(upbeat music)
- I'm Oliver Trevena, In Studio with the Hollywood Reporter
joined by none other than Will Yun Lee,
how are you sir?
- Good, man, nice meeting you.
- Thank you for stopping in, you're a busy man,
you are like on planes, off planes.
- Yeah, a little bit these days.
- Yeah - Fortunately.
- Keeping busy, always keeping busy?
Always keeping busy. - Yeah, yeah.
- One show that's extremely exciting,
Altered Carbon, Netflix. - Yeah.
- so that everyone could watch it all now, at once,
that's the way the world's changed.
- Yeah, it's amazing. - You just go there
and see everything.
And an episode they should look out for is episode seven.
- Yes.
- You're a, he's a badass, he's a badass, you are.
- It's, well, I don't know about that,
but it's a beautiful episode,
I mean, it's a stand alone, - Right.
- it feels like a stand alone piece,
kind of an hour and 10 minute movie
and this is probably the hardest shoot I've ever done,
- Wow. - just in sheer time
and effort and, you know, it felt like
a gigantic, gorilla indie film,
- Okay, - you know.
- yeah, for you to say that, that's a big statement,
'cause you've done a lot, so.
- Yeah, I mean, it's just one of those shoots,
it was such an ambitious, it was like shooting, you know,
a 90-minute movie - Right.
- in the course of 20-something days
and that's a rarity in itself for TV,
- Right, right. - you know,
to shoot one episode and have it take
the course of over a month.
- Well, it does, I mean, it looks, every episode looks like,
it's incredible, visually it's incredible.
- Yeah.
- The storyline is amazing,
you know, you've got everything from flying cars,
body swapping, everything you need for a sci-fi show
really, so it's all there.
Were you familiar with the books, before the show?
- I was familiar in the sense that about a year ago,
I'm friends with Laeta Kalogridis,
- Okay. - who's the showrunner
and we were just talking about the project
and she turned me onto the books and I started reading it,
it's pretty insane,
- It is, - Yeah.
- it's very insane and then you end up
putting it into a TV show, so your mind's probably like,
"Okay, how are they gonna put that to that?"
right? - Yeah,
but you know, I walked in, I visited her during the,
when she was in the writer's room and I saw the walls,
they were just covered with just hundreds and hundreds
of you know, story art
and I was like, this is unbelievable
and she's, you know, she mentioned this character,
but at the time I was also on a different show
and I had gained, you know, 30 pounds for that show,
so that was a whole different, you know, ball of wax,
to try to get that off for this show.
- Yeah, so hang on, 'cause you are constantly
like juggling shows, you've always got something going
or it seems that way at least,
- Yeah, yeah.
- how is that, when you've gotta lose weight so quickly?
- Well, I mean, this one, you know,
I think part of the hardest thing of this show
was having to drop that weight in that period of time,
and so for Falling Water, - Right.
- first season, I gained you know, 26 pounds of fat
and you know, Blake Masters, who's running the show,
is you know, that was one of the things
he wanted for that character
and then I got a text message from Laeta and she said,
"Look, I'm thinking about this character for you,
"how fast can you get in shape?"
and I was on my way, I kid you not,
literally at the time the thing came in
to Costco, 'cause me and my wife had been eyeing
this like 24-inch apple pie from Costco,
- Okay. (laughs)
- and I was so overweight, but I was like,
this is the thing we were gonna go after
and the text message was like,
"How fast can you get in shape?"
and like every actor I lied, - Right.
- and I said five weeks, - Okay.
- there was no way, but then when she said, "Okay,"
and then things started moving
in the direction of doing the show,
I was like, oh my gosh, I lied,
so the lie made me work, you know,
I was doing three-a-days and then a nutritionist
and all that stuff and then it didn't help,
she sent me a picture of Joel,
she was like, "This is on the DL,"
- He looks good too, yeah. - she's like
"Your body has to be in the realm of this lane,"
and I said, oh, alright
and so I stopped eating all the stuff I like to eat
- Oh no. - for about seven weeks,
knowing it was bright all long.
- Seven weeks though, it's still pretty impressive,
that's pretty impressive, luckily you're only 25,
- Yeah. (laughs) - so it's alright.
- Yeah, exactly. - it's alright, it's alright.
Does that get, 'cause I mean, you know,
obviously throughout the years, your scenes, the stunts,
the action scenes, you know, martial arts,
is it getting harder now?
- Yeah, it's getting harder to lose the weight,
- [Oliver] Right.
- so it just becomes very science driven.
- [Oliver] Right.
- you know, on losing it.
- Amazing, amazing.
Well, we talked about the show
and it's, you know, body swapping is
you know, the premise of what's going on,
if you could swap bodies with anyone in the world,
who would it be?
- Swap bodies?
- As in not be in their body,
but swapping places, I guess.
- Swapping places? - Yeah.
- Probably my Dad, when he first came to America,
- Okay. - You know,
he's just a-- - that's pretty good.
