Yoo Ji-tae (유지태)

Every k-drama fan is familiar with the phrase “Do you want to eat ramyeon?,” but few may know that the famous line was first used by OG Hallyu superstar Lee Young-ae to pick up Yoo Ji-tae in One Fine Spring Day.

Birthday: April 13, 1976

Instagram: jt_db

The classic 2001 Hur Jin-ho film is only one among many acclaimed movies in the lengthy filmography of this veteran actor whose career spans a quarter of a century. The charismatic, versatile, 6’2” (188cm) former model is best known for, among others: Attack the Gas Station (1999), Ditto (2000), Hwang Jin-yi (2007), The Swindlers (2017), and Park Chan-wook’s internationally acclaimed revenge thriller Oldboy (2003).

K-drama fans would know him for his roles in the action-romance Healer (2014), the legal drama The Good Wife (2016) co-starring Jeon Do-yeon, and the nostalgic romance When My Love Blooms (2020) with Lee Bo-young.

Yoo Ji-tae most recently played "The Professor" in Money Heist: Joint Economic Area, the Korean adaptation of the hit Spanish heist series.

As if his reputation as a leading actor weren’t enough, Yoo is an accomplished film director and writer. His feature film Mai Ratima (2013) won the Jury Prize at the Deauville Asian Film Festival. He is also an active philanthropist who has set up an orphanage in Nepal and has served as an honorary ambassador for World Vision.

But among the many hats he wears, the one he cherishes the most is that of a devoted family man.

This 2023, we can look forward to watching him play a genius criminal in the TVING web series Villians and a police investigator in the Disney+ revenge series Vigilantes co-starring Nam Joo-hyuk.