Shin Min-a – Biography, Age, Korean Dramas & Movies

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Rom-Com · Leading Lady

신민아

Shin Min‑a

KDW Fan Rating

Editorial scoring by KDW — not an objective metric.

Acting Skill85

Charisma92

Versatility90

Popularity93

Career Balance

Supporting (7)(25) Lead

Age42 years 4 months 2 days

NationalitySouth Korea

AgencyAM Entertainment

Debut2001

🏆Award
Winning

17Dramas

18Films

KDRAMAWORLDS.COM

👸 Who Is Shin Min-a?

In The Eyes, released in June 2026, Shin Min-a plays a photographer investigating her twin sister’s mysterious death — a sharper, more haunted register than the warm romantic leads that made her a household name, and a sign of how far she’s willing to stretch twenty-five years into her career. It follows a run that’s been unusually eventful even by her standards: a Netflix crime thriller in Karma, a long-awaited marriage to actor Kim Woo-bin after eleven years together, and a new deal as a global ambassador for Omega, announced in July 2026.

None of it would have happened without the version of Shin Min-a most audiences actually fell for — the gumiho who couldn’t quite pass as human, the tomboy trainer in Oh My Venus, the cafe owner opposite Kim Seon-ho in the phenomenon that was Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha. She built her name on romantic comedy long before she was Korea’s most in-demand commercial face, and the title role in the upcoming Disney+ adaptation The Remarried Empress suggests she isn’t done adding to that range.

📋 Quick Profile

🚀 Career Timeline

Biography

🏡 Early Life

Shin Min-a was born Yang Min-a on April 5, 1984, the youngest of four children with an older sister and brother. Her path into entertainment started almost by accident: a friend submitted her photo to a modeling competition for the teen magazine KiKi without telling her, and she won — launching a modeling career at just 14 years old that she has since described with some ambivalence.

That early start came at a cost she’s spoken about candidly in later interviews, saying she missed out on the ordinary school life her peers had because she was already working. The commercial success came fast regardless: campaigns for Samsung and Korea Telecom 018 made her catchphrase “Love moves about” a piece of early-2000s pop culture, and she adopted the stage name Shin Min-a professionally, partly to avoid confusion with another actress, Yang Mi-ra.

🎬 Career Beginnings

Modeling success didn’t automatically translate to acting credibility, and Shin Min-a treated the transition as something to be earned rather than assumed. She took five months of acting lessons ahead of her TV debut in Beautiful Days (2001), then spent three months learning to actually cut hair for a hairdresser role in the film Madeleine (2003) and two months training under professional boxer Kim Ju-hee to play one in the drama Punch (2003) — her first leading television role.

The performance that changed how she was seen came in 2005’s A Bittersweet Life, where her small but pivotal role opposite Lee Byung-hun’s cold-blooded enforcer gave the film’s violence an emotional center. It set up the run that actually made her a star: My Girlfriend Is a Gumiho (2010), a fantasy rom-com where she played a centuries-old fox spirit passing — badly, endearingly — as an ordinary woman, and swept that year’s SBS Drama Awards.

🎭 Acting Style

Critics and directors have consistently pointed to Shin Min-a’s willingness to physically commit to a role over relying on presence alone. For Oh My Venus (2015), she sat through three-hour prosthetic makeup sessions every shoot to play a lawyer carrying extra weight; for the 2020 film Diva, she trained nearly seven hours a day, swimming competitively to play a diver. Director Lee Hyun-jik, working with her as a rookie on Punch, praised her enthusiasm and emotional expressiveness even then — a trait reviewers keep returning to two decades later.

That commitment shows up across a genuinely wide range: melodrama, historical fantasy in Tale of Arang, workplace political drama in Chief of Staff, and the gloomier, depression-adjacent register she brought to Our Blues (2022), a deliberate departure from the warmth she’d built her name on. A Dispatch review of Our Season (2023) singled out her chemistry with veteran actress Kim Hae-sook as feeling “like seeing a real mother and daughter” — the kind of notice that keeps following an actress twenty-five years into a career built on romantic leads.

