Ji-young Yoo
Ji-young Yoo | |
|---|---|
Yoo in March 2025 | |
| Born | SunHee Seo 1999 or 2000 (age 25–26)[1] |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 2020–present |
| Korean name | |
| Hangul | 서선희 |
| RR | Seo Seonhui |
| MR | Sŏ Sŏnhŭi |
| Stage name | |
| Hangul | 유지영 |
| RR | Yu Jiyeong |
| MR | Yu Chiyŏng |
SunHee Seo (Korean: 서선희; born 1999 or 2000), known professionally as Ji-young Yoo (Korean: 유지영), is an American actress. She first appeared in the 2021 Netflix comedy-drama film Moxie, credited by her birth name. In the same year, she adopted the stage name Ji-Young Yoo, consisting of Korean syllables that she believed would be easier to pronounce for English speakers.
In 2023, Yoo won the Best Performance in a U.S. Narrative Feature accolade at the Tribeca Festival. She dropped out of her degree program at the University of Southern California to film the 2024 Amazon Prime Video original miniseries Expats, for which she earned an Outstanding Performance in a Limited Series nomination at the Gotham Awards. In 2025, she portrayed Megan, one of the main characters in Until Dawn, a horror film that takes place in the same universe as the 2015 video game of the same name. The film received generally mixed reviews, but various critics praised Yoo's character and performance.
Early life and education
SunHee Seo[2] was born to Korean immigrants in Denver, Colorado.[1] She attended Colorado Academy[3] and was listed as "SunHee Morgan Seo" in its 2017 journal.[4] She also trained at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts and the Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts School & Camp.[5] She pursued a degree in Cinema and Media at the University of Southern California, but at 21, dropped out to film Expats before she could graduate. In an interview with Douglas Greenwood of i-D, published on April 24, 2025, she expressed a desire to complete her degree in the future, although she had no concrete plans, due to the high cost of education in the United States.[6]
She adopted the stage name Ji-young Yoo partly to draw a line between her personal life and business life, and partly because many people continually mispronounced her birth name. According to Yoo, others told her that her name was "hard" to pronounce and suggested she change it. She specifically chose syllables for her stage name that were easy to pronounce for English speakers but still Korean. In an interview with Rebecca Sun of The Hollywood Reporter, Yoo said, "I hope we have moved past the period where Asian Americans felt a need to assimilate or make ourselves more palatable to Western tastemakers. I hope that my authenticity to my identity will open more doors for me than close them."[2]
Career
Yoo began her career as SunHee Seo, and in 2021 appeared in Moxie.[3] She also performed ADR for Spider-Man: Far from Home, providing townsfolk screams and chatter for most of the film's scenes, alongside other voice actors.[7] Adopting her stage name by 2021, she was cast in the A24/Apple TV+ drama film The Sky Is Everywhere,[8] and alongside Nicole Kidman in the Amazon Prime series Expats.[9]
In 2022, she was cast in Freaky Tales.[10] Yoo won Best Performance in a U.S. Narrative Feature at the 2023 Tribeca Festival for her performance in Smoking Tigers.[11] In 2024, she was nominated for Gotham Awards 'Outstanding Performance in a Limited Series' for Expats, which premiered in January.[12] In June, she was announced as a cast member in Until Dawn, a horror film taking place in the same universe as the 2015 video game published by PlayStation Studios.[13]
The film premiered in April 2025, receiving mixed reviews. It earned three stars out of five from The Guardian's Benjamin Lee, who praised the cast's performances and the film's technical strengths, while criticizing its lack of ambition and originality;[14] as well as a B- grade from IndieWire's Alison Foreman, who considered the film a "betray[al]" of its source material yet entertaining and "inventive" in its own right.[15] Various critics praised Yoo's character Megan, such as Elisabetta Bianchini of Yahoo News, Meagan Navarro of Bloody Disgusting, and Harry Stainer of Empire, despite giving the film negative or mixed reviews.
