INTERVIEW More brutal, more human: actor Lee Dong-wook on 'A Shop for Killers' Season 2

A scene from "A Shop for Killers" Season 2 / Courtesy of Walt Disney Company Korea

By Lee Hae-rin

• Published Jul 23, 2026 5:26 PM KST

Actor gains 8 kg for darker turn in Disney+ drama

For Lee Dong-wook, returning to Disney+’s “A Shop for Killers” meant more than reviving a once-presumed-dead uncle who runs a clandestine weapons mall for assassins — it meant quietly adding 8 kilograms, guzzling water to “not look older” and rethinking what it means to be a guardian.

Lee plays Jeong Jin-man in the Disney+ action thriller, a former team leader for the mercenary company Babylon, now the operator of a clandestine shopping mall, fighting to protect his niece Ji-an and push back against Babylon’s network.

The first season drew strong international acclaim, landing on The New York Times’ best international TV show list and among Time magazine’s top four Korean dramas of the year in 2024.

Released Wednesday with two episodes and rolling out two more every Wednesday for a total of eight, Season 2 follows Ji-an as the mall’s new CEO join forces with her uncle to launch a full-scale counterattack.

“I’m grateful we could come back with Season 2 because Season 1 was loved so much,” Lee said during an interview with The Korea Times in Seoul Thursday. “It’s a work where I could feel something new while shooting. Getting to do it once more makes me very happy.”

Rather than reinventing Jin-man, he focused on continuity: “I didn’t think Season 2 had to be completely different. It’s an extension of Season 1.”

That sense of responsibility extended to his physical transformation. To embody Jin-man’s physical presence, Lee gained about 8 kilograms.

“Honestly, I didn’t want to,” he admitted with a laugh. “But I felt there should be a visible difference between my usual build and Jin-man. I ate four to five meals a day, mostly protein. It’s not really eating, it’s just putting food in my mouth.”

He added that maintaining Jin-man’s imposing physique also meant watching his own signs of aging as closely as his character arc, joking that he “drank a lot of water to prevent looking older over those two years.”

Central to Season 2, he added, is Ji-an’s growth and Jin-man’s response to it. As Ji-an becomes more assertive, the uncle begins to question the life he has dragged her into.

“Later in the series, you’ll see a new side of him that you’ve never seen before — I think you’ll witness a level of brutality that goes beyond the previous season,” he said. “Jin-man isn’t a ‘good guardian’ in the conventional sense. But given the situation, maybe he’s doing the best he can. In Season 2, he watches Ji-an’s growth and slowly realizes the importance of normal, human things beyond the world of killers and mercenaries.”

Lee also said that he cares less about how many scenes he has than whether his character leaves a mark. Citing his special appearance in the film “Harbin,” he noted that a single, well-crafted moment can be more meaningful than a long but unfocused presence.

“As long as there is even one moment when the character can shine, that’s enough. The number of scene isn’t important,” he said. He applied the same philosophy to “A Shop for Killers.”

“He’s the protagonist, but the fact that he doesn’t appear that much was unique, and the killer’s world itself was interesting,” he said.

Looking beyond one character, Lee voiced a bigger wish for the franchise.

“'A Shop for Killers’ has a really good worldview,” he said. “I hope it becomes a kind of benchmark for the action genre — a series people think of when they talk about strong world-building and high-quality action. I’d like audience to say, ‘There’s a Korean work that combines this level of action with this kind of universe,’ and remember it in a positive way.”