Billkin: The Life Story Behind Thailand's Popular Singer

In 2024, cinemas across Thailand filled with people who came to cry. The film was How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, a story about a young man who moves in with his dying grandmother, hoping at first for her money, and then learning, slowly and painfully, what family really means. The young man was played by Billkin, and his performance was so natural that audiences forgot they were watching an actor. People left the cinema calling their grandmothers. The film became one of the biggest Thai hits of recent years, and it was chosen as Thailand’s entry for the Academy Awards. For Billkin, it was the moment when a television star became a film star, and when the whole world saw what Thai audiences had known for years: this young man could act.

His real name is Putthipong Assaratanakul, and he was born in Bangkok on 8 October 1999. He is the youngest of three brothers, a boy who grew up watching his older brothers and learning from them. His path to fame was not a straight line. He started as a television host, then became a supporting actor, then a leading man, then a singer with his own songs and his own company. At every step, he added a new skill to the ones he already had, like a student collecting tools for a job he had not yet been given. By the time the biggest roles arrived, he was ready for them, because he had spent years preparing in smaller rooms, in front of smaller audiences, with nobody watching except the people who would one day hire him for the biggest jobs of his life.

This is a story about discipline. Billkin studied marketing at Thammasat University while his acting career was growing, and he graduated in 2023, at the height of his fame. He learned how to run a business, and then he started his own company, Billkin Entertainment, so that he could control his own music and his own future. He sings pop songs that millions of people know by heart, and he acts in films that make grown men cry in dark cinemas. He did all of this by working steadily, year after year, without shortcuts and without noise. His story is less about a single lucky break and more about a young man who kept showing up until the world could no longer ignore him.

The Youngest Brother in a Bangkok House Full of Noise

Putthipong Assaratanakul grew up in Bangkok as the youngest child in a family of three boys. Being the youngest brother shapes a person in a particular way. You watch your older brothers do things first, and you learn from their mistakes before you make your own. You learn to speak up, because in a house full of boys, nobody will listen to you unless you make yourself heard. And you learn to be patient, because the youngest often has to wait his turn. Billkin has carried those lessons with him throughout his career, and people who work with him often describe him as disciplined, polite, and remarkably mature for his age.

His school years were spent at Saint Gabriel’s College, a well-known boys’ school in Bangkok. The school has a reputation for discipline and hard work, and Billkin fitted in well there. He was not a troublemaker. He was a student who took his studies seriously, and he balanced his schoolwork with the first small steps of a career in entertainment. That balance would become a pattern in his life. Again and again, he would be asked to do two hard things at once, school and work, acting and singing, fame and study, and again and again, he would find a way to do both properly rather than dropping one of them.

His family gave him a stable base. They did not push him into show business, and they did not hold him back from it either. They let him try, and they expected him to keep his education going at the same time. That expectation mattered. When he later enrolled at Thammasat University, one of Thailand’s most respected universities, to study business administration with a focus on marketing, it was a continuation of the same idea: that talent is a gift, but learning is a duty, and a person should have both. He enrolled in 2018, the year before his acting career took its first big step forward, and he kept studying through the busiest years of his rise.

Growing up as the youngest of three also gave him a competitive streak that he rarely shows in public. Youngest children often want to prove themselves, to show their older brothers that they can do things too. Billkin’s whole career has a quality of quiet proving. He does not boast about his achievements. He simply adds another one, and then another one, until the list speaks for itself. That is a very Bangkok way of succeeding, in a culture that values modesty and hard work over loud self-promotion, and it is one of the reasons Thai audiences have taken him to their hearts so deeply.

A Teenage Host Learns How Television Really Works

Billkin’s first job in entertainment was not acting at all. In 2016, when he was still a teenager, he became one of the main hosts of a Thai reality television show called Love Missions. Hosting is a very different skill from acting. An actor hides behind a character. A host has nowhere to hide. He must talk to real people, keep a show moving, handle surprises, and stay warm and natural on camera for hours at a time. It is excellent training for a young performer, because it teaches him to be himself in front of a camera, and that is often harder than playing a role.