Bianchini described Megan as the most interesting character in the main cast, adding that "you feel her emotional journey more so than you do for even the lead character, Clover."[16] Navarro wrote that in the main cast, "the only one who comes close to a distinct personality is Ji-young Yoo's Megan".[17] Likewise, Stainer commended Yoo in his review of the film, writing, "Ji-young Yoo stands out as Megan, the group's psychic, and appears to be having more fun than anyone else on screen."[18]
Filmography
Film
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Moxie | Casey | As SunHee Seo |
| 2022 | The Sky Is Everywhere | Sarah | |
| 2023 | Smoking Tigers | Hayoung | |
| 2024 | Freaky Tales | Tina | |
| 2025 | Until Dawn | Megan | |
| KPop Demon Hunters | Zoey (voice) |
Television
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Sweet Home | Lee Eun Yoo (voice) | Recurring role, 10 episodes |
| 2022 | We Baby Bears | Sheep Heads / Student 2 / Student 3 (voice) | 1 episode, as SunHee Seo |
| 2024 | Expats | Mercy | Miniseries, 6 episodes |
Awards
| Award | Year | Category | Work | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tribeca Festival | 2023 | Best Performance in a U.S. Narrative Feature | Smoking Tigers | Won | [11] |
| Gotham Awards | 2024 | Outstanding Performance in a Limited Series | Expats | Nominated | [12] |
References
- ^ a b Ito, Robert (January 24, 2024). "This Expats Star Can't Believe She's Actually in It". The New York Times. Retrieved January 31, 2024.
- ^ a b Sun, Rebecca (June 11, 2024). "Why Learning to Be Left-Handed Created Tension for 'Expats' Star". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on April 30, 2025.
- ^ a b Ventura, Amy (April 4, 2022). "SunHee Seo '17: On her way to Hollywood stardom". Colorado Academy. Retrieved January 22, 2024.
- ^ "CA Senior Journal - Class of 2017". Colorado Academy. November 29, 2022. pp. 2–3, 50–51. Archived from the original on April 30, 2025. Retrieved January 22, 2024.
- ^ Bamigboye, Baz (June 7, 2024). "Breaking Baz: Expats Star Ji-Young Yoo On Her Career And Being "Happy" To Be Thrown In "Deep End" Shooting With Lulu Wang & Nicole Kidman". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved June 7, 2024.
- ^ Greenwood, Douglas (April 24, 2025). "Ji-Young Yoo Knows a Thing Or Two (Or Three) About Dying". i-D. Archived from the original on April 30, 2025.
- ^ O'Rouke, Jackie (December 17, 2020). "Ji-young Yoo on Taking Risks". Mud Magazine. Retrieved January 22, 2024.
- ^ Ramos, Dino-Ray (January 14, 2021). "Ji-young Yoo Joins Apple And A24's The Sky Is Everywhere". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved January 22, 2024.
- ^ Otterson, Joe (May 25, 2021). "Amazon Series Adaptation of 'The Expatriates' Casts Ji-young Yoo". Variety. Retrieved May 27, 2021.
- ^ Kroll, Justin (December 5, 2022). "Sky Is Everywheres Ji-young Yoo Joins eOne And Macro's Freaky Tales". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved January 22, 2024.
- ^ a b Toma, Adriana (June 15, 2023). "Announcing the 2023 Tribeca Festival Competition Winners". Tribeca Festival. Retrieved January 22, 2024.
- ^ a b Davis, Clayton (March 14, 2024). "'Baby Reindeer,' 'Shogun,' 'X-Men '97' and 'Black Twitter' Doc Lead Inaugural Gotham TV Awards Nominations". Variety. Retrieved July 3, 2024.
- ^ Kroll, Justin (June 14, 2024). "'Until Dawn' Movie At Screen Gems And Playstation Studios Sets Ella Rubin, Michael Cimino, Ji-young Yoo And Odessa A'Zion To Star". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on June 14, 2024. Retrieved June 14, 2024.
- ^ Lee, Benjamin (April 24, 2025). "Until Dawn review – efficient, if unscary, video game horror". The Guardian. Archived from the original on April 30, 2025.
- ^ Foreman, Alison (April 24, 2025). "'Until Dawn' Review: Sony Betrays Its Popular Video Game to Deliver a Strangely Explosive Spoof". IndieWire. Archived from the original on April 30, 2025.
- ^ Bianchini, Elisabetta (April 30, 2025). "'Until Dawn': Another video game adaptation fails to live up to its source material". Yahoo News.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Navarro, Meagan (April 26, 2025). "'Until Dawn' Review – Kitchen Sink Creature Feature Fails Its Source Material". Bloody Disgusting.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Stainer, Harry (May 2, 2025). "Until Dawn Review". Empire.
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