South Korean actress Lee Ha-na praised her costar Lee Soo-hyuk for his masculine body at the press conference for the drama “The King of High School Manners” held Monday in Ilsan, Gyeonggi province.

“I have been exercising while on hiatus. As I wasn’t working for quite a long time, I thought I should build up some muscles to get myself ready for the next job,” the model-turned-actor told reporters, smiling.

“But it is hard to keep in shape,” he said.


The heroine of the rom-com backed up his remarks.

“Lee Soo-hyuk was staying in Japan before he filmed the nude scene. I heard that he checked in a hotel with a gym to work out in,” the 31-year-old actress said. 


“I heard crews saying that Lee Soo-hyuk was like an Evangelion,” she added, looking at Lee blushing.

Evangelion is a Japanese animated series featuring muscular robots.

The cable-TV drama comically portrays the life of a high school student who leads a double life as a student and office worker. The immature and simple-minded teenager goes to work and pretends to be his older brother, a young executive, at his brother’s sudden request and faces numerous challenges along the way.

The drama airs at 11 p.m. every Monday and Tuesday on tvN.

By Ock Hyun-ju (laeticia.ock@heraldcorp.com)