The 26-year-old singer-actor just took home best new actor at Baeksang — a win 20 years in the making Park Ji-hoon poses for photos at the 62nd Baeksang Arts Awards in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, May 8. (Newsis) When Park Ji-hoon walked up to collect the best new actor for film award at last week's Baeksang Arts Awards — the closest thing Korea has to the Emmys and Oscars combined — nobody in the room seemed surprised.He'd spent the first half of the year slaying at the box office as the tragic boy-king Danjong, a 15th-century Joseon ruler deposed and killed at 17, in "The King's Warden." The historical drama became the highest-grossing Korean film of all time, selling more than 16 million tickets in a country of 51 million. Naming him best new actor was a no-brainer.What might catch casual viewers off guard, though, is everything he'd done to get there. At 26, Park has already worn just about every hat the Korean entertainment industry offers.He's been working since he was 7, and his trophy cabinet now spans all three corners of the business — K-pop, television and film. Here's the story of how the guy kept all the plates spinning.The child-actor years Park Ji-hoon as a child actor in SBS period drama "The King and I," aired from 2007 to 2008 (SBS) Park's CV starts in 2006, when he was a first-grader playing a salt merchant's son in the hit TV series "Jumong." He did the rounds from there — bits in dramas like "The King and I" and "Iljimae," various children's musicals and modeling gigs.Acting was practically in his bones. "When I was seven, I saw an actor sobbing on TV and felt like I was the one crying," Park told the magazine Arena Homme in 2021. "I begged my mom to let me try acting. Once I get into something, I go at it like crazy."Offscreen, by his own account, he was a shy kid who threw himself into one obsession at a time: first musical theater, then street dance by middle school.Trainee daysAs dancing took over in middle school, becoming a K-pop idol was the natural next step. What followed was the usual grind every idol hopeful here goes through: years of dawn-to-midnight practice at studios, working vocals, rap and choreography on rotation before getting a shot at a debut.Little is known about Park's trainee years, but the gaps tell their own story. He bounced around twice — first at SM Entertainment, then Fantagio — before landing at the much smaller Maroo Entertainment.In a recent appearance on tvN's talk show "You Quiz on the Block," Park looked back on his trainee days, recalling how he would practice 13 hours a day on a busted knee.Wanna One's 'wink boy' Park Ji-hoon stars in "Produce 101 Season 2" in 2017. (Mnet) Then came Mnet's "Produce 101 Season 2," the 2017 sequel to the idol survival show pitting 101 trainees against each other for 11 spots in a project boy band.It was one of those rare cases where the sequel outdid the original, and Park was at the front and center of it, as the small agency underdog taking over a system usually rigged for the majors.He went viral as the so-called "wink boy" with a single glance at the camera during the show's promo performance, and that's been his calling card ever since. His trademark catchphrase, "I'll save you in my heart," delivered with finger hearts and a scoop of "aegyo," became one of the most-quoted phrases of the year.Park sat in the top spots consistently and finished second overall, only behind Kang Daniel. The 11 finalists went on to form Wanna One, the project group that ran until early 2019 and became one of the biggest acts of the late 2010s.'Weak Hero' run Park Ji-hoon as Si-eun in "Weak Hero: Class 2" (Netflix) Many "Produce" alums fade once their project group disbands; Park was among the handful who kept the momentum going, launching a solo music career and pivoting back to acting at the same time.From 2019 on, he's run both in parallel, doing fine on either front. Several TV roles followed from 2019 to 2021, each nudging his profile up a notch.The real breakout came in late 2022, when "Weak Hero Class 1" dropped on Wavve and became an instant word-of-mouth hit.Built around the brutal excesses of school bullying, the show was lean, brutal and structurally ambitious in a way Korean youth dramas rarely are. Park's quiet, simmering performance — flat affect combined with dead-eyed composure — pulled the whole thing together and earned him best new actor at the Blue Dragon Series Awards.Netflix picked up Season 2 last year, and that's when the show went global, topping the platform's non-English chart in 63 countries. Park's performance this time was darker as a traumatized Si-eun haunted by what he couldn't prevent in Season 1.The 'King's Warden' jackpot Park Ji-hoon as Lee Hong-wi, or King Danjong, in "The King's Warden" (Showbox) While plenty of idol-actors land on TV, not that many manage to crack the big screen. Park's beginning was modest: the indie tearjerker "Beautiful Audrey" (2024), in which he played the grandson of a dementia patient. He won best new actor at the Seoul International Film Awards for it, but the film largely stayed under the radar."The King's Warden" was the ultimate jackpot. Director Jang Hang-jun reportedly sought Park out specifically for the role of Danjong, the famous boy king who took the Joseon throne at 12 and was deposed and killed by 17. It's a tragic tale every Korean kid learns in history class, and everyone knows how the king meets his fate.Park said he dropped 15 kilograms in the two and a half months leading up to filming to play a king who'd been stripped of not just the throne but the will to live. The result was a layered, gaze-driven performance that brought real pathos to what is, by design, a run-of-the-mill, formula-bound tragedy.The film ended up as the second-highest-grossing in Korean box office history. Park became a "10-million actor" overnight — industry shorthand for the megahit milestone of leading a film past 10 million ticket sales — and on his first proper lead at that. The film took the Grand Prize at Baeksang, and Park took the rookie trophy to match.What's next "The Legend of Kitchen Soldier," starring Park Ji-hoon (tvN) Park isn't slowing down. He is currently leading tvN's "The Legend of Kitchen Soldier," a military comedy where he plays a culinary specialist drafted into the army kitchen. He also dropped the single album "Re:flect" in April, with fan concerts booked in Tokyo and Seoul later this month. It's his first music release in three years.Looming over all of that is his mandatory military service, which every Korean man under 30 must complete. Park hasn't ducked the subject; he's said in multiple interviews that he plans to enlist with the Marine Corps, the toughest track the country offers.It's a self-imposed deadline, since the Marines have a hard age cap of 29, meaning he'll likely need to ship out by next year.Military aside, Park clearly still wants to wear many hats. Asked repeatedly whether he's done with music now that the acting work is rolling in, he's been consistent: not even close."I haven't ruled it out at all," he told The Korea Herald in a January interview. "I still have fans who've supported me since my idol days. They're happy when I do both. It's not one or the other for them."