Tom Hopper From Netflix's Umbrella Academy Shares His Superhero Workout Tips

Hoppers golden-age-of-streaming bona fides are about to be bolstered even more. The 34-year-old plays Spaceboy in the ensemble cast of superheroes carrying a lot of emotional baggage in Netflixs new show The Umbrella Academy, out February 15. (Netflix, which has been on a tear of canceling its Marvel-based superhero shows owned by rival Disney, pivoted to source material from the lesser-known but widely respected Dark Horse Comics.)

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So get ready for a lot more of that jawline. We talked to Hopper about building a superhero-ready body, how Arnold Schwarzenegger made him lose it at the movies, and why he loathes the treadmill.

Men's Health: You must be getting recognized a lot more in the States.

Tom Hopper: Yeah, its certainly been a gradual build. Now every time I go over to America, I get recognized. Its always a bit like, Oh, yeah, I am that guy from that TV show. I forget sometimes that I do what I do. Once I did Black Sails and Game of Thrones, it kind of changed. I get recognized more over there than in the UK these days actually.

What do you hear on the streets?

Youre Dickon Tarly! I get that one a lot. I Feel Pretty is another one I never expected to get recognized from, but it was quite popular in the end.

Tom Hopper as Dickon Tarly in Game of Thrones. BusinessInsider USA Images

The Umbrella Academy is sleek, but not your typical Spider-Man stuff. How do you explain the concept to people?

Really, its about a dysfunctional family. Yes, these are superheroes, but first and foremost theyre siblings who have a lot of issues, and theyve been brought up to do a single job, which is to be superheroes who save the world. Their father who adopted them all sort of abused their childhood-he didnt give them one. Now as 30-year-olds, they have all these major issues because of it. Can these guys actually get it together to save the world?

Its a bit refreshing that it doesnt revolve around the same characters weve seen rebooted a million times.

Its a very unique show, its very different. Its not all about just guns blazing and crazy superhero stuff. It actually grounds the superhero world, almost like, what would superheroes actually be like if they were in this world?

Tom Hopper in The Umbrella Academy. BusinessInsider USA Images

Youve said Arnold Schwarzenegger is your pop-culture fitness inspiration. Youre obviously far from alone. Howd you get hooked?

The main one would be Terminator 2: Judgment Day. I watched it [when I was] quite younger than I shouldve been on VHS over and over again. I was obsessed with Arnie. Thats what started my love of motorbikes as well: Arnie riding around on his Harley.

Do you own a motorcycle?

Not anymore. My wife says I shouldnt really have one because Ive got too many responsibilities having two children.

They are basically death traps.

Yeah, but I rent them when I have some time away. If Ive got a nice sunny day in the country somewhere, Ill find a Harley rental place.

All thanks to Terminator.

Yeah, Arnie was a huge influence in my film watching. I ended up loving everything else that he did.

Arnold Schwarzenegger... BusinessInsider USA Images

When did you decide you wanted to be an actor?

It was a slow process. I was into sport growing up, but I was always the one in the family who would goof around, do impressions of people. We used to go around to my grandparents'. I used to do all these impressions of politicians, and they found it so funny. At some point-I was like 15 or 16-there was a subject that I could choose, and I saw this one that said drama, and I thought, That looks like a laugh. Then I just caught this bug. I really looked forward to drama class. It was all I wanted to do. From there I went to drama school and fortunately found an agent at the end and started getting jobs.

It sounds like youve always been athletic, but how do you prepare to embody a superhero for people at home?

A lot of it is maintenance all year round. I do a pretty intensive training regimen. It comes down to making sure Im putting the right things in my body to make sure I can maintain a certain physique for a job. I speak to the directors and find out how they want the character to look. With Umbrella Academy, I wore a big muscle suit-I wont tell you why, I dont want to give any spoilers. I had to get to a certain size and then maintain it throughout the 6-month shoot to fit the suit. The trouble was I sweated loads, I was burning a lot of calories in the suit, so I had to make sure I was getting enough calories.

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Whats your favorite exercise?

Whats great is things that are flexible in terms of traveling-things you can take with you if youve got a crappy hotel gym. You need to know even if you only have two 45-lb. dumbbells, you can make a big workout out of that. I always think manmakers. You know manmakers?

Ive never heard of it. Could you explain?

A is basically a lot of stuff on the floor [using two dumbbells, and broken down into a pushup, dumbbell row, squat clean, and thruster]. Whats great about that is you get multiple reps of various different movements, all compound movements-youre using more muscle parts.

The Umbrella Academy BusinessInsider USA Images

It hits a lot more than a simple curl would.

Absolutely, its a full-body workout, so if youve only got a half-hour or 40 minutes, if you want to get big workout, I always find a manmaker is a really good one to throw in.

But youre apparently not a fan of the treadmill.

The only ones [of those types of machines] Im a fan of are the skier and rower because I find those a lot more functional and useful. And the bike as well. I find a treadmill fundamentally useless because I think its better to work out outside anyway, if you can to be in the fresh air. Also youre not really running properly [on a treadmill], youre not running at full capacity.

You know your stuff in the gym, clearly. Do you ever use a trainer?

No, I go solo. I have worked with trainers because they sometimes assign one to the whole [cast] on things, but Ive done so much research and learning myself that I find I like to do my own routine. I like to feel how I feel on the day and go, Okay, I want to do this today. I dont like idea of a trainer saying, Youre gonna push harder today. Because I might be like, I dont feel like pushing harder, Ill do that tomorrow. I think its really important to listen to your body and what feels good on the day. You may think, I dont want to do a squat today, Ive got bit of a sore knee.

Ill have to try this manmaker.

Yeah, give it a try. Get a fairly decent weight that it would be tough, but a safe weight. Do 30 to 50 manmakers, just do sets of like five, and grind them out.