Hoyeon Jung

Red as a battle uniform

Jung Ho-yeon sent an audition video from New York while working as a model during fashion week. She had no prior experience in front of a fiction camera, but the director of Squid Game saw in her gaze the real weariness of someone who has fought for every inch of her career on the runway.

In 2013, she placed second on Korea's Next Top Model. That gave her the push she needed to move to the United States and dye her hair an intense red, which became her signature on the runways of Paris and Milan. For years she walked for labels like Chanel and Louis Vuitton before considering a change of direction in her career.

She was a supermodel who wanted to stop being an aesthetic object.

And the bet paid off. Before receiving the final script, she spent months studying the psychology of North Korean defectors to build Kang Sae-byeok. The series premiere in September 2021 broke every previous audience record on Netflix and took her out of the fashion circuit and launched her into global mass consumption.

Jung went from having 400,000 followers on social media to surpassing 15 million in just three weeks.

Recognition from the American industry

She won the Screen Actors Guild Award in 2022 for her performance as Player 067. That night in Los Angeles confirmed that her career would not be a one-season phenomenon. The interest of major studios soon turned into long-term contracts with talent agencies in California.

In 2024, she worked under the direction of Alfonso Cuarón on the series Disclaimer. Sharing the set with Cate Blanchett was a technical test that the Korean actress passed without relying on the visual tricks of modeling.

It was a leap into the unknown with no safety net.

So her name began to appear on the most exclusive casting lists in Hollywood. In 2024, she filmed The Hope, directed by Na Hong-jin, where she shares the spotlight with Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander. The project was filmed on locations in South Korea and marks her return to the big screen in her home country following her international success.

But her strategy is not about piling up titles; it's about choosing prestigious directors. In 2025, her participation in The Governesses, directed by Joe Talbot and co-starring Lily-Rose Depp, was confirmed. The production was planned entirely in French territory.

Her contract with the luxury brand Louis Vuitton in 2021 keeps her on as global ambassador. This commercial partnership lets her choose her film roles with a financial freedom that few debut actors can afford.

Her salary per episode in international productions increased tenfold after the first season of her television debut. Filming of the second part of Squid Game in 2024 did not include her presence due to her character's death in the original story.

The agency CAA has managed her image rights in the American market since late 2021.