Actor You Need to Know: Gong Yoo

Gong Yoo is “the artist” of marked traits, the illustrious Korean superstar whose performances always have much resonance with the audience. His striking features, especially those piercing eyes, underpin one of the most stunning faces on the screen, leaving an enduring impact while successively portraying the characters’ likenesses in minute detail. Leveraging his artistic insight and clarity, he intensifies the story of a Korean man in a variety of storylines, creating some of the most beloved characters.

Gong’s ingression into media was in 2000; until 2004, he juggled a variety of jobs, from video jockeying to supporting roles in dramas and films to emceeing for a music show, before securing his first lead role in the television series Hello My Teacher (2005), preceding the romance melodrama One Fine Day (2006). His career took off with the rom-com drama Coffee Prince (2007), starring Gong as Choi Han-kyul, a chaebol heir who plans to remodel his family’s café, hiring only handsome men to serve customers. Playing the role culminated in Gong’s breakout performance, and his ride to Hallyu prominence was spurred by his ability to act at an incessantly high standard.

His sensitive rendition of the brooding Han-kyul made him endearing throughout the drama. His sexuality quandary, responses that cause him to reflect, and the attraction between him and Yoon Eun-hye (playing Go Eun-chan) come across as all-natural. Because it challenged social standards and attitudes toward same-sex partnerships, femininity, and masculinity, Coffee Prince remains relevant—a classic K-drama.

Gong is a champion of radical switchovers. He can be the dashing loverboy who steals your heart or an insurgent teacher who steals your soul by going above and beyond in pursuit of justice for his students. Following his conscription, he played the vibrant, single, and endowed with quirky charisma Han Gi-joon in Finding Mr. Destiny (2010). Gi-joon has a fiercely meticulous temperament and is a little too zealous about business. Gong’s displayed courtship with Im Soo-jung yielded an appealing romantic comedy movie, and his nuanced acting and charm drew glowing reviews.

Likewise, with his razor-sharp portrayal in Dong-hyuk’s film Silenced (2011)—based on The Crucible, Gong Ji-young’s novel concerning the tragic events (in the early 2000s) at Gwangju Inhwa School for the Deaf, where staff members routinely molested students with hearing impairments for five years—Gong Yoo became the center of white-hot attention. He stars Kang In-ho, a newly appointed art teacher who vows to uphold the rights of the kids and bring light to the sexual misconduct taking place at the school. In a Yonhap News report, the film pushed lawmakers to approve legislation defending the rights of those who are more vulnerable since it raised awareness of judges’ lenient verdicts. Accordingly, the government opted to reopen the case.

No matter the role, Gong keeps it compelling. His performance in the romantic comedy-fantasy drama Big (2012) follows a similar trajectory. He appears as Seo Yoon-Jae, an empathetic doctor who dies in an accident with a young man who abruptly awakens in Yoon-Jae’s body after slipping into a coma. In remarkably realistic colors, he painted his images in his subsequent films. In the action espionage movie, The Suspect (2013), he had Ji Dong-cheol, a former high-ranking North Korean spy who defected, was investigating the murder of his family, and was charged with killing a company executive. In the very romantic A Man and a Woman (2016), he assumed Ki Hong, a man who encounters a woman, and they embark on a love affair in Finland that later poses moral questions and causes grief.

In the ground-breaking hit K-zombie Train to Busan (2016), he played the conceited, industrious Seok-woo, who stakes his life for his daughter, realizing amid the mayhem that she is worth more than his job and that perhaps staying alive is more essential than making money. Additionally, that same year, Gong stunned with his infamous act as Kim Woo-jin, a pivotal resistance member in the period action thriller The Age of Shadows—a tale of Korean resistance fighters smuggling explosives to annihilate Japanese military-controlled sites.

In every sense, 2016 marked the actor’s professional zenith. This was largely attributed to his outstanding performance as an eternal goblin and guardian of souls who is looking for his bride—the only one who can pull out an unseen sword puncturing through his chest—in the wildly successful Guardian: The Lonely and Great God, allegedly the fifth-highest-rated drama in Korean cable television history. Its original plot, superb cast, and unforgettable score not only won accolades but also sparked a slew of fashion trends. The outfits and accessories used by the cast, including Gong’s Lanvin coat, Kim Go-eun’s Lancôme lipstick, and Lee Dong-wook’s fedora, experienced a sharp increase in demand.

Often pigeonholed as box office gold, the 43-year-old is also a Chungmuro actor revered in Korean showbiz when juxtaposed with many other Hallyu stars. He holds honors from the foremost Korean institutes and is regarded as a solid and constant contributor to Korean cinema. In the feminist movie Kim Ji-young: Born 1982 (2019), he and co-star Jung Yu-mi collaborated as a married couple to great appreciation. The story concerns Ji-young (Jung), who begins acting erratically, seemingly possessed by her mother and deceased grandmother, and Jung Dae-hyun (Gong), her husband, who observes her oddity. The movie dominated the box office in South Korea for a week during its run, as per Korean media.

Once more, a plethora of excellent ventures entered the scene in 2021, giving Gong’s work record extra flair. He nailed the action thriller Seo Bok playing Min Gi-heon, a former intelligence agent on the quest for the first human clone to uncover the key to perpetual life. He subsequently showed up as the mysterious recruitment salesperson from the megahit mega-smash Squid Game, the creepy K-drama about survivability. In the final stretch of 2021, Gong co-starred with an ensemble cast as team leader Han Yoon-jae in the sci-fi thriller series The Silent Sea, set in a distant dystopian future when Earth is facing acute water shortage. It unfolds a crewed expedition seeking samples from a lunar research outpost. The series gained appraisal from all quarters being especially lauded for an ingenious sci-fi plot melding thriller and mystery to perfection.

Gong Yoo will return in Squid Game Season 2 to reprise his role, but this time around, it’s likely that we’ll discover more about the enigmatic character whom we first encountered in the very first episode of Squid Game and who enlists players for the fatal game.