[2] Lee was a baseball player in his youth and had aspired to play professionally before constant injuries forced him to give up the sport during his senior year.

[5] He was cast in the second male lead role in the romantic comedy Two Outs in the Ninth Inning, in which he played a college baseball player aspiring to go professional.

[6] After a stint of playing mostly protagonist roles, he portrayed the villainous nemesis of Park Yoo-chun in the sageuk fusion drama Rooftop Prince followed by the scheming son of a chaebol family in Pots of Gold.

[9] Lee played for the celebrity amateur baseball team Playboys, alongside the likes of fellow actors Kim Seung-woo and Yoon Hyun-min.

[15][16] As he was a single father, he was granted reservist status, which meant that he could commute to his duty station from home after the five weeks of basic military training.