Grégoire Canlorbe

Jean-Claude Van Damme

A conversation with David Worth, for Bulletproof Action

A conversation with David Worth, for Bulletproof Action

by ·

David Worth is an American director of photography and film director. He contributed as cinematographer to more than twenty films, including Bloodsport, Any Which Way You Can, and Bronco Billy. He directed movies such as Warrior of the Lost World (which he also wrote), Lady Dragon, Hard Knocks, and Kickboxer.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: In Warrior of the Lost World, a 1983 Italian production,you had the honor to direct legendary actor Donald Pleasence [Dr Loomis in the Halloween saga]. How do you remember this collaboration?

  David Worth: I was very honored to work with a gentleman, with the acting acumen and the acting skills of Donald Pleasence, who had been in so many great films. He was in the original Dr. No, he was in Halloween. He was in a great film by Roman Polanski. I’m trying to remember the name of that one. He was in the film The Great Escape with Steve McQueen. He’s truly a great, great, great actor! So I was very pleased to work with him. He was only there for a week of our short schedule, doing his part as Prossor, but he was very prepared, very intense. He even insisted that Persis Khambatta spit in his face for real when it was required for the scene, even though we could have faked it because it was done in cuts. But he insisted that Persis spit in his face to motivate him as Prossor, and I thought that was extraordinary! Mr. Pleasence was a very brilliant gentleman to work with.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: What is your view, generally speaking, of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s Italian “genre movie,” i.e., giallo, cannibal film, and postapocalyptic? And of movie-directors such as Lamberto Bava, Dario Argento, Umberto Lenzi, and Ruggero Deodato?

  David Worth: Dario Argento’s work, I know very well, as well as his daughter’s, Asia Argento. I know their work very well. The others I don’t know because I was never a follower of many of the post-apocalyptic films. Any of the cannibal films, I don’t really know those works. But Dario Argento, I thought, was a fine filmmaker, and he made a lot of very interesting, horrific films in the ’70s and ’80s.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Shark Attack 2 is notoriously better—and much more generous in terms of “shark attacks”—than its predecessor. How did you manage to save that saga that started so poorly?

  David Worth: The late, great producer at New Image, Danny Lerner, I had known him for 10 years, and he gave me the script for Shark Attack 2 and asked me to go to Cape Town in South Africa to make it. When I looked at the first Shark Attack, I realized it was a problem because it’s called Shark Attack, but there are virtually no shark attacks in the movie. So from doing second unit work with the great second unit director Glenn Randall and from being a cinematographer and editor for many years, I knew that we needed a lot of pieces to make a shark attack work. So I began to break apart the sequences and analyze what I needed, and I needed several things. First, I needed a real dummy shark, 25 or 30 feet long, that could be towed with a jet ski to go right by the boats, so we could see the size of it. Then, I needed several biting heads, big biting heads that could be operated by stunt divers, and that we could bite the actors with. Then, I needed fins that could be seen on top of the water, that could be driven by stunt actors, stunt divers so that I could have the shark turning left or right or attacking. And then, I also used a lot of real shark stock footage. I used real shark stock footage swimming toward the camera, going left, going right. Then, I would use the pieces that I invented to tie the story together, and we it made it work very, very well.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Were you approached to work on those other cult shark-series that are Mega Shark and Sharknado?

  David Worth: No, I was never asked. I was never approached. I wasn’t even approached when New Image did their last shark movie that Danny Lerner directed. I had done my share of shark attack movies. I liked the genre, I had fun with it, and I was ready to move on.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: The diptych formed by Lady Dragon and its sequel-remake is a climactic point in your career as a movie director. How did you get the best from Cynthia Rothrock?

  David Worth: Cynthia is still and was once one of the very best actors in martial arts. I loved her work. I loved working with her. Even though they are martial artists, they are actors first. I just had to sit her down and talk with her about the part, about her responsibilities, about her emotions. And as long as I gave it the time, she would come up with the proper emotion. The thing I remember most about Cynthia is, we were working in Indonesia. There was no craft service. There was no place to go to the bathroom. I said, “Where’s the bathroom?” They pointed out there. That tree, that’s the bathroom. She was tough. She had been trained in Hong Kong Action! Cynthia started her career there in Hong Kong where they treat stuntmen like disposable cups. They just go through them. And she was really quite brilliant to work with, Cindy was out there every single day in the heat and the dust and the dirt, doing all the kicks and all her own stunt work. I continue to admire her so very much and would be thrilled to work with her again…

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Would you be ready to direct a third installment in the Lady Dragon saga, starring Rothrock again?

  David Worth: I already have a part three for Lady Dragon. If she’s ready, I’m ready to do it anytime. I have the script. Unfortunately, no one’s interested. They say that Cynthia and I are too old… But I’m ready and I know Cynthia is ready. She’s beautiful. She’s still in shape and still beautiful. I see her on Facebook & Instagram every day.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Your work as a cinematographer on Bloodsport is never so moving, impactful, as in those scenes featuring an alone Jean-Claude Van Damme strolling, meditating, and training in Hong Kong with Stan Bush’s song, “On My Own,” as a background score. Please tell us about the creative process behind such images.

  David Worth: Bloodsport was a very unique film to be part of. I was at the right place at the right time. Jean-Claude was at the right place at the right time. Everything came together in Hong Kong. We were the smallest film done by Cannon films that year. They were busy doing big $20 and $30 million movies, and we had a little two and a half… $2,300,000 movie in Hong Kong. Nobody paid attention to us. Jean-Claude was at the beginning of his career, and again, he was an actor first. So, he was ready and willing to do anything and everything to show his acting talent, as well as his martial arts. We captured all the footage we needed of him, and then later in post-production, we found the right song to use to help the mood of that scene, which turned out very, very well. He was brilliant and still is a brilliant martial artist and actor.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Please tell us about the filming of that scene with Jean-Claude Van Damme overhanging the city like a demigod contemplating Greece from the summit of Olympus?

  David Worth: When he’s up on the top of the hill with his legs spread over looking the whole city? We took a tram all the way up to the top with all our equipment and lined it up so that we could get that shot. It wasn’t easy. But everyone in Hong Kong was willing to help out and help us to make a good film. We had a great Hong Kong producer named Charles Wang at Salon Films, who was actually the godfather to my son, David, and a great man. And he’s not with us any longer. But he was so helpful in getting both Bloodsport and Kickboxer made with the best possible crew and the best possible Panavision equipment on the planet.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Did JCVD and Michel Qissi contribute to the movie’s filming at another level than their acting (respectively as Kurt Sloane and as Tong Po)?

  David Worth: They did because they were both martial artists. Jean-Claude mostly did the choreography. He did most of the choreography for all of the fights because that’s his area of expertise, and I encouraged him to do it. Michel was the very, very bad man, Tong Po, in that movie. He’s a sweet man. He’s very gentle. He’s a real gentleman. But in that movie, he played a very evil man, Tong Po.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: How did Mark DiSalle exactly contribute to Kickboxer’s directing?

  David Worth: I was hired as the director for Kickboxer. I supervised the casting. I polished the script. I storyboarded the entire production. I was there for every “action and cut.” I supervised all of the fights. Now, Jean-Claude was very influential in choreographing all of the fights because that was his area of expertise. But I did all the work of the director, and then Mark DiSalle decided to share my credit just before the film was finished in post-production.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: How do you react to the surge of sequels or remakes that Kickboxer or Bloodsport would inspire?

  David Worth: First of all, I’m thrilled when anyone can make any film, any time. But I think with Bloodsport and Kickboxer, it’s very difficult to capture the enthusiasm and the camaraderie and the collaboration and the performances and the locations, especially in Hong Kong and Bangkok, that we had when we did Bloodsport and Kickboxer. I know there have been many sequels. I wasn’t involved in any of them. I don’t think they captured what we were able to capture with the original. They may have been much more expensive, but they didn’t have the heart and soul that our films had.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: As a cinematographer you collaborated twice with Clint Eastwood. Namely in Clint Eastwood’s Bronco Billy and in Buddy Van Horn’s Any Which Way You Can, both starring Eastwood and his then girlfriend and muse Sondra Locke. Quite a fantastic story! How do you sum it up?

  David Worth: This is a very long and detailed question. It would take me an hour to discuss that. I will give you the short version. If you want to see the long version, go to www.amazon.com and order my book Zen & The Art Of Independent Filmmaking. All my filmmaking is in that book. In those hundreds of pages, I go through all my films in detail.

  Working with Clint Eastwood happened because of one person, Sondra Locke. I did a little film called Death Game, starring Sondra Locke, Seymour Cassel, and Colleen Camp. After that film had been filming for a week, the director fired the cinematographer, and the producer called me to see if I wanted to take it over. I didn’t want to inherit someone else’s mess, so I asked, “Who’s starring?” When he said, “Sondra Locke, Seymour Cassel, and Colleen Camp”, I said, “Okay, I’m in.” Because I knew Sondra’s work. Sondra had gotten an academy nomination for Heart Is a Lonely Hunter on her first film. Seymour had been nominated for an academy award on John Cassavetes’ film Faces. So I was in. It was a very small production. We only had 13 days to finish what was left to film. Now, they were also shooting wide-screen, anamorphic Panavision. This was my first time using it. I discovered the Panavision camera… even though it was big… it was very ergonomically correct, so I could hand-hold it with no problem. I decided to save time in the production by not using the camera on a tripod, but instead handholding it. I handhold 75 or 85% of that film. We would be sitting in dailies, and I’d say… it would be a closeup of Sondra… and I’d say, “That’s a handhold shot,” and the director, he’d say, “No, it’s not.” I’d say, “Watch it.” Then on screen he would say, “Cut!”, and the camera would go all over the place. That’s how we made it through. It was very long days, but we got it all done.

