Actor Kim Jae-won is winning over the public with a genre-proof appeal as the quintessential "younger boyfriend" type.
Born in 2001 and now in his mid-20s, Kim Jae-won is a fast-rising star among 20-something actors. Despite debuting young, he’s been setting off nonstop heart-fluttering alerts on TV with a surprising mix of mature charisma and boyish charm.
After debuting as a model in 2018, he steadily built a solid filmography with heavyweight projects including tvN’s Our Blues, JTBC’s King the Land, The Tale of Lady Ok, Netflix’s You and Everything Else, and The Art of Sarah. Since February, he’s also been showing off his all-round talent as the new MC of KBS 2TV’s Music Bank.
His "younger man" appeal truly clicked with the public through 2023’s King the Land. Playing Rowoon, a popular in-flight crew member, he delivered an unwavering, straightforward romance toward his senior coworker Pyeong-hwa (played by Go Won-hee). Every time Pyeong-hwa hit a rough patch, he appeared as the ultimate lifesaver — the gold standard for a "younger boyfriend" viewers dream of. Even co-star Go Won-hee praised him in interviews, saying he was "so mature and considerate that the age gap didn’t feel real."
In last year’s The Tale of Lady Ok, he tackled his first historical drama and perfected a different shade of the younger-man dynamic. As Seong Do-gyeom, the second son of the Seong family, he charmed viewers from his early "devoted brother-in-law" innocence to a picture-perfect visual match with his wife Yeon-woo, who is five years older.
All that carefully stacked "younger-man potential" finally peaked in TVING’s original Yumi’s Cells Season 3 (hereafter Yumi’s Cells 3), which premiered on the 13th. He plays Soon-rok, a lightning bolt in the calm daily life of star author Yumi (Kim Go-eun), igniting overpowering romantic tension that makes their age difference feel irrelevant.
What’s driving the hype most is his uncanny sync with the original webtoon. He also nails Soon-rok’s on-off contrast — cool and rational at work, but disarmingly soft at home.
Episode 4, which aired on the 21st, went viral for a prime "younger-boyfriend" moment when he casually asked Yumi, "Want to watch a movie together?"
Sweeping viewers into severe "Soon-rok fever" every Monday and Tuesday, Kim Jae-won has already locked in his next project, the film My First Graduation. Having evolved from the "textbook younger boyfriend" into a guaranteed, must-watch star of his generation, all eyes are on his next moves.