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Pierce Conran

Lee Kwang-soo is back in the spotlight with not one but two major dramas currently on screens.
The Korean actor shows his range in workplace comedy The Divorce Insurance – streaming globally on Amazon Prime – alongside Lee Dong-wook and in the twisty Netflix thriller series Karma, in which he shares the limelight with Shin Min-a and Park Hae-soo.
Lee has been a draw on big and small screens for well over a decade but he is far from your typical leading man, not least because, at over 190cm (6ft 2in), he towers over most of his co-stars.
His height drew attention when he was at school, with offers to play sports such as basketball and volleyball. In high school he began modelling, and took an interest in acting.

However, after the theatre troupe he had joined fell apart, he became disillusioned and quickly enrolled for his military service – compulsory in South Korea.
His career began in earnest in 2007 after he came out of the army. He was first booked for a number of advertisements, then was cast in sitcoms such as the 2008 show Here He Comes.
Why we love him
Things took off for Lee in a big way in 2010 when he was cast in the phenomenally successful TV variety series Running Man as one of its founding cast members, alongside TV host Yoo Jae-suk and fellow future star Song Joong-ki.
Song left after about a year on the show, but Lee remained a core member for 11 years, steadily building up his dramatic acting career at the same time.

Thanks to Running Man and his affable personality, Lee’s popularity quickly rose, particularly with foreign hallyu (Korean wave) fans. By 2013, he was hosting massive fan greetings events across Southeast Asia.
At the same time he was beginning to appear in films, where his height made him ideally suited to play gangly and lovable secondary characters in romantic comedies such as Wonderful Radio and All About My Wife, but also edgier characters in thrillers like The Scent.
Throughout his screen career, right up until The Divorce Insurance and Karma, he has shown the ability to switch between goofy comedy and hard-boiled thriller.
The star-making roles

Lee joined his Running Man co-star Song Joong-ki in the TV melodrama The Innocent Man, in which he plays the best friend of Song’s lead character. The role earned him a best supporting actor nomination at the KBS Drama Awards.
After playing a villain in the period drama Goddess of Fire, Lee graduated to a main cast role in the hit romcom drama It’s Okay, That’s Love from star television scriptwriter Noh Hee-kyung (Our Blues) with Zo In-sung and Gong Hyo-jin.
He plays a waiter with Tourette’s syndrome who falls for a girl who does not reciprocate his feelings, played by Lee Sung-kyung. The role earned him huge acclaim and many accolades, including an excellence award at the Korean Drama Awards and a popular star award at the APAN Star Awards.
The iconic parts

Following the lower-than-expected ratings for the K-drama remake of Entourage, HBO’s comedy-drama series about budding actors, Lee bounced back alongside Jung Yu-mi as a police officer in the popular series Live.
He plays an ordinary patrolman who keeps encountering misfortune alongside his colleagues at the Hongil patrol division, among them Jung’s female officer.
In 2019, Lee co-starred with Shin Ha-kyun in the heartwarming film Inseparable Bros. He plays a young man with an intellectual disability who has been living with and taking care of a much smarter friend, who has a physical disability, for the past 20 years.

The role earned him more plaudits, as well as the best supporting actor prize in the Blue Dragon Film Awards and the popular star award in the Baeksang Arts Awards.
The unheralded performances
One of Lee’s great early roles came in the criminally underseen 2014 thriller Confession, in which he stars alongside Ji Sung and Ju Ji-hoon as three hard-up friends who make the fateful decision to knock off an illegal gambling den run by one of their mothers, only for tragedy to strike.
This stylish and dramatic film noir succeeds thanks to the powerful chemistry between its three leads.

A year after Confession, Lee took on his most unusual role in Collective Invention, playing a man with a medical condition who undergoes pharmaceutical trials but comes away with a fish head, which turns him into an unwitting media sensation.
The film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2015, but was not a success at home.
Tomorrow’s turns
Continuing a familiar trajectory, Lee’s coming projects include a thriller and a romantic comedy.

