"Squid Game" has become a truly globally popular Korean drama:
Even audiences in the Western world were fascinated by it, and in the 28 days of online, with 111 million views, it became the most popular episode of Netflix.
The male protagonist Lee Jung-jae, a 48-year-old male star who was originally in the front line of South Korea, has now greatly increased his international popularity with the drama, and everyone is paying close attention to his new developments.
In order to interact with more overseas fans, he opened a social media INS account, which attracted 980,000 fans in one day, and has now attracted more than 2 million fans, which can be described as one of the hottest Asian male stars in the world.
Many people go to li zhengzai's past, so even his old scandal of drunk driving in 1999 has been turned over, causing a heated discussion, which makes people sigh: it is true that people are not popular.
Lee Jung-jae, who has attracted much attention, recently gave an exclusive interview to overseas media, talking about the global popularity of "Squid Game", he was a bit light-hearted, saying: "As an actor, I have not changed anything. ”
At the same time, he also revealed that he has not received a phone call from Hollywood (film contract) because of this, "however, if the right opportunity appears, I will be happy to participate in overseas productions, which may be interesting." ”
Lee Jeong-jae's role as Sung Ki-hoon in "The Squid Game" is a penniless tramp who gambles, steals from his family, is beaten by a loan shark, and then accepts a mysterious invitation to become the 456th contender in this deadly game.
Playing this role of the nest, and the usually handsome Lee Jung Jae judged the two, after more than twenty years of career, he pays more attention to the difference in roles.
Lee Jeong-jae said: "When I first took over the scene of "Squid Game", I didn't expect such a success. But when I started reading the script, I understood that it contained elements that resonated with everyone and could achieve the same effect outside of Korea. ”
As a male god of acting in the Korean film and television circle, the 48-year-old Lee Jeong-jae has not taken up many roles in recent years, and his cold and bookish temperament makes him both cool for one second and gentle in the next.
Many people used to be very fascinated by the romance film "Untouchable Lovers" starring him and Jeon Ji-hyun 20 years ago. The two later collaborated on several films, including Raiders of the Lost Ark and Assassination.
Of course, now more people's deep impression of Lee Jeong-jae comes from the movie "New World", in which he starred as Lee Zi-sung, who has been undercover in the Golden Gate Group for ten years, and staged a good play with Choi Min-sik and Hwang Jeong-min, two major Korean film emperors.
Lee Jung-jae has worked with many of The current top actors and actresses in South Korea, in addition to the aforementioned ones, there are also Song Kang-ho, Kim Yoon-seok, Ha Jeong-woo, Jeong Yu-sung, Jang Dong-kin, Lee Young-ae, Jeon Do-yeon and so on.
Among them, he and Jeong Yusheng are good friends, in 1999, the two partnered to star in "Sunrise City", Lee Jeong-jae won the Korea Blue Dragon Film Award and the Korean Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor award.
Later, the two also opened the agency Artist Company together, and Ha Zhengyu was once a contracted actor of their company until he formed his own independent company after the contract expired in 2018.
(Photo of three people)
Lee Jeong-jae and Ha Jeong-woo are also old partners, in addition to filming "Assassination" (picture 1 below), they also cooperated in the blockbuster "Walking with God" series of movies, in which he became the King of Yan (picture 2 below), but because the image was too handsome, he was also jokingly called "King Yan" by some audiences.
With Song Kang-ho and others starring in the Korean costume film "Guan Xiang", Lee Jeong-jae played the king's brother Shouyang Daegun who competed for the throne, which brought him the Korean Film Blue Dragon Award and the Baeksang Art Awards Film Category, two awards for best supporting actor.
Romance, action, comedy, costumes, sci-fi, to the mythical thriller, Lee Jeong-jae constantly jumps out of his comfort zone and experiments with different films and character genres.
When many Korean film actors still can't watch TV dramas in the film circle, or are unwilling to jump out, he boldly chose to make TV dramas - as early as 2019 before "Squid Game", he took over a higher-rated Korean drama with a higher rating on the theme of politics, "Auxiliary Officer: People Who Changed the World".
That was The second return of Lee Jeong-jae after 10 years of leaving the small screen, when two episodes of Douban soared to 9 points, and because of the high reputation, he continued to shoot the second season.
Therefore, it is his eclectic filming that has given him more opportunities.
Talking about the difference between making a movie and a TV series, Lee Jung-jae said: "There are always people who question which is better to make a movie or a TV series, and I don't think it matters. In my opinion, what matters is whether the script is good and whether the story is interesting and engaging. ”
Lee Jung-jae said: "We live in an era where actors can freely choose between the two. Today, in South Korea, screenwriters and directors in the film industry are producing many episodes of ten episodes or less. As an actor, I should have made more episodes and explored more. ”
In fact, Lee Jung-jae's identity has long been not only an actor, he has been involved in business in his early years, and his industry has been involved in restaurants, real estate and interior design, but he said that he now wants to focus more and more on acting.
Lee Jung-jae revealed that he is currently producing and directing his directorial debut Nam Soon, a South Korean spy thriller in which he is buying the rights and rewriting the script.
"Just because I'm working as a director in this film doesn't mean I'm going to give up acting. My favorite is still the performance and intends to focus on it. "When I was young, I was curious about other industries and I wanted to look at other areas of the world and try it out." But now, I haven't been involved in these things for a while. ”
"After I was 40, I felt like my physical strength was down and I thought I should focus on just one thing, so I decided to focus on acting." He laughs and says, "Now that I'm almost 50 years old, my feelings are even deeper and I decided to just do one job at a time." ”
A good actor, never just stay in the comfort zone, this time starring in the TV series "Squid Game" became popular, on the surface it seems to be luck, but behind it is a good opportunity for Lee Jeong-jae to usher in under the hard work and dare to challenge.
As the old saying goes: Opportunities are always left to those who are prepared, and Lee Jeong-jae proves this once again.
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