Sooyoung Choi

Choi Soo-young has had two careers, and the first one nearly did not happen. She debuted in 2002 in Route 0, a short-lived Korean-Japanese duo aimed at the Japanese market. She returned to South Korea in 2004 and joined Girls' Generation in 2007, a group that went on to become one of the best-selling acts in the country and one of the most widely recognised Korean groups abroad.

The acting came second and has been the slower burn. Her earliest screen credit here is Hello, Schoolgirl in 2008, and the run since is mostly television: Gong Min-young in Dating Agency: Cyrano, Chun Sung-hee in Squad 38, Cha Soo-young in Tell Me What You Saw, Seo Dan-ah in Run On, Seo Yeon-joo in If You Wish Upon Me. The standout is Move to Heaven, where she plays Son U-rim in a quiet series about a trauma-cleaning business, which is exactly the register a pop career does not prepare anyone for.

A large chunk of the credit list is the group's own filmed output: concert films and tour documents from the early Japan runs through to the Phantasia shows, plus variety hosting. That is normal for an idol filmography, and it means the acting record is smaller than the raw credit count suggests. What it shows is steady, unshowy work. She takes supporting parts in good dramas rather than leads in bad ones.