Kim Go-eun’s Profile
- Full Name: Kim Go-eun
- Native Name: 김고은
- Nicknames: Go Eun
- Birthday: Jul 02, 1991 (34 years old)
- Blood Type: B
- Height/Weight: 167 cm (5’6") / 55 kg (121 lbs)
- Gender: Female
- Zodiac Sign: Cancer
- Debut: 2012
- Birthplace: Seoul, South Korea
-
Nationality:
South Korean
- Profession: Actress
- Language Skills: Korean (Native), Chinese, English
- Current Agency: BH Entertainment
- Active Years: 2012 – present (13 years)
- Fandom: Ggone
Kim Go-eun (김고은) is a South Korean actress, born on July 2, 1991. She works primarily in film and television in South Korea and made her screen debut in 2012 with the film Eungyo (A Muse), which brought her immediate recognition. Her notable works include the films Coin Locker Girl (2015) and the dramas Cheese in the Trap (2016), Guardian: The Lonely and Great God (Goblin) (2016–2017), Yumi’s Cells (2021–2022), and Little Women (2022).
Early life
Kim Go-eun was born in Seoul. At the age of three to four, her family relocated to Beijing, China, where she lived for about ten years. During this period, she used Mandarin in her daily life while continuing to study Korean at home, which allowed her to become fluent in both languages. After returning to South Korea, she attended Kaywon High School of the Arts and later graduated from the Department of Drama at the Korea National University of Arts.
Career
Kim Go-eun began her acting career in 2012 when she was cast in the leading role of Eungyo (A Muse). The performance earned her multiple Best New Actress awards at major Korean film ceremonies.
Following her debut, she stepped away briefly to complete her studies at the Korea National University of Arts. She returned in 2014 with Monster, portraying a psychologically complex character that marked her transition to more challenging roles.
In 2015, she appeared in four consecutive films: Coin Locker Girl, Memories of the Sword, The Advocate: A Missing Body, and Canola. Among them, Coin Locker Girl was invited to the Cannes Film Festival, giving her international exposure.
Her television debut came in 2016 with the drama Cheese in the Trap, adapted from the popular webtoon. Later that year, she starred in Guardian: The Lonely and Great God (Goblin), a fantasy-romance drama that became one of cable channel tvN’s most notable titles at the time.
Between 2018 and 2019, she returned to film with Sunset in My Hometown and Tune in for Love. The latter achieved the highest box-office performance for a romance film in Korea that year and was later released globally on Netflix.
In 2020, Kim took on dual roles in The King: Eternal Monarch, a large-scale SBS drama written by screenwriter Kim Eun-sook. The project featured parallel world settings and showcased her versatility on network television.
From 2021 to 2022, she headlined Yumi’s Cells, a hybrid series combining live-action with 3D animation to depict the inner life of its heroine. Later in 2022, she starred as the eldest sister in Little Women, a contemporary Korean reinterpretation of Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel.
At the end of 2022, the musical period film Hero was released. Kim played Seol-hee, a court lady connected to the assassination of Empress Myeong-sung. The film had completed production in 2019 but its release was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2024, she appeared in three films: Love in the Big City, Dog Days (cameo role), and Exhuma. Her performance in Exhuma earned her major accolades, including Best Actress at both the Baeksang Arts Awards and the Blue Dragon Film Awards.
By 2025, Kim Go-eun had built a career spanning more than a decade, with a consistent presence across both cinema and television, ranging from romance and contemporary drama to large-scale fantasy and historical productions.
Fun facts
- Kim Go-eun adopted a dog named Wol, even though he was diagnosed with a rare brain disease.
- She’s a thrill-seeker: bungee jumping, skydiving, scuba diving — and she once admitted she usually hides it from her parents.
- She holds a certified rescue diver license and joined an ocean cleanup project while filming the reality show Sea of Hope.
- Before acting, she once dreamed of becoming a film director after repeatedly watching Chen Kaige’s Together.
- Her debut role in A Muse happened in a very unplanned way — director Jung Ji-woo kept insisting until she said yes.
- Cheese in the Trap was her first drama; she initially declined because of scheduling, but the director adjusted the production to keep her on board.
- For Sunset in My Hometown, she gained about 8kg and practiced the Jeolla dialect to fit the character.
- She used to be a fan of Lee Min-ho before working alongside him in The King: Eternal Monarch.
- In Goblin, the scene where her character suggests the name “Park Bo-gum” was an inside joke, since she had acted with Park Bo-gum before.
- Fans joked she was the “queen of product placement” in Yumi’s Cells because her character was always seen with a Kahi serum stick.
- She once took a break from Korea National University of Arts to focus on filming, then later returned to finish her degree.
- Among fans, she goes by nicknames like “Gon,” “Goni,” and even the playful moniker “King Hunnyeo.”