  Sondra, Seymour and Colleen were brilliant. They did a great job. Seymour and the producer had a falling out, and he never came in to do the dubbing. So I ended up having to dub his voice. The film was being edited by someone who did not appreciate the material, and after 6 or 8 weeks the director, Peter Traynor, called Sondra and I to see a screening of a rough cut… It Was Awful. It was horrendous. Sondra was sitting like this the whole time, with her head down, she couldn’t even look at it. During the screening, I kept shouting, “Where’s this shot?”, “Where’s this shot?”, “Where’s this shot?” Finally, after the screening was over, I had the director, take Sandra and me to the editing room, where I was able to find the shots and fix several of the scenes to show him how they hadn’t been cut correctly. So Peter fired the editor and I became the cinematographer and editor on Death Game and finished it professionally. Sondra had asked me, “Please finish this film so I can be proud of it,” and I did. As we know, Sondra went from that film to The Outlaw Josey Wales with Clint Eastwood, and began a 15-year relationship… That was how I got to Clint, because Sondra began nudging Clint about my work.

  A couple of years down the road, Sondra and Clint did the film The Gauntlet. It was just those two, Sondra and Clint, up on the big screen, one-on-one. After I’d seen the film, I called her and said, “I’m so proud of you up there, co-starring with Clint”, giving him all he could handle as the actor. I said, “It was a great job.” She said, “Yeah, we had a great time.” But he had a big fight with his cinematographer because he wouldn’t shoot by campfire light. I said, “What? I just shot a whole off-road motorcycle movie by campfire light.” Then Sondra asked me a question, that would change my life as a cinematographer. She said, “You wouldn’t happen to have a reel of that you could drop off for Clint to see, would you?” I said, “Yes, I would.” That’s how Clint saw my work. A couple of years later, he saw more of my work. And that’s how I eventually did Bronco Billy. But it was a long process. It took several years for it to happen.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Boxing, mentorship, and tetraplegia are topics common to your Kickboxer and to Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby. How do you assess the way those topics are treated in Clint Eastwood’s movie?

  David Worth: The only one I really relate to… I don’t relate to boxing, I don’t relate to the medical condition, I do relate to mentoring. We all need mentors, and that film was basically about an old trainer who took this young lady and mentored her into becoming a championship boxer. I relate to that because I had two great mentors in my life that helped me in my cinematography and in lighting and directing, and they were Stanley Kubrick and Clint Eastwood.

  Stanley Kubrick, I was able to use him to mentor me because when I was editing Death Game… during the Post-Production of Death Game, I managed to get my hands on a 35-millimeter print of A Clockwork Orange. I had been a fan of that film ever since it was released, but I could never study it because… This was early 1970s. There was no VHS, there was no DVDs, there was, no Online, there was no Netflix, nothing. The only way to study a movie was to see it on the screen. And then, the projectionist would not play it again for you to study your favorite scenes. So, when I got my hands on this 35-millimeter print of A Clockwork Orange I was ecstatic!. I took all my work off the old upright Movieola and put Mr. Kubrick’s work on it… Then I spent hours running it forwards and backwards, & finally I discovered that Mr. Kubrick was building all his lighting into the sets and locations. Do you know Clockwork Orange?

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Yes, one of my favorite movies when I was a teenager.

  David Worth: You know the scene where Little Alex kills the Cat Lady with the sculpture of the giant phallus? When I was running the film, forward and backward. Suddenly, I hit the break and said: “What the fuck?” I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Because at the end of that scene, Mr. Kubrick is following the Cat Lady and little Alex 360 degrees around that location. And he’s using a very wide-angle lens, like a 16 or 18-millimeter lens. I could see all four walls, the floor, and the ceiling, and I suddenly realized there were no movie lights. There were NO MOVIE LIGHTS! This was no student film. This was no Roger Corman film. This was a Stanley Kubrick production of a Warner Brothers film that had been nominated for four Academy Awards! I was stunned! I was flabbergasted! I was gobsmacked! I couldn’t believe what I was seeing! I slowly went back and froze the frames where I could see all the lighting… That’s when I discovered exactly what Mr. Kubrick had done! And that was to bring in several light sculptors, one in the form of a spiral, one in the form of a Christmas tree, others in bunches, each containing a lot of 150-watt bulbs. Then he plugged them into the wall sockets, said “We’re lit!” and shot the scene!

  Discovering THAT changed my life as a cinematographer. I even wrote an article in the American Cinematographer magazine, entitled, “If it’s good enough for Mr. Kubrick…” Why don’t more of us use this technique? It’s brilliant, because it’s actor-friendly and production friendly. If you build the lighting into the set, you can shoot 360 degrees. You never have to change the lighting when the director says, “Okay, I’m done in this direction. I’m going to shoot in the other direction…” I’ve been on the set where the director says, “Okay, I want to shoot the other way.” The DP says, “Okay, give us two hours to reset the lights.” I say Bullshit! And more importantly Mr. Kubrick said, “Bullshit!”

  And he began building all the lighting into the sets of his films, starting with Dr. Strangelove… 2001: A Space Odyssey, Clockwork Orange, and then, of course, the candlelight scenes in Barry Lyndon. This is the technique I brought to Bronco Billy. This is what I brought to Clint Eastwood.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: So, the connection between Clint Eastwood’s Bronco Billy and Stanley Kubrick is not only Scatman Crothers who acted in both Bronco Billy and The Shinning released the same year; it is also David Worth.

David Worth: Right! Because I brought the “Kubrickian Technique” of building the lighting into the sets or locations to Bronco Billy! We had a huge circus tent, and I said, “Okay, I want all the lighting built into this tent.” So, up high between the two upright tent poles, I had a connecting pole as well as two additional poles at right angles forming a “T…” Then we placed all our lighting onto these poles and the entire set was lit! I could walk in at 7:30 in the morning, hit the switch, take a reading with my light meter and say, “Okay, f2.8 in every direction, let’s shoot!” We did 40 or 50 setups a day. On a Warner Brothers film starring Clint Eastwood that would normally do 10 or 15 setups a day!

  Clint is a very efficient and very fast director. 75% of the time, he prints either the rehearsal or the first take. So everyone is on their toes. They don’t want to displease the Big Guy. So, he always comes in several days ahead of schedule. However, on Bronco Billy, he didn’t come in several days ahead of schedule. As a result of my building the lighting into all the other sets and locations, we came in two and a half weeks ahead of schedule, saving the production over a million dollars! That’s how I got to capture two Clint Eastwood films instead of one.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Did you like Kubrick’s last movie, Eyes Wide Shut?

David Worth: Didn’t like it… However, my only regret is that Stanley Kubrick didn’t get a chance to come into this century. He died in the 1990s. He began as a still photographer and was shooting SLR, single lens reflex 35-millimeter cameras. However, he never got his hands on a DSLR, the digital version. These cameras shoot from ISO 100 all the way up to ISO 400,000.  Trust me… He would have stood it on its ear, just like he did the Steadicam! That’s my regret: that Mr. Kubrick never got his hand on the DSLR that had a virtually unlimited ISO!!!

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Our interview comes to its end. Is there anything you would like to add?

  David Worth: Yes, there is something I would like to add. Clint Eastwood is a brilliant filmmaker. I loved his work, decades before I worked with him. He’s now 92 years old. He’s had an over 50-year relationship with Warner Brothers, doing huge productions: the Dirty Harry films, all very big hits. As well as his Academy Award winners like Mystic River & Million Dollar Baby & Unforgiven!!! The latest corporate-bottom-liner at Warner Brothers just severed their relationship with Clint after 50 years because his last film, Cry Macho didn’t make money. This is a guy who is the icon of icons. He’s been making hit movies longer than anyone has been around in this town. The icon of icons!!! At 92 years old, he should have carte blanche for anything he wants to do from here on out. Carte Fucking Blanche! Instead, these moronic assholes get rid of him because his last $20 million movie didn’t make enough money. And then they spend $200 million on the other big budget crap they churn out, on each of these comic-book-super-duper-hero movies. Have some respect for your elders! The stars who put WB on the map! That’s what I’d like to say!

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Thank you for your time. I was wondering: how do you feel about the breakup between Eastwood and Locke?

  David Worth: It was an awful breakup. I hated to see it. It should never have happened…   I never thought I would even meet Clint. It wasn’t on my radar because I knew I was making my little films on the side streets of Hollywood, and he was: “Clint Eastwood.” It was only because I did that little film, Death Game,… Sondra Locke who was the star of that film, liked my work & when she began working with Clint, she mentioned me, to him… That’s how I got my foot in the door, through the brilliant and insightful and compassionate Sondra Locke. And I’m eternally grateful…

That conversation was originally published on Bulletproof Action, in March 2023

A conversation with Haskell Vaughn Anderson III, for Bulletproof Action

A conversation with Haskell Vaughn Anderson III, for Bulletproof Action

by ·

Haskell Vaughn Anderson III is an American film, television and theater actor. He is notably known for his role in the 1989 martial arts film Kickboxer—and his role in the 1976 film Brotherhood of Death.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: You served as president of Catholics in Media for two years. How did Jesus enter your life?

