Lee Jung-jae

Lee Jung-jae (born December 15, 1972) is a South Korean actor and filmmaker.

Considered one of the most successful actors in South Korea, he has received numerous accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Critics' Choice Television Award, six Baeksang Arts Awards, in addition to nominations for a Golden Globe Award and a Gotham Award.

Aside from his acting career, Lee is also a businessman, having launched a chain of restaurants in Seoul, as well as founding several businesses including the development company Seorim C&D.

He owns several of his businesses with fellow actor and close friend Jung Woo-sung.

Lee was born on December 15, 1972, in Jung-gu, Seoul, South Korea.

Upon making his acting debut with the 1993 TV drama Dinosaur Teacher, Lee became a star practically overnight, and was almost always cast in lead roles thereafter.

A year later, he received favorable reviews for his first big screen role in Bae Chang-ho's The Young Man, but it was the 1994 hit campus drama Feelings that made him a household name.

Born in Seoul, Lee debuted as a fashion model, then began his acting career on television, notably in the drama Sandglass (1995).

In 1995, what was supposed to be a small supporting role as the heroine's silent, devoted bodyguard in ratings behemoth Sandglass turned Lee into a national heartthrob, such that his screen time was increased throughout the series' run.

However, that success would be cut short because shortly after, he would be called up for National Service.

Lee's much-anticipated return to television a decade after his memorable turn in Sandglass (1995) was not successful ratings-wise; Air City (2007) and Triple (2009).

With the period action comedy The Accidental Gangster and the Mistaken Courtesan, Lee said he wanted to try his hand at playing a different kind of role, a comical loose cannon type of character.

Though it was not successful at the box office, he still considers it one of his most memorable films.

In 1997, following his return from the military, his career went into a slight decline.

It was then he decided to return to acting school by enrolling into Chinese University's Department of Drama and Film.

After his acting breakthrough in An Affair (1998), Lee's film career took off.

Lee's acting breakthrough would come in late 1998 in the award-winning film An Affair by E J-yong.

This was followed up by another success, City of the Rising Sun, for which he won Best Actor at the Blue Dragon Film Awards and the Korean Association of Film Critics Awards.

He has starred in a variety of film genres, among them dramas such as City of the Rising Sun (1999), romantic films Il Mare (2000) and Last Present (2001), well-known comedies such as ''Oh!

Though his time-travel romance Il Mare was not a popular success in 2000, since then it has developed a loyal fan base a la Somewhere in Time and attained the status of a minor classic among Korean cinema fans (Keanu Reeves played Lee's role in the 2006 Hollywood remake The Lake House).

Lee followed up with melodrama Last Present alongside Lee Young-ae and action mystery The Last Witness directed by Bae Chang-ho; both of which were considerable successes.

In 2002, Lee starred alongside Jang Jin-young in Over the Rainbow.

Brothers (2003), action films Typhoon (2005) and Deliver Us from Evil (2020), thrillers The Housemaid (2010) and New World (2013), heist film The Thieves (2012), and espionage films Assassination (2015), Operation Chromite (2016) and Hunt'' (2022).

In 2003, he starred opposite Lee Beom-soo in ''Oh!

Brothers'', a comedy about two brothers, one of whom has an unusual disease.

The film was one of Lee's biggest hits ever, topping three million admissions at the local box office.

Nonetheless, he remained out of the limelight for the next couple years.

Finally at the end of 2005 he returned in Typhoon, a big-budget action blockbuster by Kwak Kyung-taek, the director of Friend.

He enrolled at Dongguk University, and was awarded his master's degree from the university's Department of Theater & Film Art in the Graduate School of Cultural Arts, in August 2008.

He made his first foray into theater in December of that same year, taking on the titular role in Hamlet in Water.

The play ran for four days at his alma mater's Lee Hae-rang Theater.

Lee was discovered by designer Ha Yong-soo while he was working at a café in Apgujeong-dong (located in the Gangnam District), then worked as a fashion model for a number of years.

Lee rejuvenated his career in the high-profile 2010 erotic thriller The Housemaid, which screened at the Cannes Film Festival, and Toronto International Film Festival.

Lee nabbed a Best Actor award at the Fantasporto Director's Week.

As his next project, he joined the star-studded ensemble cast of The Thieves, a 2012 heist film that became the second all-time highest-grossing movie in Korean cinema history.

He won Best Supporting Actor at the 50th Baeksang Arts Awards for his role in The Face Reader (2013).

In 2021, Lee gained widespread international stardom and fame for his role as Seong Gi-hun, the main protagonist of Netflix's survival drama Squid Game.

For his performance in the show's first season, he was nominated for numerous accolades, including the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actor in a Drama Series, the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama, the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series, making him the first male actor from Asia and Korea to receive individual nominations in those categories across all four awards shows with his win for the latter two also making history.

In December 2021, he was selected as Gallup Korea's Film Actor of the Year.

Lee is set to reprise his role as Gi-hun in the show's second season, which began filming in July 2023.