Lee Solar-kyun, the South Korean actor who starred in Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar-winning movie Parasite and in addition featured within the Apple TV+ collection Dr. Mind, has died in an obvious suicide. He was 48.
South Korean news agency Yonhap reports that Lee was discovered useless inside a automotive at a park in Seoul on Wednesday morning, native time. Yonhap experiences that Lee’s spouse reported to police that the actor had left house, and he or she had discovered what seemed to be a suicide notice.
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Native media experiences that Lee had been underneath investigation over allegations that he had used unlawful medication. In current weeks, the South Korean authorities’s ongoing crackdown on onerous medication has led to a collection of allegations towards high-profile folks together with actors, singers, socialites and heirs to the nation’s richest households. The Ok-pop singer G-Dragon is amongst those that have been swept up within the crackdown, though he was cleared of any wrongdoing final week.
Yonhap experiences that Lee had been questioned 3 times by police, together with for 19 hours over the weekend over his use of marijuana and psychoactive medication. Lee is reported to have visited Seoul’s Gangnam district on a number of events since early this 12 months, together with final Saturday, the place he allegedly took medication. The actor reportedly mentioned he was tricked into taking medication by a bar hostess, who then tried to blackmail him.
South Korea’s drug legal guidelines are notoriously powerful, and crimes are sometimes punishable by at the least six months in jail or as much as 14 years for repeat offenders and sellers.
Lee is greatest recognized to Western audiences for taking part in Park Dong-ik, the patriarch of the wealthy household that owns the home that’s the setting of Bong’s 2019 black comedy thriller Parasite. Lee was awarded a Display Actors Guild Award together with the remainder of the Parasite forged.
Born in Seoul in 1975, Lee studied drama on the Korea Nationwide College of Arts. He made his tv breakthrough within the medical drama White Tower (2007) and was positively acquired within the youthful drama Espresso Prince (2007).
On tv, Lee was recognized for his collaborations with author Web optimization Sook-hyang, with the pair working collectively on Drama Metropolis, the favored office romantic comedy Pasta (2010) wherein the actor performed an smug chef at an Italian restaurant and the 1997-set drama Miss Korea (2013).
He transitioned to options and in 2012 starred in two of the most important Korean movies of that 12 months, together with the lead in Byun Younger-joo’s psychological thriller Helpless and the timid husband in Min Kyu-dong’s romantic comedy All About My Spouse.
A flexible actor, Lee labored seamlessly between main movies and massive tv dramas and in addition carried out in theater productions. He starred in three indie movies for prolific Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo, together with Night time and Day (2008), Oki’s Film (2010), and No person’s Daughter Haewon (2013).
His different notable movie credit embrace the lead position in A Laborious Day (2014), Kim Seong-hun’s motion thriller that was screened Administrators’ Fortnight part of the Cannes Movie Pageant, and Park Chan-ok’s Paju (2009) which performed the worldwide competition circuit.
In 2021, Lee was the lead in Dr. Brain, Apple TV+’s first Korean-language unique collection. Within the six-episode sci-fi thriller, Lee starred as Koh Se-won, a chilly and calculating neurologist who tries to garner clues through mind experiments to resolve a household thriller.
Lee is survived by his spouse, the actress Jeon Hye-jin, and their two sons.
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