In every field, there are people who idolized someone while growing up and looked up to be like them when they made it big. Donnie Yen also idolized some of the greatest names of their generation in Hollywood while growing up and wished to be like them and went on to live up to the expectations he set up for himself in his youth.
Also read: Donnie Yen Net Worth – How Much Money Has Ip Man Star Made from John Wick 4
Donnie Yen once revealed in an interview that he idolized action stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone while growing up and that’s what motivated him to continue training himself.
Donnie Yen talks about Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky movies
Donnie Yen is famous for being one of the best martial artists in the industry and also for introducing mixed martial artists into his Asian movies since the early 2000s. Donnie Yen has a great physique as well and once revealed in an interview with Men’s Journal how he was inspired by Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky movies and Arnold Schwarzenegger and got into bodybuilding. He said,
“I got into bodybuilding as well because of the Rocky movies and Arnold Schwarzenegger. That was my first exposure to seeing a physique like that as a main character—and it was superhuman. I wanted to put on muscle because I was a little thin. I found out there was a Nautilus machine at the Chinatown Boys Club, so I would go there after all of my marital arts and boxing. I would just spend hours training in there and lifting weights.”
Donnie Yen further talked about how he also took ideas from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone’s workout routines.
The Ip Man actor talks about how he got the inspiration for his non-ordinary workout routine
Back in 2020, some videos of Donnie Yen’s workout routine from the days of his youth had gone viral so the interviewer asked the actor about how did he get inspiration for those routines. The Ip Man actor talked about how he was training to be an action star at that point and had taken inspiration for that routine from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone’s workout routines. He said,
“That was when I was trying to get into action-star shape. I was trying to be a “complete package,” who not only looked the part but also had this martial arts knowledge. I took those routines from books—from whatever Arnold and Sly Stallone were doing. I also incorporated some old-school Shaolin training and also a little inspiration from what Bruce Lee did.”
Donnie Yen is all set to reprise his role as Wing Chun in the fifth installment of the Ip Man movie series, Ip Man 5. Ip Man 5 was announced at the Cannes Film Festival by Mandarin Motion Pictures earlier this year in May. It would be pretty interesting to see how the franchise would continue the story of Wing Chun considering the character died at the end of the 4th movie, Ip Man 4: The Finale.
All the movies of the Ip Man series are currently streaming on Netflix.
Source: Men’s Journal
