[10][11] He has since starred in noir Bitter Sweet Life (2008),[12] courtroom dramedy Partner (2009),[13][14] melodrama Scent of a Woman (2011),[15] baseball rom-com Wild Romance (2012),[16][17] period thriller The Fugitive of Joseon (2013),[18][19] and revenge drama Hotel King (2014), in which he reunited with My Girl co-star Lee Da-hae.

[30][31] From 2016 to 2017, Lee starred alongside Gong Yoo in Kim Eun-sook's fantasy-romance drama Guardian: The Lonely and Great God playing a grim reaper.

[44] In 2021, he appeared in A Year-End Medley, a romantic comedy film by Kwak Jae-yong[45] and in an iQIYI original mystery drama Bad and Crazy, which aired on 17 December 2021.

[48] On 11 March 2022, Lee made a donation ₩50 million to the Hope Bridge Disaster Relief Association to help the victims of the Uljin forest fire 2022, which devastated the area and then spread to Samcheok, Gangwon Province, South Korea.

[56] In a Wook Talk episode that aired on 22 January 2020, guest and forensic professor Yoo Sung-ho revealed genealogical DNA test results for him and one of the show's producers.

According to Lee's results, a significant part of his mother's genetic makeup matches that of Koryaks and Khakas people—both ethnic groups that are indigenous to Siberia (to be more specific, Kamchatka and Khakassia respectively).