Lee Jun Ki

Name: Lee Jun Ki,  (Lee Joon Ki)
Name: Lee Joon-ki Be
Date of Birth: Apr. 17, 1982
Height: 178cm
Weight: 63kg
Title: TV Talent/Actor
Hobbies: Playing soccer & computer games
Debut: Model for Clothing Brand “So Basic”(2001)”

Lee Jun Ki (born April 17, 1982, in Busan, South Korea) is a South Korean actor, model and singer. He rose to fame as Gong-gil in The King and the Clown. As of 2007, Lee is one of the top screen stars in South Korea.

Career

Lee was a fairly normal individual who enjoyed sports and computers. He first became interested in the performing arts as a high school student after watching a performance of Hamlet. Lee initially failed to get into college and because of this, he moved to Seoul with almost nothing in his pocket, but a dream to work in the entertainment industry. For the next couple of years, Lee worked at various part-time jobs, before gaining acceptance into the Seoul Institute of the Arts. He graduated from the Seoul Institute of the Arts with a major in Acting, and is a 1st degree in both Hapkido and Taekyon, and 3rd degree in Taekwondo. Besides Korean, Lee also speaks Japanese, Chinese and English.

Lee later started out as a model and held minor roles in Korean dramas. In 2001, he first appeared in the television commercial for the So Basic fashion label, appearing alongside actress Kim Hee Sun. His first drama appearance was as a dissatisfied teenager in the KBS drama Drama City: What should I do? He later appeared with a minor role in Star’s Echo, a drama by MBC and Fuji TV in 2004.

Lee continued to audition for various acting roles, but did not find immediate success. Lee would make his acting debut on the big screen within the same year. Competing against 2000 other participants, Lee landed a role in the Japanese film The Hotel Venus (2004). During his time working on the set of The Hotel Venus, Lee found himself less than pleased with his management company and having to work part-time jobs to support himself

The Hotel Venus would go on to become moderately successful in Japan selling 2.8 million tickets Lee would later start work on his first Korean film Flying Boys.

In 2005, his first major acting role came in The King and the Clown in which he took on the role of a feminine entertainer in the late 15th century forced to satisfy King Yeonsan’s sexual and emotional cravings. The film became one of the highest grossing South Korean-made movies in South Korea, unexpectedly replacing Taegukgi as the most-watched film in Korean history with over 12.3 million viewers.

Lee was against the halving of screen quotas in South Korea that allows foreign films to be shown in theaters on certain days, while domestic films are allotted another amount of days. He believed that without the screen quotas, The King and the Clown would not have been as successful in competing against foreign films. He earned many Best Male New Comer awards for his role as Gong-gil in The King and the Clown in 2006

Filmography

Dramas
Hero (MBC, 2009)
Iljimae (SBS, 2008)
Time Between Dog And Wolf (MBC, 2007)
The 101st Proposal (cameo) (SBS, 2006)
My Girl (SBS, 2005)
Drama City: What Should I Do? (KBS, 2004)
Star’s Echo (MBC, 2004)
Nonstop (guest appearance) (MBC, 2003)

Films
May 18 (2007)
Virgin Snow (Korea/Japan Co-production) (2007)
Fly, Daddy, Fly (2006)
The King and the Clown (2005)
Flying Boys (2004)
The Hotel Venus (Japan production) (2004)

Music videos
2009 : Lee Jun Ki: “Soliloquy”
2009 : Lee Jun Ki: “J Style”
2009 : Kim So Ri
2008 : 2008 Beijing Olympics: “Decathlon”
2006 : Lee Hyori: “Anystar”
2006 : Lee Soo Young: “Secret” (Part III of the trilogy from Grace I & Grace II)
2006 : Lee Soo Young: “Grace” (Grace I & II)
2004 : Clazziquai: “Sweety”
2004 : Kang Sung Hoon: “Precious Story”
2004 : Eun Ji Won: “Drunk In Melody”