Park So-dam

Seventeen rejections in one month

Park So-dam was turned down at seventeen auditions in a row during her first month of professional searching. Casting directors in Seoul didn't know what to make of her monolid eyes in an industry obsessed with plastic surgery. But she decided her looks would be a working tool, not an obstacle.

The industry changed its mind soon enough.

In 2013, she started making independent short films to gain technical experience and learn the language of the set. She appeared in No More No Less and Steel Flower, taking on roles that broke away from the traditional Korean beauty standard. Her name began to circulate on the festival circuit before she moved into mainstream commercial projects.

The Sacrifice of Her Hair and Voice

To shoot The Priests in 2015, she had to shave her head completely. She played a young woman possessed by a demon and spent months practicing four different languages for the exorcism scenes. The film grossed more than $35 million at the local box office and pulled her out of obscurity for good.

Awards also started pouring in. She won Best Supporting Actress at the Blue Dragon Film Awards in 2016 for that role.

The Connection to Bong Joon-ho

Bong Joon-ho cast her for Parasite in 2019 without a formal audition. The director had already decided she should play Choi Woo-shik's sister because of their real physical resemblance. Her performance as Ki-jung sparked a viral phenomenon thanks to a six-second song known as the Jessica Jingle.

The film won four Academy Awards in 2020.

But global fame didn't stop her from wanting to take on physically demanding projects. In 2022, she starred in Special Delivery, playing a driver skilled at impossible escapes. She performed most of her own action scenes without stunt doubles because she wanted to control the rhythm of the chase and the mechanical response of the car.

A Health-Forced Break

In December 2021, she was diagnosed with papillary thyroid cancer during a routine checkup. She had to go straight into surgery and cancel all promotion for her finished projects. Recovery was slow and affected her ability to speak normally for several months of postoperative care.

Returning to work was tough.

While filming Phantom in 2023, she still suffered from chronic fatigue caused by medication. In this espionage film set in 1933, she played a secretary with access to military secrets during the Japanese occupation. The production demanded heavy period costumes that made her movements difficult during the shootout scenes.

In 2023, she also appeared in the series Death’s Game, playing Death itself. It was a cold, dry role that let her explore a register less empathetic toward the viewer. Because Park So-dam prefers characters who raise doubts over those who go for the audience's easy sympathy.

Her contract for this series included eight-hour workdays to make sure she could rest after her illness.