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[K-drama Treasure Hunt] Celebrities as themselves

Welcome to the K-drama treasure hunt, where we all go looking for K-drama treasure in the form of tiny drama details that we know and love. Sometimes these details take the shape of well-worn tropes (oppa Band-Aiding) or storytelling devices (Top Secret Deadly Allergy), but other times it’s just details we know we’ve seen in other dramas, but need help putting all the clues together.

Each week we’ll put you on the hunt for a piece of K-drama treasure, and you can report your findings in the comments.

There’s no umpire in this game, so if you find the detail we’re looking for, drop the drama title (or even better, drama title + episode number) in the comments, and we’ll all take your word for it. Or, we’ll go binge watch just to see it play out.

And remember, we’re here to map our way to the treasures not to the plot twists! We know how exciting as it can be to have all the hard-earned details stashed in your head, but let’s try to keep the spoilers out of the comments.


This week’s treasure:

Celebrities appearing as themselves.

 
Your mission:

List all the celebrity cameos you can find where a famous person appears as themselves in a drama. Whether it’s an actor, an idol, or even a variety host, if they go by their real name, it counts!

 
Thanks @aicaramba for this treasure hunt idea!
 
Have an idea for the next treasure hunt? Email your topic to hello @ dramabeans.com!
 
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Lee Seung-gi as himself in The Greatest Love and The Producers. The former is one of my favourite k-drama cameos because of the way it plays on Seung-gi's 'perfect man/nice guy' image.

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Exactly!

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His producers appearance is on my fanwall! Haha
I thought I also had the greatest love appearance too but guess it's time to add it haha

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I love both of these, they were the first things I thought of.

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YES! That was a good one!

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Conan O'Brien in One More Happy Ending

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That was one of the most awkward and bad cameos I can remember.

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Wasn’t there a shot of a fish tank where all the goldfish have Conan faces? Was that from One More Happy Ending or was it a skit on his show? Or was it a fever dream of mine?

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I don't remember that scene from when I watched that show (half-watched, dropped it in the middle), but I did see clips and references to the Conan-faced fish. It was a hallucination, but Jang Nara's not yours!

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😅😅😅 🐟 🐟 🐟

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Choi Ji-woo as herself in Crash Landing on You

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Lee Su-hyun of AkMU as herself but plays as not yet debut artist in Mad For Each Other

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My favorite!

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I absolutely love her cameo there. Successful fan for the character Jumeok! One of the memorable moments in CLOY!

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Yes! And complete with overt references to Stairway to Heaven with the way that cameo was filmed and the music!

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Park Bogum on the Producers.

There were a load of actors on Behind every star and Sh**ting stars but I don’t know how many were just themselves or if they were all playing actors.

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Most recently, to me Jo Yeo Jeong's cameo was the best part of BEHIND EVERY STAR.

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Chan Sung in Midnight Runners.

Junsu in Scent of a Woman.

Practically everybody in The Producers??

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In Entourage (Episode 1), Seo Kang-Joon's movie star character chats with Ha Jung-woo, director Park Chan-wook, and Kim Tae-ri at a film festival.

Red Velvet performs for the soldiers in Descendants of the Sun (Episode 16) while Song Joong-ki and Jin Goo's characters fanboy and dance along.

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Lee El, Kang Ha-neul for Entourage as well.

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Yoon Shi Yoon in "My absolutely boyfriend".

Park Sung Woong un "Eulachacha Waikiki" (LOL XD).

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Yes! And you’ve reminded me that Waikiki also had Kim Seohyung!! What good sports both of them were to play cringey versions of themselves.

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I feel like it's a fading trend - there used to be so many such instances a decade ago or so (esp during idol drama rage), but now writers are trying to be creative and invent new characters with fictional backstories even for cameos that last barely a few seconds. Maybe that's a good approach signifying an attempt to actually INCORPORATE star cameos in the plot and not just lure viewers in with random celebs popping up... maybe SK public is just THIS fed up with its stars being everywhere for no reason. Probably not tho)))

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Junho did it in Uncontrollably Fond - the only scene I've seen from that show.

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And Lee Je-hoon in One Dollar Lawyer - the leads use his appearance to get attention for some stunt they're doing.

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This was exactly what I was gonna mention haha

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And in turn One Dollar Lawyer showed up at the taxi garage in S2!

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PD Na Young-seok. He cameoed as himself in Hospital Playlist as U-ju's potential father-in-law but with a different surname. It was really funny with Ik-joon telling him he very much resembled PD Na and he(PD Na) vehemently asserting he has no similarities with PD Na.
Also in Hospital Playlist, these two well established tennis players , National Team and Olympics Champions cameod as Nuclear Medicine doctors.

Jang Nara cameod herself in Shooting Stars. That was like a few months after her wedding.

Behind the Stars had actor cameos I very much enjoyed, with Cho Yeo-jung topping the list.

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That PD Na cameo was one of my favourites! :-D

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Hey! this should be so fun! I love seeing actors in cameos playing themselves, sometimes as a different character from a different drama and sometimes as oh, say, a hyped up version of themselves!

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Kim Do-yeon in BE MELODRAMATIC, along with others of Weki Meki.

Kim Shin-young in ANOTHER OH HAE-YOUNG. Also maybe Lee Byung-joon.

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Seo In Guk in She was pretty.
Choi Jin Hyuk in Entourage.

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Behind Every Star had a lot of name dropping where actors went by their names.

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Lastly, Celebrity had some guests like Lee Sang Yoon and David Lee Mcinnis at the opening. They were some youtuber/ influencers, dancers, models too.

In Was it Love?, SF9 did a cameo as a group.

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I think it was in the The Best Hit where K-pop group Monsta X did a really brief cameo in one of the episodes!

Also I'll cheat slightly by mentioning the Park Bo-gum cameo in Itaewon Class - I think he was just the 'new chef' so they didn't introduce him as anyone but they also didn't not say he wasn't PBG soooo.....

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There's been a number of fairly obscure idol groups in random dramas where they seemed to do neither the group nor the drama any service. Boy band Snuper appeared in Eun-joo's Room and boy band KNK and girl group ELRIS/Alice were in Dal-li and Cocky Prince - and even though I just watched that show, I can only remember the latter; the boys didn't make any impression at all. Girl group Momoland and some members of INX were in The Liar and His Lover.

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I missed the KNK cameo entirely apparently when I watched Dali! :O

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Im Siwan in Thirty Nine.

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Park Seo-joon in Record of Youth. I think he appeared as himself.

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Park Seo-joon actually plays an actor named Song Min-soo in it.

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Does Jo In-sung’s cameo as CEO Ma’s car mirror reflection in the 500 Days of Summer dance sequence in Because This is My First Life count? Hee hee…

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Start-Up features a cameo appearance by superstar pitcher Park Chan-Ho (known in the US as Chan Ho Park), who in 1994 became the first South Korean-born player in the history of Major League Baseball. I’m a longtime baseball fan, and he was the very first Kdrama cameo performer I was able to recognize!

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One cute one is Go Ara in The Producers. She plays herself as the rival/pretend-BFF to IU's Cindy.

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