Park Bo Gum | 박보검 | About

Park Bo Gum is a South Korean actor and singer. A pastor gave him his name — 보검, "precious sword" — and he started piano lessons in kindergarten, meaning for years to be a singer-songwriter. In his second year of high school he sent agencies a video of himself singing and playing, and heard back from SM, YG and JYP; an agent told him to act instead. He debuted in 2011 in the thriller "Blind", worked through supporting and child parts, and played a cellist in "Naeil's Cantabile" (2014).

"Hello Monster" (2015) brought him Best Supporting Actor and the Popularity Award at the KBS Drama Awards, and from May 2015 to June 2016 he hosted "Music Bank" with Irene. Then came "Reply 1988", which he auditioned for and won — Choi Taek, the professional baduk player who is unbeatable at the board and helpless everywhere else. It brought him Best New Actor at the APAN Star Awards, an Asia Star Award at the tvN10 Awards, Best International Artist at the Top Chinese Music Awards, and Best Rising Star and Best Kiss at the DramaFever Awards. He took his first lead straight after, as Crown Prince Lee Young in "Love in the Moonlight" (2016).

At twenty-three he became the youngest actor Gallup Korea had named Television Actor of the Year, and in 2017 the first actor to top the Forbes Korea Power Celebrity list. He carried a torch at the 2018 Winter Olympics, paused to finish his degree, and returned with "Encounter" (2018), the first Korean drama shot partly in Cuba, and "Record of Youth" (2020). He served in the Navy's Military Band and Honour Guard from August 2020 to February 2022, coming out of it with a barber's licence, and made his stage debut in the musical "Let Me Fly" in 2023. He signed with The Black Label that January, hosted the MAMA Awards in Los Angeles in 2024, and led Netflix's "When Life Gives You Tangerines" in 2025 — a year the Korean press took to calling the Year of Park Bo Gum, and which ended with a second Gallup Actor of the Year. He records in Japan for Pony Canyon, where he released the album "blue bird" in 2020.