Han Groo

Early life

Han Groo was born in Namyangju, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. When she was in fourth grade, her family moved to the United States where she studied at Acacia Elementary School in California, and Ladera Vista Junior High School in California. Han Groo excelled at her academic studies—to the extent that she won a U.S. President's Education Award in 2003. She also had an extensive background in dancing since middle school, winning prizes at several competitions for hip-hop dance, jazz dance and tap dance.

After four years in the US, her family moved again, this time to China, where Han Groo entered the Beijing International Art School. She became fluent in both English and Mandarin Chinese, while continuing to dance and engage in various activities such as horse riding, martial arts, swordmanship, and golf. Han Groo's family stayed in China for another four years before returning to Korea.

Career

Han Groo's father is a TV commercial director and her mother used to be a professional model, which made her familiar with and naturally drawn to show business from a very early age. Upon her return to Korea, the aspiring actress signed with the management agency Climix Academy. But at her agency's suggestion, she launched a singing career in 2011 with the EP GROO ONE, followed by the single My Boy. She was nominated as Best New Female Artist at the 2011 Mnet Asian Music Awards. Han Groo later admitted that acting was her real passion from the beginning, but she had wanted to grab whatever opportunities available to her. However, she found it difficult to stand out as a singer given the huge level of competition in Korea's music industry, especially among girl groups riding the coattails of the K-pop revolution.

Later in 2011, she made her acting debut when she landed the leading role in Girl K (also known as Killer K), beating out 100 other audition hopefuls. The three-episode drama, which aired on cable channel CGV, centers on a Nikita-like character who vows to hunt down her mother's killer and joins a secret organization that trains her to become an assassin, all while attending high school. Han Groo performed most of her action stunts herself, and audiences were impressed, as Girl K ranked number one its timeslot.

She then joined her first network series, the MBC daily drama Just Like Today, saying that when she read the script, she felt instantly attached because of the character's similarities to her real-life personality, someone "who's bright and positive despite her difficult situation." After supporting roles in Scandal: A Shocking and Wrongful Incident and One Warm Word, Han Groo returned to cable in the romantic comedies Can We Get Married? (2012) and Marriage, Not Dating (2014), playing female protagonists who fall for bachelors with commitment issues.

Personal life

Han Groo married her non-celebrity boyfriend in a private setting in November 2015. In March 2017, she gave birth to twins.