Lee Kwang-soo

Lee Kwang-soo
Lee Kwang-soo at Running Man Race Start! Season 2 In Malaysia press conference in 2014
Born	(1985-07-14) 14 July 1985 Namyangju, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea
Other names	The Giraffe, Asia Prince
Education	Dong-ah Institute of Media and Arts - Broadcasting
Occupation	Actor, Model
Agent	King Kong Entertainment
Height	1.91 m (6 ft 3 in)
Weight	78 kg (172 lb; 12 st 4 lb)
Korean name
Hangul	이광수
Hanja	李光洙
Revised Romanization	I Gwang-su
McCune–Reischauer	I Kwang-su

Lee Kwang-soo (Hangul: 이광수; born 14 July 1985) is a South Korean actor and entertainer. He is best known as a cast member of the variety show Running Man.

Career

Lee Kwang-soo began his entertainment career as a model in 2007. He made his acting debut in the 2008 sitcom Here He Comes, followed by High Kick Through the Roof.^[1]

Lee's popularity increased after joining SBS's Good Sunday variety show Running Man. His nicknames on the show includes "framing master," "betrayer," and lately, "giraffe." He is also known as "Kwangvatar" (a portmanteau of his given name Kwang-soo and Avatar) and is now more commonly known as "Prince of Asia" due to him being mobbed by numerous fans whenever Running Man episodes are filmed in other Asian countries such as Thailand, Hong Kong, China, Macau, Indonesia and Vietnam. The song "St. Agnes and the Burning Train" by Sting is his theme music in the variety show, which is played as a running gag whenever Lee is picked on, ousted and made fun of. In 2010 and 2011, Lee won back-to-back awards at the SBS Entertainment Awards for New Star Award and Best Newcomer in Variety respectively.^[2]

In 2012, Lee played supporting roles in the romantic comedies Wonderful Radio and All About My Wife, and thriller The Scent. Later in the year, he reunited onscreen with his former Running Man co-star and real-life best friend Song Joong-ki in the TV melodrama The Innocent Man.^[3][4]

In 2013, after another supporting role in A Wonderful Moment (also known as My Little Hero), Lee voiced the lead character Marco in the animated movie Maritime Police Marco, opposite fellow Running Man regular Song Ji-hyo as the voice of Lulu.^[5][6]

Lee had publicly stated that he wanted to play as an antagonist in TV or film, and he got his wish when he was cast as Prince Imhae (villainous brother to King Gwanghae) in the period drama Goddess of Fire.^[7][8] In an interview with the main cast on MBC's Section TV, Goddess of Fire lead actress Moon Geun-young chose Lee as her "ideal type" among her co-stars Lee Sang-yoon, Kim Bum, and Park Gun-hyung, causing Lee to blush in embarrassment. She explained that among the reasons she picked him was that he is the tallest of the group, and that he's attentive and considerate towards others.^[9]

Lee was chosen as one of the leading men on the miniseries Secret Love starring members of the girl group KARA. He was paired with Nicole Jung, and Secret Love is slated to air during the Chuseok festival.

On 17 August 2013, Lee held his first ever solo fan meeting of his career in Singapore. Attended by 2,000 fans, it was considered a success.^[10] He held another one in Malaysia on 4 January 2014, attended by almost 3,000 fans.^[11]

In 2014, Lee played his first major role on the big screen in Confession (also known as Good Friends). The neo-noir film is about three friends (played by Ji Sung, Ju Ji-hoon and Lee) whose friendship gets destroyed after getting involved in a murder case.^[12] Rookie director Lee Do-yun said that he wanted to portray the cold-hearted reality of getting caught up in and not being able to escape a vicious cycle.^{[13][14][15][16][17]}

He then returned to television with the romantic comedy It's Okay, That's Love, appearing in a supporting role as a patient with Tourette syndrome, a neurological disorder characterized by repetitive, stereotyped, involuntary movements and vocalizations called tics.^[18]

Lee and Hwang Chansung (of boyband 2PM) then starred in the film A Dynamite Family, about five bickering brothers living in the village of Deoksu.^[19]

In 2015, Lee played the protagonist in Mutant (released internationally as Collective Invention), whose condition is caused by side effects from a newly introduced drug.^[20] Collective Invention was screened in the Vanguard section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival, marking Lee's first red carpet appearance at an international film festival. He also starred in the two-episode drama Puck!, where he played a loan shark who joins a college ice hockey club. The one-act play was aired on 1 January 2016.^[21]

Nicknames from Running Man

• Framer Kwang-soo (모함광수)
• Giraffe (기린)
• Icon of Betrayal (배신의 아이콘)
• Prince of Asia (아시아 프린스)
• KwangJa (광자) (female alter ego)
• KwangVatar (광바타) (due to his height and seemingly similar appearance to the Navi'i tribe in Avatar)
• KwangToad (광두꺼비)
• Icon of Bad Luck (불운의 아이콘)
• God of Variety (예능신)
• Easy Brothers (with Ji Suk Jin) (이지 브라더스 - 지석진과 함께)
• YooLee Brothers (with Yoo Jae Suk) (유이 브라더스 -유재석과 함께)

Filmography

Film

Television drama

Variety show

Music video

Brand/Product endorsements

Awards and nominations

References

External links

• Lee Kwang-soo on Twitter (Korean)
• Lee Kwang-soo on Sina Weibo (Chinese)
• Lee Kwang-soo at King Kong Entertainment (Korean)
• Lee Kwang-soo at HanCinema
• Lee Kwang-soo at the Korean Movie Database
• Lee Kwang-soo at the Internet Movie Database