine in "Now and Forever", and a more risque character in sex comedy "Everybody Has Secrets" ("The Original Version of Irish film "About Adam"). Both films were poorly received by critics and audiences in South Korea, but performed well at the Japanese box office. Choi then spent the next few years overseas, shooting the Chinese drama "101st Proposal" with Sun Xing, and the Japanese drama "RONDO" opposite Yutaka Takenouchi. She returned to Korean television in 2007  in "Air City" alongside Lee Jung-jae; her role was the Chief Operating Officer of Incheon Airport. 2009–2012: Breakthrough. In 2009, she starred opposite Yoo Ji-tae in the drama "Star's Lover", playing a top actress who falls in love with an ordinary man. Choi received per episode, the highest salary for a Korean actress at the time (her record was later broken by Go Hyun-jung's for the 2010 drama "Daemul"). That same year, she set up her own management agency called C,JW Company with her brother as CEO. She also joined the ensemble cast of  semi-improvisational mockumentary "Actresses", arguably her most significant film yet. During the press conference for the 2011 series, "Can't Lose", co-starring Yoon Sang-hyun, featuring a lawyer couple facing their own divorce suit, she was asked if she worried about shedding her pure and innocent image. Choi said, "I've had the same image for 15 years. Isn't it time for me to break out? I was a melodrama queen and now I want the title of romantic comedy queen." She added that she had gained more fans after showing her cheerful, easygoing side as a guest  on the reality show "2 Days & 1 Night". In 2012, Choi was cast in the Chinese drama "City Lovers", in which she portrayed the CEO at an event management company opposite Qin Hao, a newly employed businessman at her firm. Later that year, she became the host of "Choi Ji-woo's Delicious Korea" on food lifestyle cable channel O'live TV alongside fashion designer Jung Kuho. The 5-episode show, which aired from November 23 to December 21, 2012, aimed to promote Korean cuisine and culture to the world, and the two hosts traveled through South Korea and introduced little -known regional food to the viewers. She next headlined the 2013 remake of the hit 2011 Japanese drama "Kaseifu no Mita". In "The Suspicious Housekeeper", Choi played the titular character, an icy and stoic yet amazingly capable housekeeper who comes to work for a recently widowed father and his four children. Despite the difficulty of not being able to react to her costars, Choi said she chose the role because she "was really charmed by the way the heroine refrains from letting her emotions show." 2014–2016: Career resurgence. In February 2014, Choi signed with the talent agency YG Entertainment. She  then reunited with previous costar Kwon Sang-woo in "Temptation"; she played a rich woman who makes a dangerous offer to a married man. Choi joined the fourth season of travel-reality show "Grandpas Over Flowers" in 2015, where she and Lee Seo-jin backpacked through Greece with veteran actors Lee Soon-jae, Shin Goo, Park Geun-hyung and Baek Il-seob. This was followed by the cable series "Twenty Again", where she gained critical acclaim as a shy 38-year-old housewife who decides to experience campus college life for the first time alongside her 20-year-old son . In 2016, Choi returned to the big screen in seven years, starring in the ensemble cast romance film "Like for Likes". The same year, she starred in the legal romance drama "Woman with a Suitcase". In 2017, Choi was cast in the family melodrama "The Most Beautiful Goodbye", a remake of the drama "The Most Beautiful Goodbye in the World" by Noh Hee-kyung. In 2019, Choi made a cameo appearance as herself in episode 13 of the tvN drama, "Crash Landing on You". Personal life. Choi majored in aerobic dance at Busan Women's College. She later enrolled in  Hanyang University's Department of Theater and Film and completed her first year; however she had to withdraw from college studies due to her hectic work schedule. Choi married her non-celebrity boyfriend who is 9 years younger, on March 29, 2018, in a private wedding, only publicly announcing it just hours prior through a handwritten letter released in her fan club website. Choi announced that she was pregnant with her first child on December 23, 2019, and gave birth to a daughter on May 16, 2020.