  Haskell Vaughn Anderson III: I was always educated in Catholic schools. I’m a practicing Catholic. It didn’t do anything for me career-wise, but it was an enjoyable experience. It gave me the opportunity to become a member of the Jewish committee, which is a committee that goes to different film festivals. And I was at the Venice Film Festival in 2005. That was the year that Broke Back Mountain came out and a few other films. Yeah, it has touched me in a professional way. Yes, it did. I can’t say it hasn’t. And it was an enjoyable experience here, in Los Angeles. I started off as a regular member of Catholics in Media then, I was vice-president for two or three years and president for two.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: When it comes to those moviemakers (such as Martin Scorsese, Abdel Ferrara, or Mel Gibson) whose work and mindset, at least at a cultural level, are especially Catholicism-framed, which of them comes as your favorite?

  Haskell Vaughn Anderson III: I don’t know how they actually practice Catholicism. I do know that Mel Gibson is more of a strict Catholic, so to speak. Got that from his father, from what I’ve been told. We never spoke about it, although we have been in person together, but we never spoke about the church or his practicing of his faith. So, I don’t know how devout he is. But his church is in Malibu, somewhere, that his father built. I have not been there.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Please tell us about 40 Days Road and your other ongoing movie-projects.

  Haskell Vaughn Anderson III: 40 Days Road. Yes. We’re still in development on that project. It’s not on the back burner. We’re just holding off on it for a little bit because we’re involved with another project that I was involved with more than 30 years ago as a stage production. We are now developing it. The script has been written. We’re now looking for investors. We will be at the American Film Festival, this coming November, pushing it. It’s actually a play that was written by a friend of mine who was in another play with me called Traces About Vietnam. He wrote the play, and it won what they call the 6th NAACP Image Award. One of them was the best supporting actor, which I was honored to win. We are hoping that we will have production of that film. Is that 40 Days Road? No, I’m sorry. This film is called Detroit Rounds. The play was actually called Rounds. We’re calling it Detroit Rounds because we’re going to set it in Detroit. This is a movie, and the play was about four guys who worked in the same plant together. They’re having this kind of civil war thing within the company because the union wants to send jobs overseas and cut employment of these guys. This is their life, so it reflects what was going on here in the auto industry in Detroit in this country back in the, I would say, 70s, after Vietnam. They lost a friend, so they get together one night to celebrate the death of this friend that they lost and to watch the championship fight between Muhammad Ali and I forget who the other character, the fighter, was, but we will see that when the film comes out.

  40 Days Road, that’s a film about a cardinal. It was an idea that I cooked up and spoke to my writer friend who is now one of my partners in our film company. It’s about a cardinal who has come to a point in his life where he’s somewhat confused about where he’s going and what it is that he’s supposed to be doing. Even though he has attained that rank of cardinal, he still has some thoughts in his head. It’s an interesting story. It all takes place in Sudan. Before he became a priest, he was a medical physician, and so, he actually has two occupations. He goes off to Darfur to see a friend that he had met while he was in the Jesuit seminary. He actually ends up meeting a woman who was also a physician. There’s much trial and tribulation to that story.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: The arc story for Winston Taylor, your character in Kickboxer, who, haunted by the souvenir of his failure to save a friend in Vietnam, ends up redeeming himself through helping Kurt Sloane [Jean-Claude Van Damme] defeat Tong Po [Mohammed Qissi] and the mafia, is quite moving. How did you put yourself so convincingly in Taylor’s shoes?

  Haskell Vaughn Anderson III: Well, part of acting. I guess I made myself that character. I became Winston Taylor, and I felt from talking to other people with what their experiences were during that period of time, and I just used them.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Do you feel the character’s fate should have been further explored in another Kickboxer installment or spinoff?

  Haskell Vaughn Anderson III: I don’t know. Perhaps, it would have been feasible. It probably could have worked, but they chose not to do it. I didn’t ask, but I had thought about what that would have been like. How far had the character advanced? What was his story afterwards? It would have been interesting. But they didn’t do it, but that’s okay.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Despite the movie’s somewhat low budget, the short gunfight at the end of Kickboxer, when Winston Taylor [Haskell V. Anderson III] comes to rescue Eric Sloane [Dennis Alexio], is pretty good. How do you account for such effectiveness on the movie’s team’s part?

  Haskell Vaughn Anderson III: Actually, I guess I never really thought about it that way. The character had something to do, he had to rescue a friend, Jean-Claude’s brother, Kurt’s brother. And being that he was a military vet, he had access to what he needed to get the job done. It was interesting. Actually, that was my first day of shooting. It was very interesting. We shot that part in Hong Kong. It was not a difficult scene. Actually, I’m not gonna say it was easy, but it took a little bit of time to work into it on that day. Although I has been rehearsing the lines for some time. But to get that emotional feel on that day, it took a few minutes in the trailer to get myself ready.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Did you stay in touch with Jean-Claude Van Damme or other actors in Kickboxer?

  Haskell Vaughn Anderson III: Other actors, yes. The director, David Worth. Michel Qissi, I see every now and then, I think we were together about, I think, at least, two years ago. Jean-Claude, rare, very rare even though we used to live a block away from each other. And Rochelle Ashana… we do emails through Facebook pretty often. She sends photographs. She has a son that’s going to UCLA. I bet he’s in his senior year. He’s either a junior or a senior. She’s supposed to be visiting from Hawaii very soon. I’m waiting to hear from her because we haven’t been together in quite some time.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: How do you assess the evolution of Van Damme’s career since Kickboxer?

  Haskell Vaughn Anderson III: It’s interesting. Here you have an action star, so to speak, who actually got to the top of the pyramid and just, I guess, in some way, just lost it. But it’s an interesting article that was in the New York Times just the other day. Someone is doing an off-Broadway or off-off-Broadway production of Jean-Claude Van Damme: The Rise and Fall, of Jean-Claude. It’s an interesting review. I think it got enough attention that it got reviewed by the New York Times. And they thought was pretty good.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Quentin Tarantino is openly a huge admirer of Brotherhood of Death. Have you ever met him? Did you enjoy his last movie, Once upon a time in Hollywood?

  Haskell Vaughn Anderson III: No, I have not met him. I didn’t see the whole film. I have it, but I haven’t really watched the entire film. I do that sometimes. I read a lot of books, sometimes I don’t finish them.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: When it comes to characters in classical theatre (Hamlet in Shakespeare, Don Rodrigue aka Le Cid in Corneille, Theseus in Racine, Don Juan in Tirso de Molina, etc.), which are those of them you especially aspire to play?

  Haskell Vaughn Anderson III: I started my entire career in theater. Done Shakespeare. I’ve never done Hamlet, but I did Richard III, Comedy of Errors. God! can’t even remember the names. I don’t have my resume in front of me to tell you where the plays were. But it was a very rewarding experience, doing Shakespeare all the time. Othello. I didn’t play Othello, but I was one of the major characters. Was it Lodovico? Yeah, I think it was Lodovico. It was just such a discipline, a base. That’s what I like about British theater. The actors learn the classics. I think you need to do that. That’s my opinion.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Those many-hundred-years-old classics of theater are enjoying tenacious fame; but very few of the movies that are successful when released meet a fame that is other than ephemeral. Very few are not forgotten more or less rapidly.

  Haskell Vaughn Anderson III: That is so true. Very few from all the films that have been done. Very few do you remember. It’s just amazing. Film comes down today, it’s forgotten next month. All of a sudden, you see it on the cable, and then it’s forgotten a week later.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Screenwriters could learn a lot from Shakespeare, Euripides, Aeschylus, and Sophocles. Screenplays would be much better.

  Haskell Vaughn Anderson III: It’s difficult. Difficult in the sense that it takes a lot time to do a really, really, really good screenplay. But if people weren’t so much interested in just making a lot of money, just throwing anything out there, I think screenplays on a whole would be a lot better. But that’s business.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Please tell us about your long-established collaboration with playwright Vince Melocchi.

  Haskell Vaughn Anderson III: Vince Melocchi belonged to the same theater company I am still a member of. And Vince is, too, even though he moved back East. I did two of his major productions. One of them went to off-broadway, which was just a wonderful experience! Julia was the name of this play. Before that, we did a play called Lions about a group of people who were Detroit Lions football fans, and they had this club that they went to and spent a lot of time at. It was very, very, very beautifully written. I really enjoyed those characters that I portrayed. We were members, I would say, since 1994. It was at the at Pacific Resident Theater in Los Angeles, here, and still active, and it’s getting more active now since we are getting beyond the epidemic. Vince is still writing. We’ll see what he comes up with next. But a he’s an excellent writer.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Thank you so much for your time. Is there anything you would like to add?

