Park Hae-soo

Park Hae-soo (born November 21, 1981) is a South Korean actor. He is best known worldwide for portraying Cho Sang-woo in the Netflix hit series Squid Game (2021), which earned him a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. Park started his career in theater and has played a large number of leading and supporting roles in plays and musicals. He subsequently expanded his career into film and television and achieved his breakthrough with Prison Playbook (2017–2018), one of the highest-rated Korean dramas on cable television. He is also known for his frequent collaborations with Netflix, including Time to Hunt (2020), Yaksha: Ruthless Operations (2022), and Narco-Saints (2022).

Early life
Park was born in Suwon, Gyeonggi, South Korea, on November 21, 1981. He got his first taste of acting when he joined the theater club at Bundang Jungang High School. With a dream of becoming a theater actor, Park enrolled in the Department of Theater and Film at Dankook University. During this period, he also worked part-time jobs at sushi and barbeque restaurants and concert venues. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts, Park enlisted for mandatory military service. He served in the 50th Infantry Division and worked as a teaching assistant in a recruit training center.

Career
Park started out as a primarily stage actor and has been active in both plays and musicals since his debut in 2007. In 2012, director Kim Jin-min saw a poster of Park for the musical Samcheon – Flower of Ruin and offered him a role in the television series God of War, which became Park's on-screen debut. Over the next few years, he continued to play minor and supporting roles in film and television. In March 2016, after gaining attention with a supporting role in the historical drama Six Flying Dragons, Park signed with BH Entertainment.

2017 marked a turning point in Park's career. That year, he landed the lead role in the drama series Prison Playbook after director Shin Won-ho saw his performance in the play Male Impulse. The series became a hit and brought Park widespread recognition.

In April 2019, Park appeared opposite IU in the anthology series Persona. In November 2019, he won the Best New Actor at the Blue Dragon Film Awards for the film By Quantum Physics: A Nightlife Venture. At the time, he was the oldest recipient of the award at the age of 38 (the second oldest since 2021).

In February 2020, Park appeared in the dystopian thriller Time to Hunt, which premiered at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival, becoming the first South Korean film to be selected for the Berlinale Special Gala. Director Yoon Sung-hyun cast him in the film after watching the play Male Impulse in 2017. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the film was released worldwide on Netflix in April 2020.

Back in 2014, prima ballerina Kim Joo-won saw Park practicing for the Korean production of Nick Dear's Frankenstein and expressed a wish to work with him in the future. In November 2020, Park appeared in Kim's stage production that combined acting and dance, Sagunja – Seasons of Change. In preparation for it, he took ballet and modern dance classes for three months. Prior to that, he studied dance as part of his acting training.

In 2021, Park gained international fame after playing Cho Sang-woo in the Netflix series Squid Game. Following the success of the show, Park opened an account on Instagram, gaining over 800,000 followers in a single day. For his performance, he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series.

In 2022, Park appeared in three Netflix productions: Yaksha: Ruthless Operations, Money Heist: Korea – Joint Economic Area, and Narco-Saints. All three spent four to five weeks in the Global Top 10. In July 2022, Park signed with the U.S. talent agency UTA. Later that year, he successfully hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live Korea, ranking first on the list of most buzzworthy performers on OTT shows.

In 2023, Park returned to theater with the play Faust. The production was a critical and commercial success, with Park receiving rave reviews for his performance.

Personal life
Over a ten-year period, Park was roommates first with actors Im Chul-soo and Lee Gi-seob, and then with Im and Park Eun-seok.

Park was in a relationship with musical actress Lim Kang-hee from 2013 to 2016.

On January 14, 2019, Park married in a private ceremony held in Seoul. On September 17, 2021, his wife gave birth to a son.