Ryu Soo-young

After dating Park Ha-sun for quite some time, he married her on January 22, 2017, in a very private ceremony, which was attended by very close friends and family members. The couple revealed that they had been dating each other since 2014. On August 23, the couple became proud parents to a baby girl.

Ryu Soo-young was born on September 5, 1979 in Gyeonggi, South Korea into an upper middle class family. He started doing theatres early in his life, and also played basketball and football in school.

Although he developed love towards acting quite early, but he initially took it as a hobby. He knew in back of his mind that his family wouldn’t allow him to take the risky path. The acting bug bit him in high school years, but he enrolled in the Myongji University to pursue business administration, as wished by his parents.

Dduring his college days, he started acting and it eventually grew on him to the level that all he wanted to do in his life was act. Thereafter, he started trying out for the auditions and finally at the age of 19, he got his very first television stint in form of a variety show in 1998.

Having started his career with variety shows, Ryu appeared in quite a handful of small roles in fiction shows then in the late 90s such as ‘Gibb’s Family’ and ‘Love and Fairwell’. All those small shows weren’t doing anything great for him as far as his career was concerned, but they paid his bills and got him more auditions.

In the early 2000s, he appeared in the series’ like ‘Good Friends 2’, ‘Navy’ and ‘The Open Drama Man and Woman’. His 2001 series ‘Successful Story of a Bright Girl’ was one of the very first key roles of his career, which brought him fame. This also got him his very first acting award ‘The New Star Award’ at the SBS Drama Awards that year.

Meanwhile, he appeared in the 2001 film ‘Summertime’ in a leading role. The film, which happened to be highly controversial due to its blatant portrayal of sex and sensuality, remained into the limelight weeks before its release. This also got Ryu some necessary exposure in the industry.

In 2003, he appeared in some lesser known series’ such as ‘Merry Go Round’ and ‘Jan gil San’ and in the next year came another role that would put him in the forefront of the young leading actors of his time. He played Jung Tae-min, a major character in the romantic drama series ‘Save the Last Dance for Me’, which revolved around a couple struggling from amnesia trying to keep their romance alive despite the harmful effects the illness had on their lives. At the SBS Drama Awards, Ryu received the ‘Best Supporting Actor’ award for his performance.

In 2005, he starred in the drama ’18 Vs 29’, which was highly appreciated for its interesting subject matter. The series revolved around the life of wife of a successful movie star, who is involved in an accident and in his mind, turns 18 again. This was followed by an award winning stint in the series ‘Rebirth-Next’, for which Ryu was honoured with the Excellence Award at the MBC Drama Awards that year.