Henry Lau
Henry Lau, commonly referred to mononymously as Henry, is a Canadian singer, songwriter, actor, entertainer and classical violinist based in South Korea and China. He debuted in 2008 as a member of Super Junior-M and launched his solo career in 2013 with Trap. His original soundtrack "It's You" released in 2017 became the #1 top-streamed Korean OST on Spotify for two consecutive years in 2018 and 2019.
Henry made his Hollywood debut in 2019 with the film A Dog's Journey produced by Amblin Entertainment, the sequel to the 2017 film A Dog's Purpose. In 2020, the action/fantasy movie “Double World” nominated for "Best Visual Effects" and "Best Action Choreography" at the 39th Hong Kong Film Award starring Henry premiered on Netflix and China’s streaming service iQiyi, becoming the first movie in mainland China's film history to achieve simultaneous global release.
Henry is also known for his regular appearances in the award-winning television programs Real Man and I Live Alone, for which he received the Best Newcomer Award and Excellence Male Award respectively at the MBC Entertainment Awards.
In 2018, Henry left SM Entertainment following the expiration of his contract, established his own studio and joined Monster Entertainment Group.
Early life
Henry Lau was born on October 11, 1989, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. His father is from Hong Kong with Teochew ancestry and his mother is from Pingtung, Taiwan. He was raised in the middle-class neighbourhood of Willowdale located in the district of North York. He attended Kenollie Public School in Port Credit, Mississauga, Steelesview Public School, Zion Heights Junior High School, then North Toronto Collegiate Institute in grade 9 and attended A.Y. Jackson Secondary School in Toronto for the rest of his high school years before being chosen at the 2006 SM Entertainment Global Audition in Toronto. Only two out of three thousand applicants were recruited through the auditions, one of which was Henry. He briefly attended the University of Toronto in 2007. On I Live Alone, Henry revealed that his younger sister, Whitney Lau, was born in 1993 and was a former Miss Toronto Chinese Pageant winner in 2013. His brother, Clinton, is also a classically-trained musician and co-founded Henry's current agency, Monster Entertainment Group.Henry possesses a diverse repertoire of musical talents. He plays the piano, violin and guitar and is well-versed in different dance forms. Henry started learning how to play the piano from his mother at the age of five, and also started violin lessons at the age of six. Henry later learned to play the electric violin in 2005. Additionally, he learned a unique form of dancing called boogaloo popping while in high school. After only one year of dancing, he was competing in dance competitions and shows. He also received the Canadian Royal Conservatory of Music Regional Gold Medal for Level 10 in both the violin and piano. He was heads of both the after-school violin club and the popping club, where he came up with the idea of simultaneously doing both after both clubs had conflicting times.
He said he had planned to become a professional violinist, but never expected to become an idol star before being selected by S.M. Entertainment in 2006. For his audition, Henry performed a Vivaldi piece on his violin while incorporating popping during the piece's fast passages, as well as a cappella singing; he was accepted by the company in the following week. At the time, he applied for colleges for classical music, but ultimately decided to go "down the K-pop road", as he explains, "I'll be dancing and singing, but that doesn't mean I won't be able to play the violin anymore or piano. I decided that I had to go down this road because that was the only way I could do pretty much everything." He initially declined the offer when his father wanted him to go to university. After he and his mother were impressed during a visit to the company in South Korea, she convinced his father for him to accept the offer.
Henry is able to speak four languages. Aside from speaking native English, he can also speak Cantonese and he is fluent in Mandarin and Korean.
Career
2007–2010: Career beginnings
Henry appeared as a violinist in South Korean group Super Junior's music video for"Don't Don" in September 2007. The song includes a violin part, which is played by Lau. SM Entertainment officially announced Lau to be a member of a new Super Junior sub-unit, causing controversy among fans. Previously, there were rumours stating that Henry was to be the fourteenth member of Super Junior, stemming from SM's statement regarding the controversy, which led fans to form an "Only 13" campaign. Henry described the situation as "if Backstreet Boys wanted a new Boy," and he ended up "being on the sidelines for years."
In October 2007, S.M. Entertainment announced that Henry would debut as a member of a Super Junior China sub-group, Super Junior-M, in 2008. They debuted by releasing a promotional single U, a Mandarin remake of Super Junior's 2006 best-selling Korean single on April 8, 2008. They also debuted in China on the same day at the 8th Annual Music Chart Awards. Their debut album, Me was released on April 23 with lead single U. Henry made a cameo appearance in the CCTV2 drama Stage of Youth in 2009.
