The Incredible Lightness Of Being

The South Korean actor Kim Woo Bin makes his comeback with a new outlook on life and success.

- Renée Batchelor

To see Kim Woo Bin on camera, it’s almost impossible to imagine that the 31-year old model-turned-actor could ever have been uncomfortable in front of it. Tall, well-built and with carved out cheekbones, his unconventional but masculine beauty seems tailor-made for the spotlight. But despite his obvious appeal, Kim describes his younger self as being somewhat apprehensive about standing out in a crowd. “My growth [as an actor] was not that special at all, nor was it that ordinary. I think there was something in me that wanted to stand in front of people, but I was too timid to do so. I was very introverted, so I was very quiet,” he says. Kim’s mother loved both art and fashion, and hence he gravitated towards these fields. “I think because of my mum, I developed a taste for the arts as well and grew up under a lot of influence from her,” says Kim.

Starting out his career in modelling while still in high school, the 1.88 metre-tall actor had moved on to runway work by 2009. In our cover shoot for T Singapore, it is clear that this training has paid off, as Kim telegraphs total ease and confidence while donning menswear from the spring/summer ’21 collections. Kim agrees that modelling was not a disadvantage per se, though there were some habits he had to break out of. “Models act when we walk or do shoots as well, so initially when I started acting, I wanted to appear suave and would always be in a pose. It took me some time to get the modelling habits off of me,” he says.