How 2PM’s Lee Junho Became One of South Korea’s Most Recognized Leading Actors

From surviving a competition against thousands of hopefuls to winning one of Korea’s highest acting honors and representing World Design Capital Busan 2028, Lee Junho built his second career one carefully chosen role at a time.

Before Lee Junho became the king at the center of The Red Sleeve, the polished hotel heir in King the Land, or the unlikely superhero of Cashero, he was a teenager trying to earn a place in the Korean entertainment industry.

His ambitions were never limited to one stage.

Long before audiences recognized him as one of South Korea’s leading actors, Lee was interested in performance and acting. His path, however, began through music. He entered an industry competition as a teenager, survived against thousands of applicants, trained under JYP Entertainment, and eventually debuted as a member of 2PM.

Nearly two decades later, the boy with an uncertain future has become an award-winning actor, global brand representative, and ambassador entrusted with helping present Busan’s design vision to the world.

Lee Junho’s rise was not an overnight reinvention. It was a career built through persistence, smaller roles, careful transitions, and a refusal to treat acting as a temporary extension of idol fame.

Winning against thousands was only the beginning

Lee first attracted public attention in 2006 when he competed in the SBS audition program Superstar Survival.

The program reportedly began with approximately 6,500 applicants. Only 12 contestants advanced to the televised competition, where they were evaluated in areas including singing, dancing, appearance, and acting. Lee ultimately finished in first place and joined JYP Entertainment as a trainee.

Winning did not guarantee an immediate debut.

Lee continued through the uncertainty and competition of trainee life before appearing in Mnet’s Hot Blood Men, which documented the process of preparing trainees for a new idol group. That project eventually led to the creation of 2AM and 2PM.

Lee debuted with 2PM in September 2008.

The group built its identity around powerful performances and an athletic image that stood apart from many of its contemporaries. Songs including “Again & Again,” “Heartbeat,” “Hands Up,” and “My House” established 2PM as one of the representative boy groups of K-pop’s second generation.

Lee became known as a vocalist and performer, but music was not the only direction he wanted to explore.

His acting career began without demanding the spotlight

Lee made his film debut in the 2013 surveillance thriller Cold Eyes, starring alongside established actors including Sol Kyung-gu, Jung Woo-sung, and Han Hyo-joo.

Rather than entering the industry immediately as a romantic lead, he accepted the supporting role of Squirrel, a young member of an elite surveillance team.

The part was not large, but it gave Lee an opportunity to appear in a serious commercial film without asking audiences to overlook his inexperience. He worked as part of an ensemble and allowed the character to make an impression through energy, timing, and detail.

That restrained beginning proved important.

Idol actors have often faced assumptions that casting decisions are driven primarily by popularity. By entering through a supporting role and gradually expanding his responsibilities, Lee began building an acting record rather than depending only on the name he had established through 2PM.

He followed Cold Eyes with roles in productions including Memories of the Sword and the coming-of-age comedy Twenty. Each project gave him a different space to develop, from action and historical drama to comedy and the uncertainty of young adulthood.

His progress was visible, but the defining television roles were still ahead.

Good Manager changed how viewers saw him

In 2017, Lee appeared in the workplace comedy Good Manager, also known as Chief Kim, as Seo Yul, an ambitious finance executive who becomes a formidable opponent to Namkoong Min’s unconventional protagonist.

The character gave Lee room to play with control, arrogance, humor, and tension.

Rather than functioning as a conventional second lead, Seo Yul became an essential part of the drama’s energy. Lee’s confrontational chemistry with Namkoong Min attracted particular attention, helping viewers see him as more than a singer testing the acting profession.

Later that year, he took on a sharply different challenge in Rain or Shine, also known as Just Between Lovers.

As Lee Gang-doo, a young man carrying physical and emotional trauma after surviving a building collapse, Lee moved away from the confidence associated with his stage persona. The performance required fatigue, anger, grief, and vulnerability.

Together, Good Manager and Rain or Shine demonstrated his range. One revealed his command of rhythm and confrontation. The other showed that he could sustain a drama through quiet emotional weight.

Roles in Wok of Love, Confession, and the film Homme Fatale continued that progression. Lee was no longer simply accumulating acting credits. He was becoming a leading actor capable of moving between genres.

The Red Sleeve became his decisive moment

Lee’s acting career reached a turning point after he completed his military service and returned with MBC’s historical drama The Red Sleeve in 2021.

He played Yi San, the crown prince who later becomes King Jeongjo, opposite Lee Se-young as court lady Seong Deok-im.

Historical dramas place unusual demands on actors. Speech, posture, emotional restraint, political authority, and personal vulnerability must work together without making the character feel distant.

Lee’s Yi San was commanding but deeply isolated. The performance presented a man shaped by royal responsibility, family trauma, love, and the limits of his own power.

The drama became both a popular and critical success. At the 58th Baeksang Arts Awards in 2022, Lee won Best Actor in television for his performance. He also received the popularity award.

The victory carried significance beyond a single drama. Lee became widely recognized as the first idol-turned actor to receive Baeksang’s television Best Actor honor.

The award did not erase his identity as a 2PM member. It confirmed that his acting could be evaluated at the highest level of the Korean television industry.

King the Land introduced Lee Junho to a wider global audience

After the emotional intensity of The Red Sleeve, Lee chose a different kind of leading role.

In the 2023 romantic comedy King the Land, he played Gu Won, a wealthy hotel heir who clashes with employee Cheon Sa-rang, played by Girls’ Generation member and actress Lim Yoon-a.

The drama allowed Lee to lean into a polished romantic image while using comic timing and controlled expressions to gradually soften the character.

Its availability on Netflix expanded his reach beyond audiences already familiar with 2PM or Korean historical dramas. International viewers encountered him through a widely accessible workplace romance built around two globally recognized idol-actors.

The project showed another part of his appeal. Lee could carry a serious historical drama, but he could also lead a glossy romantic comedy designed for broad international consumption.

He later continued expanding his screen identity through Typhoon Family and Netflix’s Cashero.

In Cashero, released in December 2025, Lee played an ordinary salaried worker whose strength increases according to the amount of cash he possesses. Every use of his power literally costs him money.

Netflix described the character as a financially anxious everyman caught between daily expenses, marriage plans, and the responsibility to help others. The role placed Lee inside the superhero genre while retaining the vulnerability and everyday frustration that have shaped several of his strongest characters.

His influence now extends beyond the screen

Lee’s public career has also expanded into international fashion, commercial partnerships, and social contribution.

He has served as an ambassador for World Vision since 2012, participating in charitable campaigns centered on children and families. In recent years, he has also represented fashion, beauty, lifestyle, and luxury brands in Korea and overseas.

In March 2026, Busan Metropolitan City appointed Lee as a promotional ambassador for World Design Capital Busan 2028.

The appointment gives him a role in communicating Busan’s design identity and future vision to both Korean and international audiences. According to the Busan Metropolitan Government, he will participate in official events as well as promotional videos, posters, short-form content, and public-engagement campaigns.

Busan explained that Lee was selected for his global recognition and public appeal, as well as the values of inclusion and sharing demonstrated through his social-contribution activities.

The appointment represents more than another celebrity endorsement.

World Design Capital is an international designation, and Busan is preparing to use design as part of its global city identity. Choosing Lee reflects how far his public image has developed. He is now trusted not only to lead entertainment projects but also to communicate the aspirations of a major Korean city.

Why Lee Junho’s transformation worked

Lee’s success as an actor is sometimes described as a transition from idol to actor, but that phrase does not fully capture his career.

He did not abandon music to establish credibility. He continued working as a 2PM member and solo artist while developing a separate acting record. The two identities grew alongside each other.

His transformation worked because it was gradual.

He began with supporting film roles, accepted characters that challenged his existing image, and moved into leading parts only after gaining experience. He alternated between comedy, romance, legal drama, historical fiction, melodrama, and fantasy rather than repeating one commercially successful character.

Most importantly, he allowed the work to change how audiences saw him.

Cold Eyes introduced his potential. Good Manager made viewers reconsider him. Rain or Shine demonstrated emotional depth. The Red Sleeve established him as an award-winning lead, and King the Land extended that success to a wider global audience.

Each role solved a different part of the same problem: how to make audiences see Lee Junho without limiting him to the category through which they first discovered him.

The dream became larger, but it never became simpler

Lee Junho’s career began with a teenage competition that could easily have been the high point of a short-lived dream.

Instead, it became the first step in a career spanning group music, solo releases, concerts, cinema, television, streaming productions, international campaigns, and public ambassadorship.

Today, viewers may discover him in different ways.

Some still know him first as the performer at the center of 2PM’s viral “My House” stage. Others see King Jeongjo from The Red Sleeve, Gu Won from King the Land, or the cash-powered hero of Cashero. Busan now presents him as an international face for its World Design Capital campaign.

These identities do not cancel one another out.

They explain why Lee Junho has become one of the clearest examples of a Korean idol building an acting career through endurance rather than novelty.

The boy who entered an audition with large ambitions did not become successful by choosing between music and acting.

He kept expanding until there was room for both.