VIDEO Behind the scenes: How was NewJeans' Minji discovered?

When K-pop casting agent Darren Won first caught a glimpse of Minji, a then-aspiring teenage singer and now a member of the sensational K-pop girl group NewJeans, he immediately realized one thing: This girl has the face of a K-pop star.

His prediction has turned out to be correct.

Fast-forward to today and 19-year-old Minji is often picked as one of the best-looking K-pop singers and is enjoying immense popularity across the globe thanks to the stellar success of songs like “Hype Boy” (2022), “Ditto” (2022) and “ETA” (2023). NewJeans has skyrocketed to fame, becoming the first K-pop girl act to reach 1 billion streams on Spotify — the world’s largest music streaming platform — with its namesake debut album.

“I invested a lot of time and effort to cast Minji, who was not so desperate about becoming a K-pop star at first,” Won recalled during a recent interview at The Korea Times' headquarters in central Seoul.

This video was produced by Jeong Su-ji, a K-pop team intern video producer at The Korea Times.