Bae Suzy and Nam Joo-hyuk may lead Netflix’s Start-Up, but Nam Da-reum is stealing the K-drama series – what else has the former child star appeared in?

Nov 10 , 2020

Nam Da-reum in new K-drama Start-Up. Photo: @namdareum_mom/Instagram

He’s appeared in The King in Love, A Piece of Your Mind and While You Were Sleeping, sharing roles with the likes of Lee Jong-suk and Jung Hae-in – and he’s only 18

Netflix series Start-Up has only been out for a month, but it’s already made its own mark amid the bubbling K-drama crossover craze.

One of the most-anticipated Korean series of the year, alongside Record of Youth, Start-Up premiered with a respectable 4.5 per cent domestic viewership rating on October 17, according to Korea Times. The first episode of the series (distributed internationally by Netflix) wowed viewers partly because of the powerful performance of actor Nam Da-reum, who portrays a younger version of Han Ji-pyeong, the second male lead.

He might not be the drama’s most famous face – definitely no Park Bo-gum or Song Joong-ki – but diehard K-drama fans will already recognise him, as the 18-year-old already has more than 30 projects under his belt since debuting as a child actor. How many of these K-dramas do you now remember seeing him in?

Pinocchio (2014) and While You Were Sleeping (2017)

Nam played the younger version of the protagonist in romantic comedy TV series Pinocchio. This protagonist, however, has a dual identity: he starts out as ordinary kid Ki Ha-myung, but then takes on the name Choi Dal-po after his family is killed during a tragic sequence of events, and he’s rescued and adopted by fisherman Choi Gong-pil. Nam and actor Lee Jong-suk, who played the older version of the character, were very much in sync, and their performances resonated well with viewers.

The two were reunited in fantasy legal procedural series While You Were Sleeping in 2017, where they played younger and older versions of leading man Jung Jae-chan. Nam sported blonde hair to personify Jung’s devil may care, bad boy image.

A Piece of Your Mind (2020)

This March, Nam played the younger version of romantic comedy series A Piece of Your Mind protagonist, Moon Ha-won. He shared the role of the kind-hearted artificial programmer with Jung Hae-in, who played the older version of the character. Fans have noted that the two actors bear a striking resemblance. Jung once described Moon as calm and poised to Esquire Korea; someone who doesn’t express emotion due to years of experiencing unrequited love. Nam embodied this description perfectly in the flashbacks he appeared in.

Where Stars Land (2018)