Ji-young Yoo

SunHee Seo (; born in 1999 or 2000), known professionally as Ji-young Yoo (), is a South Korean 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 was born to Korean immigrants in Denver, Colorado. She attended Colorado Academy and was listed as "SunHee Morgan Seo" in its 2017 journal. She also trained at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts and the Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts School & Camp. 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.

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."

Career

Yoo began her career as SunHee Seo, and in 2021 appeared in ''Moxie''. 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. Adopting her stage name by 2021, she was cast in the A24/Apple TV+ drama film ''The Sky Is Everywhere'', and alongside Nicole Kidman in the Amazon Prime series '' Expats''.

In 2022, she was cast in '' Freaky Tales''. Yoo won Best Performance in a U.S. Narrative Feature at the 2023 Tribeca Festival for her performance in ''Smoking Tigers''. In 2024, she was nominated for Gotham Awards 'Outstanding Performance in a Limited Series' for '' Expats'', which premiered in January. 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.

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; as well as a B- grade from '' IndieWire'''s Alison Foreman, who considered the film a "betray l of its source material yet entertaining and "inventive" in its own right. 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." Navarro wrote that in the main cast, "the only one who comes close to a distinct personality is Ji-young Yoo's Megan". 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."

Filmography

Film

Television

Awards

References

External links

Ji-young Yoo
at the Internet Movie Database

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yoo, Ji-young
Actresses from Denver
American actresses of Korean descent
American film actresses
American television actresses
Colorado Academy alumni
Living people
University of Southern California alumni