Monday, April 23, 2012

Lim Ju Hwan






Lim Ju Hwan (born May 18, 1982), a.k.a. Im Ju Hwan (임주환 in Korean, 林周煥 in Hanja; his name denotes woods and all over flame/brilliance), is aSouth Korean actor and model working in theater, film, and television.Lim plays a leading role of Park Kyu in Tamra The Island (Tamranŭn Tota. Tamra was a name for Jeju Island in the past and was designated as an UNESCO’s World Natural Heritage Site in 2007), a television drama series which aired on MBC (Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation) in 2009. He won the Korean Popular Culture and Art for New Actor of the Year in 2009 for his preeminent performance on the show. Moreover, he also received critical acclaim for a keen and exquisite performance, deeply artistic as well as heart-wrenching, as a blind painter in Episode 10 of Auction House, a TV drama series, which aired on MBC in 2007. Lim made his first professional television debut on Magic, aired on SBS (Seoul Broadcasting Station) in 2004, and made his film debut in A Millionaire’s First Love in 2006.

Recently, he has completed shooting a TV drama series, entitled What’s Up, and a film, entitled Suspicious Customers (Susanghan Kogaekdŭl), directed by Cho Jin Mo, and the latter was released on April 14, 2011. In the film, Lim plays a supporting role of Yŏng T‘ak, a young, warm-hearted homeless man with Tourette’s syndrome. Song Ji Na, the scriptwriter of Sand Glass, the first TV drama series representing the Kwangju Massacre of 1981, wrote the script of What’s Up, a story of college students specializing in acting and performance in the department of theatre. Lim plays a leading role of Chang Je Hŏn, a college student who knows nothing of musicals and then becomes completely immersed in the captivating world of musicals and performance. Currently, audiences and fans are all eagerly looking forward to having What’s Up air soon.


Early Acting Training, Education, and Modelling Career

Lim’s interest in and passion for acting dates back to his days in senior high school where he joined a theater group, called Kwangto, an acronym of Kwangdae Tokkaebi, referring to traditional performers and hobgoblins in Korean. It was not until he started acting that he was into theater at all. This was the budding and defining moment in which his interest soon blossomed into a full-time, lifelong career. He relished the hearty enjoyment of acting on stage, and this moment motivated him to pursue creative artistic endeavors with so much enthusiasm that he watched most of theater performances run in senior high schools, colleges, and theaters in Taehakno, the Broadway of Seoul where theaters are clustered almost one on top of each other. Lim played the role of the pastor inThe Good Doctor by Neil Simon and won the prize of best performance in the Fourth Youth Theater Festival in 2000. He also directed the play, Pay Tuition Back, at the school festival. Actor Shin Dong Wook is one of his close friends from the Kwangto, and they still maintain a good friendship which is enhanced by their critically reviewing each other’s performances whenever time allows.Continuing his devotion to theatre after senior high school, Lim specialized in theatre and film for his undergraduate and graduate studies at Daejin University in South Korea.

He started his professional career in modeling at The Men, a modeling and acting agency, after graduating from senior high school. His modeling career has provided him with a solid foundation for acting, allowing him to have a firm grasp of the workings of cameras and shots. More significantly, modeling has offered to him valuable opportunities for practicing walking and body postures and presenting micro-movements of facial expressions and subtleties within the face. Moreover, in the fashion shows, he carries himself briskly, yet gracefully with great poise, displaying his genuine natural beauty in serene poses which bespeak a warm, full heart and open mind. The poses express a fine balance between mobility and immobility of sleek, apparently superficial physicality amazingly and intimately tied to his innate and growing spirituality. Thus, an artfully posed body and deliberately embodied looks are in seamless harmony with the artless exudation of his inner soul that unfolds itself in limited space but reaches infinitely.

Personal and Social Life

Lim likes to watch films and performances for pleasure and go fishing when he is free. Lim also participated in the project of “I Love Pet[s],” organized by the Cé Ci magazine in October 2010, and contributed photos of himself with pets to the album. The project was carried out to awaken people’s awareness of abandoned pets.

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