2008–13: Career beginnings

Lee Taemin was born on July 18, 1993. Growing up, Taemin dreamed to be a pilot until he discovered dancing when he was in 6th grade. His parents, noticing his talent for dance, prompted him to audition during the 2005 SM Open Weekend Audition Casting where he was accepted immediately. In 2008, Taemin was chosen to debut as a member of Shinee at the age of 14. The group official debuted on May 25, 2008, in the program SBS's Inkigayo.[5] Additionally to his work as a singer, Taemin made his acting debut in 2009 in MBC's comedy "Tae Hee, Hye Kyo, Ji Hyun" as Junsu.[2] Years later in January 2012, stepping into the field of voice-over for the first time, Taemin took part as a voice actor for the Korean animated movie called The Outback as the main character, Johnny, a white koala turned hero, along with fellow labelmate, Girls' Generation's Sunny.[6]

On September 19, 2012, Taemin released his first OST, "U", for the drama To The Beautiful You.[7] On October 16, 2012 it was announced that Taemin, alongside Super Junior's Eunhyuk and Super Junior-M's Henry, Girls' Generation's Hyoyeon, and EXO's Kai and Luhan would participate as a 6-member dance team for the Veloster theme song, "Maxstep", the collaboration album between S.M. Entertainment and Hyundai. A video teaser of the song shown at the PYL Younique Show on October 17, 2012.[8]

In April 2013, S.M. Entertainment revealed that Taemin would be taking part in the reality variety show "We Got Married" with Son Na-eun as his partner, replacing the previous couple Kwanghee and Sunhwa.[9] In the same year, Taemin made three episode appearance on the drama Dating Agency: Cyrano as idol singer Ray/Yang Ho-yeol.[10] In June 2013, he featured in Super Junior-M's Henry solo song "Trap" alongside Super Junior's Kyuhyun.[11] In December of that year, he participated in the soundtrack of the series Prime Minister and I, "Footsteps," the first track to be previewed on the series at the end of its third episode, was composed and arranged by Kim Jung-bae with the vocals by himself.[12]