Park So-dam

Park So-dam
Park So-dam
	Park in January 2023
Born	September 8, 1991 (age 33); Seoul, South Korea
Education	Korea National University of Arts (BA)
Occupation	Actress
Years active	2013–present
Agent	Artist Company
Korean name
Hangul	박소담
Hanja	朴素淡
Revised Romanization	Bak So-dam
McCune–Reischauer	Pak Sotam

Park So-dam (Korean: 박소담; born September 8, 1991) is a South Korean actress. She gained recognition through her appearances in the film The Priests (2015) as well as television series such as Cinderella with Four Knights (2016), Record of Youth (2020) and Death's Game (2023–2024).^[2]^[3]

Quick Facts Born, Education ...

Close

She achieved international fame for her role in the 2019 critically acclaimed dark comedy thriller film Parasite, which won the Palme d'Or at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Award for Best Picture.^[4] The actors won the Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture at the 26th Screen Actors Guild Awards.^[5]

When Park was in high school, she watched the musical Grease and developed an interest in acting. While in university, Park started her career by turning to independent films after being rejected from around seventeen auditions.^[6]^{[unreliable source?]}^[7]

In 2010, Park enrolled in the School of Drama at Korea National University of Arts. She was part of the Class of 2010 in the Department of Acting, alongside classmates such as Kim Go-eun, Lee Yoo-young, Ahn Eun-jin, Lee Sang-yi, Kim Sung-cheol, Cha Seo-won, and Lee Hwi-jong.^[8]

2013–2016: Early career

Park graduated from Korea National University of Arts in February 2014 and is called Jeon Do-yeon of the short film world. In 2013 alone, she appeared in eight short films and gave impressive performances in over 15 short films.^[9]

Known as a prolific performer in independent cinema, Park starred in the Korean Academy of Film Arts feature Ingtoogi: Battle of the Internet Trolls and the indie Steel Cold Winter, the latter of which drew notice when it premiered at the Busan International Film Festival. Park also took small parts in mainstream titles Scarlet Innocence and The Royal Tailor.^[10]

She broke into the mainstream in 2015 after making a strong impression with her performance in The Silenced, which nabbed her a win for Best Supporting Actress from the Busan Film Critics Awards.^[7]^[11] She then featured in box office hits Veteran and The Throne, which led to her casting in the critically acclaimed mystery thriller The Priests.^[12]^[13] Her role as an evil possessed high school student won her multiple Best New Actress nods.^[14]^[15]

Park also extended her filmography to television. In 2016, she took the lead role in KBS2's medical drama A Beautiful Mind^[16] and tvN's romantic comedy series Cinderella with Four Knights.^[3] She then appeared in 2016 revival of the hit play Closer, by Patrick Marber, opposite Bae Seong-woo, Seo Hyun-woo, Kim So-jin, and Kim Seon-ho.^[17]

2019–present: Rising popularity through Parasite and career breakthrough

In 2019, Park starred in Bong Joon-ho's black comedy, Parasite.^[18] The film received international critical acclaim and was a box office success in South Korea.^[19] She gained recognition for her role as a crafty, whipsmart younger sister of the family, and became known for her "Jessica Jingle".^[20] In the same year, Park joined the variety show Three Meals a Day: Mountain Village along with Yum Jung-ah and Yoon Se-ah.

In 2020, Park was cast in the youth drama Record of Youth as an aspiring makeup artist.^[21] In the same year, Park participated in the variety show Gamsung Camping which is a camping variety show with Park Na-rae, Ahn Young-mi, Son Na-eun, Solar.^[2] Later, Park made her comeback in the stage play The Student and Mr. Henri, a stage play she performed in 2017.

In 2022, Park returned to the big screen in three years in the crime action film Special Delivery, playing a professional delivery driver.^[22]^[23]

In 2023, she starred in Lee Hae-young's spy action film Phantom as a Korean secretary to a high-ranking Japanese officer in 1933.^[24]^[25] During that same year, Park starred as the female lead in Death's Game, portraying a mysterious entity known as "Death", who punishes a man to 12 cycles of painful deaths as punishment for his suicide and insults of Death.^[26]

Health

On December 13, 2021, it was revealed that Park had been diagnosed with papillary thyroid cancer during a regular health checkup, and underwent surgery according to the opinion of the medical staff.^[27]

On February 7, 2022, Park's agency confirmed that Park had recently recovered from COVID-19.^[28]