Lee Sun Gyun | 이선균 | About

Lee Sun Gyun (March 2, 1975 – December 27, 2023) was a South Korean actor, known internationally for Bong Joon Ho's "Parasite" (2019), which won the Palme d'Or and the Academy Award for Best Picture, and whose cast — Lee among them — took the SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast.

He was born in Seoul and entered the Korea National University of Arts in 1994, graduating in the first ever class of its School of Drama. He made his debut in the 2000 short film "Psycho Drama", followed in 2001 by his stage debut as Brad Majors in "The Rocky Horror Show" and his television debut in the sitcom "Lovers". For years afterwards he was given small and supporting parts on screen, leading only in single-act dramas for KBS Drama City and MBC Best Theater — and it was that work which brought him to the director Lee Yoon Jung on "Taereung National Village" (2005), who later cast him in "The 1st Shop of Coffee Prince".

His breakthrough came in 2007 with the medical drama "White Tower" and "Coffee Prince", and he was nominated for Best New Actor in Television at the 43rd Baeksang Arts Awards. Rather than trade on that fame he turned to low-budget arthouse films to sharpen his work, appearing repeatedly for Hong Sang Soo in "Night and Day", "Oki's Movie", "Nobody's Daughter Haewon" and "Our Sunhi", and winning Best Actor at the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival for "Paju".

He shook off his gentle television image as the brilliant, abrasive chef in "Pasta" (2010), and went on to the thriller "Helpless" and the comedy "All About My Wife" (both 2012), the trauma doctor of "Golden Time" (2012), and "A Hard Day" (2014), which screened at Cannes and won him the Baeksang Arts Award for Best Actor. He was a steady advocate for the short drama format as a training ground for young actors, crediting it for his own career.

Later work included the acclaimed "My Mister" (2018), "Dr. Brain" (2021) — the first Korean-language series made for Apple TV+, for which he was nominated for Best Actor at the 50th International Emmy Awards — the political drama "Kingmaker", the crime thriller "Payback" and the horror film "Sleep" (2023).

He married the actress Jun Hye Jin, his partner of seven years, on May 23, 2009; their two sons were born in 2009 and 2011.

In October 2023 it emerged that Lee was under investigation over suspected drug use, which cost him advertising contracts and a role in an upcoming series. He maintained that the accusations rested on hearsay without physical evidence, and said he had been deceived into taking what he was given as part of a blackmail attempt. He died on December 27, 2023, at the age of 48; his death was ruled a suicide. It drew demands from Bong Joon Ho and others for an inquiry into the conduct of the police and the press, and in December 2024 two women were sentenced to prison for extorting ₩350 million from him, the judge finding that the extortion had contributed to his death.