Ha Ji-won

She is associated with charitable activities and has also pledged to donate her cornea via the Organ Donation Center of Love. Her active pursuits in contributing to programs aiding unprivileged and handicapped families earned her Prime Minister's Award for the '2008 Family Month Event'.

Ha Ji-won was born Jeon Hae-rim on June 28, 1978, in Seoul, South Korea, as the second oldest child of Yoon-bok Jeon and Yoon-soon Son. She has two sisters and one younger brother of whom her brother Jeon Tae-Su is also an actor.

As a child Ji-won always wanted to be an actress. During her high school days she was contacted by an agency that spotted her picture in a photo studio.

She attended ‘Dankook University’ from where she completed her graduation with a degree in Bachelor of Film and Television (BFTV).

According to her, she landed up with her TV debut role in the teen drama series ‘New Generation Report: Adults Don’t Understand Us’ (1996) after auditioning for around 100 projects.

This was followed by two more television series namely ‘Dragon's Tears’ (1998) and ‘Dangerous Lullaby’ (1999) before she started getting attention as an actress with the popular high school drama series ‘School 2’ (1999). She featured as Jang Se-jin, a troubled teenage girl, in the series which aired on KBS2.

Her first film role of Han Da-hye, a bipolar character, came in 2000 with the thriller ‘Truth Game’ where she starred opposite Ahn Sung-ki. The role that she managed to clinch among 1500 prospective candidates fetched her several awards including ‘Best New Actress Award’ at the 37th Grand Bell Awards that year.

She then featured in the South Korean science-fiction romance film ‘Ditto’ that released on May 27, 2000. Her performance in the film earned her the ‘Best Supporting Actress Award’ at the 21st Blue ‘Dragon Film Awards’ that year.

Her next film ‘Nightmare’ was a South Korean horror flick written and directed by Ahn Byeong-ki. It became the 6th best selling film of 2000.