  Haskell Vaughn Anderson III: We’re talking about a film, Kickboxer, that was made 30 years ago. It’s just unbelievable how much of a following it has! You’re walking down the street, and somebody’s shouting out your line. “Oh, you in that film Kickboxer, can we have a picture?” I had no idea the film would be attracting that much attention this long. None, whatsoever. You can call it. What do they call it? A cult film. But Quentin Tarantino he was a fan of another film, Brotherhood of Death. Actually, it was my first film. You can see that on YouTube. That has picked up a following of its own, also. I used to run from that film. Oh, my God, please don’t share it! But, hey, you did it. You own it. Be proud of it.

If people see this interview and they enjoy it and they’re thinking about acting or directing or writing, just be patient, just do it and be disciplined, discipline yourself. This is what I want to do and I want to be the best of the best. But I hope I satisfied you.

That conversation was originally published on Bulletproof Action in February 2023

A conversation with Jean-Pierre Valère, for The Postil Magazine

A conversation with Jean-Pierre Valère, for The Postil Magazine

by ·

Jean-Pierre Valère, whose real name is Jean-Pierre van Lerberghe, is a Belgian actor, weightlifting champion, and musician. He stars in Moloss (originally known as Lopak L’Envoûteur, Lopak the Enchanter), which premiered at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival, on August 31, 2022. Moloss is co-directed by Abdelkrim Qissi and Abel Ernest Tembo.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Are you happy with the screening of Moloss at the BIFFF [Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival]?

Jean-Pierre Valère: Yes, very happy. I had the pleasure of meeting an excellent journalist in you, and I also got to meet the whole team of the film, so many wonderfully talented actors. It was like a crowning for us, in such magnificent setting, on the occasion of the great return of BIFFF after this devastating epidemic.

Grégoire Canlorbe: What was the shoot like?

Jean-Pierre Valère: It was an honor to film alongside friends, Abel Ernest Tembo and Abdelkrim Qissi. Ernest is remarkable as a director cameraman. I saw firsthand his great art. Restrained, unassuming, he knows how to direct his actors without seeming to direct them. The staging subtly and brilliantly alternates the intimate with the explosive. Our two friends Abdelkrim and Ernest, really, know how to hit all the right notes in a perfect symphony of collaboration.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Did you like playing your character in the film?

Jean-Pierre Valère: I am so grateful for the chance Ernest and Abdelkrim gave me to play this offbeat role—offbeat in just the right way. The bits of humor that the character brings, like when he tries to reassure Moloss, whose best friend he is, are a contrast to the many scenes of violence and the almost constant feeling of dread found in the film. It was a shooting like no other, an adventure like I had never experienced before, which I had the chance to share with all these heroes that are the other actors of the film, all of them remarkable. I hope that a sequel will be made. Terminator did it successfully, why not Moloss?

Jean-Pierre Valère (on the right) and Grégoire Canlorbe (on the left)

[Spoiler alert! Skip this question and its answer about the film for those who don’t want to know about a crucial revelation]

Grégoire Canlorbe: A rather late revelation in the film is that your character, up till then, had been under the yoke of a hypnotic substance. How did you get into the skin of a character subject to such a chemical “spell?”

Jean-Pierre Valère: I like subtle acting, whether I’m playing bastards (as in the RTL-TVI series Affaires de Famille) or funny and nice characters (as in Moloss). Many humorists, if they want to be funny, must be good comedians first and foremost. I tried to play my character in Moloss with nuance—to bring out the state of mind he is in by playing him, paradoxically, as if nothing had happened. Whether it’s the role I play in Moloss, or the role of a local “J.R.” character, a real scoundrel (I love that!) that I play in Affaires de Famille, it’s all about the look, and a sincere and natural performance.

[End of spoiler]

Grégoire Canlorbe: Looking back on your weightlifting career, what do you see?

Jean-Pierre Valère: A very weighty career, if I may say so, since I was a finalist at the Olympic Games in Mexico, Munich, and Montreal, with a silver medal at the 1970 world championships. He was very proud of his little track record, this Valère guy, who was then known by his real name, van Lerberghe.

Grégoire Canlorbe: How does the art of using your hands as a musician differ from the art of using your hands as a weightlifter?

Jean-Pierre Valère: Excellent question. As you know, I have been in love with music—especially piano and guitar—since I was a child. As someone who likes to play classical improvisation, I was surprised to find out that weightlifting does not alter (no pun intended) the flexibility of the fingers when playing musical instruments; these are two reflex actions of the finger muscles that are quite specific, each in its own way. I was afraid that I would not be able to play the guitar or the piano properly after a training session, but I was amazed to discover that weightlifting and music are perfectly compatible disciplines; and that the improvement of the first one does not compromise the improvement of the second, provided, of course, that weightlifting is not too time-consuming to take away time from music. But I think that an artist, whoever he or she may be, should cultivate versatility as much as these meager twenty-four hours a day allow.

Grégoire Canlorbe: You played the main role in the Belgian TV-drama, Affaires de Famille (a total of 105 episodes, broadcast since 1996). What are your favorite TV-dramas?

Jean-Pierre Valère: My interpretation of Didier Barillot in Affaires de Famille, with the influence of Dallas’ J.R., is one of the greatest satisfactions of my acting career, as is my recent interpretation of Moloss’ best friend. I hope to have the chance to play other roles of the same quality in the near future. I used to enjoy the series Dallas, but I don’t watch any series nowadays.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Among the contemporary musicians, are some particularly dear to your heart as a music lover?

Jean-Pierre Valère: Lang Lang, an extraordinary person and a virtuoso pianist capable of an infinite number of nuances; Khatia Buniatishvili, whose physical beauty is matched only by her sublime piano playing. But above all, the Beatles—under an apparent lightness, the most inspired and diversified geniuses of the 20th century!

Grégoire Canlorbe: Jean-Claude Van Damme alone is nicknamed “The Muscles from Brussels,” even though such a qualification fits you just as well, if not more. What do you make of that?

Jean-Pierre Valère: The reason is simple—Jean-Claude is world famous. Here’s an interesting anecdote in that regard. We were both training at the Centre National des Sports in Brussels, me in weightlifting, him in karate. One evening when we were the last two in the weightlifting room and were doing our abs side by side, he told me about his plans to go to America and make a career in cinema. As I didn’t want to break his momentum, I said it was a good idea, never believing for a second that anything would ever come of it, considering the competition he would have to face. But we know what happened. I called him one day. He was in London. I hadn’t seen him in, say, twenty years; but he was still as nice and friendly as ever, just surprised to hear from me.

Grégoire Canlorbe: What do you remember about Vasily Alekseyev?

Jean-Pierre Valère: Fortunately for me, we were not in the same category. He was classified as a super heavyweight, and I was classified as a light heavyweight. He weighed in at one hundred and seventy kilos, and I weighed in at less than ninety kilos. In Belgium, weightlifting was at that time a despised sport, so that everyone had to train alone in his cellar, without any real professional supervision. The Russians were pros, and we were amateurs, so to speak. That’s why I’m proud to be vice world champion!

Grégoire Canlorbe: So, tell us about your friendship with heavyweight Serge Reding.

Jean-Pierre Valère: A young man of incredible kindness! His shyness played tricks on him in competitions. He was as gifted as Vasily Alekseyev, if not more so, but he let himself be impressed by the Russian champion, who was not afraid of anything and who went through some formidable psychological training. When we both went to compete all over the world, it was always a wonderful adventure that we would remember for the rest of our lives; an initiatory journey to discover different civilizations. There is always something to learn and something to gain from meeting others—the calmness of New Yorkers in traffic, for example, or the eternal smile of the poorest of the poor.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Are you still weightlifting?

Jean-Pierre Valère: Now, I just do “maintenance of the machinery,” as they say. I go to a gym two or three times a week, with the idea of maintaining, as they say, the locomotor system and to prevent an inevitable loss of strength as one gets older. It is important to be able to keep one’s physical independence until the end. And, while we are at it, to maintain a well-balanced, or at least a presentable, body.

Grégoire Canlorbe: You are a songwriter, with a particular penchant for love songs if I am not mistaken.

Jean-Pierre Valère: My songs are not well known, but that doesn’t take away from the pleasure I take in writing them. I am a literary person above all else; some people ironically say that I speak like a book. I try, in any case, to bring a particular care to the choice of words, and to distil nuance, even humor.

Grégoire Canlorbe: So, tell us about your favorite songs.

Jean-Pierre Valère: I have a special affection for the Beatles’ songs, as they are practically the coming together of Mozart, Beethoven, Gershwin and rock. That four such talented musicians, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison, could team up is a unique event in the history of music! Other songs that blow me away every time I listen to them are the Eagles’ “Hotel California,” or Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale” (a wickedly slow song, as they used to say back then, with infinite poetry!); and Jean-Louis Aubert’s “Les Plages” (a wonder of nostalgia).

Grégoire Canlorbe: By your own admission, you are a “literary man.” Who are your favorite French language writers?

Jean-Pierre Valère: I must confess that I read relatively little, suffering from a problem with the eyes that, when too active, get tired very quickly. The little I have been taught about French and Greek philosophers has been a fundamental background for me. Victor Hugo, Alfred de Vigny, or Montaigne I do particularly like. But the one I really like and prefer is Chamfort (not the singer, the other one!), for that art of his which can express a strong idea in a short sentence. I invite everyone to read Chamfort’s Maximes et Pensées, which contains true philosophy, and whose discovery in my adolescence, a time when I was precisely in need of philosophy, was formative for me.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Thank you for your time. Is there anything you would like to add or expand?

