Kim Ji-seok

Kim Ji-seok is a South Korean actor, born Kim Bo-seok on April 21, 1981. Before acting became his principal profession, he lived in the United Kingdom during his school years and attended Brentwood School. He later studied German at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies and completed graduate study in cultural contents at Kyung Hee University. That educational record became particularly visible when he joined tvN’s quiz-and-discussion variety program Problematic Men, where the cast’s academic backgrounds and problem-solving were part of the format. He appeared as a regular panelist from the program’s 2015 launch and remained associated with it through several seasons.

After debuting in television in the mid-2000s, Kim built a recognizable supporting-actor career in dramas and films. In the 2009 sports film Take Off, a commercially successful story inspired by South Korea’s first ski-jumping team, he played Mu-seok, one of the unlikely recruits assembled by coach Bang Jong-sam. The film’s team included characters from sharply different circumstances, and Mu-seok’s arc forms part of its comic, underdog ensemble. Kim also played Han Chang-ryul in the 2010 romantic comedy Personal Taste, the ambitious former boyfriend whose actions set off much of conflict between Park Kae-in and Jeon Jin-ho.

His later television roles gave him wider mainstream exposure. In tvN’s 2016 series Another Oh Hae-young, he portrayed Lee Jin-sang, the heroine’s troublesome older brother; the show follows an audio director, Park Do-kyung, and two women with the same name, Oh Hae-young. He then led tvN’s 2018–19 romantic comedy Top Star Yoo-baek as Yoo Baek, a self-absorbed celebrity banished to a remote island after a public scandal. In KBS2’s 2019 hit When the Camellia Blooms, he played Kang Jong-ryeol, a professional baseball player and the biological father of Dong-baek’s son Pil-gu.

In 2020, Kim starred in tvN’s My Unfamiliar Family as Park Chan-hyuk, a long-standing friend of Kim Eun-hee who becomes entangled in the family drama’s changing relationships. He returned to romantic-comedy leading work in JTBC’s Monthly Magazine Home (2021), playing Yoo Ja-sung, a property-investment magnate whose outlook on ownership clashes with magazine editor Na Young-won’s precarious housing reality. In Disney+’s Kiss Sixth Sense (2022), he played Lee Pil-yo, the director heading the advertising planning team. Across these projects, Kim has moved between ensemble comedy, melodrama, and romantic leads while retaining an active variety-show profile. The series is a fantasy romance about a woman who sees the future through kisses, and Pil-yo is the exacting director she works under in advertising.