The following year, in 2017, he made his acting debut in a television drama called Please… Siang Riak Winyan, and he also sang the theme song for it. That combination, acting and singing together, would define his whole career. Even at the very beginning, he was doing both. He was not an actor who later decided to try singing, and he was not a singer who later decided to try acting. He was both from the start, and the two skills grew side by side, each one making the other stronger. His voice gave his acting an emotional depth, and his acting gave his songs a sense of story.

These early years were quiet ones. He was not famous yet, and most viewers would not have known his name. But he was learning the television business from the inside: how a set runs, how a crew works, how a director thinks, and how a performer must behave to be invited back. He learned to arrive on time, to know his lines, to respect the crew, and to keep going when a day of filming ran long. Directors notice these things. They remember the young actor who was easy to work with, and they call him again. Billkin was building a reputation as a professional, and that reputation would open doors that talent alone could not open.

By 2019, he had spent three years learning the craft, and he was ready for a bigger part. He was still a university student, still the youngest brother, still a young man who had never had a leading role. But he had something that many more famous young actors did not have: a deep understanding of how television works, earned through hosting and small roles, and a work ethic that had been tested over hundreds of hours on set. The next role would change everything, and he was prepared for it in a way that nobody watching from the outside could have guessed.

Doctor Tao and the Door That Opened in My Ambulance

In 2019, Billkin joined the cast of My Ambulance, a hit Thai drama about doctors and the mysteries of love and the mind. He played Doctor Tao, a young doctor and a supporting character in a story led by Davika Hoorne and Sunny Suwanmethanont. It was not the leading role, but it was a part with weight. Doctor Tao was serious, caring, and quietly emotional, and Billkin played him with a steadiness that made viewers trust the character. People began to notice the young actor who could hold his own in scenes with Thailand’s biggest stars.

The drama was watched by a huge audience, and it gave Billkin his first real taste of fame. But its greatest gift to him was something else. On that set, he worked with PP Krit, who played the cheerful younger brother Tew. The two young men were the same age, born in the same year, and they shared a natural ease with each other that the camera picked up at once. The producers at Nadao Bangkok saw it too. They began to plan a new series with Billkin and PP Krit in the leading roles, a story that would be built entirely around the connection between them. My Ambulance had been the audition. The next series would be the real test.

Billkin also sang for My Ambulance, performing a song called You Are My Everything for the soundtrack. The song became popular, and it showed audiences a side of him that acting alone could not show. His voice was warm and clear, and it carried emotion in a way that felt personal rather than performed. After the drama ended, he released another song, Hug in Mind, with Jaylerr, and his music career began to take shape alongside his acting. He was no longer only a young actor. He was becoming a young artist with two crafts, and both of them were growing fast.

Looking back, Doctor Tao was the perfect role for Billkin at that moment in his life. The character was a young professional learning to carry responsibility, and Billkin himself was a young professional learning the same lesson. He did not try to steal scenes or to show off. He played the part with care and with respect for the story, and that care was noticed. In the entertainment business, the people who decide who gets the next big role are often watching the small roles very carefully. They were watching Billkin, and they liked what they saw.

Teh: Playing a Boy Who Hides Behind His Talent

The leading role that changed Billkin’s life arrived in 2020, in a series called I Told Sunset About You. He played Teh, a schoolboy from Phuket who is talented, proud, and frightened of his own feelings. Teh is good at acting, he is popular at school, and he carries himself with confidence. But underneath that confidence, he is confused about who he is and what he wants. He has been friends since childhood with Oh-aew, played by PP Krit, and the two boys have drifted apart. The story follows them as they are thrown together again, studying for university entrance exams, and as Teh slowly faces the truth about his feelings for his oldest friend.

Teh was a hard character to play, and that is what made the role so important for Billkin. A proud character can easily become unlikeable. The audience must see the fear underneath the pride, or they will simply dislike him. Billkin found that fear and showed it in small moments: a look that lasted too long, a silence after a sharp word, a hand that hesitated before pulling away. He made Teh human, and because he made him human, audiences forgave him his mistakes and rooted for him to grow. That is the mark of a fine actor, and Billkin achieved it in his first leading role.

