LOS ANGELES (AP) — Arden Cho has been named one of The Associated Press’ Breakthrough Entertainers of 2025 after voicing the lead in Netflix’s animated blockbuster “KPop Demon Hunters.” The selection caps a comeback that began after her series “Partner Track” was canceled and accelerated when the demon-slaying pop musical turned into Netflix’s most popular film, Dec. 18, 2025.
Arden Cho’s ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ moment
In the PG-rated animated feature, K-pop superstars Rumi, Mira and Zoey sell out stadiums by night — and quietly use secret powers to protect their fans from supernatural threats, according to Netflix’s listing for “KPop Demon Hunters”. Cho voices Rumi, a role built around the split between an idol’s public poise and the private fear of losing her voice.
The film’s scale is also quantifiable. Netflix’s all-time list of its most popular movies — ranked by views in the first 91 days — puts “KPop Demon Hunters” at No. 1 worldwide with 325.1 million views, according to Netflix’s Most Popular Movies list. Netflix called the animated original its most popular film ever in its Aug. 26, 2025 announcement, saying the title had passed “Red Notice” and logged more than 236 million views at the time.
The surge has fueled Arden Cho’s sharpest career turn yet. In an interview with the AP, she said she was “ready to walk away from acting” after the one-season run of “Partner Track” — until her agent kept sending auditions anyway. “I am so ready,” Cho said. “It feels like it is my golden moment.”
In its Breakthrough Entertainers announcement, the AP credited the Netflix hit with pushing four soundtrack songs into the Billboard Hot 100’s top 10, including the No. 1 single “Golden,” widening the movie’s footprint beyond streaming and into pop radio and playlists.
A decade of groundwork before Arden Cho’s breakout
Cho’s breakout has been years in the making. She became a fan favorite in 2014 as Kira Yukimura on MTV’s “Teen Wolf,” and in a 2014 interview with the Center for Asian American Media, Arden Cho described growing up in Texas as one of the only minority families in her neighborhood and spoke about wanting more Asian American stories in the mainstream.
That perspective carried into “Partner Track,” the 2022 Netflix legal drama that made her No. 1 on the call sheet. In a Season 1 finale interview with Entertainment Weekly, showrunner Georgia Lee said the series was built to explore race, power and identity inside a “white patriarchal” law firm culture — themes that helped define Ingrid Yun’s tug-of-war between ambition and authenticity.
In early 2023, as debate flared about Hollywood pay equity, Arden Cho again found herself at the center of a conversation about representation and opportunity. Entertainment Weekly reported that she had “no regrets” about declining to return for Paramount+’s “Teen Wolf” movie after raising concerns about pay disparity.
Now, with “KPop Demon Hunters” still climbing Netflix’s record books and awards-season conversations, Cho is leaning into what comes next — and what it might signal. She told the AP she hopes the film opens doors for more Korean American collaborations, and for “every little Asian girl and boy” to feel they can be the main character, too.
