- Jo Seung-woo
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Jo Seung-woo Hangul 조승우 Hanja 曺承佑 Revised Romanization Jo Seung-u McCune–Reischauer Cho Sŭng'u Jo Seung-woo (born February 12, 1980) is a South Korean actor and musical star best known for his roles in Marathon and Tazza: The High Rollers.
Contents
Career
Jo Seung-woo grew up in a musical family: his father Jo Kyung-soo is a singer, and his older sister Jo Seo-yeon acts in musicals. Jo himself also dreamed of becoming a musical actor from an early age, however in 1999 while a student at Dankook University he was persuaded to join auditions for Im Kwon-taek's film Chunhyang, and he ended up winning the part from among a field of 1000 actors. Chunhyang would screen as the first Korean film in competition at Cannes, although domestically it failed to attract much of an audience.[1]
Jo did go on to appear in musicals after his film debut, acting in local productions Subway Line 1 and The Last Empress. Soon he was drawn back into the film industry, however, with a key supporting role in Wanee and Junah (2001), plus leading roles in Who Are You (2002) and Kwak Jae-yong's popular The Classic (2003). Particularly after The Classic his popularity continued to grow, and in 2004 he appeared in Im Kwon-taek's 99th film Low Life, which flopped at the box office.[1]
Jo's breakthrough would come in early 2005, when he played an autistic boy in the smash hit Marathon. With over 5 million tickets sold to the film, Jo attracted great praise for his naturalistic performance and won Best Actor at the 2005 Grand Bell Awards. In November he was even presented with a Best Actor award in the foreign film category of China's Hundred Flowers Awards. Nonetheless, he continued to pursue his career in musicals, with critically acclaimed appearances in Hedwig and Jekyll and Hyde that had fans scrambling to find tickets. His success at pursuing both film and musicals make him an unusual case among contemporary actors.[1]
Jo starred in Love Phobia (2006) opposite then-girlfriend Kang Hye-jung (the high-profile couple broke up in 2007[2]). He then headlined Tazza: The High Rollers, the 2006 film adaptation of Huh Young-man's manhwa, which went on to become one of the biggest Korean blockbuster hits of all time.[1] He followed that with Go Go 70s, about a rock and roll band during the height of the Park Chung-hee military regime, and The Sword With No Name, in which he played a fictional royal guard in love with Empress Myeongseong.
After completing his mandatory army service,[3] Jo made his comeback in the 2010 production of Jekyll and Hyde.[4] The musical is especially meaningful to Jo since the actor rose to stardom when the show premiered in Korea in 2004.[5] Jo's much-anticipated return to the stage was marked with controversy following reports that his salary would be the highest for any musical theater actor in Korean history. While producers fear that demands for similarly high fees could follow (which could eventually put them out of business), others say that the fee is justified, based on the hope that Jo will help spark a renaissance in a once vibrant but now stagnant musical theater industry.[6] And true enough, when tickets went on sale, the demand was so high that the online reservation server broke down after 15 minutes, with all of the performances in which Jo is scheduled to appear already sold out.[7]
Jo and Ryu Deok-hwan play Siamese twin brothers in actress Goo Hye-sun's sophomore directorial effort The Peach Tree, which debuted at the 2011 Busan International Film Festival.[8] He has been cast in sports movie The Perfect Game, which will revisit one of the most exciting matches in Korean baseball history, between Choi Dong-won of the Haitai Tigers and Sun Dong-ryeol of the Lotte Giants in the summer of 1987, which ended in a tie after being extended 15 innings; the rivalry between the two was further heated up by regionalism at the time with Choi representing the Jeolla Province and Sun, the Gyeongsang Province. Jo will star as Choi opposite Yang Dong-geun as Sun.[9] Jo will also be taking on the lead role in the musical Zorro.[10][11]
Filmography
- 2000 Chunhyang
- 2001 아미지몽 (我美之夢)
- 2001 Wanee and Junah
- 2002 Who R. U.?
- 2002 YMCA Baseball Team
- 2002 H
- 2003 The Classic
- 2004 Low Life
- 2005 Marathon
- 2006 Love Phobia
- 2006 Tazza: The High Rollers
- 2008 Go Go 70s
- 2009 The Sword with No Name
- 2011 The Peach Tree
- 2012 The Perfect Game
Musical theatre
- Blood Brothers
- The Last Empress
- Line 1 (2001, 2006)
- The Sorrows of Young Werther
- Carmen
- Jekyll & Hyde (2004, 2005, 2006, 2010-2011)
- Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2005, 2007, 2008)
- Rent (2007)
- Man of La Mancha (2007)
- I Am Sam (2008)
- Zorro (2011-2012)
Awards
- 2002 Korea Musical Awards: Best New Actor
- 2004 Korea Musical Awards: Best Actor
- 2005 Baeksang Arts Awards: Best Actor (Marathon)
- 2005 Grand Bell Awards: Popularity Award (Marathon)
- 2005 Grand Bell Awards: Best Actor (Marathon)
- 2005 Premiere Rising Star Award
- 2005 Pusan Film Critics Awards: Best Actor (Marathon)
- 2005 China Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival: Best Actor (Marathon)
- 2005 Blue Dragon Film Awards: Popularity Award (Marathon)
- 2005 Korea Advertisers Association: Good Model Award[12]
- 2006 University Film Festival of Korea: Man of the Year Award
- 2007 Korea Movie Star Awards: Best Actor (Tazza: The High Rollers)
- 2007 Korea Musical Awards: Popularity Award
- 2008 The Musical Awards: Best Actor
- 2011 The Musical Awards: Best Actor (Jekyll & Hyde)[13][14]
References
- ^ a b c d Actors and Actresses of Korean Cinema Koreanfilm.org.
- ^ Movie Star Couple Cho, Kang Break Up Korea Times. February 11, 2007
- ^ Jo Seung-woo makes stealthy exit from military service Dramabeans. October 24, 2010.
- ^ Cho Seung-woo set on starring in "Jekyll & Hyde" since '09 10Asia. October 26, 2010.
- ^ Cho Seung-woo to Make Post-Army Comeback in 'Jekyll and Hyde' Chosun Ilbo. August 10, 2010.
- ^ Actor's record-breaking salary stokes conflict JoongAng Daily. November 11, 2010.
- ^ Leading man propelling 'Jekyll and Hyde' to success JoongAng Daily. December 15, 2010.
- ^ http://www.biff.kr/eng/html/program/prog_view.asp?idx=16042&c_idx=25&sp_idx=sp2
- ^ Actor Cho Seung-woo cast in a new baseball film 10Asia. April 13, 2011.
- ^ Musical "Zorro" prepping for Korea opening 10Asia. July 12, 2011.
- ^ Cho Seung Woo Takes on Challenge of Major Musical KBS Global. July 12, 2011.
- ^ Moon Geun-young, Cho Seung-woo Advertisers' Favorite Chosun Ilbo. September 21, 2005.
- ^ Cho Seung-woo and Cha Ji-yeon win at 5th Musical Awards 10Asia. June 8, 2011.
- ^ 'Seopyeonje' named best homegrown show at Musical Awards Korea Times. June 8, 2011.
External links
Categories:- South Korean film actors
- South Korean stage actors
- South Korean musical theatre actors
- Dankook University alumni
- 1980 births
- Living people
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