Cho Hyewon Joins tvN Spy Comedy as Cha Seungwon's Teenage Daughter

Cho Hyewon — known to Weeekly fans as Joa — is stepping into her most high-profile drama role yet. She's been cast in tvN's upcoming series "Retirement Agent + Management Team" (은퇴요원+관리팀) as Kim Yunkang, the eldest daughter of Kim Cheolsu, a former NIS black-ops agent who now runs a neighborhood car wash. The show follows Kim Cheolsu and a newly assigned retirement-agent handler as they team up to crack cases — and Hyewon's character is the teenage daughter who's quietly drifted away from her dad as adolescence hit. Realistic father-daughter friction with a comedic edge is what the production is promising, and that dynamic is going to land differently knowing the guy playing her dad is Cha Seungwon.

For anyone tracking her acting trajectory, this casting makes complete sense. Her 2025 SBS drama "Taxi Driver 3" role as Yeonmin — a girl-group trainee caught between debut anxiety and self-doubt — drew attention for how specifically she drew on her own idol experience. That wasn't a coincidence: Hyewon debuted with Weeekly on June 30, 2020 with the group's first mini-album "We are," and spent years navigating the actual idol system before pivoting toward acting. She also appeared in the 2023 Mnet survival show "Queendom Puzzle," finishing 19th — so she knows what that trainee-to-stage pressure feels like from the inside.

Her film work adds another layer. In the 2022 movie "3.5 Gyosi" (set in the break between third and fourth period — very much a teenage-world premise), she led as Baek Ajin and also contributed to the OST "Ni-ga Joa (First Love)" alongside Bumkey. That combination of carrying a story emotionally while also contributing to the soundtrack is a specific skill set, and it's the kind of range that makes a tvN casting call make sense.

The co-stars alone make "Retirement Agent + Management Team" worth watching. Cha Seungwon as the ex-spy car wash owner is already a premise worth showing up for, and Kim Dohun is also in the cast. Hyewon's Kim Yunkang sits at the emotional center of the father-daughter thread — the sarcastic, slightly-distant high schooler who probably has no idea her dad used to be a government operative. That reveal dynamic, played against Cha Seungwon's energy, has real potential.

Off-screen, Hyewon is also studying acting formally — she was admitted to Sungkyunkwan University's Department of Acting Arts through the theater and film entrance track, and has been balancing coursework with her entertainment schedule. She also passed the Korea National University of Arts entrance exam. The academic grounding is showing up in how she's being described by outlets covering her recent work: less "idol trying acting" and more "performer with a specific emotional register."

Her YouTube channel, launched in May 2024, has been running a time-travel vlog concept — episodes like "Time Traveling to Dongmyo" and "90s Time Travel" — which is a very specific, low-key charming personal brand for someone whose drama work keeps landing her in youth-in-crisis territory. The contrast is part of what makes her interesting to follow right now.

No air date has been confirmed in the source, but the casting announcement is fresh as of early July 2025. If you've been sleeping on Cho Hyewon since the Weeekly era, "Retirement Agent + Management Team" is the moment to pay attention — the combination of Cha Seungwon's comedic weight and her track record with emotionally grounded young characters is a pairing that could genuinely surprise.