Born in 1975, LEE Sun-kyun discovered acting through the drama club of his college, and his passion was such that he eventually decided to drop out of university after just a year and enter the newly established Korea National University of Arts in 1994. After a starring role in the short film <Psycho Drama> (2000), he made a magnificent debut on stage as Brad in the musical <Rocky Horror Picture Show> (2001), soon followed by a recurrent role in the sitcom <Lo...More

Born in 1975, LEE Sun-kyun discovered acting through the drama club of his college, and his passion was such that he eventually decided to drop out of university after just a year and enter the newly established Korea National University of Arts in 1994. After a starring role in the short film <Psycho Drama> (2000), he made a magnificent debut on stage as Brad in the musical <Rocky Horror Picture Show> (2001), soon followed by a recurrent role in the sitcom <Lovers> (2001-2002). He realized before long that it was not easy to break into the film industry. He might have appeared as a doctor supporting the female lead fighting against cancer in <Scent of Love>, and as one of the lovebirds in <Love So Divine>, but most of the time he was cast for small roles or leading roles of short films and TV series. He finally earned good notices after playing a sweet, romantic guy in the popular TV drama series <Coffee Prince> (2007) and an honest doctor in medical drama series <Behind the White Tower> (2007), but did not hold onto this nurtured image. Instead, he has polished his acting caliber by appearing in the films of Hong Sangsoo, renowned among film critics and festival for his unique perspective on ordinary life and relationships, starting with <Night and Day> (2008) in which he played an international student from North Korea and followed by the short <Lost in the Mountains> in which he was a man used as “bait” by a woman wanting to provoke her boyfriend. LEE also starred in <Sakwa> (2005), an on-screen melodrama released in 2008 which received critical acclaim for its realistic portrayal of a romance.
LEE has appealed to the female spectators appearing in the TV drama TV drama <Pasta> (2010), a story of work and love set in the kitchen of an Italian restaurant, and the film <Petty Romance> (2010), about the love of an adult cartoonist. In 2011, LEE co-starred with a veteran actor PARK Joong-hoon in cop drama <Officer of the Year> and in 2012 he stormed the box office with KIM Min-hee in the mystery thriller <Helpless> (2011) and with LIM Soo-jung in MIN Kyu-dong’s <All about My Wife> (2012). LEE teamed up with HONG Sangsoo once more for <Nobody’s Daughter Haewon> (2012) and <Our Sunhi> (2012), the latter of which took the Best Director Prize at the Locarno International Film Festival in 2013. In 2014, he returned to the commercial realm as the lead of the mid-level thriller <A Hard Day> (2013), which was invited to the Cannes Film Festival’s Director’s Fortnight sidebar. On the back of that commercial and critical success, LEE starred alongside KIM Go-eun in <The Advocate : A Missing Body> (2015), as an attorney who uncovers a mystery behind a murder case. After playing a sympathetic North Korean doctor in KIM Byung-woo’s action thriller <Take Point> (2018) and his top billing role in crime thriller <Jo Pil-ho: The Dawning Rage> (2018), LEE was brought to a wider audience after portraying the father of a rich family in the dark comedy <PARASITE>, the latest from world-famous director BONG Joon-ho which took home the most prestigious award in the cinema world, the Palme d’Or of the Cannes Film Festival.Less