Killer body

Photo: Bleacher + Everard

By Karl Rozemeyer and Angela Kim

Byung-hun Lee assumes the same pose over and over again.

Crouched slightly, elbows bent, hands raised, fingers uniformly together, his body is frozen, but reads as a snapshot in motion. The photographer calls out "now" and starts walking quickly backwards, firing off frames in rapid succession. Lee, a portrait of contained strength and energy, springs forward, gliding toward the photographer in a series of slow, controlled running movements.

The actor’s physical confidence in front of the camera combines an instinctive knowledge of what the photographer needs and a deep understanding of how to harness his own body.

Men’s Health caught up with the 42-year-old Korean actor – a recent Hollywood crossover star – during a visit to New York. Having debuted in his first English-language film in 2009 as the ninja warrior Storm Shadow in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Lee has now found a niche in this year’s bumper crop of action films with a reprisal of his Storm Shadow role in G.I. Joe: Retaliation and his first appearance in another Hollywood franchise, Red 2 (in cinemas now).

Photo: Getty

In Red 2, Lee plays a cold-hearted assassin opposite some of film’s greatest modern-day actors, including Dame Helen Mirren, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Bruce Willis and John Malkovich. “When I was first cast, I couldn’t believe I was going to work with these legends,” he recalls. “My character – who has a pretty strong and scary personality – really should’ve been the one making them nervous. But the reality was reversed, so keeping mental control was difficult in the beginning.” To overcome his nerves, Lee buried himself in the script and the character’s personality. “After that, I could focus,” he says.

Control. Mind over matter. Focus.

The same tools that Lee employs on set when acting are the ones he uses to get into fighting physical shape. There’s a scene in Red 2 where Lee’s body must be checked and scanned. “At that point, the script had this one line, ‘All nude. Perfect body.’,” recalls Lee. “Because of that line, I trained hard for a couple of months.”

It’s a line that plays in all our heads, one time or another. The question is, when your time comes, will you be ready?

Photo: Bleacher + Everard

For both G.I. Joe installments Lee had a personal trainer, but prepping for Red 2, he trained alone, trying to apply the lessons he’d learned from his previous instructors. “It’s difficult to do this kind of preparation without a trainer,” he concedes. “A trainer not only teaches me new things, but also pushes me and keeps me on my toes.”

To stay on track, Lee focused on an external source of motivation: what was expected of him, especially by his fans. “Of course, the US fans and world fans were on my mind too, but I didn’t want my Korean fans to think that I’d lost my mental focus. So thinking about that, I win over the moments when I lack motivation.”

In addition to the training schedule, Lee had to follow a very strict workout and diet schedule. “People who work out heavily every day probably don’t really need a strict diet because they have a lot of muscle mass. But for me, I have pretty regular guy’s body type.”

His ultimate success lay in achieving a muscular, chiseled frame lay in heavier weights, 100-minute workouts – and more food. Having relied on protein powder between meals to help build muscle for the first G. I. Joe installment, he dropped the supplements and ate six times a day – “every two hours and each meal portion was enormous”.

“For the first month, it was difficult to eat that much. In the beginning, I ate chicken breast without any salt, and it felt like my stomach was actually expanding. And then once a week, I had a steak meal that had little to zero fat. In the middle of the training, I phased out beef and brought in fish. In the end, it was only fish – two portions per meal, eating 12 fish per day.

Photo: Bleacher + Everard

“Perhaps because of how much I ate, I think I struggled a bit with losing fat. So I had to do a lot more cardio – about 40 minutes of cardio and about an hour of weight training. Sometimes, I did cardio front and back, sandwiching the weight training.”

In the weight room, Lee felt most at ease working on back exercises. “I do a lot of pull-ups. There are many back exercises, but I don’t think there is one that’s more perfect than the pull-up. I do have a naturally well-developed back – even when I don’t exercise intensely, I have pretty good back muscles. Everyone has parts of the body that are more developed than others.”

If his back was ready for the challenge, his chest was another story. “It doesn’t matter how much weight I lift, my chest doesn’t develop that well. So, I try to create more definition for visual effect. That helps my chest look like it’s well-developed.”

Photo: Bleacher + Everard

With the need to get in prime shape for another G.I. Joe installment – he is already signed on for number three – Lee is intent on maintaining a daily exercise program, while accepting he is in his fifth decade.

“As time passes, I think more and more about my health. Of course, having a great body is important, but my investment with time and effort really now is for better health. In the past, I focused on the shape of the body and I would do any exercises out of ego, out of competition with friends. But now, I don’t want to show off or compete with anyone. When I feel that it’s the right amount of weight or time for me, I stop. I have more self-control.”