Why Yerin Ha, The Latest Bridgerton Leading Lady, Looks So Familiar

Dearest gentle readers — excellent news! "Bridgerton" found its newest leading lady. In August 2024, it was announced by Variety that actor Yerin Ha would be portraying the beloved Sophie Beckett in Season 4 of Netflix's romantic period drama. Sophie is the love interest of Benedict, who was previously announced as Season 4's leading man. Naturally, everyone is very, very excited.

So, who is Ha? The Australian-Korean actor is fairly new to the scene. After growing up in Sydney and becoming inspired to act by her grandmother, Ha trained at a performing arts school in Korea. "It was three years of intense training — from 7am to 12am most days," she told Vogue Australia. "Just learning about teamwork and who I am and everything like that." She later studied at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in Sydney, graduating in 2018.

Since then, she's appeared in a few TV shows and films; however, the Regency era series is the project that is sure to cement her stardom. Curious to know if you've seen Ha before? Here's why you might recognize this new member of the "Bridgerton" cast.

Yerin Ha's first official appearance on screen wasn't in a film or a TV show — it was actually in a music video. In 2016, the young actor made her debut in Fluir & Jesse Marantz's video for their song, "I've Gotta Have You."

Ha is credited as a dancer in the video and can be spotted in a yellow stripy shirt, blue sweatpants, and Converses. In the music video, she has a dance off in a boxing gym. One by one, the dancers show off their skills in the boxing ring before dancing together. The video was made in Australia and comprised of other students from NIDA, where Ha was studying at the time. Actor Toby Derrick, a 2017 graduate of the institute, also appears in the video with Ha. Evidently, Ha is a talented dancer in addition to being a talent actor.

After graduating from NIDA in 2018, Yerin Ha landed her first real television role in "Reef Break," a French- American crime series that was shot on the Gold Coast and ran on ABC in 2019 before it was canceled after just one season. The series starred Poppy Montgomery as Cat Chambers, an ex-thief who begins fighting crime on the coast of the Pacific.

Ha had a fairly small role in the show, appearing in less than half of the series' 13 episodes, as Technie Jane, a tech-savvy young woman who thought of herself as the Sheryl Sandberg of the Reef. Although the show was short-lived and Ha didn't have the biggest of parts, she was working with a major network — no small feat. Once she had an ABC series under her belt, it became clear that Ha was hitting the ground running.

One year after her graduation, Yerin Ha, then just 21, also landed a supporting role on stage in Sydney Theatre Company's production of "Lord of the Flies," which also starred famous film actors Mia Wasikowska and Eliza Scanlen. Although the story was originally about young men, director Kip Williams told The Daily Telegraph, "I was really interested in putting together an ensemble of the most exciting young actors that I could find, regardless of gender." And that included Ha.

Ha read the book as soon as she was cast. Although she didn't have a huge role as Maurice, the class clown-turned-bully, as Ha described him, one reviewer noted that she was a "notable supporting stand-out" in the play. The actor has also appeared in other plays like "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown," "Colby Sisters," "The Changeling," and "Caucasian Chalk Circle" over the years.

Yerin Ha landed a life-changing role in 2018 when, just four months after finishing school, she responded to a Facebook casting call and was cast in Steven Spielberg's Paramount+ adaptation of the video game "Halo." Ha played Kwan Ha, a fierce 16-year-old rebel from the planet Madrigal.

"[After I was cast,] the script read that some of the dialogues could be in Korean," said Ha of the character's Korean heritage during an interview. "After checking that I could indeed speak Korean, they gave me the Korean lines a few weeks before the shooting began." Thankfully for Ha, she was already fluent in the language.

For Ha, the role was a chance to play someone big, bold, and outspoken. As she told Vogue Australia, "[To play] a role where she's this fighter, she's opinionated, she has a voice ... I think that's pretty amazing, because I grew up my whole life being the one who's always ignored or never heard of." Ha starred in both seasons of "Halo," which aired from 2022 to 2024. 

In 2022, Yerin Ha starred in ABC and Prime Video's "Troppo," an Australian crime series. Ha played Ah Rah, Yoon Sun's daughter, in seven episodes of the show's first season. Yoon hires Amanda to find her missing husband, and Ah Rah's missing father. The series' second season premiered in July 2024, but Ha did not return to the show as the show focuses on a new murder case.

You might also recognize Ha for her first foray into the horror genre. After her role in "Troppo," Ha starred in the independent horror movie "Sissy" as Tracey, appearing alongside actor Aisha Dee, known for her role in "The Bold Type." The film follows Dee's Cecilia, who finds herself trapped on a bachelorette weekend with the girl who bullied her in high school. Tracey is one of the other girls at the party.

In 2023, Yerin Ha played Alice in Stan's "Bad Behavior," an Aussie teen series about bullying in high school. As Ha told Refinery29 Australia, the show gave her a chance to look back on her own experiences in an all-girls high school. "I did do a lot of reflection on my own experience, that's for sure," she revealed.

"As human beings, you want to feel like you belong, and be part of a group. You want to have shared common language with someone and feel wanted," Ha also told the publication. "Especially with girls, I just feel like the stakes are heightened."

Not only was the project a chance for Ha to explore these personal themes, it was also a chance to check something off her bucket list. "I really wanted to work with a female Asian Australian director. That was a really big green tick for me," she said of working with director Corrie Chen. "You don't get a lot of experiences on set where you have an Asian female director navigating a story that she is very passionate about telling." Additionally, the project was an opportunity for Ha to reunite with two former classmates, Melissa Kahraman and Tuuli Narkle.