LEWIS TAN SENDS a flying knee strike into the sweet spot of a kick pad. On impact, the pad pops, like a firework. It’s an image (and a sound!) right out of an ’80s action movie—and it’s even more impressive since Tan’s running on nothing but black coffee and the few hours of sleep he got while flying home to Los Angeles from his training camp in Thailand.
He’s at Unbreakable Performance in L.A. on this Sunday morning. And after a 15-minute warmup, the 36-year-old actor has found his flow, delivering combo after combo of martial-arts moves. Five days a week, three hours a day, he does workouts like this. Each session helps him relieve stress and stay strong—but it’s about more than that. Tan believes his combat is art, and he wants you to see that in the way he moves and fights in any role he takes on. “It’s not just violent. It’s beautiful,” he says. “With every single movement [my opponent makes], my response is the purest, most truthful that I can be in that moment. It’s my character doing [that action], and the emotion that I’m going through is there in the action, in the choreography.”
You see it in nearly all of Tan’s performances, from his star turn as Cole Young in 2021’s Mortal Kombat to his latest role, as the sword-wielding giant Tolya in season 2 of Netflix’s Shadow and Bone, which dropped in mid-March. Tan decided to layer on a few pounds of upper-body muscle for the part while still maintaining his trademark fighting agility. Because he wants to balance action and emotion, he always does his own stunts. “I’m proud of that,” he says. “It’s something that’s part of my family’s legacy. I grew up around the stunt industry my whole life.”
Tan is the son of Philip Tan, a longtime martial artist and stunt coordinator who’s acted or done stunts in a host of TV shows and movies, including last year’s Bullet Train. Tan grew up watching martial-arts films with his father, and later he’d accompany Philip to movie sets. “I remember watching these guys do mind-blowing gymnastics and martial arts,” he says, “and I thought it was incredible.”
He zips up a weight vest, then turns to his trainer, Arnold Chon, a stunt performer, fight choreographer, and five-time world-champion martial artist, who’s holding a pair of pool noodles. Tan assumes a fighter’s stance, then delivers a kick to one of the noodles. Chon nods in satisfaction. The session is full of hitting, as Tan punches and kicks mitts, heavy bags, those pool noodles, and paddles. And each piece of gear offers him a new challenge.
He must elude the pool noodles (while in that weighted vest!), honing his agility. The heavy bag lets him deliver hits with power. And the paddles give him a chance to chain together eye-catching punch-and-kick combos that seem right out of the MCU. Later, to sharpen his kicking technique, Tan puts on a pair of harness shorts, the kind that often attach to wire rigging on movie sets for flying stunts. Chon connects resistance bands to the shorts, fastening the other ends to a pulley. Then he makes Tan throw a series of kicks. The bands force Tan to deliver extra-explosive thwacks with every rep—and after a single set, he’s out of breath.
But there’s still more work to be done. Every session ends with Tan hitting the weights, building the muscle he needs to play Tolya. Today that means sets of pullups in a weighted vest, which will rock his lats and forearms.
He smiles as he reaches the bar. Tan doesn’t mind one bit, because all this work leaves him ready to do any stunt any director can dream up. “That’s something that I want to bring to all my roles,” he says. “It’s not to be cocky. It’s about carrying on a legacy that’s dying.”
Lewis Tan’s Hotel Sweat
Stuck in a room but craving a good sweat? Tan’s been there—and that’s when he turns to these 3 moves. Do them as an ultra-quick circuit; do 3 rounds.
Explosive Pushups
Get in pushup position. Lower your body until your chest nearly touches the floor. Explode back to the start. Do 6 to 8 reps.
Frog Jumps
Stand with your feet in a wide stance. Push your hips back and lower into a squat. Jump as high as you can. Do 8 to 10 reps.
Sprint in Place
Staying in one place, sprint as fast as you possibly can, driving your knees high and pumping your arms. Work for 20 seconds.
A version of this story originally appears in the April 2023 issue of Men’s Health.
Fitness & Wellness Editor
Kristine Thomason is the fitness & wellness editor at Women’s Health, where she edits, writes, and helps oversee the food and fitness sections of the website and magazine. She’s also a NASM-certified personal trainer. Kristine has spent her editorial career focused on health and wellness—that includes teaming up with certified trainers to create workout routines, reporting on fitness trends, and interviewing experts about the latest health and wellness research. She’s an NYU graduate with a degree in journalism and psychology. In the past, her work has also appeared in Health, Men’s Health, Greatist, Refinery29, and more.
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