In HOPE, Jung Ho-yeon has a village to help protect. She plays Sung-ae, a police officer facing a mysterious threat alongside outpost chief Bum-seok. For viewers who first knew her as Squid Game’s Player 067, the change begins with responsibility: this character has a job within the community under attack. (NEON’s official synopsis)

That makes Na Hong-jin’s film an interesting point in her career. It brings an actor recognized through television into a Korean feature with an international ensemble—and gives her a role built through practical training and attention to everyday relationships. The useful question is what she is learning to do on screen, beyond being recognized there.

Sung-ae belongs to the village’s response

The Cannes cast list credits HOYEON as Sung-ae. NEON identifies her as an officer and Hwang Jung-min’s Bum-seok as the police chief. Cannes’ synopsis places both in the effort to defend elderly residents when communications are cut and reinforcements have been diverted. Sung-ki, played by Zo In-sung, is part of the separate search in the mountains. (Cannes, NEON)

These records establish a professional role and a shared predicament. They do not establish a family connection or romantic relationship between Sung-ae and the other leads. Nor does an actor’s place in a cast list reveal how much authority the character exercises in every scene.

For the wider setup and official trailer, our HOPE film guide supplies the bearings. Here, the focus is how Jung approached the person inside that uniform.

Preparing a working life, not just an entrance

In a July 2026 Cine21 interview, Jung described making something closer to a work log than a character diary. She spoke with a former policewoman about routines in a comparable environment and worked out Sung-ae’s relationships with residents. This is evidence of her preparation; it does not independently date the fictional story or document present-day police practice. (Cine21 interview)

The physical preparation had its own demands. In her May 2026 Cannes interview with Ilgan Sports, Jung discussed driving and firearms training, strength work and finding a higher vocal register for Sung-ae. She described satisfaction in seeing the results of that effort. These are the performer’s reported preparations, rather than a claim that she performed every dangerous shot herself. (Ilgan Sports interview)

Our reading is that this shifts the career conversation from image to task: how to sound like this person, handle her work and belong in her surroundings. A photocall can identify the actor. Those choices help build a role.

Familiarity is not the same as a family tie

Jung told Cine21 she approached Sung-ae and Bum-seok as colleagues with substantial mutual trust. She imagined that long exposure to his speech would influence Sung-ae’s own delivery. She also described attention to older residents’ conversational habits when preparing a health-center sequence. These are her accounts of performance choices, not a transcript reproduced from the film. (Cine21)

For an international viewer, the useful context is that work hierarchy and local familiarity can coexist. A colleague can hold a higher position while also being someone encountered through years of ordinary village life. Familiar delivery alone is not proof of kinship, contempt or romance.

The evidence reviewed here supports this limited account of relationship-building. It does not support a line-by-line analysis of honorifics, switches between polite and informal Korean, or unspoken attraction. We have not verified a complete scene transcript, so this profile does not assign hidden feelings to a glance or a trailer cut.

What modeling contributed—and what it cannot explain

Jung has offered a specific connection between her earlier profession and acting. In Netflix’s 2022 Tudum account of a Queue interview, she linked time away from home while modeling in New York to her way into Sae-byeok. The useful point is the personal experience she drew on, rather than an assumption that runway work automatically produces a particular acting style. (Netflix Tudum)

By 2022, her Squid Game performance had earned the SAG award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series. That is a concrete acting milestone, distinct from fashion visibility. (Netflix’s awards report)

HOPE supplies a different set of circumstances from which to build. We would not transfer Sae-byeok’s guarded behavior or family story onto Sung-ae simply because the same actor plays both. For Jung’s career, the comparison is between successive acting assignments, not two versions of Player 067.

Disclaimer makes the path less linear

Between Squid Game and HOPE, Jung appeared in Disclaimer, Alfonso Cuarón’s seven-part psychological thriller starring Cate Blanchett and Kevin Kline. Apple’s official announcement includes Hoyeon in the ensemble and records its October 11, 2024 global launch. That places an international streaming production within the career sequence before HOPE’s 2026 Cannes appearance. (Apple TV Press)

The documented movement is therefore across directors, formats and production settings. It is not a simple ladder on which working outside Korea is automatically a promotion and a Korean film is a step back.

Jung’s own words offer a better frame. In her 2022 Vogue interview, she said Squid Game had changed her thinking: a project’s story and message mattered more than whether it was American or European. That is a stated preference from that interview, not proof of why she accepted every subsequent job. (Vogue)

A Korean feature can also be an international step

Cannes identifies HOPE as a South Korean production, with a cast including Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander and Taylor Russell. NEON and Madman provide US and Australian distribution respectively. Its international reach is part of a Korean film’s production and circulation, rather than evidence that Jung has left Korean work behind. (Cannes credits, NEON, Madman)

Our interpretation of the career significance is bounded: HOPE gives her a feature-film role, another director’s working method and an ensemble beyond the series that introduced her to many viewers. None of that predicts her next job or guarantees a particular audience response.

Her own assessment is more personal. In the Ilgan Sports interview, Jung described HOPE as a source of learning and encouragement, including what she gained from Hwang Jung-min and Zo In-sung. That explains why the production could matter to her even before its longer-term career effects can be measured. (Direct interview)

For the filmmaker’s side of that collaboration, read our Na Hong-jin director deep dive. For Jung, Sung-ae gives audiences a new starting point: an officer’s duties, her place among familiar people, and the preparation required to make both convincing.

Hero: Jung Ho-yeon at the HOPE photocall in Cannes on May 18, 2026. This is a photograph of the actor, not Sung-ae in costume. Gabriel Hutchinson / WikiPortraits via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Existing Commons crop retained; proportionally resized and converted to WebP by KSPILL. The adapted photograph retains the same license.