He returned to the music industry after a year-long break with the release of Super Junior-M's first mini-album, Super Girl, on September 23, 2009. The mini-album won many awards and even earned the group a nomination for "Best Vocal Group" at the 21st Golden Melody Awards, the Chinese equivalent of the Grammy Awards. He featured as a rapper on Zhang Li Yin's first single album, Moving On, which was released on October 29, 2009. He rapped on the track Love Me. He performed on Super Junior's second Asia tour, Super Show 2, as part of Super Junior-M, and also performed a self-composed English solo song, "Sick of Love", which remains unreleased.
Due to the continuing backlash of his status as a member of Super Junior, he went on hiatus to study music at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, where he learned music production.
He composed a song with Super Junior's leader Leeteuk called All My Heart for Super Junior's 4th repackaged album, Bonamana. This was released on June 28, 2010.
He was featured as a rapper in a Jonghyun and Jino R&B duet titled Don't Lie from SM the Ballad's first album Miss You, released on November 29, 2010.
Henry rearranged Justin Bieber's "Baby" and performed his arrangement on the Super Show 3 Tour.
2011–2012: Solo activities
He worked with Super Junior's leader Leeteuk again, and together they composed a song called "Andante" for Super Junior's 5th repackaged album, A-CHa, released on September 19, 2011.He toured with Super Junior as a member of Super Junior-M for their 4th tour, Super Show 4. He performed "Baby" by Justin Bieber once again during Super Show 4's opening stops in Seoul with another new arrangement. F's Amber performed alongside him as a featured rapper. At Osaka, Japan, he performed a medley of songs by American singer Bruno Mars: he started by singing "Billionaire" by Travie McCoy with his guitar, then "the Lazy Song" with a band, and "Lighters" by Bad Meets Evil with the piano, and finished by playing the violin. In Singapore, he also performed his solo song "Off My Mind".
Super Junior with Lau and fellow Super Junior-M member Zhou Mi released the single "Santa U Are The One", taken from SMTown's eighth winter album, 2011 Winter SMTown – The Warmest Gift, released on December 13, 2011.
Henry participated in the OST for Taiwanese drama series Skip Beat! by featuring as a rapper on the track "This is Love" sung by fellow Super Junior-M member Donghae. The OST was released on February 24, 2011.
He featured on BoA's single "One Dream" with SHINee's Key. The song was released on March 18, 2012, and serves as the opening song for the audition program K-pop Star on Seoul Broadcasting System. The single was included in BoA's 7th Korean studio album, Only One, released on July 22, 2012.
Henry was cast as the main role for the movie Final Recipe alongside Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh, who also produced the film. The film tells the story of young aspiring chef Mark, played by Lau, who participates in an international cooking contest to save his grandfather's restaurant from going out of business.
He became a member of the project group Younique Unit with fellow Super Junior-M member Eunhyuk, SHINee's Taemin, EXO's Kai and Luhan, and Girls' Generation's Hyoyeon, for a collaboration between S.M. Entertainment and Hyundai. Their single "Maxstep" was released on October 31, 2012.
2013–2014: Solo debut
Lau featured on Girls' Generation's comeback performance Romantic Fantasy on MBC's Music Core. He performed "I Am" by Yoon Mi-rae with Yuri and Hyoyeon on January 1, 2013.Super Junior-M's second studio album, Break Down, was released on January 7, 2013, along with a lead single of the same name. The album includes two songs produced and composed by Lau's music production team, Noize Bank, titled "Go" and "It's You". The lyrics for both songs were written by fellow Super Junior-M member Zhou Mi. Noize Bank is a music production team comprising Lau, Gen Neo, Neil Nallas, and Isaac Han. Their Korean version of Break Down was released on January 31. On January 31, they made their official debut in Korea on Mnet's M! Countdown.
On February 6, he was confirmed to be a contestant in O'live MasterChef Korea Celebrity, the celebrity version of MasterChef Korea.
On May 30, 2013, it was announced that Henry would make his solo debut. He was SM Entertainment's first solo male artist in 13 years since Kangta. His first solo extended play, Trap was released on June 7, 2013. The title track featured Super Junior's Kyuhyun and SHINee's Taemin. The Chinese version of the Trap EP was released on August 14. Follow-up promotions for a re-release of his song "1-4-3 " from Trap as a digital single featuring label mate, Amber of f, commenced on August 23.
In February 2014, Lau joined the cast of the Korean real-time military-variety show Real Men with fellow celebrities Chun Jung-myung, Park Gun-hyung, K.Will. He quickly became the break-out star and variety favourite because of his natural optimism and eagerness to learn Korean culture, despite being Canadian-born and completely unfamiliar with the Korean military. In addition, his appearance in Star King along with his appearance in Real Men propelled his rising popularity. This led to more variety show and CF opportunities, such as being chosen as the first guest star in JTBC's Crime Scene, his first solo endorsement opportunity with KFC Korea and his second solo endorsement with Sprite Korea.
