Lee Jun-young

From the Stage to the Mud of the Set

Lee Jun-young entered the Korean industry through the back door. In 2014, he joined pop group U-KISS after the lineup had already passed its best sales years. It wasn't the dream start for a seventeen-year-old eager for the spotlight. But that lack of initial protection forced him to make his own way outside music programs.

In 2017, he made his acting debut in the series Avengers Social Club. Nobody expected much from a singer turned actor in a drama about women plotting revenge. Yet the role of Lee Soo-gyum worked because Jun-young didn't try to be the center of attention. He worked through restraint and silence.

That first step broke the momentum of his music career.

Because success in K-pop is fleeting, and he knew it perfectly well. After winning the competition The Unit in 2018 and joining the temporary group UNB, he decided his real path lay in scripts. In 2019, he played a brilliant and chilling student in Class of Lies. That was when critics began to take him seriously as a character actor.

The Risk of Submission on Netflix

Many young actors avoid roles that could hurt their leading-man image. Lee Jun-young did the opposite. In 2022, he starred in the film Love and Leashes opposite Seohyun. Playing a man with submissive fetishes in a society as conservative as Korea's was a potential career suicide. But the bet on adult romantic comedy paid off.

And the gamble paid off.

That same year, he appeared in the first season of D.P. in a short but physically demanding role. His fight with Jung Hae-in in a safe house showed that his dance training could be used to choreograph violence. He didn't need stunt doubles for most of his action scenes on that 2021 shoot. Soon, genre directors began calling him for darker projects.

In 2023, he shot Brave Citizen. He played a sociopathic school bully who forced the female lead to wear a cat mask while fighting. It was a grueling shoot where Lee Jun-young spent weeks training in muay thai so the punches would look convincing on screen. Korean audiences genuinely came to hate him for that role.

A 2024 of Villains and Heirs

Lee Jun-young's ability to move between corporate drama and post-apocalyptic action was confirmed in 2024. In the film Badland Hunters, he shared the screen with Don Lee. The shoot focused on physical survival, and he had to learn to handle firearms and bows in green-screen and real desert settings. He managed not to be overshadowed by the physical presence of Korea's biggest action star.

Shortly after, he premiered in The Impossible Heir. The Disney+ production cast him as the illegitimate son of a major corporation. It was an office drama with expensive suits and dialogue dripping with venom. The series received mixed reviews for its pacing, but his performance as Kang In-ha remained the strongest part of the show.

He doesn't go for the comfort of the perfect leading man.

In 2024, he also explored light comedy in Dreaming of a Freaking Fairytale. The project serves as a counterpoint to his work in Weak Hero Class 2, shot for Netflix ahead of its 2025 premiere. In the latter, he returns to the violent school setting that brought him such good results in the past. His contract for the series Melo Movie from 2025 includes a six-month shooting clause across various locations in Seoul.

Production of Weak Hero Class 2 confirmed a budget of more than 15 million dollars for its post-production phase.