So Ji Sub | 소지섭 | About

So Ji Sub is a South Korean actor, model, rapper and businessman. He was born in Seoul and moved to Incheon in his third year of primary school. By his own account introverted and insecure as a boy, he trained for eleven years to be a professional swimmer and took a bronze medal at the Korean National Games.

He tried modelling only because he wanted to pose alongside the hip-hop artist Kim Sung Jae, then the face of a clothing brand — "I was never really interested in becoming a celebrity. My life was all about swimming and hip-hop music" — and found it was also an easy way to earn well. Chosen in 1995 as a model for the jeans label 292513=STORM, he made his acting debut in the sitcom "Three Guys and Three Girls" and the drama "Model".

Small television roles followed through the late 1990s, and he began to draw notice as the second male lead in "Glass Slippers" (2002) before his first leading role in "Thousand Years of Love". "What Happened in Bali" made him a star in 2004, and later that year "I'm Sorry, I Love You" gave him his breakout as its tragic hero, establishing him across Asia. He has called the two the best dramas in his filmography.

He served his military duty from 2005 as a public relations officer with the Mapo District Office, and was discharged on April 27, 2007. His comeback was Jang Hoon's debut film "Rough Cut", where he played a gangster who wants to act; he and his co-star Kang Ji Hwan put their fees back into the low-budget production and were credited as producers, and it became a surprise hit.

Since then he has worked between Korea, Japan and China — the mobile drama "I Am Ghost", "Sophie's Revenge" opposite Zhang Ziyi, and "Cain and Abel", which won him Best Actor at the 2009 Grimae Awards. "Master's Sun" (2013) was a departure into comedy and a commercial hit, followed by "Oh My Venus" (2015), the film "The Battleship Island" (2017), "Be With You" (2018) opposite Son Ye Jin, and "My Secret Terrius" (2018), for which he took the Daesang at the MBC Drama Awards — his first grand prize. Later work includes "Doctor Lawyer" (2022), "Alienoid", and the Netflix thriller "Mercy for None".

A longtime hip-hop fan, he raps under the name "G", first on soundtrack tracks for "Rough Cut" and "Cain and Abel", then across three EPs: "Corona Borealis" (2012), "6 PM...Ground" (2013) and "18 Years" (2014), the last named for the length of his career to that point. He has also published the photo-essay collections "So Ji Sub's Journey" (2010), a bestseller within ten days, and "Only You with So Ji Sub" (2011).

He was made goodwill ambassador for Gangwon Province, where a 51km trail was named "So Ji Sub Road" in 2012 — the first Korean actor to have a road named after him — and a promotional ambassador for cyber crime prevention with the National Police Agency. The number 51 recurs in his work: his company 51K is named for a 50-50 chance believed in 1% harder, with the K for Korea.

He confirmed a relationship with the former announcer and reporter Jo Eun Jung in 2019, and his label announced their marriage on April 7, 2020.