Jo Seung-woo

Jo Seung-woo was born on March 28, 1980, in Seoul, South Korea. He comes from a musical family - his father, Jo Kyung-soo, is a singer and his older sister, Jo Seo-yeon, is an actress in musical theatre. This encouraged him to become a performer in musicals since his childhood.

He was so drawn towards musicals that his studies took a back seat in his high school days. Many a times he would carry musical CDs in his bag instead of books.

He is a graduate from Dankook University. While attending the university, in 1999 he took part in the auditions of the Korean Pansori film ‘Chunhyang’ where he got the starring role of Lee Mong-ryong among a thousand aspirants. Directed by Im Kwon-taek, Chunhyang released on January 29, 2000 and entered the 2000 Cannes Film Festival. Although the film failed commercially, it garnered positive critical reviews apart from several awards and nominations.

He made his debut in musical theatre in 2000 with ‘Blood Brothers’ which was followed by other local musical productions such as ‘The Last Empress’ (2000-2001) and ‘Subway Line 1’ (2001).

The following years saw Jo featuring in various versatile roles in films like ‘Wanee & Junah’ (2001) and ‘The Classic’ (2003) and musicals like ‘The Sorrows of Young Werther’ (2002) and ‘Carmen’ (2003) garnering good reviews and popularity for him .

His big break came with the 2005 blockbuster film ‘Marathon’ which was based on life of autistic marathon runner Bae Hyeong-jin. It became the fourth most attended Korean film of that year garnering US$33,284,089 at the box office. Jo essayed the role of Bae Hyeong-jin in ‘Marathon’. His breath-taking performance as the autistic young man, who releases himself through running and finds solace only in zebras and the Korean snack, choco pie, starring opposite Kim Mi-sook, earned him huge acclaim and recognition.

He also won several awards and nominations for his performance in ‘Marathon’ including the Best Actor award at the Grand Bell Awards and at the Baeksang Arts Awards in 2005.