It’s always fun to feature rising stars in our spotlight series, and this time we’re taking a look at Go Won-hee. She’s currently starring in her first primetime leading role opposite Shin Sung-rok in KBS’s Perfume. The fantasy rom-com is off to a pretty good start in its first few weeks, especially for a drama with a relatively new actress in the lead.
Go Won-hee began her career as a model in 2011, most notably working for Asiana Airlines, but she’s been working as an actress since around the same time. Her early acting credits were a series of small roles and appearances, including some music videos. She gained traction — and attention for her comedy skills — and joined SNL Korea as a cast member in 2015. In terms of dramas, however, it was her roles in Strongest Deliveryman and Woohoo Waikiki that brought her out of the sidelines and into the spotlight, which is where she stands today.
Here are some dramaland moments from Go Won-hee, followed by her full filmography.
Strongest Deliveryman (2017)
Strongest Deliveryman was one of these sweet feel-good dramas where we got to see kindness and generosity trumping hardships, trouble, gangsters, and meanies. Go Kyung-pyo was great in his leading role as the kind-hearted food-delivering entrepreneur, but the drama also had nice second lead and supporting storylines. Stories about pressured chaebol heirs and heiresses can get overplayed and boring, but the token heirs and heiresses in Strongest Deliveryman (Kim Sun-ho and Go Won-hee) were fresh and fun. Go Won-hee, in particular, was spunky and adorable as the clueless runaway rich girl faced up against things like getting a job, putting a roof over her head, and living off gimbap.
Your House Helper (2018)
I loved Go Won-hee as the wacky runaway daughter in Strongest Deliveryman, so it was a pleasant surprise to find her in Your House Helper in one of the main roles. The red braids in Strongest Deliveryman were cute, but the sophisticated bob of her character in Your House Helper is equally telling about her character. Go Won-hee played a jewelry designer whose company hit hard times. Rather than have her pride injured, she pretended to be raking in the dollars designing (meanwhile, she was staying up all night stringing beads by the metric ton). Her storyline — and cute romance as Lee Ji-hoon’s character wooed her with all he was worth — was actually more fun for me than the main storyline between the lovely (and aproned) Ha Suk-jin and Bona.
Perfume (2019)
Go Won-hee snags her first leading role in KBS’s Perfume, and stars opposite Shin Sung-rok who hasn’t stopped for a minute after the success of An Empress’s Dignity. Speaking of that bit of makjang, it sounds like Perfume has a lead character body transformation to rival Choi Jin-hyuk’s as Na Wang-shik in An Empress’s Dignity (which is kind of hard to surpass, actually). In Perfume, Go Won-hee plays a miserable housekeeper who is transformed (read: beautified and youthified) by a mysterious perfume. I assume this magical perfume has something to do with Shin Sung-rok — he plays a fashion designer in need of a muse. Obviously I haven’t caught this drama yet, but I’m completely behind the casting of these two. Shin Sung-rok is so theatrical and fun in his roles, and after seeing a few of Go Won-hee’s performances, I think she’ll be a good costar for him. They’re both just the right amount of wacky, and it sounds like the drama and its strange premise will need them to carry it.
Go Won-hee’s full filmography: