Ryu Kyung-soo

Ryu Kyung-soo is a South Korean actor praised as one of Korea's finest scene-stealers. Born on 12 October 1992 in Seoul, he is loved for playing men who look hard on the outside and feel deeply inside. Oxfea fans know him best as Choi Seung-gwon, the ex-gangster who finds a second life with the DanBam family in Itaewon Class (2020), and as Deacon Yu-ji of the New Truth Society in Hellbound (2021).

He stands about 5 feet 9 inches (174 cm) tall.

Early life

He decided to become an actor at the age of fifteen. With a teenager's courage, he walked into a film production company and said he wanted to act, and the kind words he heard there stayed with him for years. He later studied theatre at Chung-Ang University and trained the slow way, through plays, musicals and independent films.

Career and breakthrough

He made his TV debut as a teenager in the SBS drama Catching Up with Gangnam Mom in 2007, then spent years in small parts. His name began to spread in 2019 with the legal drama Confession (2019), where he played Han Jong-koo, and the film A Resistance (2019). The breakthrough came with Itaewon Class (2020). As Seung-gwon, a former gangster who joins Park Sae-roi's team, he mixed rough speech, loyalty and a warm heart.

Popular roles

In Hellbound (2021), he showed a completely different face as Deacon Yu-ji, the calm and devoted young leader of the New Truth Society. His cold faith made him one of the show's most frightening figures. He also impressed as Yeom Dong-hoon in the film Hostage: Missing Celebrity (2021) and as research chief Sang-hoon in the science-fiction film Jung_E (2023).

Recent work

In Tale of the Nine Tailed 1938 (2023), he played Chun Moo-yeong, a former mountain god who becomes Lee Yeon's rival, matching the show's stars scene for scene. He followed it with The Bequeathed (2024) and Our Unwritten Seoul (2025), and his Scene Stealer prize at the Asia Artist Awards says it all: give him five minutes and he owns them.