Seo Kang-joon (서강준)

A staring match with Seo Kang-joon (Cheese in the Trap, 2016) could plunge one into a mesmerizing sea of caramel or honey, but there is more to him than meets the eye, light brown ones, in his case.

Photo from Fantagio/HanCinema

Birthday: October 12, 1993

Instagram: @seokj1012

Born Lee Seung-hwan in Gunpo, Gyeonggi Province, he studied in Malaysia for almost two years but spent his high school years in South Korea. He then studied at the Faculty of Performing Arts in Dong Seoul College and worked as a model. After debuting in the K-pop group 5urprise, he turned to acting in television with the family drama The Suspicious Housekeeper (2013), piquing viewers’ interest with his good acting skills. Soon, his major role would come with the rom-com series The Cunning Single Lady (2014) where he won Best New Actor at the 7th Korea Drama Awards. In the next two years, he would take on several projects: the k-drama What Happens to My Family? (2014-2015), the variety show Roommate (2014), and the films My Love, My Bride (2014) and Summer Snow (2015), among others.

In 2016, because of his award-winning breakout role as a troubled but skillful pianist in the romance drama series Cheese in the Trap, lead roles for these k-dramas came one after the other: the dark comedy Entourage (2016), the sci-fi Are You Human? (2017), the rom-com The Third Charm (2018), the thriller Watcher (2019), the romance drama When the Weather Is Fine (2020), and the rom-com series Love Refresh (2021). His last k-drama Grid, a sci-fi thriller, was released on Disney+ after he enlisted in the military in November last year.