🛟 Legacy

Before she was one of Korea’s most bankable dramatic leads, Shin Min-a was simply everywhere — dubbed one of the “four teenage commercial stars” of her generation and, later, one of the country’s highest-paid commercial endorsers, a reputation that earned her the nickname “CF Queen.” That commercial dominance carried into a acting career defined by two rom-com landmarks a decade apart: My Girlfriend Is a Gumiho (2010) and Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha (2021), the latter becoming a genuine global Netflix hit that introduced her to an international audience far beyond Korea’s borders.

Her standing extends past entertainment, too. Her cumulative philanthropic donations passed ₩4 billion by 2025, earning a Presidential Citation in 2019 and the Good People Artist Award at the 2024 Beautiful Artist Awards, and in July 2026 she joined Omega’s roster of global ambassadors — a list that includes Hyun Bin, making her one of a small handful of Korean actors carrying that particular brand’s international profile.

🌟 Notable Works & Iconic Roles

My Girlfriend Is a Gumiho (2010)

Tale of Arang (2012)

Oh My Venus (2015)

Tomorrow with You (2017)

Chief of Staff (2019)

Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha (2021)

Our Blues (2022)

No Gain No Love (2024)

Karma (2025)

The Eyes (2026)

My Girlfriend Is a Gumiho (2010)

Tale of Arang (2012)

Oh My Venus (2015)

Tomorrow with You (2017)

Chief of Staff (2019)

Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha (2021)

Our Blues (2022)

No Gain No Love (2024)

Karma (2025)

The Eyes (2026)

🎞️ Filmography

🎖️ Awards & Honors

🆕 Recent & Upcoming Projects

Our Blues (2022) and No Gain No Love (2024) kept Shin Min-a’s run of tvN hits going, the latter a fake-marriage romantic comedy that became one of the more popular dramas of its season. Karma, her 2025 Netflix crime thriller directed by Lee Il-hyung, pushed in a darker direction — a fatal accident tangling six lives together — and closed out its run earlier this year.

Her current release, The Eyes (2026), casts her as a photographer unraveling her twin sister’s death, out in theaters as of June. Further ahead: the title role of Empress Navier in Disney+’s big-budget adaptation The Remarried Empress, currently in production, and a reported main role opposite Lee Jin-wook in the romance drama Wed Thu Fri, still being finalized as of early 2026.

🤝 Brand Ambassador

💞 Personal Life

She married actor Kim Woo-bin on December 20, 2025, at a private ceremony at the Shilla Hotel in Seoul, after the couple had been publicly together since confirming their relationship on July 22, 2015 (they first met in 2014 filming a commercial). Ahead of the wedding, the couple jointly donated 300 million won to charities including the Hallym Burn Foundation and Good Friends.

She stayed by Kim Woo-bin’s side throughout his treatment for nasopharyngeal cancer after his 2017 diagnosis.

RUMOR · November 2025Premarital pregnancy rumors circulated after her marriage announcement to Kim Woo-bin.

🤔 Fun Facts

• Her entry into modeling was accidental — a friend submitted her photo to a KiKi magazine competition without her knowledge, and she won.
• She adopted the stage name “Shin Min-a” (her birth name is Yang Min-a) partly to avoid confusion with another actress, Yang Mi-ra.
• For her role as a hairdresser in Madeleine (2003), she practiced hairdressing for three months; for her boxer role in Punch (2003), she trained under professional boxer Kim Ju-hee for two months.
• To play an overweight lawyer in Oh My Venus (2015), she sat through three-hour prosthetic makeup sessions before every shoot.
• In 2009 she published a photo book, “Shin Min-a’s French Diary,” documenting her travels in Paris after appearing on a cable travel program.
• She has said she regrets not having a normal school life, since her modeling and acting career began at 14.
• Ahead of her December 2025 wedding, she and Kim Woo-bin jointly donated 300 million won to charities including the Hallym Burn Foundation, Asan Medical Center, and Good Friends.

💬 Quotes

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