Jean-Pierre Valère: “The most lost of all days is the one in which one has not laughed,” wrote Chamfort. I would humbly add that the worst periods in life are those when one finds oneself without the slightest project, which throws one into the darkest depression. One project that is occupying me at the moment is a book that I plan to call, modestly, A Guide to the Universe, a title that I hope will be catchy. I hope to have time to finish it (which brings us back to a subject we discussed earlier—the little time we have each day). I plan to put my thoughts on things in it, and I have written about 20 pages so far. I have a few songs with a touch of humor and irony that I would like to record in the studio, with guitar accompaniment by myself. A lot of work to do, but you know how versatility is an ideal that drives me.

I was happy to meet you. You are considerate in your interviews and let your interviewee express himself—which is so rare that it needs to be highlighted.

That conversation was originally published in The Postil Magazine‘s November 2022 issue

A conversation with Paul Hertzog, for The Postil Magazine

A conversation with Paul Hertzog, for The Postil Magazine

by ·

  Paul Hertzog is an American film-composer. He notably composed the soundtracks for two Jean-Claude Van Damme movies, Bloodsport and Kickboxer.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Please tell us about the creative process that led you to compose those masterpieces that are “The Eagle Lands” and “Finals-Powder-Triumph.”

  Paul Hertzog: My greatest inspiration has always been the film itself, so I feel (strangely enough) that the action on screen told me what to do. Both of the cues you mention are final fights, the climax of each film. Since I like to compose in film order, these cues were also the last I wrote in each film. As a result, I already had melodies and rhythmic feels developed. All I had to do was find a way to fit them to picture. Since the emotions of each film had been building up to these climactic moments, I simply tried to tap into those emotions to find correspondence in music. This may not sound logical, but that’s the point. Logic has nothing to do with it. When I compose, I have to shut off the logical part of my brain and let my emotions find the music that underpins the scene. I think, also, I was helped by the fact that the villains (Chong Li and Tong Po) in both films were so well portrayed. They gave me the opportunity to develop the conflict between good and evil that creates that emotional tension in my music.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Your soundtracks for those scenes in Kickboxer in which Kurt Sloane (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is training in ruins haunted by the ghosts of ancient warriors, while an eagle is watching him, are full of spirituality. How did you find this mystical inspiration?

  Paul Hertzog: Again, I must reiterate that the source of my inspiration was the film itself.  I watched those scenes over and over until I felt (and I do mean “felt” rather than “understood”) the emotions that needed to be conveyed by the music. I’m not sure I can truly explain the source of musical inspiration, but, as I have already said, for me it is not a logical process. I have to shut off my conscious thinking and let the music flow as if it were pure emotion. That’s when I write my best music. Does this process involve spirituality or mysticism? I don’t know. We humans often try to explain the inexplicable with these terms, but I don’t worry about explanations. I simply go with the creative flow.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: As a musician, do you share the Pythagorean belief that the proportions ruling the distances between the celestial bodies are a sort of music?

  Paul Hertzog: In a word, no. This seems like a rather spurious analogy to me, an attempt to ascribe logic to a process that is, as I have already said, not logical at all.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Let us speak about Waking the Dragon. What does the creature that is the dragon mean to you? What is the plot, universe, you wanted to convey though this musical work?

  Paul Hertzog: The dragon is a part of me, the part of me that is a composer. After I left film and music behind in 1991 to pursue a career as a teacher (due to a number of setbacks in my career, in my financial state, in my mental state), the composer part of me essentially went to sleep. I attempted to wake up that aspect of my character nearly 20 years into my teaching career by writing the music of this project. I worked on it during vacation times since I didn’t have time while teaching. I also had obligations to my family, so I couldn’t immerse myself in it completely. It took probably 4-5 years to complete, and even now I’m not sure that it is fully satisfying to me, but it’s something I needed to do to get my juices flowing again. And now, in 2022, nearly 3 years since I retired as a teacher, I am writing music constantly, and some of it is the best I’ve ever done.

  And, yes, I also had a story in mind when I wrote this project. I envisioned a typical martial arts sort of plot. A corrupt and evil faction has taken over a city, a province, a region, a country, whatever you’d like, and the forces of good that might countermand that corrupt faction are essentially asleep. Meanwhile, out in the countryside, an ancient master of the martial arts is retired and quiet. However, a young admirer of the ancient master finds him and attempts to enlist his help in regrouping the forces of good. In other words, he wakes the dragon. The rest of the story should be fairly obvious.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Thank you for your time. Please tell us about your ongoing projects.

  Paul Hertzog: I am currently in discussion with people about scoring two new martial arts films. Both projects want the sort of music I composed for Bloodsport and Kickboxer. However, in this time of international pandemic, getting the films made has been challenging. All I would say is to keep an eye on my website or on Facebook for any news.

  Additionally, I am planning to release some new music soon, starting with a long composition entitled “Legends.” When you hear it, you will know who the legends are. Also, Perseverance Records has just released my score for Breathing Fire, the final film I scored before leaving the business. It is available as a CD or download on Amazon.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: I was wondering. What do you think of David Bowie’s music, especially his albums in Berlin? As you know, his Berlin album Low inspired a symphony by Philipp Glass.

  Paul Hertzog: I listened to Bowie some in the 80s but not since as I am more likely to listen to classical music these days. I am not familiar with the Berlin albums, though I may have heard some back in the day. I remember liking what I heard.

That conversation was originally published in The Postil Magazine‘s April 2022 issue

A conversation with Sheldon Lettich, for The Postil Magazine

A conversation with Sheldon Lettich, for The Postil Magazine

by ·

Sheldon Lettich is an American screenwriter, film director, and producer. He is notably known for his work in the action film genre—and his collaborations with Jean-Claude Van Damme, Sylvester Stallone, Mark Dacascos, Dolph Lundgren, and Daniel Bernhardt. Besides co-writing Bloodsport and Rambo III, Sheldon Lettich directed and co-wrote Lionheart, Double Impact, and Only the Strong.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: What is the situation with regard to your long-established movie-project about Vietnam?

  Sheldon Lettich: Well, I’ve written a lot of scripts about Vietnam, but none of them has been made. I wrote a script called Firebase. And it was kind of like that movie called Zulu. It was kind of like that. Basically, a small group of Americans on a hilltop firebase, and they got attacked by a huge number of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. That was the screenplay I wrote a number of years ago. And Sylvester Stallone read the screenplay, and he liked it. And that’s how I ended up working with him on Rambo III, because he had read that screenplay. I’ve written a few other Vietnam screenplays, but none of them has gotten made, yet.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: You collaborated with Sylvester Stallone on Rambo III. How did your team come up with the idea of the tank-versus-helicopter scene? Or the idea of colonel Trautman’s “In your ass!” line?

  Sheldon Lettich: The tank-versus-helicopter scene wasn’t my idea, that was Stallone’s idea. And I thought it was not a plausible idea, but it seemed to work. You liked it, right? A helicopter versus a tank just makes no kind of sense at all because a tank is not designed to shoot at something moving fast like an airplane. A tank versus an airplane or a helicopter makes no kind of sense at all. You’d have to be very lucky. It takes some time to aim that cannon on a tank. So for a tank versus a helicopter, I didn’t believe it, but it seemed to work. There we are, it was Sly’s idea. As for colonel Trautman’s line in the interrogation scene, that was Stallone’s idea as well. That wasn’t mine.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: What kind of movie could be done about the withdrawal of the US troops from Afghanistan? Perhaps a new Rambo installment, in which Stallone would rescue a group of hostages once again abandoned in Afghanistan and, in the process, decapitate his former Taliban allies turned into despots of the region?

  Sheldon Lettich: I don’t see a good action movie coming out of that because everything about that was very disappointing. That really shouldn’t have happened the way that it happened. I don’t think anybody would want to see a movie about that. And Stallone is in his 70s, now. He’s a little old to go back into Afghanistan. And I think he’s had his—I think Rambo has had—his Afghanistan adventure and doesn’t really need another one. So I don’t see that happening at all. I’m 70 years old. Stallone’s even older than me. I don’t know, he’s like 72. I don’t think he’ll want to do some crazy action movie where he’s running around firing a gun and killing all kinds of Afghans. It’s just not going to happen again.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Jean-Claude Van Damme served as an editor on Bloodsport, which you co-wrote. How much did he change the story with respect to the original screenplay?

  Sheldon Lettich: The first cut was very bad, so Jean-Claude got involved. And he basically recut the fight scenes because he was involved with those fight scenes. He knew how the fight scenes should work. And there was another editor that Cannon brought in to recut the movie and to restructure it. And so they fixed it up. But Jean-Claude basically worked on the fight scenes, and he made those work really good. In the meanwhile, they got some other writers involved who made some changes. Most of the changes, I thought, were very good, actually. What I mostly did with Bloodsport is I came up with the idea. I structured it. I came up with the three-act structure where the beginning is that everybody’s getting ready to go to the fight. The middle is the tournament, and the movie ends after Gong Li is defeated and Jean-Claude goes home. So, that’s the structure that I came up with.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Before Bloodsport, had you been involved with Karate Tiger?

