Kang Seungyoon made his acting debut in a supporting role in the MBC korean TV sitcom High Kick: Revenge of the Short-Legged, the third installment of the popular High Kick series. The show aired from September 19, 2011 – March 29, 2012 with 123 episodes of ~23 mins duration. The sitcom starred raked in pretty good ratings with highest viewership ratings going upto 17.4%, and most of the younger actors found their big acting break from this show like: Lee Jong Suk, Krystal, Baek Jinhee and Kim Jiwon.
Seungyoon was cast via an open audition and plays as a young man with a heavy southern-Korean accent who arrives in Seoul dreaming to become the President. Initially meant to be small supporting role as Lee Jong Suk’s character’s friend, his character & acting received very good response, and his role was expanded such that he ended up participating in nearly all episodes.
Don’t miss out on watching him here — He is the cutest 17 year old crazy sweet kid in the show! It is said a lot of his character in the show was based off his stories from real-life! Read on more about his character, casting story & more.
Kang Seungyoon’s introduction in the sitcom (so cute!)
Character: Kang Seung-yoon (강승윤)
Jong-suk’s best friend. He encountered the Ahn family when they were on the run in Gyeongsangdo and helped them out when they were in need. He speaks in the Gyeongsang dialect or satoori. He believes that the Earth is cubed, and his ambition is to become the President of Korea. He became Jong-suk’s best friend when he saved him from a car crash. It is implied later through the episodes that he and Soo-jung (Krystal) may have feelings for one another. At the end of the series, it was shown that he became the president of the Republic of Korea and Soo-jung became his English translator. It was hinted that he and Soo-jung are in a relationship.
Kang Seungyoon about his casting in High Kick 3:
Read the full article here: Part-1 | Part-2
Like that I was into practicing in the practice room and I got an audition offer from ‘High kick-the counterattack of a short leg’. At the time a few trainees from YG trainees did the audition and I was one of them. A lot of people think that I’m casted for Highkick just because they offered me a place for it, but I got the place through an audition. It was an official audition that hundreds of people lined up, waiting for their turns. At that time I had no greed about acting and I just thought it would be good if I did do it. It wasn’t like ‘I’m just going to do music’ and they allowed me to audition so I tried hard.
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After I left the place for audition, there were no words about it so I thought I didn’t make it and continued my life as a trainee and then I got a call. I had a meeting with the writer and she said ‘Your role wasn’t actually a part of the roles that we prepared for this season of High Kick. In fact there was no place for someone like you to go for.’ But she felt that my dialect was an advantage and that I was assertive as I acted bravely even if I had not done it before. So the director told me that he would make a new role that I would be taking. I have a memory that I talked to the writer-noona about my stories for hours and hours. The stories like how I lived, how I became to dream about this and became a trainee, about my personality and things that I like and hate. I guess I talked about everything about me.
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The director ‘Kim Byoung Ook’ thought that that part of me was good and I had a synergy. At the beginning of Highkick all I did was something like sitting beside (Lee) Jong Suk in his house during his own scene. But as I had more lines, I just kept on staying in that house. I was in almost every episode and in the end I appeared in 100 episodes out of all 123 episodes.
The director and senior actors advised me to do acting while I proceed as a singer. They told me not to try to learn acting and as time passes my young and fresh acting would surely become more natural. That if I learn and practice I would be acting inside a box.
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WLSY 