Meet Ha Ye-rin, South Korea’s first Bridgerton sweetheart

SEOUL - Netflix juggernaut

Bridgerton now in its fourth season

, has hit yet another milestone by casting its first Asian female lead, Ha Ye-rin.

A glossy alternative-history romance, Bridgerton reimagines Regency-era London as a racially inclusive society, following the eight Bridgerton siblings as they explore the marriage market of high society.

With its lavish mise-en-scenes, intense romantic storytelling and color-conscious casting, the show has cultivated a fervent global fanbase.

Having released Part 1 of its fourth season on Jan. 29, the Netflix original has once again made a major impact, logging 39.7 million views globally in its first week of release and ranking in the top 10 across 91 countries.

And for the 28-year-old Korean Australian actress, who plays the Cinderella-like maid that falls in love with the second son of the Bridgerton family, the role may represent the culmination of an unusually layered career path.

A native of Sydney, Ha was raised in a household shaped by acting. Her grandmother is Son Sook, a revered veteran actress in South Korea who also served as the country’s Minister of Environment.

Her parents met while attending acting school and went on to pursue careers in performance themselves, making Ha, in many respects, a third-generation performer.

And that family legacy naturally informed her ambitions early on.

“Going back to South Korea once a year to see my grandparents and seeing them do theatre shows, especially my grandma, I think made me feel like it was a viable career choice,” Ha said during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in January.

“And just seeing how people can be affected in a space in real time by someone’s performance and feel all emotionally connected and tied and reminded that we all are humans and we all share similar emotions. ... I was like, okay, maybe this is something I want to actually pursue as a career,” she added.

She eventually formalised her passion by enrolling at the National Institute of Dramatic Art, the prestigious Australian conservatory whose alumni include Cate Blanchett and numerous internationally acclaimed actors.

After graduating, she made her on-screen debut as Kwan in the explosive 2022 blockbuster Halo, the Paramount+ series executively produced by Steven Spielberg.

Steadily expanding her resume with large-scale projects including HBO’s Dune: Prophecy and Netflix’s The Survivors, Ha has acknowledged that the weight of working on such globally visible productions had triggered bouts of imposter syndrome, which reportedly has followed her around for a long time.

“I’ve had to rewire my brain of telling myself that I can dream more and I can actually aspire for those big roles or characters that in theory, I’ve dreamed about, but actually never believed that I could (get),” said Ha.

Then her latest step in the unusually tentpole-filled career path came in the form of “Bridgerton” Season 4, a casting decision that initially drew sharp backlash from segments of the franchise’s fanbase.

That reaction stemmed in part from how significantly the role diverged from the source material. In Julia Quinn’s original novels, the popular character, named Sophie Beckett, is described as white, with silver-blonde hair and green eyes.

Under showrunner Jess Brownell, however, the series took a more inclusive approach, reimagining the character to reflect Ha’s South Korean heritage. During discussions about adapting the role, Ha suggested the Korean surname Baek.

Ha has said the decision carried deep personal meaning.

“I was just super appreciative of her changing the last name so that it fits with my identity and my culture and how I look,” Ha said during a 2025 Elle interview.

She said: “For some people, it might feel like a small thing, but for a production of that size to mold a character to me really empowered me.”

However, her road to Sophie was not without controversy. As Season 4 rolled out, rumors circulated online alleging racial bias in the show’s promotional strategy, with fans pointing to Ha’s apparent absence from several high-profile marketing efforts.

Despite being the central face of the new season, she was notably excluded from a Pandora jewelry campaign that featured her co-stars, as well as from certain interviews and promotional content posted on the platform’s official social media channels.

The 28-year-old actress has not publicly addressed the speculation. Still, her casting places her at the forefront of a broader push for greater representation, marking one of the rare instances in which an East Asian actress leads a major American romance series.

“I grew up my whole life being the one who’s always ignored or never heard of,” she said during a 2019 Australian Vogue interview.

“Hopefully there’s a time where we can actually see (people of multiple backgrounds) playing the girlfriend, the romantic lead, but in my opinion, audiences are still not used to seeing that amount of diversity on screen or stage.”

Sophie Baek will return in Part 2 of the season on Feb 26, as the rollercoaster-like romance between the sharp-witted maid and the playboy second son of the Bridgerton family approaches its conclusion. THE KOREA HERALD/ ASIA NEWS NETWORK