The series was set in Phuket, and its beauty gave the story a dreamlike quality, but the emotions were real and grounded. It dealt with first love, with the fear of being different, with the pressure of exams, and with the pain of hurting someone you love. It was made with unusual care, and critics praised it as one of the finest Thai series of its time. Billkin’s performance was central to that praise. He was not only the romantic lead. He was the emotional centre of a story about growing up, and he carried that weight without ever making it look like work.

The story continued in 2021, in a sequel called I Promised You the Moon. The two boys had entered university in Bangkok, and their relationship was tested by distance, by new friends, by jealousy, and by the simple difficulty of growing up at different speeds. The sequel was sadder and harder than the first part, and Billkin’s acting grew sadder and harder with it. Teh had to face the consequences of his choices, and Billkin played those scenes with a maturity that surprised many viewers. He was only twenty-one years old, but he was acting with the depth of someone much older. By the end of the sequel, nobody doubted that Billkin was a leading actor, not a young man who had been given a lucky break.

From Soundtrack Voice to a Singer With His Own Songs

While the series made Billkin famous as an actor, his music was growing just as fast. He sang several songs for the soundtracks of the two series, including Skyline, Can’t Translate, and Freaking Special, and a duet with PP Krit called Safe Zone. These songs were woven into the story, and fans learned them by heart. They played them at home, they sang them at concerts, and they shared them online. Billkin’s voice became as familiar to Thai audiences as his face, and his songs became part of the way people remembered the series.

But he did not want to be only a soundtrack singer. He wanted songs of his own, songs that belonged to him rather than to a character. In the years after the series, he released solo work, including a song whose Thai title translates as Smiling Through Tears, which gathered tens of millions of views online. His music was pop, but it had a thoughtful and melodic quality, with lyrics about love, longing, and the small pains of everyday life. He sang in a clear, warm voice, and he chose songs that suited that voice rather than chasing the loudest trend.

In June 2023, he released his first extended play, a short collection of songs called Love’s Apprentice. The title suited him. He was still learning, still growing as a singer, and he was honest about that. He did not pretend to be a finished artist. He presented himself as a student of love and of music, and audiences responded to that honesty. Then, in 2025, he released his first full studio album, Grow With The Flow, a record that showed how far he had come as a singer and a songwriter. The album’s title captured his whole approach to his career: keep growing, keep moving, and do not fight the current.

He also built his own company to hold all of this together. After Nadao Bangkok closed in 2022, Billkin set up Billkin Entertainment, his own label and management company. It was a bold decision, and it showed the marketing student in him. He understood that an artist in the modern world needs to control his own work, his own brand, and his own money. He did not want to wait for another company to decide his future. He wanted to decide it himself. That decision has shaped everything he has done since, from his concerts to his albums to his choice of film roles.

M, Grandma, and the Film That Changed Everything

The greatest moment of Billkin’s career so far came in 2024, with a film called How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies. He played M, a young man who has dropped out of university and who moves in with his grandmother Amah, who is dying of cancer. At first, M hopes to inherit her house. But as he spends time with her, cooking for her, taking her to the hospital, and listening to her stories, his reasons change. The film is about greed turning into love, and about a young man learning what his family really means to him. It is a simple story, told with great care, and it made audiences across Asia weep.

Billkin’s performance was the heart of the film. He played M without any tricks. He did not cry on cue or make big speeches. He simply behaved like a real young man in a difficult situation: awkward, selfish at first, then slowly softer, then broken by loss. The director, Pat Boonnitipat, trusted him to carry long, quiet scenes, and Billkin repaid that trust. People who had known him only as a television heartthrob saw a serious film actor for the first time. Critics praised him, audiences loved him, and the film became a huge commercial success in Thailand and beyond.

The film’s success went further than the box office. It was chosen as Thailand’s official entry for the Best International Feature Film category at the Academy Awards, a rare honour for a Thai film. That choice put Billkin’s name in front of the international film world, and it opened doors that a television series, no matter how popular, could never open. He had moved from the small screen to the big screen, and he had done it with a role that demanded everything he had learned over eight years of acting.

