Huang rose to prominence for playing Emperor Wu of Han in the television series The Prince of Han Dynasty (2001), followed by popular series such as The Return of the Condor Heroes (2006), Shanghai Bund (2007), The Patriot Yue Fei (2013), Cruel Romance (2015), Nirvana in Fire 2 (2017), Winter Begonia (2020), as well as films The Message (2009), The Last Tycoon (2012), and American Dreams in China (2013).

[2] Huang is the second older cousin of Olympian Chen Meng, who won two table tennis gold medals at Tokyo 2020.

[3] Throughout his school life, Huang planned to become a scientist,[4] but when the Beijing Film Academy came to Qingdao to recruit students, his Chinese teacher encouraged him to take advantage of the opportunity.

[5] The interviewer, Cui Xinqin, would be Huang’s class monitor at the Beijing Film Academy, where he was classmates with Zhao Wei and Chen Kun.

[7] Huang gained attention when he was chosen to replace Lu Yi for the leading role in The Prince of Han Dynasty, which earned high ratings.

[20] Huang's performance as a bandit leader in An Inaccurate Memoir (2012) won him the Best Actor award at the 4th China Image Film Festival.

[21] Huang also starred in martial arts epic The Guillotines and played the younger version of Chow Yun-fat's character in The Last Tycoon.

[22] The same year, Huang was selected as the ambassador of the Changchun Film Festival and became the first mainland actor to have his wax figure displayed in Hong Kong's Madam Tussauds museum.

[25] The same year Huang starred in another television project, playing the titular hero in the historical drama The Patriot Yue Fei.

[26] Another romance film followed; where Huang starred next to Fan Bingbing in The White Haired Witch of Lunar Kingdom, adapted from Baifa Monü Zhuan.

[37] In 2010, Huang donated 200,000 yuan for earthquake relief to support for victims of the Yushu temblor in Northwest China's Qinghai province.

[42] In September 2003, Huang began dating actress Qin Lan, whom he had co-starred in My Fair Princess III and fell in love while filming TV series Dragon Stamp.

They briefly split in mid 2023 when Huang had a fling with actress Zhao Shijin (Jenny Chao),[52] but got back together to spend Christmas with friends.