Lee Sun-kyun

Lee Sun-kyun was the kind of actor who could say everything with just the way he held a wine glass. I first noticed him in My Mister, where he played a quietly broken middle-aged man with such restraint and warmth that it was almost unbearable to watch — in the best way. Then Parasite happened, and the world finally caught up. He brought this precise, understated menace to the Park family patriarch that made him the perfect foil for the film's class-war tension, and that Screen Actors Guild Award win with the cast felt genuinely earned. Trained at Korea National University of Arts and a veteran of stage, TV, and film across two decades, he had that rare thing: range that never showed its seams. Losing him at 48 was a real blow, and I think about his unfinished trajectory more than I'd like to admit.

Name (English)

Lee Sun-kyun

Name (Japanese)

イ・ソンギュン

Reading

い・そんぎゅん

Born

March 2, 1975 – December 27, 2023

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Pisces / Rabbit

Origin

South Korea, United States

Occupation

actor / film actor / stage actor / television actor

University

Korea National University of Arts

Awards & achievements

• 2015 Baeksang Arts Awards
• 2020 Actor Awards
• 2010 KBS Drama Awards
• 2010 MBC Drama Awards
• 2007 MBC Drama Awards

• Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/kyun3333/
• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee%20Sun-kyun
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A4%E3%83%BB%E3%82%BD%E3%83%B3%E3%82%AE%E3%83%A5%E3%83%B3
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q489681

Tags

• actor
• film actor
• stage actor

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.