The following year, in 2025, he appeared in another film, The Red Envelope, in which he played a character called Menn. The film was a comedy with a supernatural twist, very different in tone from the grandmother film, and it showed that he could handle lighter material as well as heavy drama. That range is important for a film actor. It proves that he is not only good at one kind of role, and it gives directors a reason to think of him for many different kinds of stories. At twenty-six years old, Billkin had gone from a teenage television host to a film star whose work was being considered for the Academy Awards, and he had done it without ever seeming to rush.

His Own Company, His Own Rules

Today, Billkin runs his own career through Billkin Entertainment, and he does it with the same discipline he learned at school and at university. He graduated from Thammasat University in November 2023, with a degree in marketing from the Faculty of Commerce and Accountancy, and he has since been reported to be studying for a master’s degree in entrepreneurship at University College London. That is an unusual path for a pop star at the top of his fame. Most stars at his level would focus only on the next concert or the next film. Billkin keeps studying, because he wants to understand the business he works in, not only perform in it.

His company gives him control over his music, his concerts, and his image. He can choose which songs to release, which films to accept, and which brands to work with. That freedom is valuable, but it also carries responsibility. When a young artist runs his own company, there is nobody else to blame if a project fails. Billkin seems to welcome that responsibility. He plans carefully, he works with people he trusts, and he moves at his own pace rather than the pace the market demands. That patience is one of the most unusual things about him in an industry that rewards speed above all else.

He has also kept his connection with PP Krit alive. The two still perform together, still sing duets, and still appear on stage as a pair, to the joy of the fans who first loved them in 2020. Their partnership has survived the closure of their old company, the growth of their separate careers, and the pressure of fame, and that survival says a great deal about both of them. They are no longer the schoolboys of Phuket. They are two young businessmen, two singers, and two actors, each with his own company, and they still choose to work together. That choice is a sign of loyalty, and loyalty is rare in their world.

Looking at Billkin today, at twenty-seven years old, the picture is of a young man who has built his life piece by piece. He has a degree, a company, a catalogue of songs, a hit film, and a fan base that stretches across Asia and beyond. He has done it by showing up, by learning, and by refusing to take shortcuts. He is not the loudest star in Thailand, and he is not the most dramatic. He is the one who keeps working, keeps learning, and keeps growing, and that is why his story is still unfolding, with its best chapters very possibly still to come.

My Take:

When I think about Billkin, the first word that comes to my mind is discipline. Not talent, not charm, not luck, but discipline. Talent is the thing people see on the screen, but discipline is the thing that built the career behind the screen. He hosted a television show as a teenager. He took small acting jobs and learned how a set works. He studied marketing at one of Thailand’s hardest universities while his fame was growing. He graduated in 2023, in the middle of everything, when most stars would have quietly dropped out. That is not luck. That is a young man who decided, early in his life, that he would do things properly, and then kept that promise to himself for years. I admire that more than any single performance, because discipline is the one quality that nobody can give you and nobody can take away from you.

What strikes me most about his acting is how little he seems to try to impress you. In How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, he does not act like a man who knows he is in an important film. He acts like a real young man who has moved in with his grandmother and does not quite know what to do with himself. He makes tea. He sits beside a hospital bed. He listens. The power of the performance comes from what he does not do: he does not overact, he does not beg the audience to cry, and he does not turn his character into a hero. He simply lets the story do its work, and the audience cries anyway, because the truth of the scenes is enough. I think that restraint is the hardest skill in acting, and it is one that many older actors never learn. Billkin learned it before he turned twenty-five, and that tells me he has a very serious future in film.

I also think his choice of Teh as his first leading role was braver than it looks from the outside. Teh is not an easy character to love. He is proud, he says hurtful things, he runs away from his feelings, and he makes mistakes that hurt the person he loves most. A young actor in his first leading role might have wanted a simpler hero, someone the audience would love at once. Billkin chose a character the audience would have to work to understand, and he trusted them to do that work. I respect that choice deeply, because it shows that he was thinking about the art, not only about his own image. He was willing to look unlikeable on screen in order to tell the truth about a confused young man. That willingness is what separates a real actor from a television star, and it is why the series is still talked about years later.

