Career
Han Hyo-joo was first discovered in a teenage beauty pageant in 2003. She began her acting career in the sitcom Nonstop 5 and the gangster comedy My Boss, My Teacher. Han raised her profile by being cast in Spring Waltz, the fourth and final installment of TV director Yoon Seok-ho's Season Dramas series, following Autumn in My Heart, Winter Sonata and Summer Scent.
In 2006 director Lee Yoon-ki cast the newbie in the starring role in his low-budget indie Ad-lib Night, which follows a young woman who rediscovers herself through an eerie overnight encounter with strangers. Han followed that with two highly successful TV projects - KBS daily drama Like Land and Sky in 2007 and SBS masked-adventurer series Iljimae in 2008. She made another independent film, Ride Away, which debuted at the 2008 Jeonju International Film Festival.
Han filmed the Korean-Japanese telecinema co-production Heaven's Postman in 2008, which also featured popstar Jaejoong from TVXQ (now JYJ). After several postponements, the telecinema was released in late 2009.
In 2009 her Cinderella drama Brilliant Legacy (co-starring Lee Seung-gi) became a massive hit, reaching a peak viewership rating of 47.1%. After the drama's conclusion, Han experienced a sharp rise in endorsement deals and media requests for interviews, as well as increased pan-Asian popularity.
Later that year Han wrapped up her starring role in the musical drama Soul Special, which also featured K.Will in his acting debut. It aired in twelve five-minute segments on various online portals, with KBS airing the entire drama in four parts.
As the titular character in MBC's 49th Anniversary Project Dong Yi, Han won several acting awards for her portrayal of Choi Suk-bin and cemented her status as a Hallyu star.
She then played a blind telemarketer opposite So Ji-sub's ex-boxer in the melodrama Always. Helmed by director Song Il-gon, it premiered as the opening film of the 2011 Busan International Film Festival.
After playing the queen to Lee Byung-hun's Gwanghae in the blockbuster period film Masquerade, Han starred opposite Go Soo in Love 911, an unlikely romance between a firefighter and a doctor.
Han's 4th commercial film, Stakeout, which also stars Sol Kyung-gu, Jung Woo-sung and 2PM's Junho, began shooting at the end of October 2012.
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Famous quotes containing the word career:
“It is a great many years since at the outset of my career I had to think seriously what life had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the chief good for me was freedom to learn, think, and say what I pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction... and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the results of the line of action I have adopted.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“They want to play at being mothers. So let them. Expressing tenderness in their own way will not prevent girls from enjoying a successful career in the future; indeed, the ability to nurture is as valuable a skill in the workplace as the ability to lead.”
—Anne Roiphe (20th century)