Born BYUN In-chul in 1942, BYUN Hee-bong dropped out of law school to pursue his dream of becoming an actor. Having been hired as a radio actor in 1963 by the now-defunct DBS radio, he moved to MBC two years later after he passed an audition. There, he met famed playwright CHA Bum-seok, who happened to come from the same rural region as BYUN and had just founded his theater company Sanha. Not long thereafter, BYUN joined the troupe and made his debut on stage, performing in m...More

Born BYUN In-chul in 1942, BYUN Hee-bong dropped out of law school to pursue his dream of becoming an actor. Having been hired as a radio actor in 1963 by the now-defunct DBS radio, he moved to MBC two years later after he passed an audition. There, he met famed playwright CHA Bum-seok, who happened to come from the same rural region as BYUN and had just founded his theater company Sanha. Not long thereafter, BYUN joined the troupe and made his debut on stage, performing in many of CHA’s most successful plays such as the satire <The Profession of Professor Wang> and <The Proxy>. His first screen appearance came in 1970 in the anticommunist drama series <101 Hong Kong >, before getting a recurrent role in the crime series <Chief Inspector>. In 1977, BYUN decided to take his actual stage name, Hee-bong, in order to reflect his frequent casting as villains. After that, he gradually moved over to the realm of film, starting with <Dull Servant Pal Bul-Chul> (1980). Earlier in his silver screen career, he starred in the classic LEE Doo-yong film <Eunuch> (1986) and 1993’s <Surrogate Father>. In 2000 he wound up in BONG Joon-ho’s debut <Barking Dogs Never Bite> and the revered filmmaker would later cast him in his seminal works <Memories of Murder> (2003) and <The Host> (2006), with the latter earning BYEON Best Supporting Actor at the Blue Dragon Awards. With his endearing and fatherly characteristics, not to mention his natural humor, he has performed in a string of other works, including <Au Revoir, UFO> (2004), <Crying Fist> (2005), <Small Town Rivals> (2007), <Haunters> (2010) and <In Love And the War> (2011). Although his screen appearances have become rare in recent years since the action comedy <The Spies> (2012) and the gorilla-led sports comedy <Mr. Go> (2013), he could be seen in BONG’s Netflix film <Okja> (2017) and in the 2019 crime thriller <By Quantum Physics: A Nightlife Venture>.Less