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Despite appearances to the contrary, breaking into a space prison to rescue the president's daughter is no easy feat. A lot of work goes into becoming a capable ex-special forces badass like Snow, the salty hero of "Lockout," as actor Guy Pearce knows all too well.

Speaking with MTV News during the "Lockout" press junket, Pearce confessed that getting into character as Snow required no small amount of physical training. "[It was about] building up and trying to create a guy who looks like he's as tough as the next guy," said the actor. "But really, he's a bit sort of tired of all of this now. I spent many hours in the gym lifting weights, getting back into some old routines that I'd known from my past."

Old routines from his past, Pearce says? We were curious what that meant, as was Maggie Grace, Pearce's co-star in the film.

"Are we really going to just let that one go? 'From my past?' I feel like we need to expand that," she said with a laugh, prompting Pearce to reveal some secrets about his bodybuilding past.

"Well, when I was quite young, I was in a bodybuilding competition, of all the strange things to have done," he revealed. "But I won, though! I won my state junior bodybuilding competition. Clearly I knew it would come in handy one day. This was that day! So now we're in space, and I'm lifting weights, and because of muscle memory, it kind of comes back quite quickly!"

Pearce, who "looked like a G.I. Joe" during production according to Grace, has since ceased the immense training that went into getting into Snow-size shape. But if he ever needs to get into that muscular action hero physique again, Pearce is confident he can do it.

"It's in there somewhere," he said. "I'm never that far away from a gym, whether I'm doing something more cardio oriented. I'm not lifting as heavy weights as I used to. It just gets harder and harder as I get older. You do injure yourself if you're not careful. So I'll save it for a job, I'll utilize it when I can. This was sort of a job where I took it to an extreme, I suppose."

Tell us what you think of Pearce's "Lockout" physique in the comments or on Twitter!