Korean actors in Hollywood are not a myth. There have been stellar performances from actors of Korean origin in the industry based in the USA – such as Han Ye-ri in Minari, and Jung Ji-hoon in Ninja Assassin. Fast forward to 2022 and Lee Jung-jae is your newest addition to that list.
The main protagonist of Squid Game, Netflix’s most-watched show in its history, will have his major Hollywood debut in what is now confirmed as the male lead for Star Wars: The Acolyte. This is a truly remarkable achievement for the 49-year-old star, who reached new heights of stardom in his home country and around the world for his role in Squid Game.
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A Huge Step For Korean Actors In Hollywood
While it is a great personal achievement for Lee Jung-jae for being cast in the new Star Wars movie, it is also notably a bigger step forward for Korean actors who until now have not had much success in landing major roles in major franchises in Hollywood.
Star Wars: The Acolyte is a new live-action TV series that is currently in the pre-production phase. Bachelorette director and the co-creator of Russian Doll Leslye Headland has been recruited as the director for the TV series.
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The series currently has no plotline, but reports and official information from Disney Investor Day 2020 give us a small insight. The Acolyte will be a mystery-thriller that takes place during the final days of the High Republic era, with Headland saying it would be set “in a pocket of the universe and a pocket of the timeline that we don’t know much about.”
Amandla Stenberg will be the female lead in the series, who will star alongside Lee Jung-jae, the male lead. This proves to be an exciting opportunity for the Squid Game star, and we can only hope that he lives up to it.
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Lee Jung-jae Is Having A Busy Year
Lee Jung-jae‘s having a pretty solid life in the movie industry ever since Squid Game blew up all over the world. The actor has won almost every major award that has come his way for his performance as Seong Gi-Hun in the Netflix series.
However, he’s also been hard at work at the same time. Jung-jae made his directorial debut with Hunt after its premiere at the 75th Cannes Film Festival earlier in May this year.
Hunt, in which the 49-year-old also stars, is an espionage action movie set in the 1980s in which two spies from the Korean Central Intelligence have to hunt down another spy and uncover a master plan laid in place to kill the South Korean president.
Besides starring in the lead role and being the director, Jung-jae also reworked the script for the movie, which was originally titled Namsan, and also helped co-produce the movie. That’s quite a lot of work, and it just shows that Lee Jung-jae has his eyes set on moving up in the list of prominent actors.
Source: Twitter
