Actor Lee Sang-yoon. [Yonhap]
Actor Lee Sang-yoon. [Yonhap]

Actor Lee Sang-yoon said he graduated from Seoul National University thanks to advice from the late actor Lee Soon-jae.

Lee appeared Thursday on "Achim Madang," a morning talk show on KBS1, alongside fellow actors Choi Su-young, Kim A-young and Park Myung-hoon, ahead of the opening of the play "The Merchant of Venice."

Appearing on a live entertainment program for the first time, Lee said he was visibly nervous. "It's an honor to appear on a program I used to only watch on TV," he said. "This is my first time on a live broadcast, so I'm nervous. It's also my first time doing a quiz segment."

The four cast members took part in a quiz about one another. When asked whether Lee had graduated from Seoul National University in 10 years, Kim A-young held up an "X" sign — and got it right. She had guessed eight years, but Lee revealed it had actually taken him 13.

Host and announcer Park Cheol-gyu said he was curious why Lee had bothered finishing his degree at all. "After 13 years, you could have just not graduated," Park said.

Lee confessed that when he began his acting career, he had considered dropping out because balancing his studies with his work was too difficult.

"People around me hoped I would not give up on my studies, but at the time it did not really sink in," he said. "I wondered how much a Seoul National University diploma could really mean."

The turning point, he said, came from advice given by the late Lee Soon-jae. "When I was working on a project with him, I asked him about it once," Lee recalled. "He told me, 'Just graduate. The experience of seeing something through to the end — something you started — will be one of the most important things in your life.' Those words really hit home."

"Thanks to that advice, I ultimately went ahead and graduated," he said, reflecting on the lasting lesson the late actor had left on his life.

Lee enrolled in the physics department at Seoul National University in 2000 but was expelled after accumulating academic warnings. He was later readmitted and graduated in 2013.


min3654@heraldcorp.com