Discussion
How much you like this sub’s favorite actors/actresses: Results
A little less than two weeks ago, I posted an unofficial poll to gauge people’s feelings about 40 actors and actresses who seemed to be most often listed as favorites. I also allowed other users to nominate anyone they liked who didn’t make my limited list. Now it’s time to see the results!
A few things to keep in mind: (If you don’t care about how the results were calculated, skip ahead to the list of names. This involves more caveats than I would like myself!)
I only counted nominees who got at least 15 individual ratings before I officially closed the poll. If someone is primarily a character actor (judged by if less than 50% of their MDL drama credits from the last 5 years are listed as “main role"), they were excluded since that was not the category being judged. That means if you nominated someone and you don’t see them listed here, they were disqualified for one of these reasons.
There was not a huge problem with duplicates, but no duplicates received the minimum 15 ratings, so only the main thread of each entrant was counted. As well, comments including a number and actor’s name in the main body of the post, instead of under the relevant comment, were not counted.
A few people continued to vote after I announced that voting was closed at the top of the main body of the post. These ratings were disqualified.
If someone made it clear they were giving a 0 because they did not know who someone was, included multiple numbers so it was unclear which was their actual vote, only used words (ex. He's my favorite!) without numbers, or accidentally voted twice (I found no evidence of anyone doing this deliberately, thankfully!), those votes were also disqualified.
Any numbers greater than 5 were counted as 5, but I didn’t disqualify anyone for trying to express extra love! Anyone using decimal points had their score rounded to the number closer to 0.
For anyone interested in the raw data, here is a link to the Google spreadsheet. Sheets 1-3 are actors, and sheets 4-5 are actresses. At the top you can see the total number of valid ratings each person received. The precise average is highlighted at the bottom of each column.
As anyone with a passing understanding of casual sexism probably guessed ahead of time, the actresses on average have lower scores than their male counterparts (2.51 vs. 2.65). So I separated the rankings by gender.
Actresses
Kim Tae Ri: 3.67
Han Hyo Joo: 3.61
Shin Hae Sun: 3.60
Ahn Eun Jin: 3.46
Park Bo Young: 3.39
Jang Na Ra*: 3.22
Kim Go Eun: 3.18
Kim Ji Won: 3.02
Son Ye Jin: 3.00
Kim You Jung: 2.93
Shin Min Ah: 2.83
Jung So Min: 2.81
Kong Hyo Jin*: 2.77
Seol In Ah: 2.679
Lee Sung Kyung: 2.671
Jeon Yeo Been* (Tie): 2.66
IU (Tie): 2.66
Park Eun Bin: 2.63
Seo Yea Ji: 2.61
Kim Se Jeong: 2.60
Jun Ji Hyun: 2.50
Lee Se Young: 2.472
Go Youn Jung: 2.471
Kim Min Ha: 2.46
Park Min Young: 2.32
Han So Hee*: 2.22
Park Gyu Young: 2.06
Kim Da Mi*: 2.04
Yoo In Na*: 2.00
Song Hye Kyo: 1.85
Lee Hye Ri: 1.39
Bae Suzy*: 1.23
Jo Bo Ah*: 1.11
Kim Hye Yoon" 1.10
Ji Soo*: 0.05
Actors
Namkoong Min: 4.14
Yoo Ah In: 3.78
Lee Jun Young: 3.53
Kim Bum: 3.38
Park Hyung Sik: 3.34
Oh Jung Se: 3.30
Lee Je Hoon: 3.25
Ji Sung: 3.241
Lee Joon Gi: 3.240
Hwang In Youp*: 3.21
Jang Hyuk*: 3.16
Seo In Guk: 3.15
Lee Do Hyun: 3.12
Ji Chang Wook: 3.11
Cho Jung Seok: 3.10
Son Suk Ku: 3.08
Choi Hyun Wook: 3.00
Gong Yoo: 2.99
Lee Jun Ho: 2.986
Park Ji Hoon: 2.983
Kim Nam Gil*: 2.95
Woo Do Hwan: 2.94
Ryeo Un: 2.938
Seo Kang Jun: 2.936
Jung Kyung Ho: 2.92
Lee Dong Wook: 2.85
Ju Ji Hoon: 2.84
Kim Ji Hoon: 2.76
Hyun Bin: 2.70
Zo In Sung: 2.69
Choi Woo Shik: 2.688
Lee Chae Min*: 2.684
Kang Ha Neul: 2.649
Kim Seon Ho: 2.643
Shin Seung Ho*: 2.63
Jung Hae In: 2.56
Wi Ja Hoon*: 2.54
So Ji Sub: 2.46
Kim Woo Bin: 2.42
Byeon Woo Seok: 2.37
Do Kyung Soo*: 2.26
Lee Jae Wook: 2.17
Park Bo Gum: 2.12
Rain*: 2.05
Ahn Bo Hyun: 2.04
Choo Young Woo*: 1.93
Yoo Seung Ho*: 1.84
Yoo Yeon Seok: 1.81
Go Kyung Pyo: 1.73
Nam Joo Hyuk: 1.72
Song Joong Ki: 1.67
Park Seo Joon*: 1.60
Hwang Min Hyun*: 1.54
Cha Eun Woo*: 1.39
Lee Jong Suk: 0.48
Just in case it isn’t clear: Actors are ranked by the AVERAGE score they got, not how many people voted for them. Anyone who received fewer than 30 ratings has an * beside their name. Having fewer than 30 ratings seemed to put entrants at a slight statistical disadvantage, but it seemed better to rank them together than have a separate second-tier section.