His music teaches me something different, and I want to be honest about it. Billkin is not the most spectacular singer in Thailand. He does not have the biggest voice, and he does not try to show off with difficult notes. What he has is a voice that sounds like a person talking to you honestly, and songs that sound like they were written by someone who has actually felt the things he is singing about. When I listen to his songs, I do not think about technique. I think about the feeling behind them. That is a rare quality in pop music, where so much of what we hear is polished until the human feeling disappears. Billkin’s music keeps the feeling in, and I think that is why his fans sing his songs at concerts with tears in their eyes. They are not only enjoying a melody. They are recognising their own lives in his words.

There is another part of his story that I keep returning to, and that is the way he handled the closure of Nadao Bangkok. The company had given him his breakthrough, his music, and his fame, and then it was gone. A lot of young stars would have panicked, or signed with the first company that offered them a deal, or waited for someone else to rescue them. Billkin did something much harder. He studied his own business, he set up Billkin Entertainment, and he took responsibility for his own career. That is the marketing student in him, and I think it is the smartest move he has ever made. An artist who owns his own company owns his own future. He can choose his songs, his films, and his pace. He can say no to work that does not suit him. That freedom is worth more than any single hit, and he earned it by learning how business works instead of leaving it to other people.

I want to say something about his education as well, because I think it is the most underrated part of his story. He enrolled at Thammasat University in 2018, and he finished his degree in 2023, while acting in hit series, releasing music, and becoming one of the most famous young men in Thailand. Anyone who has been to university knows how hard it is to finish a degree when your life is normal. Doing it when your life is a whirlwind of filming, concerts, and fans is a different level of hard. It means studying on planes, reading in hotel rooms, and turning up for exams when you would rather sleep. He did it, and then he went further, studying for a master’s degree in entrepreneurship in London. I think young readers should take this seriously. Fame can end. A degree, and the knowledge behind it, does not end. Billkin understood that, and he acted on it, and I believe it is one of the reasons he will still be successful in twenty years, when many of his rivals have faded.

But I will be honest about the risks too, because a real opinion must include them. The biggest risk for Billkin is that his success in the grandmother film sets a bar so high that everything after it feels smaller. When a young actor makes a film that becomes a national event and goes to the Academy Awards, the next film is judged against that one, and that is a heavy weight to carry. His next film, The Red Envelope, was a comedy, and that was a clever choice, because it changed the conversation rather than trying to repeat the same sadness. But the question will follow him for years: can he do it again? I think he can, but only if he keeps choosing roles for their quality rather than their size, and only if he is patient enough to wait for the right script instead of taking the first big offer. Patience is his greatest strength, and it will be tested now more than ever.

I also worry a little, if I am honest, about the pressure of running his own company while also being its main artist. That is two full-time jobs. He must be the singer on stage and the businessman in the meeting room, the actor on set and the manager making decisions about money. That is a lot for one person, even a disciplined one. The danger is that the business work eats the time that should go to rest, to learning, and to simply living a normal life. A singer who never rests will eventually run out of songs to sing, because songs come from life, not from meetings. I hope he has good people around him, and I hope he protects his time to live, to travel, to be bored, and to be a young man, because that is where the next great performance will come from.

What I would say to a young reader who looks up to Billkin is simple: copy his habits, not his fame. You cannot copy fame. Fame depends on timing, on luck, and on other people’s choices. But you can copy his habits. You can show up on time. You can learn how things work before you try to lead them. You can study even when you are busy. You can take small jobs seriously. You can choose honest work over easy work. Those are the habits that built his career, and they are available to anyone, in any field, in any country. A student, a worker, a young singer, a young actor, anyone can practise showing up and doing things properly. That is the real lesson of his life, and it is far more useful than any photograph of him on a red carpet.

I think his partnership with PP Krit also deserves praise, and I will say why. In show business, famous pairs often break apart, because each person starts to want more attention than the other, or because their managers pull them in different directions. Billkin and PP Krit have kept their partnership alive through all of that. They run separate companies now, they have separate careers, and they still choose to perform together. That takes a kind of security that is rare in young stars. It takes two people who are not afraid of each other’s success. I admire that, and I think it is one of the reasons their fans have stayed loyal. Fans can tell when a friendship is real, and they can tell when it is only a marketing trick. This one has lasted through the end of their old company, through separate albums, and through separate films, and it still feels real.

