Henry Lau (traditional Chinese: 劉憲華; simplified Chinese: 刘宪华; Korean: 헨리; born October 11, 1989), known mononymously as Henry, is a Canadian singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer 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 song "It's You", released in 2017, became the most streamed Korean original soundtrack song on Spotify for two consecutive years in 2018 and 2019. In 2018, Henry left SM Entertainment following the expiration of his contract, and subsequently joined Monster Entertainment Group.
Henry made his Hollywood debut in 2019 with the film A Dog's Journey produced by Amblin Entertainment. In 2020, he starred in the action-fantasy movie Double World. The film was released on Netflix and the Chinese streaming service iQIYI, becoming the first movie produced in mainland China to have a simultaneous global release.
Henry is also known for his television work in the programs Real Man and I Live Alone, for which he received the Best Newcomer Award (2014) and Excellence Male Award (2017) respectively at the MBC Entertainment Awards.
Early life
Henry Lau was born on October 11, 1989, in Willowdale, Toronto. His father is from Hong Kong with Teochew ancestry and his mother is from Pingtung, Taiwan. His father works in real estate while his mother was a stay-at-home mom. He has a younger sister, Whitney (born in 1993), and an older brother, Clinton (born in 1988), who is the CEO of his current label, Monster Entertainment Group. He attended Zion Heights Junior High School, then North Toronto Collegiate Institute for grade 9 and A.Y. Jackson Secondary School for the rest of his high school years. In his last year of high school, Henry was chosen at the 2006 SM Entertainment Global Audition in Toronto; he was one of two out of three thousand applicants who were recruited. He was accepted by the University of Toronto for both music education and violin performance programs, but chose not to attend after accepting SM's offer.
Henry started learning how to play the piano from his mother at the age of four, and began taking violin lessons at the age of five. His teacher was Arkady Yanivker, a soloist and former violinist of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. He later learned to play the electric violin in 2005. He received the Canadian Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM) Regional Gold Medal for Level 10 in violin, and has also achieved Level 10 in piano. In high school, he learned a hip hop dance style called boogaloo popping. He was heads of both the after-school violin club and popping club, where he came up with the idea of simultaneously doing both after the two clubs had conflicting meeting times.
He never expected to become a singer and did not know anything about K-pop before his friends suggested him to audition for SM. For his audition, Henry performed a Vivaldi piece on the violin while incorporating popping during the piece's fast passages, as well as a cappella singing; he received an offer from the company 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 because his father wanted him to go to university. After his mother was 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 is fluent in Mandarin and Korean and can speak conversational Cantonese.
Career
2007–2012: Career beginnings and Super Junior-M
Henry appeared as a violinist in South Korean group Super Junior's music video for "Don't Don" in September 2007. The song features a violin part, which is performed by Henry. In October 2007, SM Entertainment announced that he would debut as a member of a Super Junior China sub-group, Super Junior-M, the following year. The announcement caused controversy among Super Junior fans due to rumours that SM wanted to add Henry as the fourteenth member of Super Junior, which led fans to form an "Only 13" campaign. Henry described the situation as "if Backstreet Boys wanted a new Boy," and the backlash led to him "being on the sidelines for years." Super Junior-M 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, 2008. Together with the Super Junior-M members, Henry made a cameo appearance in the CCTV2 drama Stage of Youth in 2009.
A year and a half after debut, Super Junior-M made their sophomore release with the 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 on the track "Love Me" (Chinese: 愛我; pinyin: Ài wǒ) from label-mate Zhang Liyin's first single album, Moving On, which was released on October 29, 2009. He performed on Super Junior's second Asian 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.
In 2010, he took a brief hiatus to study music composition at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, where he learned to sing and produce music. At Berklee, he became friends with fellow student Gen Neo, and convinced him to go to Korea to work with him.
He composed a song with Super Junior's leader Leeteuk called "All My Heart" (Korean: 진심; Revised Romanization: Jinsim) for Super Junior's fourth repackaged album, Bonamana, released on June 28, 2010. He was featured on Jonghyun and Jinho's duet titled "Don't Lie" from SM the Ballad's first album Miss You, released on November 29, 2010. Henry joined Super Junior on the Super Show 3 Tour.
Henry's solo song "Off My Mind" (Chinese: 表白; pinyin: biǎo bái) was included in Super Junior-M's second EP Perfection which was released on February 25, 2011. The lyrics to the song were written with Geo Neo while studying at Berklee. He worked with Leeteuk again on a song called "Andante" (Korean: 안단테; Revised Romanization: Andante) for Super Junior's fifth repackaged album, A-CHa, released on September 19, 2011. He toured with Super Junior as a member of Super Junior-M for their fourth tour, Super Show 4. Together with fellow Super Junior-M member Zhou Mi, he performed "Santa U Are the One" on SM Town's eighth winter album, 2011 SMTown Winter – The Warmest Gift, released on December 13, 2011.
In March 2012, he featured on BoA's single "One Dream" alongside Key which was the opening song for SBS's audition program K-pop Star. The single was included in BoA's seventh Korean studio album, Only One, released on July 22, 2012. He became a member of the project group Younique Unit with Eunhyuk, Taemin, Kai, Luhan, and Hyoyeon, for a collaboration between SM Entertainment and Hyundai. Their single "Maxstep" was released on October 31, 2012. The same year, Henry was cast as the lead in his film debut, Final Recipe, alongside Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh. The film tells the story of young aspiring chef Mark, played by Henry, who participates in an international cooking contest to save his grandfather's restaurant from going out of business. In preparation for the role, Henry studied under chef Lee Yeon-bok and practised cooking 3–4 hours a day for several months.
2013–2014: Debut as a soloist and variety shows
Super Junior-M's second studio album, Break Down, was released on January 7, 2013, along with the title track. The album includes two…