  Sheldon Lettich: No, I had nothing to do with that. That’s the first movie that I saw Jean-Claude in, here in the US. It was called No Retreat, No Surrender. And that was the movie—when we were looking for an actor for Bloodsport, that movie came out in theaters. It was playing in theaters here, in Los Angeles so the producer, Mark DiSalle, told us, “We found this new actor, Jean-Claude Van Damme. Go see his movies in the theaters, right now.” And that was No Retreat, No Surrender. And we were very impressed with him. And that’s pretty much—that helped him solidify the role in Bloodsport.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: After Bloodsport, did you get involved in Kickboxer?

  Sheldon Lettich: Well, I was involved just in that Kickboxer was the project that Mark DiSalle approached me with. When I first met Mark, he was looking for a writer, and he had an idea for a martial arts movie called Kickboxer. And so, he pitched me the idea, and I thought I had a better idea, which was Bloodsport. Bloodsport had not been written, but I’d been talking with Frank Dux about his experiences. Turned out that they weren’t real experiences: he had made all that stuff up.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Please tell us about your partnership with Jean-Claude Van Damme in writing Full Contact, which is known as Lionheart in the US if I’m not mistaken.

  Sheldon Lettich: Yes, Lionheart. Actually, I got together with Jean-Claude and he came up with the basic idea. That was his idea. It was called the Wrong Bet, at first. We sat down in a coffee shop, one night on Sunset Boulevard to talk about it. We were in that coffee shop for about three hours, and the manager wanted us to leave because we were taking up—it was kind of empty, but he still wanted us out of there. He thought we were there for too long. And we told him to leave us alone. “We’re working on something, right now.” And then, he called the cops. So actually, we had some sheriff’s deputies come in there and tell us to leave. But in those three hours, we came up with the basic story line for Lionheart. But it was Jean-Claude’s original idea, that whole thing about—I think I came up with the Foreign Legion idea, but he came up with that idea about his sister-in-law, and she’s got a little daughter, and he has to fight in order to make money to take care of them. That was Jean-Claude’s.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: The fight between JCVD and Bolo Yeung at the end of Double Impact is quite an epic moment. How was it shot?

  Sheldon Lettich: Actually, it was shot in two different locations because we shot part of it in Hong Kong. I’m just trying to think about. We were on a ship in Hong Kong. No, the exterior of the ship was in Hong Kong, the interior of the ship was in Los Angeles. That was in San Pedro. And so, we actually shot on this ship, and then we looked at the footage later. We were kind of rushed that day. We didn’t have enough time to really do it right. And so we had a set built in Santa Clarita, also in Los Angeles, to shoot some additional shots. So it was basically like—it looks like it’s all done at the same time, but it was actually done in two different locations at two different times. We cut it all together, and it looked really great.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Why did JCVD never act with Bolo Yeung again after Bloodsport and Double Impact? After all, three is a magic number as they say.

  Sheldon Lettich: Well, he made two movies with Bolo. Bloodsport has Bolo, and Double Impact has Bolo. It’s hard to just keep using the same villain over and over again.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Are you concerned for the future of the cinema of Hong Kong as the Chinese Communist Party will be extending its grip on the city?

  Sheldon Lettich: I’m not an expert on that, but obviously, we’re not going to see Hong Kong movies like the old ones. It’s all going to change now because the Chinese have taken over. So there are certain things you can say, certain things you can’t say. The Chinese government controls whatever is going on in Hong Kong. So you’ll never see those Hong Kong movies like we saw before, the Jackie Chan’s. Oh, Jackie Chan, of course, is doing movies in China, also. But they’re not going to be quite the same as those John Woo movies. I don’t think he’ll be able to make movies anymore in Hong Kong with corrupt police officers. Basically, the way that the Chinese government sees it, there are no corrupt police officers in China. There are no gangsters in China. So, basically, everything has to change. They’re up to do a lot of historical stuff. So, you’re probably not going to see any contemporary stories like in those Hong Kong movies where you’ve got good cops, bad cops, gangsters, all kinds of stuff like that. I think that’s going away. And all they’re going to see out of Hong Kong and China is stuff that takes place hundreds of years ago in earlier eras in China, but not contemporary. Because contemporary means that you’ve got to have good guys and bad guys. And in China, they want everybody to believe that China is a perfect country. There are no gangsters, there are no corrupt cops. So everything is wonderful in China, which means you can’t have much drama for a contemporary movie. So, that era—the era of the John Woo movies and Ringo Lam and all of that—that’s pretty much over, for now.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Please tell us about The Hard Corps, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Vivica A. Fox. How did such great movie with such great cast end up as a DTV?

  Sheldon Lettich: Well, we were hoping it was going to go to theaters. And the problem was that the producers just didn’t want to spend the money to get other actors that we needed to make it a theatrical movie. Because originally, it was supposed to be Jean-Claude and Wesley Snipes. So the boxer was supposed to be played either by Wesley Snipes or Cuba Gooding, which would have made it a much bigger movie. Basically, they said, “We’ve got Jean-Claude Van Damme. We’re paying him a lot. If we get Wesley Snipes, we’ll have to pay Wesley Snipes the same amount of money we’re paying Jean-Claude, and that’s going to make the budget too big.” Now, in my opinion, it would have helped the movie. We would have had a bigger name in there. We would have had three big names. We would have had Jean-Claude, Wesley Snipes and Vivica A. Fox. And I think for sure, it would have been a theatrical movie. And that’s why it didn’t go theatrical because we just didn’t have the money we needed to get the right cast.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: I’d like to hear you about The Order, which easily ranks among your best collaborations with JCVD. The scene in which Van Damme is dressed as a Hassidic Jew is just exceptional.

  Sheldon Lettich: I made another movie in Israel—I did a movie there with Dolph Lundgren, The Last Patrol. So I got to know Israel pretty well. The cops trying to catch Van Damme, it was basically my idea. But I didn’t write the original script for The Order. It was written by this guy, Les Weldon. I wanted to make it more like an old Hitchcock movie. Hitchcock made a movie called North By Northwest and another one called The Man Who Knew Too Much. And that’s what I wanted to do with The Order.You’ve got the bad guys and the cops all after Jean-Claude. So, basically, he’s in trouble with everybody. And that’s how all those Hitchcock movies worked. I rewatched North By Northwest just recently. It was on TV. And I realized there were a lot of ideas that I took from North By Northwest. And I even forgot that I took the ideas, like this one scene in North By Northwest with Cary Grant. He’s trying to disguise himself, so he puts on some dark sunglasses. I did the exact same thing in The Order. We got the cops looking for Jean-Claude, and he’s putting dark sunglasses on to disguise himself. So that’s the kind of movie it was supposed to be. And Hitchcock put a lot of humor into those movies, too, and I put a lot of humor into The Order.

  There was a Jean-Paul Belmondo movie called The Man from Rio. It was in the 1960s. I saw it in the theater. And so I wanted to make it a little bit like that. The same thing where everybody is chasing our hero. The cops and the bad guys were all after him. And then, there was another movie I saw. It was a French movie. So those two French movies, right there. It was called The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob, where some guy was anti-Semitic. He’s got the mafia after him, and he disguises himself as a Hasidic Jew. And then, the bad guys and the cops are all chasing him. So that’s another part of that idea that I had. And then, just being in Jerusalem and just seeing these guys walking around, I just thought that would be a good disguise for Jean-Claude to have if he was trying to get away from the cops. So that was what pretty much led to that. And I really wasn’t sure if Jean-Claude would go for it, if he would actually do that. And he did. He totally went for it. He put the beard on and everything, and that’s my favorite sequence in the entire movie. I really love the way that whole sequence turned out. So that’s my favorite part of The Order.

  Our producer was Avi Lerner. And one thing Avi told me before we did the movie, he said, “l want an action scene every 10 minutes. Lots of action.” And he paid for it, too. They had the budget. We did a lot of crazy stuff in The Order. We were at the airport. Can you imagine shooting—nobody else has done that in Israel, but Avi had some connections. He had a cousin who was a pilot for El Al. That was how he got that jet where Jean-Claude was trying to get around the jet and just coming through. That was Avi’s cousin in the cockpit. And then, Avi was a good friend of the Mayor of Israel at the time, Ehud Olmert. And that’s how we got permission to shoot in Jerusalem. I mean, can you imagine? We’re doing this crazy chase scene, and we’re really on the streets of Jerusalem for most of it.

  It was very hard to shoot there. It’s very crowded. And the people who live there, it’s divided between Jews and Muslims. And they disagree on just about everything, but they all love Jean-Claude Van Damme. All of them are Van Damme fans. So we had a hard time getting away from them because they’d be surrounding us and chasing after us. They were like, “Van Damme! Van Damme!” They wanted him to sign autographs. It became very difficult to shoot in Jerusalem, so we ended up building sets in Bulgaria to look like Jerusalem. Half of that chase scene was shot in Jerusalem and on the real streets, and then the other half we shot on a recreated version of Jerusalem in Bulgaria. And what I find interesting about this is that even people who are from Israel or who’ve been in Jerusalem many times don’t realize that we shot in two different places. They think that we shot the entire thing on the streets of Jerusalem. So we did a pretty good job recreating that Jerusalem look.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Before Mark Dacascos acted for Christophe Gans in Crying Freeman and Brotherhood of the Wolf, he was revealed in Only the Strong. Please tell us about your collaboration with Dacascos.

