Scott Adkins was born in Sutton Coldfield, England, in June 1976. His family had worked as butchers for generations. He joined a judo club at ten. He earned his black belt in taekwondo at nineteen. For three decades he built a career on performing nearly every fight sequence himself. This June, he turned 50. Most action stars his age step back from the physical work or hand the punishing sequences to a stunt double. Adkins did the opposite. In May, while still training and fighting on camera, he began shooting Brawler, an MMA-underworld thriller he stars in alongside Lewis Tan — his directorial debut. The physique behind both jobs was not built for this film. Five to six training sessions most weeks: three built around traditional weight work, compound lifts in the eight-to-twelve rep range, dips for triceps, the bench press he has never stopped defaulting to. Two or three more built around the martial arts itself, since running never appealed to him. When a role calls for more size, the split shifts and the volume climbs. The discipline behind the choreography and the discipline behind the camera drew from the same base: daily repetition across more than half a dozen martial arts styles, from judo to Krav Maga to Jeet Kune Do, trained since age ten. “You’ve just got to be a different person to be a professional fighter,” he has said of the standard the work demands. Not a persona assembled for one role. A baseline held for twenty-five years — the reason starring and directing the same production was never really a stretch. Fifty was supposed to be the age action stars hand the fight scenes to someone else. Adkins used it to add a camera to the job description. What’s the physical standard you’re planning to still be holding at fifty? - @mensactivemag