Song Hye Kyo

Song Hye Kyo was born on 22 November 1981 in Dalseo District, Daegu, and moved to Gangnam in Seoul with her mother as a child. From primary school until her second year of middle school she competed as a figure skater, and gave it up when acting took over.

The way in was a contest rather than an audition. In 1996, in her second year of middle school, she won the grand prize at the SunKyung Smart school-uniform model search, and the same year KBS2 cast her as Jung Ah in the drama First Love. The late 1990s were mostly sitcoms on SBS: Soonpoong Clinic, where her character carried her own name, Oh Hye Kyo, and How Am I, which brought her the SBS award for best new actress in a sitcom in 1998. She co-hosted KBS2's Music Bank with Lee Hwi Jae in 2000. She later studied film arts at Sejong University.

The leading roles started in 2000 with Autumn in My Heart on KBS2, and the next four years settled what kind of star she would be: All In on SBS in 2003 and Full House on KBS2 in 2004, each ending with a top excellence award from the broadcaster that aired it. In 2007 she played the title role in the film Hwang Jin Yi, and in 2008 she made Worlds Within, her first drama with the writer Noh Hee Kyung.

Her films of the 2010s all came out between 2010 and 2015. Besides Korean features such as A Reason to Live (2011) and My Brilliant Life (2014), they include three Chinese-language productions: Wong Kar Wai's The Grandmaster (2013), John Woo's two-part The Crossing (2014 and 2015) and Annie Yi's The Queens (2015). On television she returned to Noh Hee Kyung for That Winter, the Wind Blows in 2013, then made Descendants of the Sun in 2016, Encounter in 2018 and Now, We Are Breaking Up in 2021.

She was with United Artists Agency from November 2012; that contract ended in June 2026, and no new agency had been confirmed by the time this page was last checked.

Most of the career is on television. The dramas that carry it, in order, are Autumn in My Heart (KBS2, 2000), All In (SBS, 2003), Full House (KBS2, 2004), Worlds Within (KBS2, 2008), That Winter, the Wind Blows (SBS, 2013), Descendants of the Sun (KBS2, 2016), Encounter (tvN, 2018), Now, We Are Breaking Up (SBS, 2021) and The Glory (Netflix, 2022 and 2023). Before those came supporting parts and sitcoms: First Love, Six Siblings, Soonpoong Clinic, White Nights 3.98, How Am I, March, Sweet Bride, Hotelier, Guardian Angel and Sunlight Pours Down.

The films are fewer and more varied. My Girl and I (2005) was the first lead, Hwang Jin Yi (2007) gave her the title role, and Fetish (2008, also released as Make Yourself at Home) was a small American independent film. After that come the omnibus Camellia (2010), a photograph-only special appearance in Countdown (2011), A Reason to Live (2011), The Grandmaster (2013), My Brilliant Life (2014), The Crossing in two parts (2014 and 2015), The Queens (2015) and Dark Nuns (2025).

Song Hye Kyo and Song Joong Ki met making Descendants of the Sun, which was shot in 2015 and broadcast in 2016. The two announced on 5 July 2017 that they would marry, and the wedding took place on 31 October 2017 at the Yeongbingwan hall of the Shilla Hotel in Seoul.

Song Joong Ki applied for divorce mediation at the Seoul Family Court on 26 June 2019, and the application was made public the next day. The divorce was finalised through mediation on 22 July 2019. There were no children.

That is the whole of what either of them, or their representatives, put on record. This page does not repeat the reporting and speculation that followed, and it lists no later relationship because none has been announced.

The Glory was written by Kim Eun Sook and directed by Ahn Gil Ho for Netflix, and released in two parts, the first on 30 December 2022 and the second on 10 March 2023. Song Hye Kyo plays Moon Dong Eun, a former victim of school bullying who takes a job as homeroom teacher at the primary school attended by the daughter of the girl who led the bullies, and builds her revenge from there.

The 59th Baeksang Arts Awards gave her best actress in television for it in 2023, her first win in that category after nominations in 2005, 2013 and 2016. The 2nd Blue Dragon Series Awards on 19 July 2023 added their top prize, Blue Dragon's Choice. The portrait at the top of this page was taken on that night's red carpet.

Dark Nuns, released in Korean cinemas on 24 January 2025, is a spin-off of the 2015 film The Priests. She plays Sister Junia, a nun who decides to perform an exorcism she has no authority to perform to save a possessed boy, opposite Jeon Yeo Been as Sister Michaela. It drew more than 1.65 million admissions in Korea and earned her best actress nominations at the Baeksang Arts Awards and the Blue Dragon Film Awards.

The same year she appeared as Jinniya in Netflix's Genie, Make a Wish, written by Kim Eun Sook, in episodes 8 and 10. It was her first special appearance in twenty-eight years of acting, and it was filmed in Dubai without any announcement.

Her next series is Tantara (천천히 강렬하게), a 22-episode Netflix period drama set in the Korean music business from the 1960s to the 1980s. It reunites her with Noh Hee Kyung for a third time, with Lee Yoon Jung directing and Gong Yoo, Kim Seol Hyun, Cha Seung Won and Lee Ha Nee in the cast. Filming began on 12 January 2025 and ended in January 2026. Netflix has scheduled it for the fourth quarter of 2026 without naming a date. It was announced as Show Business, and that working title still appears in older coverage.