  Sheldon Lettich: Well, he had a manager named Katherine James, and she was the one that was pushing Mark. She got in touch with me, said, “You need to work with my client, Mark Dacascos. He’s going to be the next big action star.” And so I met Mark and I liked him very much. And one thing I found out about him was that he was very good with gymnastics. He was a good acrobat, and I think he’d already been studying some capoeira at the time. And that was an important part of the movie. It was all about capoeira. So Mark was willing to go to classes with this real capoeira master from Brazil. So he learned all that stuff and was very willing to do anything I asked him to do. And it ended up working out great for the movie because he was able to do so much stuff that Van Damme can’t do, for example. Like Mark was good with the gymnastics. He could do flips. He could jump in the air. Jean-Claude can’t really do that kind of stuff. He’s good with the kicks and the punching, but if he has to do something gymnastic, we generally have to get a stunt double to do it for him. And also, Jean-Claude was not good with weapons, like martial arts weapons. He can use a gun. Of course, anybody can fire a gun, but he couldn’t do like the sticks and poles and all that kind of stuff, and Mark could do all of that stuff. We realized that in the movie, we’ve got him having fights with people using sticks and everything. And with Jean-Claude we couldn’t do that.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Scott Adkins is sometimes thought to be Jean-Claude Van Damme’s spiritual heir. How do you assess his performances?

  Sheldon Lettich: I think he’s great. I met him a few years ago, and I knew he was going to do great as an action actor. And he’s been doing terrific. He’s been doing a lot of great action movies. Unfortunately, we’re in a different era, now. Had I met Scott in the 1980s, he probably would have become a much bigger star because those kinds of movies were popular back then, in the 80s and 90s. By the time Scott came on the scene, those kinds of movies were not happening, anymore. And now, it’s become superhero movies. So superhero movies have kind of taken over as far as action movies. And Scott has certainly done a number of action films, and he’s been great in them, but that’s just not the kind of movie that’s getting the big theatrical releases, nowadays, which is unfortunate.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Do you share Martin Scorsese’s, Ridley Scott’s, and Denis Villeneuve’s recently expressed reservations about Marvel movies?

  Sheldon Lettich: Well, personally, I’m a Marvel Comics fan. From a long time ago, I was reading all those comic books in the 60s when they came out. I would go down to the to the store. The day that they put the comic books on the stands, I would go down to the store and get them. So I had all the originals. I had the first Fantastic Four and the first X-Men, the first Spider-Man. I had all those. I was a big fan of Marvel comic books back then. And then, when they started making the Marvel movies, I thought the first few were really great. I loved the first Iron Man movie, for example. And the first Captain America movie, I thought that was terrific. But then, they just started getting just too big for my taste. They’re too big, too many characters. And I started losing interest in those Marvel movies. They’re well-made, but there’s a sameness to them. They have the same kind of structure. They all end up with these huge action scenes with lots of special effects, lots of CGI. And personally, CGI is great, but I prefer action films that have some real stuff going on screen where people are actually fighting. They’re not relying on CGI.

  I was a big fan of the earlier James Bond movies, the pre-CGI James Bond movie. I was a big James Bond fan for many years. But with some of these more recent ones, once they started getting into too much CGI, and I wasn’t seeing real stunts anymore, I started losing interest in those. Although the Daniel Craig ones, I think are really good. They basically made some real changes with those Daniel Craig versions. But even so, I’m just not the Bond’s fan that I used to be many years ago. And the Marvel movies, Scorsese says they’re not real movies. Well, they really are more like just an assembly line product. There’s a sameness to all of them, now. It just feels like you’re watching the same movie: lots of CGI, lots of explosions and crazy weapons, crazy flying machines. But they just don’t have the same kind of heart that they had in the earlier ones, the first few that they made.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Do you share the commonly heard criticism that Christopher Nolan’s action scenes are as much bad and poorly shot as his screenplays and concepts are astute?

  Sheldon Lettich: Christopher, I think he’s great. See, his action scenes feel fresh and original to me because he’s basically running the show. He’s coming up with these movies. He’s not recycling some comic book characters. He’s doing original movies, coming up with original action scenes. Whereas with the Marvel movies, the producers are pretty much telling—they’re hiring directors who are basically traffic cops and telling them, “This is what the movie is going to be. This is what the action scenes are going to be. And you get out there, and you just tell the actors what to do.” They just move the characters around. And with Christopher Nolan, it’s not like that. He’s basically making Christopher Nolan movies. He’s doing action scenes that are fresh and original and doing them the way he wants to do them. And I really admire him for that. And James Cameron, too. James Cameron is another example. I love the Avatar movie. I’ve watched it a number of times. The action scenes are great. Everything about Avatar is fantastic. But James Cameron, basically, he’s calling his own shots. He’s basically saying, “I want to do this movie called Avatar. These are the actors I want.” And he goes and makes the movie. And he’s got no studio executives telling him how to structure his movie, what characters are going to be in it. It’s basically his show. And that makes a big difference.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: How do you explain that Hollywood, which used to be somewhat conservative and patriotic in the Reaganian era, has become so woke in the last few years?

  Sheldon Lettich: No, it wasn’t really conservative in the eighties. It was not Hollywood. That was Stallone. That was Stallone’s own point of view. Stallone was somewhat patriotic. He was a big supporter of Reagan, America. Reagan was, I don’t know—I wouldn’t call him a close personal friend, but he knew Reagan. He voted for him. I’m not sure if he campaigned for him, but they were very closely aligned in their politics. The rest of Hollywood was not. Stallone was kind of an outlier when it came to Hollywood. Oliver Stone, for example, has a completely different point of view. So that was Stallone and Schwarzenegger. Both of them were Republicans. Schwarzenegger even ended up being the Republican governor of California. So that was really their point of view, but that was not Hollywood. Hollywood was actually much more liberal during that period.

  And that’s why the Rambo movies got such bad reviews, too. Like Rambo III, I mean, we got a Golden Razzie Award for Worst Screenplay, Worst Movie because most of the press was very liberal. And so they were not really voting their conscience about the movie. It was all about politics. “Because Stallone is a conservative Republican, we’re going to say that his movie is shit.” But actually, Rambo III, I think, is a pretty damn good movie. I like Rambo II even better. But basically, that was not the Hollywood attitude at the time. That was Stallone, Schwarzenegger—Bruce Willis also ended up being a Republican. So a lot of these action stars had a different point of view from most people in Hollywood. Like even Van Damme, he’s very conservative. He’s not an American. I think he is an American citizen now, actually. And he was a Trump supporter. Even Stallone and Schwarzenegger were not Trump supporters but Van Damme was. We’re not talking about Hollywood in general, we’re talking about action stars who, for the most part, tended to be more conservative and lean towards the Republicans more than the Democrats.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Please tell us about this recent movie of yours whose main character is a soldier dog, Max.

  Sheldon Lettich: Well, that brought me back to Afghanistan because the beginning of the movie takes place in Afghanistan? So rather than Rambo in Afghanistan, Max was really Rambo with four legs instead of two. He was basically a Rambo character. Max, he’s a soldier in Afghanistan. He gets sent back to the States. And then, when some bad guys are threatening his family, well, then he uses all his skills to defeat the bad guys. So it was really Rambo with four legs and a tail. That was basically Max. And I got the idea for that because I got some puppies a number of years ago at the pound, and supposedly, they were German Shepherds. They were little, so it was hard to tell. So I got these two puppies, and months later, I discovered that they were not German shepherds, they were Belgian malinois. And so I did some research on Belgian malinois, and I found out that the army and the police are using these dogs because they’re the best dogs for that kind of work. So I was doing my research, and I saw that there were a couple of dog handlers that died in Afghanistan or Iraq. And then, their families asked, “Well, my son is dead, but can I have his dog? Can his dog be part of our family because that’s all we have left of him from his time in the military?” And so these families ended up adopting the dogs, and that was the basis for Max. Basically, this dog handler gets killed, his dog survives. And then, the family back in Texas wants to adopt the dog. And the dog ends up being their protector, coming to the rescue.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Thank you for the opportunity to do this interview.

  Sheldon Lettich: You’re welcome. That’s funny, I was just exchanging text messages with Brian Thompson. And Brian is in The Order. And Brian is a real expert with swords. He was in the Conan Show at Universal Studios. So he used to work with swords all the time. He’s really good with them. And then, our stunt double for Jean-Claude in The Order was David Leitch. Well, David is also really good with weapons, so Brian and he worked out a great sword fight sequence. And David, by the way, has now gone on to be a director. He directed Deadpool 2. He did that one, I forgot the title of it, the one with Dwayne Johnson. He did this really huge movie with Dwayne Johnson [Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw]. And he was our double for Jean-Claude.

  So, we were supposed to have a sword fight at the end of The Order.But Jean-Claude, like I said, he’s not good with weapons. We tried doing a few things with him. He wasn’t comfortable with it. He’s comfortable with what he’s good at, with the kicks and the punches and all of that. So he said, “Guys, let’s not do this. I can’t do this scene.” And basically, Brian and David were going to do most of the scene with the swords. And we were just going to need some close ups of Jean-Claude just swinging a sword or something. And he just didn’t feel it was going to work. So we went away from that whole sequence. And it’s a bit disappointing because I thought we needed a really good sword fight at the end of The Order, but we ended up not getting it. It’s kind of a disappointing scene.