- he's an interesting dude and I just want, you know,
that'd be really amazing to see
what America looked like in his eyes in 1968,
when-- - From Korea, right,
when they came over, right. - Yeah, yeah.
- Right, yeah, that would be interesting.
- Yeah.
- That's a good answer, that's a good answer.
So you mentioned Falling Waters as well,
USA Network and then you're also gonna be
on The Good Doctor as well, - Yes, yes.
- as I go back to what I said earlier, you juggle,
(laughing)
constantly busy.
Falling Waters is about to have the season finale
on March, in March, end of March?
- I think so. - I think so,
I'm getting a nod from the publicist.
- I have a four-year old, so I, yeah,
I don't know much that happens.
- Four years old, okay, four years old,
so he hasn't watched much
that you've been in yet, not at four?
- He's seen enough, I mean,
I think I did an episode of Dr. Ken a while ago
and that was like the only thing we'd allow him to watch.
- [Oliver] Right, right.
- 'cause otherwise I'm shooting people, killing people,
doing stuff. - This is true,
you do that very well,
- Yeah. - you do that very well.
Well, when he gets older,
there'll be a lot for him to watch.
- Yeah. - which will be great.
- Exactly. - which are amazing.
Can we talk about season two of Altered Carbon,
'cause I don't know what's gonna happen,
I'm hoping you can give me some insight,
because Joel Kinnaman is gonna be in it,
not gonna be in it, which will then mean
you're in it or you're not in it?
The books are different. - You know, I--
- I've been trying to investigate
and I've got nothing, nothing.
- I actually have nothing for you.
- You have nothing for me, nothing,
I tried to subtly edge my way in there
and it didn't work. (laughing)
- Yeah, just when you think you get bits and pieces,
you realize they're just bits and pieces of rumors.
- Right, okay, - yeah.
- So you really, there's nothing out there right now?
- Yeah, nothing. - Okay,
(laughing)
Alright, I'll leave it at that,
I'm not gonna push too hard.
Talk about Netflix obviously, you know,
it's this new generation of how people watch shows,
have you fallen into that, are you a binger?
Do you binge watch shows? - It's pretty much
all I watch is-- - That's all you do?
- pretty much, yeah, you know,
it's just the limited time I have
and then you find the lane you wanna watch
and they somehow, their algorithms know
what you wanna watch,
- Right. - and you get stuck
down that hole, so yeah.
- Okay, last show you binge watched?
- Ozark.
- Ozark is a good one, - Oh man, it is amazing.
- it's a great show, it's a great show.
I wanna do THR's Top Five, five easy questions for you.
- Okay.
- Award season obviously, favorite movie of 2017?
- Favorite movie of 2017?
This is embarrassing, because...
I feel so guilty when I come home,
- Okay.
- that I have a four-year old in one arm
and reading a script in the other,
I haven't really watched,
I can't remember the last movie I watched.
- Time with his four-year old, that's more important,
that's more important than that anyway,
so you can watch the screeners then,
you've got the screeners coming up,
next time you come in, you can answer this question.
- Okay, I'll have answers for you.
- Okay, over the years obviously
you've shared the screen with so many actors,
who's one actor that you haven't appeared with,
that you would like to, that comes to mind?
- I like Denzel Washington.
- Good one. - He was, he was,
after I saw Malcolm X, that's again, wanna be an actor.
- Look at that, amazing,
he's about to do a play on Broadway, I think.
- Hm. - Yeah, yeah.
First moment that comes to mind,
when I say career highlight?
- Probably...
the first, my, is this period right now
and it's less so more than a role, I think,
between Falling Water, Altered Carbon and The Good Doctor,
it's the first time in my career,
where I feel like now, if there's an end zone right here,
that you know, we've moved from yards to inches
and meaning that for most of my career,
I've spent trying to kill somebody
- Hm-mm.
- and this is the first time how I grew up,
representations of how I grew up in America
as just, you could swap out the race
and just put a guy in there
and each one of those characters
from you know, David Shore's The Good Doctor
to Altered Carbon to Falling Water,
they're just regular guys and that's,
this has been a highlight period for my career.
- That's amazing. - Yeah.
- Yeah, very diverse. - Yeah.
- Yeah, love that.
Finish this sentence, if you weren't an actor,
you would be?
- Martial arts teacher.
- There you go, there you go, I'd take lessons,
I don't think I'd get through a one-hour lesson,
but I'd take it. (laughing)
And one word to describe your Hollywood journey?
- A long yard game, that's probably two words, but.
- You can take it,
I love how you brought a couple of the questions
back to American football in true American fashion,
- Yeah, yeah. - it's perfect.
- Yeah.
- Are you a football fan?
- I was a big 49ers fan,
but ever since we left San Francisco,
so pretty much the sports I watch is,
unless someone's punching someone in the face,
I don't watch it. (laughs)
- Okay. (laughs)
and that, ladies and gentlemen
is a perfect way to wrap this up.
- Thank you. - Thank you, thanks, mate,
good to see ya. - Yeah.