[STARCAST] Star’s Life Curve – Jang Keun-suk

Original source: star naver
What would it be like if a person’s life is described in a curve? It will differ depending on a person, but there would be no curve that always goes up. It is especially true when we talk about stars who are always rated by the public. They have more visible upturns and downturns. A crisis sometimes becomes an opportunity or an apparent peak of their life may be an unfortunate period for their personal life.

That is why STARCAST prepared ‘Star’s Life Curve’, through which we will take a close look into how stars live their life.

The first star is Jang Keun-suk. He debuted at the age of six as a model for children’s wear. Last year marked the 20th anniversary of his debut. He has been cementing his position as ‘Asia’s Prince’ since he advanced into the Japanese market. His life curves have a dozen clear inflection points. The repeated ups and downs of the curves demonstrate that he continued to seek change while waiting for a chance every time he faced difficulties. Let us go into ‘the life of a man Jang Keun-suk’


# ZIKZIN? Twist!=Slump after the birth of ‘Keun-jjang’
Jang Keun-suk may look like he has never experienced hardship like the impression of ‘ZIKZIN’, his brand recently launched in Korea and other countries. His life curve, however, was full of twists. The best moment in his life is when he performed at Tokyo Dome for the first time in November 2011. 45,000 tickets of the first concert were sold out. As an unprecedented example, he succeeded to ignite the Korean Wave fever in Japan through performance of dancing, singing, and DJing as an actor. The Japan debut single released ahead of the concert topped the Oricon Daily Chart in the first week of its release. The record was the first one set by a foreign singer and the second one set in 30 years and 4 months as a male solo singer following Masahiko Kondo of December 1980.

“I believe that my life peaked when I started to be called ‘Keun-jjang’ in Japan and performed in Tokyo Dome. Performing in Japan was a vague dream when I was a middle school student. The dream actually came true earlier than had expected.”

Jang Keun-suk dressed up like a prince of medieval times of Europe at the first Tokyo Dome concert held in November 2011.

The good comes with the bad. As the saying goes, he faced a crisis right after the big success. He slipped into a slump by himself probably due to the dream that came true too early. The life curve dropped as dramatically as it peaked after the birth of ‘Keun-jjang’.

“I think that I had been obsessed with having a new dream probably because I had reached my goal too early. I was afraid and confused thinking about where I should run toward. A documentary on me was released and people around me praised me a lot, but those words did not come across to me. I could not leave my home since I did not know what to do.”

In February 2013, Jang Keun-suk waving toward fans at the dinner show to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his debut

In retrospect, the slump period may have made Jang Keun-suk even stronger. The agonizing period was a time for him to gather energy set a new goal and tie shoe strings tighter.

“I held on to myself and had a positive thinking even when I was depressed or even felt nothing in an extreme situation. When I recovered from the slump, I felt proud of myself and I was just sure that I trusted myself.”

When Jang Keun-suk was a kid

# Crisis? Opportunity!=Treasure from childhood
His life, which looks like an easy journey to others, was far from being easy. He was born as an only son of a well-to-do family, but he faced the first obstacle at 12 when his father’s business failed. It is at that time when he came to Seoul to debut as a child actor. He became famous by appearing on KBS’s children’s drama ‘Cummi, the Fairy’ and SBS’s ‘Ladies of the Palace’ as a child actor. He was cast as a commercial model for a telecom company, emerging as a high-teen star. ‘The crisis of his family’ served as an opportunity to start an acting career. He modelled for an underwear brand even though he was made fun of by his friends. And he earned “money enough to pay for rental deposit for a year.” (MBC ‘Golden Fishery-Knee-Drop Guru, 2011). Jang Keun-suk really had an attitude to turn a crisis into an opportunity. He rode through difficulties with a smile on his face instead of complaining about crises.

For Jang Keun-suk, Schooldays mean both trouble and treasure-like beautiful days. He sees as the happiest days when he studied in New Zealand shortly when he was a middle school student. He lived in an old house to save living costs, but those days made him today. Jang Keun-suk studied under a candlelight to save electricity and heating costs or chopped firewood.

“I studied broad when my family was still having financial issues. I always had to have a frugal life. However, spending much time with my mother, I grew close to her like a friend and had an open mind to a new culture.”

Film ‘Baby and I’ (left), fashion model

# Actor Jang is ever-evolving
After he came back to Korea, he resumed activities in Korea by appearing on MBC’s sitcom ‘Nonstop 4’. He had to feel a sense of anxiety, however, since he had no project offer for a while. At that time, he appeared on the musicals Theseus and Hercules to improve his acting ability and found fun in performing on stage.

It was KBS2’s drama series ‘Hwangjinyi’ (2006) that provided an opportunity for Jang Keun-suk to grow out of the image as a child actor into an adult actor. He played the sweet character Eun-ho, the first love of Hwangjinyi, in a loving way.

“I had been in a situation where I could not act even though I wanted to. Finally, I met ‘Hwangjinyi’ and gained courage to keep acting.”

Still image of KBS2’s drama series ‘Hwangjinyi’

Since then, he has been active by appearing on the film ‘The Happy Life’, KBS2’s drama series ‘Hong Gil-dong’, and MBC’s drama series ‘Beethoven Virus’. He was successful in each project. Particularly in SBS’s ‘You Are Beautiful’, he emerged as the undisputed Korean Wave star by being more successful than expected.

Now, Jang Keun-suk, who is going to meet the Korean TV viewers through KBS2’s drama series ‘Beautiful Man’ in a year, is expecting a smooth life curve. ‘ZIKZIN Radio’, which he produced to communicated with fans from around the word, gives him another big pleasure and happiness.

The project group ‘Team H’ performing in Hiroshima, Japan, in February 2013

“As a host of the radio program, I look back on myself a lot. Jang Keun-suk has created quite a few troubles by leaving somewhat careless messages on social networking accounts. I realized that I had to screen myself and refrain from being too mischievous. The beauty of a radio host is to be able to look back on myself while putting my voice in radio waves of an analogue sentiment instead of texts and to share what I found out with fans.”

About to turn 28 years old, he feels a little afraid of losing his ambitious dream by being complacent. It is his homework to keep a balance between a goal and a happy feeling in daily lives.

“Being happy and satisfied with small things in daily lives is important. However, a dream becoming smaller is not for me. I hope that I can be a healthy person who can find happiness from even a trivial thing and who have set a bigger dream than ever when I turn 28 years old.”

Written by Jang Seo-yun (TenAsia)
Edited by Park Soo-jung (TenAsia)
Photograph=KBS, MBC, Tree J Company