Han Chae-ah

Han kept her personal life a close-guarded secret from fans and media for a very long time, but she openly accepted her relationship with Cha Se-ji in 2017.

Han Chae-ah was born in Busan, South Korea on March 24, 1982 into a middle class household. Always wanting to be an actor, she started participating in high school plays, where she was appreciated for her natural acting skills and penchant for learning new things.

She carried her acting dream through her school days, including middle school and high school and by the time she was a high school graduate, she started concentrating more on her acting career.

For her higher studies, she got enrolled in the Hanyang Women’s University and while in college, she accepted the offer to feature in a music video by the up and coming artist Son Ho-young’s ‘Love Brings Separation’.

Facing the camera for the first time made her further excited about a career in acting and once she got out of the college, she went to Seoul to start auditioning and luckily enough, she didn’t have to struggle very hard to start a career in the industry.

Her first tryst with camera happened for a music video. Encouraged by this, she started auditioning for roles on small screen. She started with variety TV and quickly got the job as a host on the show ‘Fantasy Couple: Classroom of Love’ in 2007. This brought her the much-needed exposure and she was now looking towards fiction TV.

After several auditions, she finally got a little acting part in the series ‘Kokkiri’ in 2008, and it was followed by ‘Style’ in 2009. She appeared in inconsequential roles in both.

The 2010 romantic drama ‘Neighbour Enemies’ turned out to be a slight breakthrough for her career as her performance as Yoon Ha-young was widely appreciated. For her role, she won the New Star Award at the SBS Drama Awards, which also helped her in bagging more opportunities.

While the year 2011 was a moderate one in terms of success, 2012 turned out to be the real game changer as far as her career was concerned. Not only did she make her film debut in 2012 with the film ‘The King of XXX-Kissing’, but she also became a part of 3 successful dramas.

She was first seen in ‘Hero’ followed by ‘Bridal Mask’. In the latter, she played the role of a Korean woman, who hates the Japanese but was adopted by a kind Japanese couple when she was a kid. She then followed this hard core dramatic role with a light one in ‘Ohlala Couple’ as Victoria Kim. For ‘Bridal Mask’, she was nominated for her performance at the SBS Drama Awards.