Born in 1977, So Jisub was initially pursuing a career as a swimming athlete when he was in high school, having even won gold medal at the team event of National Junior Sports Festival. A fan of hip-hop duo Deux, he participated in 1995 to a modelling contest held by a popular Jean’s brand since the winner would be able to meet Deux member Kim Sung-jae, the brand ambassador. So won the competition, but Kim’s untimely death soon thereafter had the unpredicted consequence o...More

Born in 1977, So Jisub was initially pursuing a career as a swimming athlete when he was in high school, having even won gold medal at the team event of National Junior Sports Festival. A fan of hip-hop duo Deux, he participated in 1995 to a modelling contest held by a popular Jean’s brand since the winner would be able to meet Deux member Kim Sung-jae, the brand ambassador. So won the competition, but Kim’s untimely death soon thereafter had the unpredicted consequence of catapulting So to the forefront, quite literally, as he replaced Kim as the new ambassador. After a brief appearance in the 1997 drama series <Model>, he suddenly received a role offer while accompanying model-turned-actor Song Seungheon on the set for the sitcom <Three Guys and Three Girls> (1996-1999) and so made his official debut in a role that quickly grew in importance in reaction to the positive audience response. Receiving many role offers for TV series in the following years, his first film role was in the lead for the comedy <Can’t Live Without Robbery> (2002). He eventually found his breakout role in the 2003 drama series <What Happened in Bali> The next year, he was headlining the hit melodrama series <Sorry, I Love You>, a performance for which he received a Best Actor accolade from the Baeksang Arts Awards. These dramas gave a complete makeover to his tough guy image, growing beyond the no-nonsense man to become a romantic lead who exhibits brusque but caring manners. After completing military service, he captivated festival audiences and critics with <Rough Cut>, his welcome return to the silver screen. Playing a gangster who finds himself involved in the production of a gangster movie, he showed off his masculine charm and delivered an excellent performance, winning several newcomer awards, among which one from the Korean Association of Film Critics, for good measure. Riding the Korean Wave, he has also been active abroad, taking one of the lead roles in the Japanese fantasy movie <Gegege no Kitaro: Kitaro and the Millennium Curse> and co-starring with Zhang Ziyi in the star-studded romantic comedy <Sophie's Revenge>, a joint project between Korea and China. In 2012, he played what remains today one of the roles for which he is best known, that of a hitman looking to go straight in <A Company Man>. He then scored another hit as the male lead of the horror-romcom series <Master’s Sun>, playing a conglomerate CEO who happens to be the only cure to the apparitions a woman has been plagued with ever since she was involved in an accident. Next for him was Ryoo Seungwan’s war drama <The Battleship Island> (2017), starring as a street fighter sent to the namesake labor camp, and the melodrama <Be With You> (2017), in which he played against Son Yejin, proving once more that he counts among the most versatile actors in the Korean industry. In 2022, he starred alongside Ryu Junyeol and Kim Taeri in Choi Donghoon’s high-concept fantasy blockbuster <Alienoid> (2022) and headlined the mystery drama <Confession> (2020).

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