The year she turned 20, she was chosen in the first class of MBC’s open recruitment of voice actors and began her broadcasting career. She mostly dubbed foreign films, and after her shifts she also worked as a disc jockey at a music hall. In 1969, she appeared in an MBC TV drama, playing the mother of Lee Dae-geun, an actor her own age.
In 1972, she appeared in MBC’s Saeeomma. In 1976, she played a role close to her own age for the first time, in Girls’ High School Days. Until then she had played only elderly roles. In 1981, she played Queen Myeongseong in Jang Hee-bin. In 1983, she won an Excellence Award at the MBC Drama Awards for The Stars Are My Stars.
In 1984, she appeared in MBC’s Love and Truth. In 1985, she appeared in The Seaside Village. In 1989, she appeared in MBC’s Yusan. In 1991, after being cast in Another’s Happiness, she said in a newspaper interview that no one could tell whether she might become like Jessica Tandy, who had won the Academy Award for Best Actress in her eighties.
The breakthrough yearThe year she turned 54, she played a grandmother who spoke a North Korean dialect in KBS1’s Even if the Wind Blows and won the Grand Prize at that year’s KBS Drama Awards. It came 34 years after her debut, and no supporting actor had won the prize before.
In 1996, she won the Most Popular Award at the Baeksang Arts Awards and the Female Talent Award at the Korea Broadcasting Prizes, and at the end of the year she played the daughter-in-law In-hee in the MBC special The Most Beautiful Goodbye in the World. In 1998, she began her film acting with The Quiet Family. In 2002, she won an Acting Award at the SBS Drama Awards.
In 2005, she won Best Supporting Actress at the Grand Bell Awards for Crying Fist and appeared in MBC’s My Lovely Sam Soon. In November 2006, the sitcom Unstoppable High Kick began. In 2007, she took her first solo lead role in Mission Possible: Kidnapping Granny K and won Best Supporting Actress at the Blue Dragon Film Awards for Cruel Winter Blues. In 2010, she played an inmate on death row in Harmony.
In 2012, she was chosen for the Bogwan Order of Cultural Merit. In 2014, Miss Granny passed 8 million admissions. In 2016, she appeared in tvN’s Dear My Friends. In 2017, she won Best Actress at the Blue Dragon Film Awards for I Can Speak. In 2018, she also won Best Actress at the Baeksang Arts Awards and the Grand Bell Awards, taking all three film awards.
In 2021, she appeared in tvN’s Navillera. In 2022, she lost her mother, and at the end of the year she played Cho Maria in Hero. In 2023, her husband died. In 2024, Picnic and the AI film Naya, Moon-hee were released. In 2025, she appeared in Netflix’s When Life Gives You Tangerines. In February 2026, news of her came after the death of Lee Soon-jae, who played her husband in Unstoppable High Kick.
Na Moon-hee (born Nov 30, 1941) debuted in 1961, the year she turned 20, as a member of MBC’s first class of voice actors, and became known in 1995, the year she turned 54, when she won the Grand Prize at the KBS Drama Awards for KBS1’s Even if the Wind Blows. In 2017, the year she turned 76, she won Best Actress at the Blue Dragon Film Awards for I Can Speak.
Ages are by calendar year (the year minus the birth year), birthdays aside.