The Most Famous

ACTORS from North Korea

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This page contains a list of the greatest North Korean Actors. The pantheon dataset contains 13,578 Actors, 2 of which were born in North Korea. This makes North Korea the birth place of the 91st most number of Actors behind Jersey, and Nicaragua.

Top 2

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary North Korean Actors of all time. This list of famous North Korean Actors is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

Photo of Youn Yuh-jung

1. Youn Yuh-jung (b. 1947)

With an HPI of 58.68, Youn Yuh-jung is the most famous North Korean Actor.  Her biography has been translated into 31 different languages on wikipedia.

Youn Yuh-jung (Korean: 윤여정, Korean pronunciation: [jun jʌdʑʌŋ]; born June 19, 1947) is a South Korean actress, whose career in film and television spans over five decades. Her accolades include an Academy Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a British Academy Film Award, two Independent Spirit Awards, and a nomination for a Critics' Choice Movie Award. She has starred in many South Korean television series and films. She gained international recognition for her role in Minari (2020). Her critically acclaimed portrayal of Soon-ja in the film made her the first Korean actress to win a Screen Actors Guild Award, an Independent Spirit Award, a British Academy Film Award, and an Academy Award, as well as the first to be nominated for a Critics' Choice Movie Award, all in the Best Supporting Actress category. By the late 1960s, Youn was a rising star in South Korea and won several awards for her role in Woman of Fire (1971). She retired from the spotlight for several years before returning to acting in the late 1980s. Besides Woman of Fire and Minari, Youn is known for her work in the South Korean films The Housemaid (2010), The Taste of Money (2012), The Bacchus Lady (2016), and Canola (2016). She is also known for her matriarch roles in the South Korean family drama series Men of the Bath House (1995), Be Strong, Geum-soon! (2005), Daughters-in-Law (2007), My Husband Got a Family (2012), and Dear My Friends (2016). In 2022, she appeared in the period drama Pachinko on Apple TV+.

Photo of Akira Takarada

2. Akira Takarada (1934 - 2022)

With an HPI of 52.85, Akira Takarada is the 2nd most famous North Korean Actor.  His biography has been translated into 19 different languages.

Akira Takarada (Japanese: 宝田 明, Hepburn: Takarada Akira, April 29, 1934 – March 14, 2022) was a Japanese film actor best known for his roles in the Godzilla film series.

People

Pantheon has 2 people classified as North Korean actors born between 1934 and 1947. Of these 2, 1 (50.00%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living North Korean actors include Youn Yuh-jung. The most famous deceased North Korean actors include Akira Takarada.

Living North Korean Actors

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Deceased North Korean Actors

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