Lee Sung-min (이성민)

Best known by k-drama fans for his Baeksang-winning portrayal of a sympathetic middle-aged sales manager in the 2014 workplace drama Misaeng: Incomplete Life, Lee Sung-min is a veteran actor with a long list of theater, television, and film credits and awards to his name.

Photo from HODU&U Entertainment

Birthday: December 4, 1968

Lee Sung-min started his career in the early ‘90s theater scene of his hometown, Daegu, gaining prominence as both an actor and director before venturing to Seoul. For the first decade of his onscreen acting career, Lee Sung-min was cast in minor roles in such dramas as King Sejong the Great (2008) and Pasta (2010).

His breakthrough performance came through the 2012 medical drama Golden Time, which earned him his first Baeksang nomination for Best Actor. Since then, he has been cast in leading roles, while continuing to take on a variety of supporting roles. His impressive body of film work includes the critically acclaimed spy movie The Spy Gone North (2018), which won him a slew of acting awards including the Grand Bell.

He followed this powerhouse performance with two more on the silver screen: the critically-acclaimed, Lee Byung-hun led The Man Standing Next (2020), in which he played Korean dictator Park, and the heartwarming Miracle: Letters to the President (2021) with Im Yoon-ah and Park Jung-min.

2022 has an incredibly busy year for Lee Sung-min, with the release of three films and two television dramas. This versatile veteran starred in the Netflix legal drama Juvenile Justice with Kim Hye-soo, and as of this writing, is playing a formidable nemesis/grandfather to Song Joong-ki in JTBC's hit revenge drama Reborn Rich. He also played major roles in the movies Hunt, The Devil's Deal, and Remember.

His extraordinary talent and impressive body of work earned Lee Sung-min the Prime Minister's Commendation at the 2022 Korea Popular Culture and Arts Awards.