8 K-drama actors who made surprising genre switches, from Byeon Woo-seok to Lee Min-ho

Best known for bleak and unsparing thriller films such as the zombie horror Train to Busan, the action thriller The Witch: Part 1. The Subversion and the Oscar-winning Parasite, Choi Woo-shik shifted gears with 2021’s youthful romance K-drama Our Beloved Summer. As the sweet-natured and endearing Choi Ung, he stepped into the role of a charming romantic lead, reuniting with Kim Da-mi, his The Witch co-star, who played his love interest, Kook Yeon-su.

The success of Our Beloved Summer opened up a new chapter in Choi Woo-shik’s career. He went on to star in Netflix’s romance melodrama Melo Movie alongside Park Bo-young and the SBS romantic comedy Would You Marry Me with Jung So-min, proving to his fans—and himself—that he is just as at home in love stories as he is in more intense fare.

Next year, fans can catch him in tvN’s historical romance K-drama Whale Star: The Gyeongseong Mermaid, which is based on the webtoon of the same name. Joining him are Moon Ga-young, Heo Nam-jun, Yoo Jae-myung and Kang Ha-na.

See more: 7 K-drama ghosts who broke our hearts, from ‘Spooky in Love’ to ‘Hi Bye, Mama!’

Thanks to the success of She Was Pretty, Fight for My Way and What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim, Park Seo-joon became known as the K-drama rom-com king of his generation. His charisma, comedic timing and ability to spark chemistry with his leading ladies made him a natural fit for the genre, and a favourite among romance K-drama fans.

He started branching out with Itaewon Class, which reached an international audience via streaming giant Netflix. Here, he played Park Sae-ro-yi, a young man who overcomes the death of his father, a vicious business rival and personal setbacks to build a successful pub business and take on the powerful conglomerate responsible for his father’s death. The role gave Park Seo-joon a chance to trade the polished, swoon-worthy characters of his rom-coms for a more determined and rebellious protagonist.

He has since explored other genres in subsequent projects like the Netflix original, Gyeongseong Creature, a period horror thriller set in 1945. As Jang Tae-sang, a wealthy pawnshop owner drawn into a mystery involving disappearances and a terrifying creature, Park swapped romantic comedy for action, suspense and survival. In the film Concrete Utopia, he plays Min-seong, a civil servant and devoted husband who finds himself struggling to protect his wife after a devastating earthquake. Meanwhile, in Bloodhounds 2, he makes a surprise appearance as NIS Agent Choi Sin-hyeong.

After a small but memorable cameo in Goblin and a second-lead role in the rom-com fantasy K-drama While You Were Sleeping, Jung Hae-in quickly became one of the most sought-after romantic leading men thanks to his boyish charm, warm screen presence and easy chemistry with his co-stars. Whether it was the swoony age-gap drama of Something in the Rain, the tender romance of One Spring Night or the bittersweet melodrama of Tune in for Love, Jung Hae-in proved a natural fit for the genre.

In 2021, however, he veered into new territory with the Netflix original K-drama D.P. Dark and unflinching, the series saw him play Private An Jun-ho, a young soldier recruited to join the DP (Deserter Pursuit) team. Along with Sergeant Park Beom-gu (Kim Sung-kyun) and Corporal Han Ho-yeol (Koo Kyo-hwan), Jun-ho is tasked with tracking down military deserters. But their missions soon expose the depth of the violence driving many of them to flee. He then starred in Disney+’s Connect, a sci-fi horror K-drama that dealt with human organ trafficking.

In the past couple of years, he has gone back to rom-coms, starring in the fan-favourite Love Next Door with Jung So-min and in Netflix’s Our Sticky Love with Ha-young. In 2027, he is set to star in yet another romantic comedy, this time opposite Shin Se-kyung, in TVING’s Love Virus.

Lee Min-ho built his career on being one of K-drama’s most reliable romantic leads, with hits like Boys Over Flowers, City Hunter, The Heirs and Legend of the Blue Sea turning him into a bona fide hallyu star. Even The King: Eternal Monarch, his last rom-com before a lengthy hiatus, stuck to the dashing, larger-than-life persona fans had come to expect.

That changed with Pachinko in 2022. Adapted from Min Jin Lee’s best-selling novel, the sweeping, multigenerational drama follows a Korean family across four generations as they navigate life in Korea, Japan and the United States. As Koh Han-su, a morally ambiguous businessman with questionable motives, Lee was a complex, often unsettling figure whose relationship with the young Kim Sun-ja (Kim Min-ha) shapes the course of her life. It marked a clear departure from the charismatic romantic leads he’s known for.

