Gong Hyo-jin

Gong Hyo-jin (born April 4, 1980) is a South Korean actress. She is best known for her leading role in the film '' Crush and Blush'' (2008), as well as for her popular television series '' Sang Doo! Let's Go to School'' (2003), ''Thank You'' (2007), ''Pasta'' (2010), '' The Greatest Love'' (2011), ''Master's Sun'' (2013), ''It's Okay, That's Love'' (2014), '' The Producers'' (2015), ''Don't Dare to Dream'' (2016) and '' When the Camellia Blooms'' (2019).

She is considered to be the queen of romantic comedies due to her successful portrayals in her rom-com dramas. In 2019, she was Gallup Korea's Television Actor of the Year.

Early life

Gong Hyo-jin was born in 1980 in Sinwol-dong, Gangseo District, Seoul, South Korea. When she was a junior in high school, she moved to Australia with her mother and younger brother, while her father remained in Korea to support the family. Kong attended high school at John Paul College in Brisbane. Kong has spoken fondly of her memories of her time there, and in 2011 she was designated as one of the goodwill ambassadors for "Year of Friendship," the 50th anniversary of bilateral relations between Australia and South Korea.

After three years in Australia, the Gong family moved back to Korea in 1997 due to the IMF crisis.

Career

Early work

Upon her return to Korea, Gong began working as a model. She appeared in advertisements, notably the "Happy to Live" commercial for telecom 700–5425. After a year and a half of modeling, she made her acting debut in a supporting role in ''Memento Mori and Min Kyu-dong, the comedy film reinvented its genre with its fresh approach on teenage femme sexuality and its destructive force, melding sapphism and the supernatural at a girls' high school. Although it was not a box office hit in 1999, the film is frequently cited by young Korean filmmakers and cinema fans as a modern-day classic. At first Gong wasn't serious about acting and couldn't wait for filming to be over, but ''Memento Moris critical success encouraged her to continue acting, and she followed that with a role in 2000 sitcom ''My Funky Family''.

In 2001, she was cast in the 25-episode television series ''Wonderful Months'', where she played a bus conductor with a one-sided crush on Ryoo Seung-bum's character (Gong and Ryoo later won Best New Actress and Best New Actor in the TV category at the Baeksang Arts Awards). After appearing in small roles in Jang Jin's comedy ''Guns & Talks'' and teen martial arts flick ''Volcano High'', the young actress had her breakthrough year in 2002, landing lead roles in ''Emergency Act 19'' and ''A Bizarre Love Triangle''.

Gong's performance in ''Ruler of Your Own World'' grabbed the industry's attention. The TV series was praised for its realistic writing and strong acting, earning it "mania drama" (or cult hit) status in Korea. That same year, she again acted opposite Ryoo in ''Conduct Zero'', earning praise for her role as the tough-talking "boss" of the girls' high school. The 1980s-set retro comedy was well received by both audiences and critics.

The 2003 series ''Snowman'' paired Gong with Cho Jae-hyun and Kim Rae-won, in a controversial plot about a girl who falls in love with her older brother-in-law. She then returned to more mainstream fare in '' Sang Doo! Let's Go to School'', helmed by TV director Lee Hyung-min, whom she had previously worked with in a Drama City episode. Gong played a high school teacher who meets her childhood sweetheart again, now a gigolo and single dad with a sick daughter. Known for being the acting debut of pop singer Rain, the drama did well in the ratings, and Gong won several awards at the KBS Drama Awards.

In 2004 to 2005, Gong entered a career slump. She was dissatisfied with the scripts she was getting, and felt she was being typecast in ingenue roles. Cast as another high school teacher in ''Hello My Teacher'', and a scientist in ''Heaven's Soldiers'', Gong longed to portray meatier, "real women" roles, but she was unwilling to do nudity in film.

Critical success

In 2009, ''Memento Mori'' director Kim Tae-yong (whom Gong considers her mentor) offered her a part in ''Family Ties'', a role he had written specifically for her. The film drew widespread acclaim as a delicately observed, cross generational look at unconventional families. The cast was praised for their brilliant acting, with reviews singling out Gong's portrayal of an angry young woman in a deeply troubled relationship with her mother. She received a Best Actress nomination from the Korean Film Awards, and also shared Best Actress honors with co-stars Moon So-ri, Go Doo-shim and Kim Hye-ok at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival in Greece. ''Family Ties'' marked a turning point in her career, and gave Gong a renewed passion for acting.

In 2007 she returned to television in ''Thank You'', written by '' Sang-doo'' scribe Lee Kyung-hee. Several actresses had turned down the unglamorous role of a single mother with an HIV-positive daughter and a grandfather with dementia; another reason being that this was lead actor Jang Hyuk's comeback after his draft-dodging scandal. Despite little hype, ''Thank You'' became a modest hit and rose to number one in its timeslot. Viewer response to the drama had been mostly heartwarming and life-affirming, which Gong said she treasures. The maternal role served to soften and feminize her image, but Gong was also praised for her nuanced portrayal that grounded her character in reality, helping to prevent the drama from being overly maudlin or saccharine.

After ''Thank You'', Gong went back to film and took on supporting roles for the opportunity to work with some of the most talented directors in Chungmuro. She played a coolly unsentimental ex-girlfriend in Hur Jin-ho's melodrama ''Happiness'', a concerned fiancée in Lee Myung-se's stylistic psychodrama '' M'', and a spy in Ryoo Seung-wan's action comedy/parody ''Dachimawa Lee''.

Strong performances in varied roles helped cement Gong's reputation as a serious actress, but '' Crush and Blush'' in 2008 would become her most high-profile movie yet. Hailed by critics as one of the most original Korean films in recent years, Lee Kyoung-mi's feature directorial debut was divisive, and though its box office performance was a disappointment, it acquired a sort of cult status among Korean cinephiles. The black comedy was a showcase for Gong, who transformed herself into a misanthropic antiheroine with an unattractively blushing red face, frizzy hair, dowdy clothes, and a chronic case of inferiority complex and hopeless delusion. Gong had wavered at first when presented with the script, given the character's excesses. Reportedly urged on by fellow actress Jeon Do-yeon, she eventually accepted and threw herself into the role. Park Chan-wook, who produced the film, praised Gong's subtle emotional variations, and told her that she might never be able to top this performance, joking that she should retire. She won numerous acting awards in Korea, among them Best Actress trophies from the Korean Film Awards, Director's Cut Awards, and Women in Film Korea Awards. She also received nominations from the Blue Dragon Film Awards and Baeksang Arts Awards, as well as a Rising Star Award from the New York Asian Film Festival.

Mainstream popularity

After starring with close friend Shin Min-ah in the 2009 indie '' Sisters on the Road'', Gong played an aspiring chef in romantic comedy series ''Pasta'' in 2010. Originally written as the usual brash and spunky rom-com heroine, Gong thought it would be boring and clichéd to play her as such, and instead made the significant acting decision to play against type by creating the character as an ordinary girl who was seemingly meek, but had a quiet strength and slyly got her way. Her chemistry with co-star Lee Sun-kyun and the drama's breezy atmosphere propelled it to the top of the ratings chart.

Defying easy categorization into the actress dichotomies of innocent (Choi Ji-woo, Song Hye-kyo) or sexy (Kim Hye-soo, Uhm Jung-hwa), Gong belonged to a third, very minor group of eccentrics that also include Kang Hye-jung and Bae Doona. Though not a typical beauty, after the success of ''Pasta'', Gong was given the label ''Gongvely'' by the press, a portmanteau

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