Another thing I notice about Billkin is how he carries himself in public. He is calm, polite, and careful with his words. He does not chase controversy, he does not pick fights online, and he does not try to stay in the news by saying shocking things. In a world where many young stars believe that any attention is good attention, Billkin has chosen the opposite path. He lets his work do the talking, and he saves his energy for the studio and the film set. I think that is a wise way to build a long career. Scandals fade, but they leave stains. Good work stays. A young person who wants to last in any public career could learn a great deal from the way Billkin protects his name by simply behaving well, day after day, without making a show of it.

I also want to mention his fans, because they are part of this story too. Billkin’s fans have followed him from small television roles to concert halls to cinemas, and they have done it with a loyalty that is hard to buy. They learn his songs, they travel to his shows, and they support his films on opening weekend. That loyalty did not appear by accident. It grew because he treated his audience with respect, because he kept improving, and because he never acted as if their support was owed to him. A star who respects his fans will keep them. A star who takes them for granted will lose them, no matter how talented he is. Billkin seems to understand this deeply, and it shows in the way he talks about the people who support him.

There is one more lesson I take from his life, and it is about starting small. Nobody remembers the host of a small reality show, and nobody remembers a supporting actor in a drama with big stars. But Billkin remembers those years, and he uses what he learned in them every single day. The hosting taught him to be natural. The small roles taught him to be professional. The university years taught him to think about business. Each small step looked unimportant at the time, and each one turned out to be essential later. I think that is the most hopeful part of his story. It means that a young person who is doing small, unglamorous work today is not wasting time. They are building the foundation for something bigger, even if they cannot see it yet. Billkin’s life is proof that the foundation matters more than the first big break, because the break will come and go, but the foundation stays.

In the end, what I take from Billkin’s life is the idea that a career is built in the quiet years, not in the loud ones. The loud years are the awards, the hit films, the sold-out concerts. But the quiet years are the ones that matter: the years hosting a small show, the years taking small roles, the years studying for exams after long days on set, the years learning to run a company. Billkin did the quiet work, and when the loud years arrived, he was ready for them. That is the lesson I want to remember. Do the quiet work. Learn the craft. Study the business. Show up every day. And when your moment comes, you will not need luck, because you will already be ready. Billkin was ready, and that is why his story feels like it is only beginning.

Frequently Asked Questions

How did Billkin go from hosting a reality show to leading a series?

He started in 2016 as one of the main hosts of a Thai reality show called Love Missions, which taught him to be natural on camera. He then took small acting roles, including his debut in 2017, before My Ambulance in 2019 gave him wider attention and led to his first leading role in 2020.

What is How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies about?

It is a 2024 Thai film about a young man called M who moves in with his dying grandmother, at first hoping to inherit her house, and then slowly learning what family really means. Billkin plays M, and the film became a huge hit and was chosen as Thailand’s entry for the Academy Awards.

Why did Billkin start his own company, Billkin Entertainment?

He set it up after Nadao Bangkok, the company behind his early series, closed in 2022. Running his own company lets him control his music, his concerts, and his choices, and it uses the marketing knowledge he gained from his degree at Thammasat University.

What did Billkin study at Thammasat University, and when did he graduate?

He studied business administration in the international programme, majoring in marketing, at the Faculty of Commerce and Accountancy. He enrolled in 2018 and graduated on 27 November 2023, while his acting and singing careers were already in full swing.

Which songs did Billkin sing for I Told Sunset About You?

He sang several songs for the soundtracks of the two series, including Skyline, Can’t Translate, and Freaking Special, as well as the duet Safe Zone with PP Krit. His first big song, You Are My Everything, had come earlier, for the soundtrack of My Ambulance in 2019.

What is The Red Envelope, and who did Billkin play in it?

The Red Envelope is a 2025 Thai film, a comedy with a supernatural twist, and Billkin played a character called Menn. It was very different in tone from the grandmother film, and it showed he could handle lighter material as well as heavy drama.

Is Billkin studying in London as well as working?

He has been reported to be studying for a master’s degree in entrepreneurship at University College London, after finishing his first degree at Thammasat University in 2023. He continues to release music and act while he studies, which fits the pattern of his whole career.