He will feature in the coming Disney+ drama The Manipulated alongside Ji Chang-wook and Doh Kyung-soo. From Hard Hit director Kim Chang-ju, the series is about a man who is wrongfully accused of a terrible crime and sent to prison. Lee will play a key figure in unravelling that man’s fate.
Lee will also be appearing in the big-screen romantic comedy Dreams of You, a film shot in Korea and Vietnam. In an echo of his own life, he will play an actor with a massive fan base in Asia who has grown disillusioned until he meets someone during a shoot in Vietnam.
The film reunites him with Kim Sung-hoon, who directed Lee in the 2013 film My Little Hero.


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Lee Kwang-soo in a still from Karma. Photo: Jihyeong Seo/Netflix

Korean actor Lee Kwang-soo is currently appearing in the K-dramas Karma and The Divorce Insurance. Photo: Netflix

Gong Seung-yeon and Lee Kwang-soo in a still from Karma. Photo: Jihyeong Seo/Netflix

Lee Kwang-soo in a still from The Divorce Insurance.

Lee Kwang-soo in a still from It’s Okay, That’s Love (2014).

Jung Yu-mi (centre) and Lee Kwang-soo (right) in a still from Live (2018).

Shin Ha-kyung (left) and Lee Kwang-soo in a still from Inseparable Bros (2019).

(From left) Lee Kwang-soo, Ju Ji-hoon and Ji Sung in a still from Confession (2014).

Lee Kwang-soo (left) and Park Bo-young in a still from Collective Invention (2015). Photo: CJ Entertainment

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Park Hae-soo as Witness in a still from Karma, a gruelling Korean drama series on Netflix that dives deep into human interconnectedness. Photo: Netflix

Shin min-a as Ju-yeon in a still from Karma. Photo: Netflix

Lee Kwang-soo (left) as Glasses and Gong Seung-yeon as Yu-jeong in a still from Karma. Photo: Netflix

Lee Hee-joon as Debtor in a still from Karma. Photo: Netflix

Lee Hee-joon (left) as Debtor and Kim Sung-kyun as Gil-ryong in a still from Karma. Photo: Netflix

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Lee Dong-wook in a still from The Divorce Insurance. Photo: Online

Lee Joo-bin (left) as freshly divorced underwriter Kang Han-deul and Lee Dong-wook as thrice-divorced Noh Ki-jun in a still from The Divorce Insurance, a Korean workplace romantic comedy series showing on Amazon Prime. Photo: Online

Lee Kwang-soo as risk surveyor An Jeong-man in a still from The Divorce Insurance. Photo: Online

Lee Da-hee as Jeon Na-rae, quantitative analyst and ex-wife of the divorce insurance team leader Ki-jun, in a still from The Divorce Insurance. Photo: Online

Lee Joo-bin as freshly divorced underwriter Kang Han-deul in a still from The Divorce Insurance. Photo: Online

Lee Dong-wook as team leader Noh Ki-jun in a still from The Divorce Insurance. Photo: Online

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Cho Jin-woong as Detective Baek Joong-sik in a still from No Way Out: The Roulette, which is engaging but becomes bogged down by the weight of its own story. Yoo Jae-myung, Kim Mu-yeol, Yum Jung-ah, and Lee Kwang-soo co-star. Photo: Disney+

Yoo Jae-myung as rapist and murderer Kim Guk-ho in a still from No Way Out: The Roulette. Photo: Disney+

Greg Hsu as assassin Mr Smile in a still from No Way Out: The Roulette. Photo: Disney+

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Lee Kwang-soo, currently on screens in two Korean drama series, has enjoyed a long career, his credits including Confession and Running Man


Lee Kwang-soo, currently on screens in two Korean drama series, has enjoyed a long career, his credits including Confession and Running Man.


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Profile | Who is Lee Kwang-soo, Running Man founding member and star of many films and K-dramas?

Lee Kwang-soo, currently on screens in two Korean drama series, has enjoyed a long career, his credits including Confession and Running Man