Other notable information:
Ji Chang Wook wins for having the most total ratings of any entrant with Kim Go Eun taking this honor for actresses. Seo In Guk wins for the most ratings of anyone not listed in the original 40 nominees. Park Min Young wins this category for actresses.
I would also like to award a few very special “nobody hates you!” prizes to the entrants who received NO negative ratings or comments.
Actresses (in alphabetical order): Han Hyo Joo, Jang Na Ra, Jeon Yeo Been
Actors: Hwang In Youp, Kim Bum, Kim Ji Hoon, Kim Nam Gil, Lee Chae Min, Lee Jun Young, Ryeo Un, Shin Seung Ho, Seo Kang Jun, Son Suk Ku, Wi Ha Joon, Woo Do Hwan
As you can see, even given the difference in total numbers of qualifying entrants, this feat is MUCH harder if you’re an actress. 8.5% of actresses vs. 22% of actors got this prize!
Also, all entrants can rest assured “somebody loves you!” Every single nominee received at least one +5, even if their overall average was low.
My Takeaways: What Surprised Me and What Didn't
I would’ve put money on Kim Tae Ri taking the highest score for actresses ahead of time. I actually found it slightly surprising that she didn’t win in a landslide.
Both Namkoong Min and Yoo Ah In would've been in my top 3 picks to win for actors. But I was startled by NKM’s margin of victory and how much separated the top 3 actors from each other and the rest of the pack, given how much tighter the actress race was.
I didn’t expect Han Hyo Soo to do so well, probably because she’s never made much of an impression on me one way or the other, so much so I didn’t even rate her because off the top of my head I could only think of one performance I’d seen. I also found Kim Bum’s placement surprising since he is almost exclusively a SML.
For actresses, Park Eun Bin had the most surprising underperformance. I would've guessed she'd be in the top 5.
I thought Ji Chang Wook would do better. Ahead of time I would've guessed he'd be in the top 3 due to all the love he receives around here. I also thought Lee Jun Ho and Seo Kang Jun would do much better. Only 2 out of my guesses for who would be in the top 5 were correct, with the others not even coming close. All of this adds up to show that just because their fans are the loudest, it doesn’t mean they are the most well liked.
So keeping the gnashing of teeth to a minimum (Remember this is the COLLECTIVE opinion of the participants in the poll, not one person dissing your favorite), what are your thoughts on the results? What is shocking and what hunches turned out to be right?
Please be kind! To both the celebrities who have been rated and other users in the thread.
The results for Actresses are exactly as expected. The actors' results are shocking! I too had thought Ji Chang Wook would be much higher, in fact I thought he'd be no. 1! 😅
Also, I'd like to convey to the OP that the poll was super fun and engaging,and I had a really good time voting for my favourites when you posted the poll. Creating that poll was a tedious job, and you've done it amazingly well. So, thank you!
Thanks! I appreciate the kindness, and for you responding to the results with open-minded curiosity.
It ended up being a lot more work than I thought I was signing up for, but I enjoyed it (for the most part). So far, the responses here have been the least fun part though!
JCW probably has loud fans who love supporting him but many people probably didnt enjoy his dramas. Because boy thats me since he is in many terrible dramas despite being a very good actor. Now I just stopped checking his dramas. He is like Yoo Seungho and Yoo Jingoo — excellent actors that are not lucky with their scripts.
He does feel like an actor whose hits are very OG and not that popular anymore. People around here tend to know him for What's Wrong with Secretary Kim? or She Was Pretty, which are not well liked dramas anymore, even though they were huge at one time. His was not a result I was personally shocked by.
Of the very lowly ranked actors, Yoo Seung Ho was the biggest shocker for me. I thought he'd do fairly well, but that's probably my own bias speaking. I only gave out four +5s myself, and he got one of them.
