Daniel Henney

Daniel Henney has dated many actresses and models throughout his career, and one of his most talked-about love affairs was with Maggie Q, a Hollywood actress who has appeared in films such as ‘Mission Impossible’ and ‘Live Free or Die Hard’. The couple began dating in 2005 and remained together for some years before breaking up. Daniel has been very secretive about his personal life ever since.

Daniel likes to play basketball in his free time and says that if he wasn’t an actor; he surely would have made a career in basketball.

Daniel Henney was born Jeom Deok-su in Carson City, Michigan, to a Korean mother and an Irish father. According to him, he had a very rough and difficult childhood.

He was born on 28th November 1979, during a phase when racism was at its very peak in the American culture, especially against the Asians and Africans. Daniel would get beaten up every now and then and face racial slurs from his classmates in school. But as Daniel further describes the experience, he says that everything he has suffered made him stronger as a person and eventually he stopped giving it any attention.

Daniel was a studious kid and performed well in academics and his strong built helped him excel in the athletics as well. Studying in Crystal High School in his hometown, he was a good basketball player and also led his team into the finals of quite a few basketball inter-school tournaments. Proving his worth was something he intended to do after becoming victim of racial abuse as a kid and he did what he intended.

Based on his basketball merits, he got scholarships to study in the Alma College and Albion College, later attending the University of Illinois in Chicago. Modelling happened by chance during his college days and by the time he dropped out of the college, he was already very much knee deep in the world of modelling and toured around France, Italy and Hong Kong.

Modelling landed him a few advertisement stints, and he made his debut with an advertisement for Odyssey Sunrise, an Amore Pacific’s cosmetic. By then, he had very little knowledge of the Korean language and when he was first offered a role in Korean dramas, he was hesitant, but eventually took the leap and started his acting career with South Korean television.

Daniel Henney got his first acting role as a cameo in ‘Hello Franceska’, a South Korean sitcom in 2005. In the same year, he made his debut with a fully fledged role in ‘My Lovely Sam Soon’, where he was initially criticized because of his ‘not so fluent Korean’, but eventually grew on the audiences owing to his charming looks and acting talent. Daniel played a doctor in the series and although it was a supporting role, the general reception was good.

The series ‘My Lovely Sam Soon’ was one of the most popular Korean dramas and Daniel became a household name, eventually grabbing some more juicy roles in form of ‘Spring Waltz’ in 2006, where he played one of the main cast members and portrayed the role of Philip quite effectively. By then it had become quite obvious that he had mastered Korean and his acting skills had also improved.

He faced a slight controversy in 2006; he had earlier claimed that he had a degree in Economics from the University of Illinois, but there was no record of him ever graduating from the university. This affected his career slightly as he received a lot of flak from media for lying, but somehow, he continued working and appeared in his first film role in 2006 with the film ‘Seducing Mr. Perfect’, a romantic comedy film.

In 2007, he was seen in the most pivotal role of his career up until that time in the South Korean Drama film ‘My Father’, where he played the lead role of a man who sets out in search of his biological parents. The film was a box office success and earned Daniel quite a lot of applauds for his deeply emotional portrayal of a broken young man. He ended up winning a Blue Dragon Film Award and a Korean Association of Film Critics Award for his performance.

Daniel then starred in the 2009 drama ‘Three Rivers’ here he played one of the leading characters as Dr. David Lee, and the same year he appeared in his very first Hollywood project. He was signed on to play the role of Agent Zero in the superhero film ‘X Men Origins: Wolverine’. He played a supporting role next to Hollywood superstar Hugh Jackman. The film performed poorly at the box office, and panned by critics as well.