How Marvel star Will Yun Lee lost 14kg in six weeks – and why starring in The Good Doctor finally made his parents proud
Ahead of his new movie Rogue Warfare, the Korean American action star of Rampage, The Wolverine and Netflix’s Altered Carbon talks equality in Hollywood, rapid weight loss and why he’d love to work with Hong Kong superstar Donnie Yen
Tracking down Will Yun Lee can be hard. At 48, the action star is moving faster than ever.
“I think I lost all my guy friends because I run from set to plane to family,” he laments over the phone from Vancouver. “It's a little bit hectic.”
I love working in Hong Kong – I felt what it must be like for a Caucasian in Hollywood. It's a completely different feeling. And very refreshing
It’s been a crazy few years for the Korean American actor. In the past three years, as well as starring alongside Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in the riotous monster flick Rampage, he has played an NYPD detective in the supernatural drama series Falling Water, and a space super-soldier in Netflix’s Altered Carbon.
But after more than two decades on-screen, only his latest role, as Dr Alex Park in ABC’s The Good Doctor, has given Lee his long sought-after breakthrough: the approval of mum and dad.
“It's my first role in 20 years where my parents have felt validated that I became an actor,” he says with a laugh. “And I'm not kidding.”
Yun Lee's parents weren't always completely enthused about their son's acting career: his father had always wanted him to be a surgeon. Putting on his first taekwondo belt at the age of three in his father’s martial arts school, Lee was the only child who wasn’t allowed to break boards during grading.
“I couldn’t break anything with my hands because he thought I was going to be a surgeon,” he says. “Then he saw my SAT [exam] scores and that fell to pieces.”