1. Sul Kyung-gu is best known for his collaborations with director Lee Chang-dong in Peppermint Candy and Oasis, Public Enemy film series for which he won the Baeksang Arts Award Grand Prize, and Silmido which became the highest-grossing film in South Korea at the time of release.
Sul Kyung-gu won Best Actor at the Baeksang Arts Awards for his performances in Hope and Kingmaker.
Sul Kyung-gu was born in Seocheon, South Chungcheong Province on May 1,1968.
Sul Kyung-gu is the second son with one younger sister.
Sul Kyung-gu and his family moved to Dohwa-dong, Mapo District, Seoul when his father, who was a civil servant, transferred to the Mapo District Office.
Sul Kyung-gu attended Mapo Elementary School and then enrolled in Mapo Middle School and Mapo High School.
Sul Kyung-gu's parents wanted him to go to an engineering college, thus guaranteeing him a stable job.
However, Sul Kyung-gu entered the Department of Theater and Film of Hanyang University with the idea of becoming a film director.
Sul Kyung-gu studied Theater and Film at Hanyang University.
At that time, Sul Kyung-gu planned to enter The 3rd KBS Talent Recruitment, but he had no choice but to give up the recruitment due to his professor's request.
Sul Kyung-gu was active in Dongsung-dong since the second semester of his senior year, including guest directing play Bison, a performance for the drama class at Deoksung Women's University, as a part-time job.
Gradually, he naturally gave up his dream of becoming a film director, and debuted in 1993 with the play Simbasame as Sul Kyung-gu joined Hanyang Theater Company, a theater company with alumni of the Department of Theater and Film at Hanyang University as majority of its members.
When Sul Kyung-gu was in his 4th year of college, Sul Kyung-gu received a full scholarship with straight A credits and went up to the department at once.
Sul Kyung-gu continued his theatre activities in Hanyang Theater Company, however Sul Kyung-gu didn't want to be under the shadow of his school.
In May 1994, Sul Kyung-gu asked a college senior who was the head of the planning department at the theater company Hakjeon.
Sul Kyung-gu participated in this work from the premiere in 1994 to 1996, playing all but two of the 80 roles, accumulating various experiences and acting skills and earned big success.
Since 1988, Sul Kyung-gu began taking on minor roles in television.
In 1996, Sul Kyung-gu made his screen debut in his first film A Petal, playing the role of Woo-ri, a college student who is chasing the whereabouts of the female lead girl at the recommendation of director Shim Kwang-jin, a college classmate who was taking directing lessons from director Jang Seon-woo.
In 1997, Sul Kyung-gu met Cha Seung-jae, the CEO of Sidus FNH, the producer of the film Girls' Night Out, which released in 1998.
Sul Kyung-gu had minor role and his name was post in credit as a film actor.
Sul Kyung-gu played a cartoonist who spends a night with Yeon, a hotel employee in the play, and his acting was short but impressive.
Sul Kyung-gu then signed management contracts with Sidus HQ and made his breakthrough, with major roles in Rainbow Trout, Phantom: The Submarine, and The Bird That Stops in the Air.
In early 1999, Sul Kyung-gu was selected for the lead role through an audition in director Lee Chang-dong's film Peppermint Candy.
Sul Kyung-gu looked weak in charisma with an ordinary mask, but his face was different every time I saw him, and that seemed to enable him to express various colors as well as good and evil, so he was cast.
In film Peppermint Candy, Sul Kyung-gu played Kim Yeong-ho, a suicidal man devastated by the two-decades of historical change his country undergoes.
Sul Kyung-gu swept 10 New Actor Awards and Best Actor Awards at the Korean Film Critics Association Award, Chunsa Film Art Awards, Blue Dragon Film Awards, Daejong Awards, and Baeksang Arts Awards.
Sul Kyung-gu next appeared in a romantic comedy I Wish I Had a Wife with Jeon Do-yeon in 2001, played the role of Bong-su, an ordinary old bachelor bank clerk who yearns for romance.
In 2003, Sul Kyung-gu starred in Silmido directed by Cinema Service founder Kang Woo-suk, which became the first Korean film in history to gross 10 million admissions.
In 2005, Sul Kyung-gu starred in the sequel Another Public Enemy, which ended up outgrossing the original.
Sul Kyung-gu returned to the big screen after about a year and a half with the disaster film The Tower in December 2012.
In 2013, Sul Kyung-gu appeared in three movies Cold Eyes, The Spy: Undercover Operation, and Hope and mobilised a total of 1681 million viewers in 2013.
Sul Kyung-gu ranked 2nd after Song Kang-ho in the box office actor.
Sul Kyung-gu received favorable reviews for his excellent acting, and won the Best Actor at the 50th Baeksang Arts Awards.
Sul Kyung-gu began teaching acting in 2014, at his alma mater Hanyang University, as an adjunct professor in the College of Performing Arts.
In 2015, Sul Kyung-gu starred in the war drama film The Long Way Home alongside Yeo Jin-goo.
Sul Kyung-gu played the role of Jang Nam-bok, a farmer who is suddenly dragged to the battlefield with a new-born baby in the war film Western Front, the directorial debut of playwright Cheon Seong-il.
In 2017, Sul Kyung-gu starred opposite Im Si-wan in The Merciless.
Sul Kyung-gu next starred in thriller film Memoir of a Murderer, as a retired serial killer with Alzheimer's disease.
Sul Kyung-gu next starred in a 2019 film Idol opposite Han Suk-kyu and Chun Woo-hee, which opened in March.
Sul Kyung-gu has reunited with The Merciless director Byun Sung-hyun for the film Kingmaker.
Sul Kyung-gu married the younger sister of actor Ahn Nae-sang in 1996.