Luke Cook may be known for playing disturbing characters like Lucifer in the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, or the terrifying Tom in the award-winning psycho-sexual thriller Follow Her, but despite his ability to play dark characters, this Australian just likes to have fun. On social media, and in his newest role, Cook is having the time of his life and while he’s in love with health and fitness, this star is anything but a vain Hollywood heartthrob.
As Cook logs on to Zoom for his interview with M&F, the Aussie actor, born in Sydney, is already getting his steps in as the 6’5” star faces into the camera while pounding the treadmill. “This is how I get 10,000 steps in a day,” explains Cook, who has built a new following off the back of his hilarious observations on social media and is about to reach a brand-new audience in the CW’s new comedy: Good Cop/Bad Cop. “I take meetings on the treadmill,” he explains. “If there’s an hour meeting, I’m like 3,500 steps in. It’s pretty amazing.”
Cook is anything but a one-dimensional actor who relies solely on their looks. In fact, he often calls out the shallow side of celebrity culture such as fitness influencers who peddle unattainable versions of perfection and the social networks that put filters on your images whether you like it or not. In Good Cop/ Bad Cop, Cook is relishing his role, playing a detective who has no verbal filter. “I love playing a character like that,” he shares. “I’m a little bit like that myself. I push the envelope. I will say that I’m doing it for jokes whereas Henry, my character, isn’t joking. He’s just a factual person and not a feelings person, and that’s what gets him into trouble.”
In the show, Henry finds himself working with both his sister (played by Leighton Meester) and father (Clancy Brown) as the small-town cops get into all kinds of scrapes. Cook found that he would be required to literally throw himself in at the deep end right from Episode 1, chasing a suspect down a bank and into the river. Fortunately, he was able to nail his sequence in one take and that’s the point: while Cook appears easy going and relaxed on camera, he appreciates that it’s what he does off camera that informs his art and his health.
Luke Cook Never Stops Training
For Cook, staying in shape is not a seasonal pastime or something that he does when closing in on a shirtless scene. “I never stop,” he explains. In addition to his 10,000 steps per day, the actor lifts weights at least five days per week for around 30 minutes, but he’s been forced to train for the screen rather than sports because he is often required to expose his upper body. “You’ll never see Wolverine in short shorts,” he jokes. To that end, Cook has a workout split that still involves one heavy leg day but he invests two days each for arms and shoulders, and chest and back.
Luke Cook Has a Family Flexible Approach to Nutrition
For his Muscle & Fitness photo shoot, Cook proved that he lives by the mantra of “be ready to stay ready.” With just one week to prepare, the actor kept his carb intake low for five days and then increased them for the final days two in order to ramp up his glycogen storage and make his muscles appear full. Of course, with two children, family life presents a challenge for staying so regimented with nutrition, but Cook has figured out how to find balance it all. “I like to work out this much because this way I get the chance to eat what is presented to me, at times when you don’t have a choice,” he explains.
The star says that he is very protein focused with his breakfast and especially lunch when he eats one pound of ground beef (giving him around 80 grams of protein alone). “But dinner is when my wife has cooked, or my mother-in-law has cooked, or I have cooked,” he shares. “We are thinking about what my sons are going to eat, so I have to be kind of easy there. When I feed myself, I’m quite strict but when I eat with my family, I’m quite relaxed and so I make sure that I smash enough protein throughout the day so that when it comes to dinner, that’s OK.”
Cook’s ability to balance fitness with family is testament to the fact that the actor just wants to have fun and despite the ups and downs of working in Hollywood, the star is thankful that he followed his dream half-way across the world. For anyone reading his story and thinking of taking up a new challenge themselves, the actor says that you should just go for it, pointing out that you are not getting any younger. “Society doesn’t know anything about how to live a good life and you know people aren’t thinking about you as much as you think that they are,” he says. “You know they’re focused on themselves. So, if you’re thinking, ‘Oh my friends might laugh at me if I try this.’ It’s like they’re not thinking about you as much as you think. And also—let them laugh. If I listened to my friends throughout my entire life, I would have moved back to Sydney.”
Good Cop / Bad Cop premieres on the CW Network Wednesday, Feb. 19.
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