Born in 1975, Lee Sunkyun 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 <Lov...More

Born in 1975, Lee Sunkyun 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 so easy to break into the film industry. He 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>. He was finally noticed when he played 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 he did not hold onto this nurtured image. Instead, he has polished his acting caliber by teaming up with Hong Sangsoo, starting with <Night and Day> (2008) in which he played an international student from North Korea. He followed this up with 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 enjoyed popularity with female audiences after appearing in the TV drama series <Pasta> (2010), a story of work and love set in the kitchen of an Italian restaurant, and the film <Petty Romance> (2010), about an adult cartoonist seeking love. In 2011, Lee starred alongside veteran actor Park Joonghoon in the cop drama <Officer of the Year> and in 2012 he stormed the box office with Kim Minhee in the mystery thriller <Helpless> (2011) and with Lim Soojung in Min Kyudong’s <All about My Wife> (2012). Lee teamed up with Hong 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 Goeun as an attorney who uncovers a mystery behind a murder case in <The Advocate : A Missing Body> (2015). After playing a sympathetic North Korean doctor in Kim Byungwoo’s action thriller <Take Point> (2018) and a top billing role in crime thriller <Jo Pil-ho: The Dawning Rage> (2018), Lee was brought to a much wider audience when he played the father of a wealthy family in the dark comedy <PARASITE>. The latest from world-famous director Bong Joonho that took home the most prestigious award in the cinema world, the Palme d’Or of the Cannes Film Festival, while Lee himself became one of the co-recipients of the Best Ensemble Award from the Screen Actors Guild Awards. In 2022, he could be seen in starring in the historical political thriller <Kingmaker>, playing the titular political strategist who assisted the future Korean President Kim Daejung.
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