Meet Kim Young-dae, appearing in Shooting Star alongside Lee Sung-kyung – before The Penthouse: War In Life and Extraordinary You, he had to beg his parents to let him act
- Fans called him Oh Nam-joo after his role in K-drama Extraordinary You – similar to Lee Min-ho’s in Boys Over Flowers – made him famous
- He’s also been likened to actor Gang Dong-won, speaks Mandarin after studying in China for a time, and plays piano and guitar, as he proved on The Penthouse set
After impressive early roles as cold-faced but warm-hearted schoolboys, how has the 26-year-old transformed into an A-list actor? We look at his path to stardom and what comes next.
He started acting out of curiosity
Growing up, Kim never thought of becoming an actor. His childhood dream was to be a footballer, he revealed to The Star magazine. Imagining he would go to university and get an ordinary job like everyone else, he studied commerce at Fudan University in China.
But destiny put him on a different path. While the first year student was on holiday back in Korea, he met the boss of his agency, Outer Korea, W Korea reports. He’d had offers before, but this time was different.
“When I got that casting offer as an adult, I became curious about what it was like. I had gotten tired of living life while going with the flow. It felt like my life had been too calm and quiet until now,” he said.
“And I had ambition about a new field. I had only thought about graduating and getting a job, but I was fascinated when I coincidentally came across a new world. Thinking of it as a big challenge, I thought, ‘Why don’t I try it?’” he said, according to Soompi.
His parents strongly opposed it, however, so he had to beg them to let him take a two-year break from school.
His big break
