Yoo Yeonseok

Yoo Yeon-seok (유연석) started out with a fluke. Born Ahn Yeon-seok on April 11, 1984, in Seoul, he landed his film debut in Park Chan-wook's Oldboy (2003) only because a friend on the costume staff thought he resembled the lead. After mandatory military service and a degree in Film Arts from Sejong University, he committed to acting full-time, spending years in theater before television made him a household name. The breakthrough came with Reply 1994 (2013), where his warmth as Chilbong turned a nostalgia drama into a national phenomenon. He followed it with the medical series Dr. Romantic (2016) for SBS, then Mr. Sunshine (2018), Kim Eun-sook's lavishly produced historical epic for tvN, which became one of the highest-rated cable dramas in Korean history. His run in Hospital Playlist (2020-2021) as the guitar-playing surgeon Ahn Jeong-won cemented him as one of the most beloved actors of his generation, earning him the Baeksang Best Actor nomination. In 2024, he starred opposite Chae Soo-bin in the Netflix-distributed romantic thriller When the Phone Rings on MBC, playing a presidential spokesman entangled in a kidnapping case. The following year, he appeared in Park Chan-wook's No Other Choice (2025), reuniting with the director who first cast him over two decades earlier. Outside drama, Yoo runs a personal YouTube channel, 주말연석극 (The Yeon Seok Weekend Show), where he documents photoshoots and off-duty life. Managed by King Kong by Starship, he remains one of the industry's most consistently bankable leads.