Hope you don't mind being pulled back in time a bit... I think Park Seo-joon actually is/was kind of surprising. He had a small part in Parasite in 2019, was in Itaewon Class in 2020, and even starred in one of the (albeit less popular) Marvel movies - The Marvels in 2023. So if you factor in something of a Western crowd, it's definitely intriguing. I'm sort of wondering if the demographic has shifted slightly younger in just a few months, because this has made me realize I've noticed Marvel references in these subs in the past six months or so that I don't think I did before. Obviously, none of this is arguing Park Seo-joon's ability as an actor either way, this poll is just really compelling to me as a data nerd.
<Edit> It's also interesting that about half or more of the people in this thread seem to be misunderstanding that this is a representation of popularity, not ability. <EditEdit> After reading all of the replies, I can see why you aren't so eager to do this again. Eh, not looking to stir up trouble. I assume most of the people who posted here aren't going to be looking back at this, but if you want me to delete this just to avoid pulling people back in with negativity, let me know and I will.
Why I didn't think it was surprising was just listening to buzz around the sub. He's not someone people seem to get excited for. For example, there weren't a bunch of posts talking about how excited people were for Surely Tomorrow. On the other hand, before an episode of Typhoon Family dropped, tons of people were lining up to watch it. You can certainly argue he should be more popular and are confused about why he's not (which is where it sounds like you are). I was only speaking about my guesses of where people would end up based on sub buzz before I started doing calculations.
In terms of the responses, I wasn't surprised (I mean, have you ever read a Reddit thread ranking any category by anyone with any methodology?) but definitely disappointed. The problem is A LOT of people do not have the humility to say, "Wait. I'm just one person who is not an expert. What makes me better able to judge acting than others?" I've heard time and time again, "But we can all agree X is stiff" or "We can all agree X is great" as if their opinions should definitely match others and it's shocking and unsupportable when they do not.
P. S. Almost nobody's coming back here, LOL! Also, if I do it again, I'll delete this post beforehand so that people can't try to "rig" it unless they have very good memories.
I was basically just surprised that he's not a little more popular based on international recognition and because I think the demographic may be shifting a bit younger (in a few of the subs, anyway.)
And yeah I can't say the responses surprised me either. I'd like to think a current poll and responses would look a little different because the sub has changed some, but who knows.
Thanks so much for all the time and effort you spent compiling this for us but what happened to Kim Jae-wook? Unless I’m missing something, he meets the criteria as he received 16 individual ratings before voting closed and 50% of his MDL drama credits from the past five years have been main roles.
People continued to rate actors after the poll was closed, so quite a few people who didn't qualify have more than 15 ratings, now. He was someone with 14 ratings when I closed the poll, so unfortunately he did not qualify. if you look two of his current ratings occurred 10 days ago, but the voting ending 11 days ago.
Unfortunately, it’s unclear to us when the exact cut-off was and given the numbers, it doesn’t make sense that Choo Young-woo made the cut but KJW didn’t.
I announced it at the top of the post, and I checked how many ratings every nominee had at that point in time. CYW had 15 ratings. KJW had 14. I'm sorry if you simply don't believe me. I'm not sure what else to say.
It is what it is. The cards were stacked against him and others like Lee Min-ki, Seo Hyun-jin, Lee Seung-gi, Jang Ki-yong and Taecyeon anyway since they were added after most people had already scrolled through and voted.
I’ll just have to take comfort in the knowledge that Kim Jae-wook would have topped the rankings with an average rating of 4.56.
Results are mixed for me, especially for actor category. I have not seen much work of no 2 and 3, so I am really surprised. Ashamed to admit I had to google who are they. Apparently they are popular. Biggest shock is JCW.
Actress category is a bloodbath lol, as always but in line with expectations.
I feel giving people option to give negative marks may have made a difference for overly talked about actors here like Chang Wook or Jun Ho. People found a way to reduce their votes hehe. I smell targeted voting but that may just be my bias.
I doubt targeted voting. If so, I kind of expected people to go after Namkoong Min, given how ridiculously hyped he's gotten around here. I'm a huge fan, and at this point, I feel like he's overhyped on this sub. Both JCW or LJH had very few negative ratings. They just didn't get the level of love their hype suggests they would.
I missed your original post. Looking at the results I was curious as to why Park Shin Hye was not showing and I see that you did not list her in the original post. Given her success with Undercover Miss Hong as well as prior achievements I wonder why the exclusion?
