Lee Jun-ho

The Audition with the Arm in a Sling

In 2013 Lee Jun-ho walked into an audition room for the movie Cold Eyes with a freshly operated shoulder and his arm immobilized. He didn't ask for special treatment for being one of the most visible faces of the pop group 2PM. He wanted the supporting role of a detective nicknamed Squirrel, and he got it because his gaze conveyed a sense of urgency that wasn't in the script.

Before that film debut, his life revolved around precise choreography and sold-out stadiums. He debuted in music in 2008 after winning an extreme talent competition. But moving into film in South Korea tends to punish those who come from the dance world.

The label of a manufactured idol was then a hard slab to break.

Yet his strategy was silence and surgical selection of projects. In 2015, he took part in Twenty, a comedy in which he accepted a role that poked fun at his own leading-man image. That decision not to take himself too seriously is what allowed him to survive the transition into mature acting.

The villain who couldn't stop eating

The real turning point came in 2017 with the premiere of Chief Kim. He played a corrupt prosecutor with a compulsive obsession with food. Instead of relying on his usual good looks, Lee Jun-ho filled the screen with nervous tics and an uncomfortable arrogance that earned him the unanimous respect of the industry.

But mandatory military service put his career on hold between 2019 and 2021. During those two years away, an old recording of one of his performances from 2015 went viral online. The phenomenon was so massive that his return to the screen became the most anticipated TV event in the industry.

The wait ended in November 2021 with the historical drama The Red Sleeve.

His role as King Yi San was not only a ratings hit, with viewership surpassing 17 percent in its final episode. In May 2022 he won the Best Actor award at the Baeksang Arts Awards. He was the first actor from a pop band to win this award in the drama category.

Numbers and Superhero Suits

In 2023, he starred in the romantic comedy King the Land for Netflix. The series racked up more than 400 million viewing hours in its first weeks. But far from getting stuck in the romance genre, the actor signed on in 2024 to lead a large-scale action project.

And the stakes went up once again.

The series Cashero began its main production phase in the first months of 2024. In this story, he plays a civil servant who gains physical strength in proportion to the cash he carries. The contract ties the actor to the streaming platform for global distribution in more than 190 countries.

The estimated budget for this visual effects production exceeds 22 million dollars. Filming of the action scenes was scheduled to last a total of seven months across locations in Seoul and its surroundings.