Kim Go-eun was a relatively unknown actress in 2012 when she was cast in her lead debut role in the movie ‘A Muse’, directed by Jung Ji-woo. Despite having no prior acting experience in film or TV dramas, and only having acted in student productions and school plays, she was chosen among 300 actresses who auditioned for the role. She met the director through a circle of friends and was not even aware that auditions for the film were being held. According to the director, Kim grew and developed as an actress through the film, and her performance earned her several Best New Actress awards that year.

Kim has described her feelings about acting as a mix of nervousness and exhilaration. She said that when she stood on stage for the first time, she was so nervous that she thought it would be difficult to continue acting as a profession. However, from her second performance, she felt ecstatic and as if she had wings on her back, and she never wanted to step off the stage. She has said that she continues to act because she wants to hold on to that feeling.

In terms of her career choices, Kim has said that she doesn’t focus on her image or potential endorsement deals when choosing her next film project. Instead, she is more concerned about the impact her appearance in commercials would have on her roles, and she is keen to limit her involvement in advertisements.

After the success of ‘A Muse’, Kim took a break from acting to complete her college degree. She returned to the screen in 2014 with a critically acclaimed performance in the thriller ‘Monster’, in which she played a developmentally disabled woman seeking revenge for the murder of her sister. In the following year, she starred in ‘Coin Locker Girl’, a female-driven thriller based on a Japanese novel.

For this film, she was invited to the ‘2015 Festival de Cannes’ with the director and cast. Kim then went on to star in several other films such as ‘Memories of the Sword’, a martial arts period drama where she acted opposite her role model Jeon Do-yeon. This was followed by the courtroom film ‘The Advocate: A Missing Body’, where she played an aggressive prosecutor, and the family film ‘Canola’, where she played the role of a girl who reunites with her grandmother.

In 2016, Kim made her television debut in the hit cable series ‘Cheese in the Trap’, based on the webtoon of the same name. She also contributed vocals to the drama’s OST for the track ‘Attraction’ by Tearliner, a music artist. For her performance in the series, she won the ‘Baeksang Arts Award’ for ‘Best New Actress Television’. Later that year, she co-starred in the fantasy drama ‘Guardian: The Lonely and Great God‘, which was a pan-Asia hit and a cultural phenomenon in South Korea. It was also the first Korean cable drama to surpass 20% in ratings and, as of June 2021, it is the fifth-highest-rated Korean drama in cable television history.

In 2018, Kim made a comeback in the film ‘Sunset in My Hometown’ directed by Lee Joon-ik, where she played a secondary character of a wild country girl. For this role, she gained 8 kgs and learned a regional dialect. The same year, she was cast in the period romance film ‘Tune in for Love‘.

In 2019, Kim was cast in the fantasy drama ‘The King: Eternal Monarch‘. The series was highly anticipated due to its all-star cast, acclaimed screenwriter, extensive promotion, and a production budget of over 30 billion Won. The series broke records for SBS’s highest Friday-Saturday drama premiere ratings and held the No.1 spot on the weekly ‘Wavve’ drama chart for eight consecutive weeks. However, the series received criticism for its script, direction, and performances, resulting in lower-than-expected popularity compared to previous works by screenwriter Kim Eun-sook.

The same year, Kim was cast in South Korea’s first-ever musical film, ‘Hero’. The film is based on the life of activist An Jung-geun following the assassination of Itō Hirobumi, and Kim plays the role of a former Gungnyeo (a lady officer of the royal court) turned Geisha (a Japanese woman trained in music and dancing whose job is entertaining men) who becomes a part of the Korean independence movement. The movie was originally scheduled to premiere in July 2020 but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2021, Kim appeared in Korea’s first live-action animation romantic comedy-drama ‘Yumi’s Cells’, a tvN series based on a webtoon, and in 2022, she again appeared in its second part, ‘Yumi’s Cells 2’

Her recent drama is ‘Little women’ (2022), in which she plays the role of ‘Oh In-ju’, an elder sister of a poor family consisting of 4 daughters. This drama is now successfully streaming on Netflix.