After almost seven months of production, his follow-up EP, Fantastic was released on July 14, 2014. Henry made his Japanese debut with the single Fantastic on October 8. The single includes the Japanese version of Fantastic and Trap.
2015–2017: Television roles
In 2015, Henry guest starred on popular reality show, SBS's Roommate. In March, SM Entertainment confirmed that Henry had joined the variety show We Got Married and his partner in that show was Yewon. Henry released a single on March 20, titled "Love +" in collaboration with Persevere, Goo Haera star Yoo Sung Eun. Henry was preparing for his third solo album to be released in 2015 but the project was delayed for an unstated reason.On October 10, 2016, SM Entertainment announced that Henry will collaborate with Soyou for a song called "Runnin'" released on October 14 through SM Station.
Henry helped to compose Se7en's latest title track, "Give It To Me", which was released on October 13, 2016.
On October 26, 2016, Henry, alongside NCT's Mark released the OST "I Want To Enter Your Heart" for the upcoming television series Sweet Stranger and Me. The track was written and composed by Henry.
In November 2016, Henry became a promotional embassador for Dubai Tourism, filming promotional videos in Chinese, Korean and English.
Early 2017, Henry released a self-written and self-composed digital single titled "Girlfriend." The track was briefly revealed during his first appearance on MBC's I Live Alone, then informally titled as "What should I do?". It gained attention for being an impromptu self-composed song. The track continues to receive favourable responses through You Hee-Yeol's Sketchbook appearance for its beautiful melody and its eccentric "revolutionary" lyrics. It led to many requests for an official release. "Girlfriend" was released on March 18, 2017 and was well received. The song peaked at #1 on multiple South Korean daily digital charts and at #3 on the Gaon Download Chart. The track is a soulful R&B piece that incorporates the sound of strings and piano. The memorable lyrics delicately expressed the heartfelt sadness and longing for a dearly missed past lover, which correlates with the Korean title of the song "그리워요". His first appearance in I live Alone became a hot topic, and his cover of Uptown Funk trended on Naver TV and became the second most liked video on I Live Alone's channel. Soon, Henry became a fixed cast member.
In July 2017, Henry joined Snowball Project as a regular cast member. Since then, he has co-produced the song "Lemonade Love", which is sung by NCT's Mark and singer Parc Jae Jung. "Lemonade Love" was co-produced with Yoon Jong Shin, who is also the CEO of Mystic Story. He also rearranged a song released by Yoon Jong Shin in 1996, "Rebirth", for Red Velvet on the show for a competition between SM Entertainment and Mystic Entertainment.
2018-present: Departure from SM Entertainment
On April 30, 2018, it was announced that Henry had completed his contract with SM Entertainment and that he had decided to leave the agency. He then set up his own studio called Henry's Workshop. On May 4, 2018, Henry opened Xiao Zhan, Taiwanese Eats - restaurant in Sinsa-dong, Gangnam. He has since opened third branch.Henry composed and performed a rendition of the song 《女儿情》 as an OST for the movie 《西遊記女兒國》.
Henry joined second season of the music variety show Begin Again, which aired in May 2018. He returned for the second season of Chinese variety show Back to Field, which aired from April to June 2018. He also landed a role in the Chinese martial arts movie Double World. In August 2018, Henry was cast as Trent in A Dog's Journey, which was released in May 2019 and marks his first American film. He was suggested to the filmmakers by Alibaba Pictures, which co-produced the film.
In December, Henry became a judge and mentor on the Chinese TV Talent Contest for opera singers and musical Performers- Super Vocal.The show scores top rankings.
In November 2018, Henry announced that he had joined Monster Entertainment Group, an agency based in South Korea founded by his brother, Clinton, to help build his brand globally. Monster Entertainment is part of a global management team which includes Chinese film production company Filmko and other partners in the United States. Henry is its first global multi-faceted artist. Later that month, he briefly signed with AXIS, a music label founded by former YG creative director SINXITY. On December 26, 2018 South- Korean band g.o.d announced they would be releasing a special 20th anniversary album entitled “THEN&NOW. The album will feature a new remake of the group’s iconic song “Road,” rearranged by MeloMance’s Jung Dong-hwan and sung by Henry, IU, Urban Zakapa’s Jo Hyun Ah, and Yang Da Il.
On May 9, 2019, he released "Untitled Love Song", his first solo single under Monster; he previously teased the song during an appearance in variety program Idol Room. He will rejoin the cast of Begin Again for its third season, which will air in July 2019.