Jeon Yu-na

Jeon Yu-na (born July 18, 2011) is a South Korean child actress. She gained international recognition for her role as the childhood Sunja in Apple TV+ series Pachinko in 2022, and as the genius girl Choi Ro-hee in ENA series The Kidnapping Day in 2023. For her role in The Kidnapping Day, she was awarded the Best New Actress (Television category) in the 60th Baeksang Arts Awards in 2024.

Life and career
Yuna was born on July 18, 2011 in Seoul, South Korea. She started acting at a very young age of 5 when she went to a local music academy, when her mom recognized her acting talent. She took some guest and minor roles in several Korean movies and television series such as Juror 8 and Hellbound, before getting international recognition for playing the childhood Sunja in Pachinko. Her role in Pachinko was praised as a delightful performance. She was only 10 years old during the filming, and she was immersed in the character by understanding what the Koreans had experienced during the Japanese colonization. She cast the childhood Sunja character as observant, precocious, and have a lot of curiosity on what happened around her.

After Pachinko, she worked on some other Korean television series such as Green Mother's Club and Secret of the Lightning Cloak, and signed an exclusive contract with Saram Entertainment before auditioning for the role of Choi Ro-hee in The Kidnapping Day. She won the role by overcoming a competition rate of 500 to 1 and surviving 5 rounds of auditions. She was praised for her delicate acting skills that is unusual for a child actress her age and for her ability to maintain a good chemistry with the lead actor, Yoon Kye-sang. Kye-sang praised her for acting professionally like an adult. Another fellow actress in the drama, Seo Jae-hee, also praised her, stating that Yuna has a pure, lovely, wise and innate personality. For her role in The Kidnapping Day, she was awarded the Best Child Actress at the 2023 Seoulcon APAN Star Awards. She was also being awarded the Best New Actress (Television category) in the 2024 Baeksang Arts Awards.

Between October 8, 2023 and November 19, 2023, together with Seol Ga-eun, Yuna is playing the Suzu role in Sea Village Diary, a theatre play based on a Japanese film called Our Little Sister, directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda.