Lee Jong Suk’s role in “Pinocchio” was supposed to be played by another actor: hiatus for a painful reason

The famous K-drama “Pinocchio” helped Lee Jong Suk establish his name in the acting world, but he was not the first choice for this role. 

The K-drama “Pinocchio”, which starred Lee Jong Suk and Park Shin Hye, was all the rage in late 2014 and early 2015. When the series first aired, Lee Jong Suk was starting to rise after the successes of “Doctor Stranger” and “School 2013”, and only became an A-list actor thanks to the huge popularity of “Pinocchio”. 

In the series, Lee Jong Suk assumes the role of male lead Choi Dal Po, a genius with excellent memorization and analysis skills, who pretends he’s dumb at school. Despite his outstanding visuals and overflowing chemistry with co-star Park Shin Hye, it turns out that Lee Jong suk was not the first choice for Dal Po. According to the production crew, they first offered the role to Kim Woo Bin, who previously worked with Park Shin Hye in “The Heirs”, and was expected to be an explosive combination. However, at the time, Kim Woo Bin was too busy filming for the Chinese movie “We Are Young” and the action/thriller movie “The Con Artists”, and had to turn down the role due to his packed schedule.

Still, despite missing out on “Pinocchio”, Kim Woo Bin proved to be an avid fan of the show, as he is super close with Lee Jong Suk in real life. The actor shared that he loved the story of “Pinocchio”, and was completely swayed by the chemistry of the main couple. 

All in all, why Lee Jong Suk had a perfect performance in “Pinocchio”, some viewers still express regrets that Kim Woo Bin couldn’t make the show. They also feel extremely sorry for the actor, as he was diagnosed with cancer 3 years later, resulting in an extremely long hiatus. From an A-list actor with a super successful track, Kim Woo Bin saw lowered popularity due to his absence. Recently though, the actor managed to make a notable return via the omnibus series “Our Blues”, and is expected to hit big with the upcoming movie “Alienoid”, where he will star alongside the Baeksang Best Actress Kim Tae Ri. However, both of these projects are super star-studded with all sorts of remarkable names like Lee Byung Hun, Cha Seung Won, Han Ji Min, Ryu Jun Yeol, etc, leading to Kim Woo Bin being somewhat outshined. 

Hopefully, the actor will be able to come back even stronger in his later projects.