He returned to lighter territory in 2025 with the Netflix sci-fi rom-com When the Stars Gossip, playing Gong Ryong, an OB-GYN turned reluctant space tourist, opposite Gong Hyo-jin—though even this drama swapped rom-com convention for something stranger, blending space-station survival with office comedy.

Gong Yoo’s star-making turn came in the gender-bending K-drama Coffee Prince, where he played Choi Han-gyul, a chaebol heir and café owner who falls for Ko Eun-chan (Yoon Eun-hye), a woman who cross-dresses to get a job at the all-male Coffee Prince café.

Nine years later, his star rose even higher as Kim Shin in tvN’s massive hit Goblin, the K-drama that became a cultural phenomenon across Asia and beyond. By then, he had become a true leading man, known for playing charismatic romantic heroes. As a nice counterbalance, in the same year, he played a self-absorbed, divorced father who is forced to confront his own shortcomings as he fights to keep his daughter safe  in the zombie blockbuster Train to Busan. 

Gong Yoo went darkest yet in the global Netflix hit Squid Game, first appearing as the mysterious Recruiter who lures desperate players into the deadly competition. He returned for a short but pivotal arc in the second season, where the character’s true nature comes fully into view. Sadistic, calculating and deeply unsettling, the character is a far cry from the leading men that made him a star.

Ju Ji-hoon burst onto the K-drama scene with Princess Hours, starring alongside Yoon Eun-hye in the wildly popular romantic comedy. As Crown Prince Lee Shin, he played a young prince who finds himself in an arranged marriage with an ordinary high school student, giving audiences the kind of brooding but magnetic leading man that would define much of the era’s K-drama romance.

More than a decade later, he returned to the small screen in Netflix’s Kingdom, a historical K-drama set in the Joseon era that blended palace intrigue with zombie horror. Once again, Ju played a royal prince—but Crown Prince Lee Chang was a far cry from the aloof Prince Shin. Instead of navigating an unexpected marriage, he was fighting to uncover a political conspiracy while trying to survive a deadly plague that turned the dead into flesh-eating monsters.

Since then, he has starred opposite Jun Ji-hyun in Jirisan, a mystery thriller set in a national park, appeared in Disney+’s ensemble mystery drama Light Shop and even circled back to romance with the mature rom-com Love Your Enemy. He then took on the role of a brilliant but unconventional trauma surgeon in Netflix’s medical K-drama The Trauma Code: Heroes on Call, earning Best Actor at the 2025 Baeksang Arts Awards and the Blue Dragon Series Awards. Up next, he’ll enter his antagonist era in Disney+’s fantasy romance The Remarried Empress, scheduled to premiere on November 4, 2026.

Kim Seon-ho spent years working toward his breakout. It wasn’t until his big breakthrough role as Han Ji-pyeong, the second lead in Start-Up, who somehow stole the show, that the industry—and audiences—finally sat up and took notice. In fact, it changed his career trajectory overnight, immediately scoring a leading role in his next K-drama, the heartwarming rom-com Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha, where he starred opposite established Hallyu star Shin Min-a.

He then made a dramatic pivot from lighter fare to bleaker and more visceral projects. In acclaimed director Park Hoon-jung’s The Childe, he plays a charming but unhinged assassin known only as Nobleman. He reunited with the director the following year for Disney+’s The Tyrant, taking on the role of Director Choi, a cold and shrewd intelligence official caught up in a dangerous operation involving a stolen biological weapon.

In 2025, he switched back to romance in When Life Gives You Tangerines, portraying the devoted Park Chung-seob. The following year, he starred alongside Go Youn-jung in the sweet and tender Netflix K-drama Can This Love Be Translated? He returns later this year in the Disney+ original series Portraits of Delusion, reuniting with his Start-Up co-star Bae Suzy in the gothic mystery romance.

From romantic princes battling zombies to heartthrobs becoming military deserter hunters and sinister assassins, these K-drama actors prove that a familiar screen image is never the whole story. While some eventually return to the genres that first won them fans, others continue to seek out unexpected roles and new challenges. As actors like Byeon Woo-seok prepare for their next major genre shift, one thing remains clear: the most surprising K-drama transformations may still be yet to come.

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