Jo Seung woo

2000-2004: Acting debut

Jo Seung-woo grew up in a musical family: his father Jo Kyung-soo is a singer, and his older sister Jo Seo-yeon acts in musical theatre. Jo himself also dreamed of becoming a musical actor from an early age, however in 1999 while a student at Dankook University he was persuaded to join auditions for Im Kwon-taek's film Chunhyang, and he ended up winning the part from among a field of 1,000 actors. Chunhyang would screen as the first Korean film in competition at Cannes, although domestically it failed to attract much of an audience.

Jo did go on to appear in musicals after his film debut, acting in local productions Subway Line 1 and The Last Empress. Soon he was drawn back into the film industry, however, with a key supporting role in Wanee & Junah (2001), a villainous turn in H (2002), plus a leading role in Who Are U? (2002). In 2003, Jo acted in Kwak Jae-yong's romance The Classic opposite Son Ye-jin, receiving good reviews for his sincere acting. His popularity continued to grow, and in 2004 he appeared in Im Kwon-taek's 99th film Low Life, which flopped at the box office.

2005: Breakthrough with Marathon and Jekyll & Hyde

Jo's breakthrough would come in early 2005 with the smash hit Marathon, where he played an autistic young man who only finds release in running. The film sold over 5 million tickets, and Jo attracted great praise for his naturalistic performance which resulted in numerous awards and nominations, including Best Actor at the 2005 Grand Bell Awards and Best Actor in the foreign film category of China's Hundred Flowers Awards. Nonetheless, he continued to pursue his career in musicals, with critically acclaimed appearances in Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Jekyll and Hyde that had fans scrambling to find tickets. His success at pursuing both film and musicals make him an unusual case among contemporary actors.

2006-2009

Jo starred in Love Phobia (2006) opposite then-girlfriend Kang Hye-jung; both were praised for their acting, but the melodrama wasn't a commercial success. He then headlined Tazza: The High Rollers with Kim Hye-soo, the 2006 film adaptation of Huh Young-man's same-titled manhwa, which went on to become one of the biggest Korean blockbuster hits of all time and won numerous awards. Jo played Goni, who loses his family's entire savings after being swindled by professional gamblers, so to take his revenge, he sets out to become one himself. He followed that with Go Go 70s, about a rock and roll band during the height of the Park Chung-hee military regime, and The Sword with No Name, in which he played a fictional royal guard in love with Empress Myeongseong (Soo Ae).

2010 - present

After completing his mandatory military service, Jo made his comeback in the 2010 production of Jekyll and Hyde. The musical was especially meaningful to Jo since the actor rose to stardom when the show premiered in Korea in 2004. Jo's much-anticipated return to the stage was marked with controversy following reports that his salary would be the highest for any musical theatre actor in Korean history. While producers feared that demands for similarly high fees could follow (which could eventually put them out of business), others said that the fee was justified, based on the hope that Jo would help spark a renaissance in a once-vibrant but now-stagnant musical theatre industry. And true enough, when tickets went on sale, the demand was so high that the online reservation server broke down after 15 minutes, with all of the performances in which Jo was scheduled to appear already sold out.

His 2011 sports movie Perfect Game revisited one of the most exciting matches in Korean baseball history, between Choi Dong-won of the Haitai Tigers and Sun Dong-yeol of the Lotte Giants in the summer of 1987, which ended in a tie after being extended 15 innings; the rivalry between the two was further heated up by regionalism at the time with Choi representing the Jeolla Province and Sun, the Gyeongsang Province. Jo starred as Choi opposite Yang Dong-geun as Sun. That same year, Jo also took on the lead role in the musical Zorro.

After lead actor Ju Ji-hoon quit due to vocal chord problems, Jo joined the 2012 stage production of Doctor Zhivago just two weeks ahead of opening, turning the musical into a hit. He and Ryu Deok-hwan then played conjoined twins in actress Ku Hye-sun's sophomore directorial effort The Peach Tree.

Jo made his small screen debut in 2012 with Horse Doctor (also known as The King's Doctor), a period drama based on a true story about a Joseon-era low-class veterinarian specializing in the treatment of horses who rises to become the royal physician. Jo won the highest award ("Daesang," or Grand Prize) at the MBC Drama Awards for his performance in Horse Doctor, then returned to the stage in 2013 in Hedwig, reprising one of his most memorable musical roles.

Jo continued working in television. He portrayed the poet Yi Sang in Crow's-Eye View on the single-episode anthology Drama Festival Jo then starred in the 2014 time travel thriller God's Gift - 14 Days, playing a private investigator who helps a mother (Lee Bo-young) save her child.

Jo reprised one of his most beloved roles in Jekyll and Hyde for the musical's 10th anniversary in late 2014, and the 18,700 tickets sold out in just 10 minutes. Because of his ticket power, he was chosen as among the top 30 most influential people in Korean popular culture in 2006, and for four consecutive years in 2010 to 2014.

Jo next plays a heroic prosecutor who uncovers bribery in the halls of power opposite Lee Byung-hun, a shady hoodlum who does dirty work for crooked politicians in Inside Men, a 2015 film adaptation of Yoon Tae-ho's webtoon The Insiders. Jo was reportedly paid ₩600 million for Inside Men, joining Choi Min-sik, Jang Dong-gun, Won Bin, Kim Yoon-seok, Hwang Jung-min, Kang Dong-won and Ryu Seung-ryong in the second-highest tier of actor salaries in Chungmuro just lower than Song Kang-ho, Lee Byung-hun and Ha Jung-woo. Inside Men broke out on its debut in November 19, 2015, drawing more than 2 million viewers in just six days, a record for an R-rated film. The film grossed more than 7 million admissions, becoming Jo Seung Woo's highest-grossing film. Director's cut version of the film, Inside Men: The Original grossed more than 2 million admissions, aggregating 9.1 million admissions for Inside Men, making the film the top grossing R-rated movie of all-time at Korean Box Office.

Jo plays a prosecutor without empathetic abilities in the tvN drama Secret Forest (Stranger on Netflix), where his character partners a female detective (played by Doona Bae) to uncover rampant corruption.