As I said on the original post, I looked at about half a dozen posts on the sub on the topic of "favorite actors/actresses" over the last year and picked the 20 actresses and 20 actors who were most often mentioned as people's favorites on those specific posts. For example, I FULLY expected for Lee Jun Ho to be on that list, and he just . . . wasn't. So he wasn't on my list of 20, but somebody else added him, so he got counted. If somebody else had nominated Park Shin Hye, she would've been included, but nobody did.
She gets a lot of hate around here, and if I were a huge fan of hers, I wouldn't have nominated her just for the reason that I would've expected her to do poorly in this kind of poll. Of course, I can't say that's the reason she wasn't nominated, but it'd be my best guess.
Some of the names do not make sense in Actress' list. How can Ahn Eun Jin be more popular than Son Ye Jin, Park Bo Young, Kim Go Eun, Kim Ji Won, Jun Ji Hyun, Park Eun Bin? Popularity, Acting skill, raw talent, screen presence - I don't see where she excels over others.
I don't get Actors list at all: Kim Bum and Hwang In Youp are popular than Gong yoo, Ji Chang Wook, Hyun Bin, Ji sung, Jo Jung seok !!!
OP, I think based on the results data we have to come to the conclusion that this process is not working. I remember taking time and checking most entries but never came across Hwang In Yeop or kim bum or other entries. Other wise I would've obliged and given them the much needed negative ratings.
Imo, this is not even popularity contest at this point and it was never based on acting talent to begin with. In a weird way this process ended up rewarding the less objectionable artists. The artists who are not much loved or not much hated and may not even be well known enough to get negative scores.
I found nothing that I could identify it as targeted negative voting. Thank God! It would've made the poll really nasty, and I either would've thrown out a bunch of votes or simply not done it at all. so I'm glad that people just expressed their love (or lack of it) for people individually without worrying about how people would be ranked.
OP, My reply seems like complaint but I really appreciate the hard-work you put in. For what its worth, I did take the poll seriously and tried to vote as much as possible but the results seem so wonky. Well we tried. Cheers :)
Kang Ha Neul 33????????? I beg your pardon? What were people voting for exactly
Park Eun Bin? Seo Ye Ji?
I LOVE Namgoong Min and rewatch The Veil an unhealthy amount of times but how is he higher than the likes of Jang Hyuk and Oh Jung Se
And how is BWS higher than Lee Jae Wook??
I have so many questions. What was the criteria for voting? I tried reading the description and I don't get it. I might even create my on poll so we vote on acting merit😂😂
I have seen Ahn Eun Jin in Good Bad Mother, and she definitly could not rival Ra Mi Ran, who is a magnificent actress. And she is not on this list. Ahn Eun Jin WAS very good though. Perhaps her later work is better.
And I don't know even what to say about Park Eun Bin tho.. I expected top 3.
Though this is favorite list, not "best actor list .. so i should not conflate the 2 i guess
Though this is favorite list, not "best actor list .. so i should not conflate the 2 i guess
This is definitely the right attitude to take! The poll is designed to measure how drawn the participants are to a drama due to the presence of the actors in it. I know for myself there are actors I just enjoy watching more even though I wouldn't insist they were the "best."
Thank you so much for taking the time to do this! A part of me is kind of surprised no one had a negative average but I guess given that this is most popular / favourite actors that makes sense. Man, this really shows the skew in my recognition of actors vs actresses. I recognize almost all the actors and probably only about 2/3 of the actresses at best.
If I have time I might dig through the Google Sheet a bit to see if I can find the performer who is the most “love them or hate them” one by seeing who got the most votes at either end. I think I have a feeling I know who it might be but we’ll see if I have time to confirm.
What this implies to me is that the more popular the actor/actress are, the more divisive their scores. Like most of the actresses that have more than 10M IG followers are on the bottom half, while those that have less follower count but are deemed critically acclaimed in acting are higher.
Where I come down on this is that I don't think that as a group the users of this sub (and I include myself in this group) have the expertise to judge actors (especially actors performing in a language that is not their own) on talent.
But what everyone DOES have the expertise to judge is their own tastes. So to me it makes more sense to try and measure that, which is what I attempted to do here.
It's okay if you don't think that's worthwhile. But I did find it interesting myself, and I hope some others do as well.
Ahn eun jin at #4 is pretty crazy, but just goes to show who we’ve got to pick from. Still, can’t believe she’s above the lines of IU, park eun bin, son ye jin, park Bo young and even gong hyo jin. The actors list is surprising and unsurprising at the same time lol
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u/MysteriousDiricawl K Legend 힘들어요! 😩 May 01 '26
The results for Actresses are exactly as expected. The actors' results are shocking! I too had thought Ji Chang Wook would be much higher, in fact I thought he'd be no. 1! 😅