Ryu Jun-yeol’s Profile
Ryu Jun-yeol is a Korean actor who was born on September 25th, 1986, in Suwon. He is 183 cm tall, which makes an ideal stature for him as an actor. This also benefits him when there’s an offer for magazine photo shoot such as Bazaar, Star1, Marie Claire and so on. Apparently, he has no siblings in his family which makes him still a childlike son to his parents. In one of his interviews with Marie Claire, he has said that he could be a calm and thoughtful person, but also talkative and playful. Ryu Jun-yeol made his acting debut in 2012, playing in a short movie and another independent production. People started to recognize him after taking a role in the movie Socialphobia, which led to him getting the role of Kim Jung-hwan in Reply 1988. Notwithstanding his being a successful actor, when Ryu Jun-yeol appeared on the Korean variety show called Taxi, he said that originally he dreamed of being a teacher. Currently, he is residing in C-Jes Entertainment, the same agency as various famous artists, including Park Sung-woong, Choi Min-sik, Hwang Jung-eum, and many others.
Ryu Jun-yeol’s Drama Career
When he began his acting career in short films, he also started appearing on television, playing a cameo in one of KBS’ sitcoms, The Producers, in 2015. He might not have been noticed since he only appeared in two episodes. At the end of the same year, he got his chance to shine in the entertainment world by playing a role in the drama Reply 1988, alongside Park Bo-gum and Hyeri from Girls’ Day. He played the role of Kim Jung-hwan, who has Choi Taek (Park Bo-gum) as his love rival because they are both in love with Deok-sun (Hyeri). He was successful in portraying Kim Jung-hwan as a tsundere, someone who looks cold on the outside but actually cares about the people around him. While the series itself showed many affections between Jung-hwan and Deok-sun, it left viewers disappointed because Deok-sun ended up marrying Taek instead of Jung-hwan. Through this television series, he was nominated for a number of awards and even won some of them, including Rising Star in 10th Korean Cable TV Awards and 1st tvN10 Awards, Best New Actor in Baeksang Arts Awards, and Best Rookie Awards in 1st Asia Awards. Not too long after the series had ended, he returned to the screen through Lucky Romance, with Hwang Jung-eum as his co-star. This news, of course, brought joy to his fans who were eagerly anticipating his return after his appearance in Reply 1988. Quite different from his earlier work, this time Ryu Jun-yeol got the chance to play the role of the leading male character. While the first episode of the drama was highly rated, overall it received many negative comments regarding the storyline that looked obvious and the bad chemistry between the leading characters. But there are also viewers who have said that the drama will definitely get better and they hope for Ryu Jun-yeol’s success with this project. Regardless of the negative responses, he won the award Best New Actor on 35th MBC Drama Awards for his role in the drama.
