Squid Game’s Jun-hee Became the Young Jeon Do-yeon: Jo Yuri

Featured photo: Jo Yuri, October 18, 2024. Photo: K-POPIT / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0.

Jo Yuri’s charm is the way she presses feelings down beneath a clear, bright face. She burned that face into viewers around the world as Jun-hee, Player 222 in Squid Game, and in Lee Chang-dong’s Possible Love, streaming worldwide on Netflix since November 6, she plays the younger years of Mi-ok, the woman Jeon Do-yeon plays. The film won the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Venice Film Festival (Sports Chosun).

Honestly, the first time I read the line “Jo Yuri as the young Jeon Do-yeon,” my chest swelled as a fan. The girl who once fell short in a survival audition and climbed back onto the stage has now lived the past of an actress she admires.

November 6, 2026: the young Mi-ok in Possible Love

Possible Love follows Ho-seok (Sul Kyung-gu) and Mi-ok (Jeon Do-yeon), a married couple left jobless after a strike, and a documentary-making couple (Jo Yeo-jeong and Zo In-sung) who want to film them (Hankyoreh). Lee Chang-dong’s first film in eight years since Burning, it won the Grand Jury Prize and the FIPRESCI Prize at Venice and was chosen as Korea’s submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature (Wikipedia, Sports Chosun).

• From middle school to about twenty. Jo Yuri plays Mi-ok’s years from middle school into early adulthood (Topstar News). Her part shows where the adult Mi-ok’s wounds began.
• Rewatching Jeon Do-yeon. Rather than showing herself, she focused on Mi-ok’s feelings and atmosphere, and said she watched Jeon Do-yeon’s films over and over to study her expressions, way of speaking and movements (Singles interview, via Slist).
• “The most memorable film I’ve seen recently.” That’s how Jo Yuri described the finished film. Scenes she hadn’t fully understood on the page, she said, came to her in a new way on screen (Slist).

Where to watch: Netflix, worldwide since November 6 (5 p.m. KST, 3 a.m. ET; checked November 2, 2026). It opened first in Korean theaters on September 23. The rest of the cast has stories here too: Jeon Do-yeon, Sul Kyung-gu, Jo Yeo-jeong and Zo In-sung.

Filmography: from the stage to Netflix

In 2017, Jo Yuri finished 15th on the audition show Idol School and missed debut. The next year she placed third on Produce 48 and debuted with IZ*ONE in October 2018. After the group’s run ended in 2021 she released her first solo single, “Glassy,” and began acting the following year (Wikipedia).

• 2022, Work Later, Drink Now 2. In a special appearance in episode 7, she played Si-eun, a troubled teenager. One review called her natural performance “short but strong” (Wikipedia).

• 2024, Squid Game Season 2. She played Kim Jun-hee, Player 222, who enters a game with a huge cash prize while pregnant. That December, she won the Best Choice Award (TV/Film) and the Emotive Award at the Asia Artist Awards (Wikipedia).

• 2025, Squid Game Season 3. She carried Jun-hee’s story through to the final season.

Where to watch: Netflix (US and Korea, JustWatch, checked November 2, 2026).

• Next, Variety. She plays Seung-hee in the Netflix series Variety. The character is unlike anyone she has played, so she said she prepared by analyzing her personality and emotions in detail, and she named Son Ye-jin, who also appears in the series, as her role model (GP Korea, Wikipedia). No release date or trailer has been announced yet.

She is someone who, even when frustration comes from not getting the result she wanted, believes there is another chance and prepares for the next challenge (Slist). The years she held on with that belief are now on screen as Jeon Do-yeon’s girlhood. If you haven’t pressed play yet, the young Mi-ok’s face is waiting for you on Netflix tonight.