“Red 2,” which opens on July 19th, is packed with familiar faces. Bruce Willis, Mary-Louise Parker, John Malkovich, and Helen Mirren all reprise their roles from the 2010 film and for good measure the producers have added Catherine Zeta-Jones and Anthony Hopkins to the sequel.
One of the other newbies this time out is Byung-hun Lee. You may not immediately recognize his face or name, but that doesn’t mean you haven’t seen him before. Lee is probably best known to western audiences for his work in “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” and this year’s sequel, “G.I. Joe: Retaliation.” In those movies, Lee plays the villainous Storm Shadow and regularly sports a mask. Here, in “Red 2,” Lee is a hitman who has a history with Frank Moses (Willis), and ends up going after the retired, extremely dangerous, hero.
In our sit down with Lee, we got to ask him both about joining such an impressive cast and whether he minded being the guy the audience roots against. While he may have had some worries about the former issue, he said that the other stars made him feel comfortable on the set. As for the latter, he told us that, in general, he (and other actors) are happy as long as the audience is happy. “Red 2” certainly aims to be a crowd-pleaser, so he may get his wish there.
The actor also did make it clear that even if he is a hitman in the film, he doesn’t particularly like going out and killing people. And, when it does come to killing people, he’d rather do it with a gun because unlike with his Taekwondo skills, with guns he doesn’t need to “train hard.”
Directed by Dean Parisot, “Red 2” will be in theaters on July 19th.