Park Ji-hyun Joins Three International Rivals for International Emmy Best Actress

Actress Park Ji-hyun has been nominated for Best Actress at the 54th International Emmy Awards, becoming the first Korean actress in the award's history to appear on an acting category shortlist. The International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences announced the nominees on the 23rd (local time), with 64 entries across 16 categories representing 22 countries.

Park earned the nomination for her performance as Cheon Sangyeon in the Netflix series Eunjoong and Sangyeon, which premiered in September last year. She joins Mona Mina Leon (Holy Sh!t, Belgium), Bárbara Mori (Lucca's World, Mexico), and Sheridan Smith (I Fought the Law, UK) in the final four.

The role that got her there

Eunjoong and Sangyeon follows two friends, Eunjoong (played by Kim Go-eun) and Sangyeon (Park Ji-hyun), whose relationship shifts across decades from adolescence into their forties, tracing love, longing, jealousy, and resentment as it goes. The series also grapples with the theme of assisted dying, which gives its emotional arc a particular weight. Park's performance spans those full decades of Sangyeon's life, tracking the character's psychological evolution through each stage.

The nomination extends a run of recognition that has so far stayed at the series level. Eunjoong and Sangyeon won the Drama Series and Screenplay awards at the 62nd Baeksang Arts Awards on May 8, and took the Best Creative award at the Global OTT Awards on June 20. That an individual performance citation has now followed those production-level wins is notable in its own right.

The International Emmy was founded in 1973 specifically to spotlight outstanding television from outside the United States, and is distinct from the Primetime Emmy Awards. It is recognized alongside the Banff World Media Festival in Canada and the Monte-Carlo TV Festival in Monaco as one of three major international broadcasting honors. Last year, the Netflix series Chicken Nugget received a Comedy nomination but did not take home the award; in 2022, the KBS2 historical drama The King's Affection became the first Korean drama to win an International Emmy.

Korea's second nomination this cycle

Korea also has a second entry in contention this year. The Disney+ series Hyperknife, starring Park Eun-bin and Sul Kyung-gu, has been nominated in the TV Movie/Mini-Series category. It competes against Spain's The Anatomy of a Moment, Brazil's Oxygen Mask Will Not Drop Down Automatically, and the UK's Prisoner 951.

The 54th International Emmy Awards ceremony takes place in New York on November 23.