In 2008, the year he turned 26, he debuted in the film Boys. For more than ten years after that he appeared mainly in independent and short films. In 2011, he won the Ding-Dong Coin Award at the Jeongdongjin Independent Film Festival for his directed work Turtles and his acting in Save Me!
In 2013, he wrote, directed, produced and starred in the 30-minute short Where Is My DVD? by himself. In 2014, the short won the best work prize in the King of Comedy category at the Mise-en-scène Short Film Festival. In 2015, he made the short Fly to the Sky with Lee Ok-seop.
In October 2016, he won Actor of the Year at the Busan International Film Festival for playing Jane in Jane. A little over three weeks later, Fly to the Sky won the grand prize in the domestic competition at the Asiana International Short Film Festival. In 2017, he won the best new actor award at the Chunsa Film Art Awards, and Jane opened. In 2018, he won best new actor in film at the Baeksang Arts Awards. In 2019, he took part in Lee Ok-seop’s first feature, Maggie, as an actor, writer and producer.
The breakthrough yearThe year he turned 38, he played Captain Seo in Yeon Sang-ho’s Peninsula. It passed 2 million admissions in seven days, and Hankyoreh wrote that an actor in his 13th year since his debut was belatedly drawing public attention through the film.
In 2021, Kingdom: Ashin of the North, Escape from Mogadishu and D.P. came out in quick succession over a little more than a month, and in November he won the Popular Star Award at the Blue Dragon Film Awards. In 2022, he appeared in Monstrous and Extraordinary Attorney Woo and won best new actor in TV at the Baeksang Arts Awards. In 2023, Kill Boksoon and D.P. season 2 were released.
In 2024, Parasyte: The Grey and Escape followed, and late that year he won a second Blue Dragon Popular Star Award. In 2025, he finished filming the feature Your Country, co-directed with Lee Ok-seop, and Once We Were Us opened at year’s end.
In 2026, JTBC’s We Are All Trying Here and the film Colony followed, and Reawaken Man: The Red is due out in September.
Koo Kyo-hwan (born Dec 14, 1982) debuted in the film Boys in 2008, the year he turned 26, and became known as Captain Seo in Peninsula, which opened on Jul 15, 2020, the year he turned 38. His first acting award was Actor of the Year at the Busan International Film Festival in 2016, the year he turned 34.
Ages are by calendar year (the year minus the birth year), birthdays aside.