Yoo Ji-tae

Yoo Ji-tae (born April 13, 1976) is a South Korean actor, film director and screenwriter.

Yoo Ji-tae began his career as a fashion model, and he walked the runway for the Seoul Fashion Artist Association collections in 1995.

After a stint as a fashion model, Yoo launched his acting career in 1998 then rose to fame through the films Attack the Gas Station (1999) and Ditto (2000).

His first brush with fame came in the role of "Paint" in his second feature, the 1999 hit Attack the Gas Station.

His sensitive and artistic image in this film and the warm character he displayed as a guest on TV talk shows helped to propel him to stardom.

Then in 2000, with a series of hit films and widely seen TV appearances, Yoo was more constantly in the limelight than any other actor, and in a very short time, rose to become a major actor in Korean film.

With the surprise success of his third film Ditto in spring 2000, Yoo's star status was secured.

He also appeared in the successful firefighting film Libera Me.

In this early part of his career, he was known particularly for the wild colors that he would dye his hair (white in Attack the Gas Station, blue in Ditto, blonde in Libera Me).

In the succeeding years, he gained acting recognition by working with acclaimed directors such as Hur Jin-ho in One Fine Spring Day (2001), Park Chan-wook in Oldboy (2003), and Hong Sang-soo in Woman is the Future of Man (2004).

In 2001, however, he dyed his hair black and took on a more subdued, serious role in Hur Jin-ho's One Fine Spring Day.

Although it wasn't a big hit with audiences, his performance in this film opened many critics' eyes and drew widespread praise, while officially launching the second stage of his career.

For the next two years, Yoo didn't appear in any new films, because Natural City took an unusually long time to progress from shooting to a commercial release.

Yoo began directing short films in 2003, which were well received in the film festival circuit.

He then appeared in three works in 2003: Natural City (which bombed, despite its big budget and special effects), the horror/suspense film Into the Mirror, and Park Chan-wook's acclaimed Oldboy.

Yoo's memorable role in the latter film as a wealthy eccentric fixated on revenge would make his face well known to international audiences.

Yoo has stated that he believes Oldboy to be an original Korean story.

As Yoo's career established itself he began to appear in many high-profile projects, such as in well-known arthouse director Hong Sang-soo's Woman is the Future of Man (which, like Oldboy, screened at Cannes in 2004); Yim Pil-sung's big-budget Antarctic Journal, shot in New Zealand; and the action/noir Running Wild with Kwon Sang-woo.

He also established his own production company Yoo Movie in 2005.

As soon as he finished shooting the 2007 period film Hwang Jin-yi about a Joseon-era gisaeng, Yoo chose to act in the play Come to the Ghost House.

A graduate of Dankook University with a major in Theater and Film, he also established a theater to put on one play a year.

Almost all the money for the theatrical productions comes from his own wallet.

"I work on stage because it's there that I find the challenge and the stimulus an actor needs through continuous creative work," he said.

Yoo returned to the screen with 2008 romantic drama film, Hello, Schoolgirl, based on the manhwa Soonjeong Manhwa.

After getting his master's degree in 2008 from Chung-Ang University's Graduate School of Advanced Imaging Science, Multimedia & Film, in recent years Yoo has focused more on his passion for directing.

To him, "Making films is like taking drugs. Actors feel a pleasure when they deliver well but directors feel they have poured out everything they have in the sole fact that they have completed a movie. It's impossible to compare the pleasure you get from it."

He has helmed a number of award-winning short films that have screened in festivals around the world.

In addition to directing his fourth short film Invitation, Yoo wrote the script and plays the main character alongside leading lady Uhm Ji-won.

In 2009, he lent his voice as narrator for the track "I’m Sorry" (미안해) in singer Jinju's album Pearlfect.

Yoo then returned to the melodrama genre, starring in his first TV drama Star's Lover opposite Choi Ji-woo, as well as a couple of romance-themed films, notably Secret Love which reunited him with Oldboy costar Yoon Jin-seo.

Afterwards he played another villain in the real-time suspense thriller Midnight FM.

His feature directorial debut Mai Ratima was released in 2012.

In 2012, Yoo directed his first feature film Mai Ratima, based on a synopsis he wrote 15 years ago in college.

It portrays the unlikely love affair of a Korean man in his 30s living on the bottom rung of society and a mail-order bride from Thailand in her 20s.

Shooting began in Gyeonggi Province on January 26, 2012, and it premiered at the Busan International Film Festival on October 5, 2012.

Yoo said he plans to continue producing or directing movies based on strong social issues as he is interested in the plight of the less privileged.

Mai Ratima won the Jury Prize at the 2013 Deauville Asian Film Festival.

He then co-starred with Kōichi Satō and Vincent Gallo in Junji Sakamoto's 2013 suspense thriller Human Trust.

For the biopic The Tenor - Lirico Spinto, Yoo practiced singing for four hours every day for more than a year, and took private English and Japanese lessons to portray Bae Jae-chul, an internationally acclaimed tenor who loses his voice to thyroid cancer.

Afterwards, he starred in another TV series Healer, written by Song Ji-na.