'Ms. Hong' Star Cho Han-gyeol Leaves Sublime, Weighs New Agency

Actor Cho Han-gyeol is leaving the agency that launched his career.

Sublime confirmed that Cho's exclusive contract with the company ends in September, according to reporting by Ten Asia on July 22. The actor is currently meeting with several agencies as he weighs his next move.

Cho, born in 2002, first joined Sublime as a trainee in 2019 after a knee injury ended his career as a baseball player. He signed through an audition and spent the next seven years with the company, steadily building a filmography. Industry watchers have flagged him as a rising star, pointing to his clean-cut looks and steady acting as reasons he could help lead a generational shift among young Korean actors.

His screen credits include SBS dramas "The Haunted Palace" (Gwigung) and "Try: We Become Miracles" (Try: Urineun Gijeogi Doenda), as well as JTBC's "My Youth" (Mai Yuseu). This year, he took on what many are calling the biggest role of his career so far in tvN's "Ms. Hong" (Miss Hong). In the series, Cho plays Albert Oh, the grandson of the Hanmin Securities chairman and the only son of executive director Oh Deok-gyu. The character is a free-spirited rich kid and film buff, a type known in Korean slang as an "orange tribe" youth.

He has also signed on as the lead in the upcoming drama "High School Girl Queen" (Yeogosaeng Wanghu). Based on the webtoon of the same name, the series follows Kim Cheong-ha, once a queen of the Joseon dynasty and its top swordswoman, who is reincarnated as modern-day high schooler Park Da-jin. She uses her Joseon-era martial arts to take down school bullies, delivering the kind of satisfying payoff the source material is known for.

The move comes at a moment when Cho's profile is rising fastest. Where he lands next will shape how much further, and how quickly, that momentum carries.