There are plenty of good k-drama actors but not all of them are equally talented at making audiences cry and laugh.
A few stand out.
JYJ's Park Yoochun is that kind of actor. He can do light romantic comedy, as he did in "Rooftop Prince" and "Sungkyunkwan Scandal" but cried up a river for the melodrama "Missing You."
And his co-star Yoon Eun Hye is known for her ability to slip back and forth between comic roles and melodrama. She was the tortured Zoe Lou in "Missing You," but also an equally effective comic actress in the lighthearted comedies "Coffee Prince," "Lie To Me" and "My Fair Lady."
Kim So Yeon, who now plays the endearingly awful Shin Do Yeon in "I Need Romance 3," has done comedy before. She played a "Legally Blonde" style prosecutor in "Prosecutor Princess," but she also played a determined prosecutor in the melodrama "Two Weeks" and a ruthless North Korean spy in "Iris." When you watch her in a serious role, it's hard to imagine she could ace a comic role, but she does.
Her co-star Sung Joon is also trying his hand at both kinds of roles. While his role as Suzy's bodyguard in "Gu Family Book" did not present too many emotional challenges, he was seriously moody as the bandleader in "Shut Up Flower Boy Band." In "I Need Romance 3" he's funny and flippant.
So Ji Sub is an actor who never tried comedy before "The Master's Sun." Before that comedy, he played the dual roles of police detective/hacker Kim Woo Hyun and Park Gi Young in "Phantom." Although he carefully created the comic character of Joo Joong Won, he was surprised to discover that he was funny.
"I worried about how well I would do in a comedy and how others would see my performance," said So, who credits his co-star Gong Hyo Jin with bringing out his comic side. He called her one of the finest comedic actresses he had ever seen.
Although she is best known for her comic roles, Gong Hyo Jin also does drama. She played an angry young woman in the film "Family Ties."
Jung Il Woo is another young actor that seems equally at home in comedies or dramas. He was pretty funny as the spoiled chaebol Cha Chi Soo in "Flower Boy Ramen Shop," but a serious angel of death in "49 Days" and a tragic prince in "The Moon Embracing The Sun."
It's fun when an actor surprises you with a completely different kind of role. Can you think of other actors that are talented at both? Let us know.