That interview was originally published in The Postil Magazine‘s March 2022 issue

A conversation with Abdelkrim Qissi, for The Postil Magazine

A conversation with Abdelkrim Qissi, for The Postil Magazine

by ·

Abdelkrim Qissi is a Belgian-Moroccan actor and boxer. A close collaborator of Jean-Claude Van Damme, Qissi notably played the antagonists Attila and Khan in two cult Van Damme films—namely Lionheart and The Quest. He is the brother of Mohamed Qissi, actor of Tong Po in Kickboxer and Moustafa in Lionheart.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Could you start by telling us about your coming co-directed movie Lopak l’Envoûteur [Lopak the Enchanter], which will be released in next April?

  Abdelkrim Qissi: Originally, I was called upon to act in a scene from a movie whose story revolved around a cannibalistic killer. The script was largely non-existent and the shooting improvised. Abel Ernest Tembo, who was in charge of directing, proposed to me that I appear in a few more sequences; what I accepted on the condition that we rework the story thoroughly and give the film a script worthy of the name. Ernest immediately accepted. I went into production and we agreed to make the film together. The work of the image, camera, light and grading would be mainly his doing; developing a story, playing the lead role, directing the cast and writing the script mostly mine. During the Covid period, a story was born, a new film was born, only the title remained. Then, a year ago, we started shooting what was now a feature-length film, a shooting almost finished as I speak to you [November 9, 2021]. I would like to salute the work of Abel Ernest Tembo, a man excellent with the image.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: In Lopak trailer, the character you play, Molosse, evokes the bees in a furtive and mysterious mode. Could you satisfy our curiosity by telling us what is going on with those insects in the scenario?

  Abdelkrim Qissi: I cannot say too much about the plot of the film at the moment; but Molosse in the scenario feels invested with a mission, that of “healing” humanity, whom he considers corrupted by greed and whom he aspires to turn into bees devoted to the common good. To that end, he uses hypnosis and a serum that, annihilating consciousness, leaves only the subconscious and unconscious. He hopes to put thus an end to borders and to all that divides humanity; and change the Earth into a perfectly balanced hive where everyone in its alveolus perfectly knows its place, its mission, and selflessly works for the hive’s well-being, where no one encroaches on anyone and where everyone support everyone. In his quest, Molosse will be led to do things that will trigger a whole tumult around him—whether on his family’s side, or on the side of his old friends.

  As it stands, so, I prefer to avoid revealing too much about the film itself and its message; but to those young and not so young who have the desire to shoot their own feature films and who, nevertheless, are reluctant to run to fill out files, submit requests to commissions, receive financial aid, the work embodied in the film sends the following message. “Do not wait to be supported, taken seriously, introduced to big names; take your camera and shoot. Let the big names come to you as you build your own success.” To those young and not so young who have the desire to shoot their own film, who have the talent and the passion but are not particularly well known to the general public nor really involved in the right networks, I venture to hope that Lopak the Enchanter will prove that, whatever the means they originally have, the people they surround themselves with at the very beginning, it is possible for them to achieve their goal and make the film of their dreams happen.

Abdelkrim Qissi (on the right) and Grégoire Canlorbe (on the left)

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Alongside Mohamed Qissi and Kamel Krifa, you played in Lionheart (also known as Full Contact). How did the three of you end up on the set?

  Abdelkrim Qissi: Jean-Claude is a boy I have known since his childhood. I met him in a sports center where both (as well as my brother, Mohamed) came to train, where Jean-Claude practiced karate (with Claude Goetz); and for my part, boxing. I also met there, among others, Jean-Pierre Valère, who was kind enough to agree to appear briefly in Lopak. When they met, Jean-Claude and Mohamed became more than friends: inseparable, fusional, they were truly brothers. It was not uncommon for Jean-Claude to come to sleep at home.

  One fine day, sharing the same dream of breaking into the cinema, both left for America. After long years of sufferings and adventures, they made this dream come true by playing in Bloodsport, then Kickboxer. I cannot accurately relate the circumstances that led to my participation at the age of 29 in the filming of Full Contact. But briefly, they boil down to the fact that I was Mohamed’s brother (who had just played Tong Po in Kickboxer); and that he and Jean-Claude offered me and the producers that I take on the role of Attila. I was very happy with that offer and jumped at the chance. As for Kamel it is a friend that we encountered in Brussels, that is how he too found himself by our side on the set of Full Contact.

From the left to the right: Abdelkrim Qissi, Kamel Krifa, and Mohamed Qissi in their roles in Full Contact

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Lionheart’s final fight pits Leon Gaultier, character played by JCVD, against a brutal fighter who is nonetheless affectionate towards his cat. Leon, suffering from a broken rib, progressively lets himself dominated at first; then takes over in extremis over the character you play, Attila. How did the idea for such choreography come to the film crew? How was the filming, the application, of that idea?

  Abdelkrim Qissi: Contrary to the idea of ​​the white cat, which is an improvisation during the shooting, the idea that Leon takes the upper hand over Attila when everyone (including his trainer) thinks him to be losing is an idea of ​​the scenario. It was not elaborated when the choreography was being designed. Jean-Claude nevertheless participated in the writing of the screenplay; just as the choreographies of Lionheart are all his doing. Both ideas sound good to me—and constitutive of what makes the film’s aura more than thirty years after its release.

  The touching affection that Attila has for his pet, which he shows by taking advantage of Leon being momentarily on the ground to stroke his cat, contrasts with what is, besides, the brutality of the character. A contrast that the film emphasizes in its visual symbolism by making Attila all dressed in black whereas his cat, for his part, is entirely white. The cat in question, which, again, was not intended in the scenario (if I correctly remember), was the one of a member of the film crew. The inner strength that manifests itself in the character of Jean-Claude just after his trainer in person, Joshua, confesses to him that he does not trust him and that he himself has bet on Attila, that rage to defeat himself in order to triumph over his opponent and prove to Joshua that he made a “wrong bet” (a reply which is, besides, at the origin of one of the film’s titles), that desire coming from the depths of his heart which allows Leon to overcome the pain and to defeat Attila even though the latter, in plain view, was largely dominating him until then, offers the film one of its most beautiful scenes.

Attila (played by Abdelkrim Qissi) stroking his cat, in Lionheart

  Grégoire Canlorbe: You play Khan, Mongolian champion with whom the character of JCVD ​​fights at the end of The Quest. JCVD directed that film; but years before he had already served, unofficially, as an editor to Bloodsport. What makes the two films so different despite their partly similar plot? How did you work with JCVD ​​to come up with a final fight that be even more impressive than the one between JCVD ​​and Bolo Yeung [at the end of Bloodsport]?

Abdelkrim Qissi: A major difference between Bloodsport and The Quest is, it seems to me, that Jean-Claude had the opportunity to work with professional fighters in The Quest; while the tournament participants in Bloodsport were played by people who were a bit less pros in the field of martial art. Another major difference is that, in The Quest, Jean-Claude had matured since Bloodsport and was then at the peak of his physical and mental form. The exotic landscapes in The Quest, the richness of the animal cast (including the elephant and the horses), the beauty of the image (including the care given to the colors), all that contributes to what makes Jean-Claude’s film so different from Bloodsport released almost ten years before. However, I would regret that the human relations in The Quest were somewhat put in the background during the filming; I believe, because of a timing problem or a problem arisen in production.

Abdelkrim Qissi as Khan, Mongolian champion, in The Quest

  Jean-Claude is an excellent choreographer and, on Full Contact like on The Quest, trusted himself for the design of the fights; also, on Full Contact like on The Quest, he adapted the choreography for the final fight to my martial style, to what I’m best able to do in an arena. Whether it is the confrontation between Attila and Leon Gaultier in Full Contact or the one between Khan and Christopher Dubois in The Quest, of which the fight at the end of Lionheart was ultimately the prelude, no stand-in nor any special effect nor any stunt carried out by someone else were required. Shooting the choreography was for Jean-Claude and me an easy, joyful, and quick exercise. If I remember correctly, on the set of The Quest, Jean-Claude and I worked only nine hours—three times three hours over three days—developing our choreography from Jean-Claude’s general idea. A German steadicamer on the set of The Quest said of Jean-Claude and I that we were “like the fingers of the hand” given how we knew each other, understood each other, and had blind confidence in each other in the choreography’s execution; given how our moves, with meticulous precision, were easy for us and resembled a ballet; given how our blows espoused each other without ever hurting nor touching each other.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: You traveled to Israel for the filming of The Order, by Sheldon Lettich (who years before had directed and co-written Lionheart). What do you remember from your stay in the holy land?

  Abdelkrim Qissi: I had great times with Sheldon; he’s a very nice guy, just like Peter MacDonald. I believe that Jean-Claude, by offering me a sort of cameo in The Order, intended to make a nice eyewink to my previous performances in the roles of Attila and Khan, two characters united into one in “the Big Arab” whom I briefly interpret in The Order. Regarding Jerusalem, what struck me about that city is the conjunction of holiness and violence that reigns within it, the spectacle of both beauty and injustice that it offers. All the more as our subconscious associates Jerusalem with the battles and bloodshed of which it has been the theatre throughout history.

  The little Palestinian people is a brilliant people who has gone through very hard times over the centuries. Does the Israeli government really have a stake in peace—given that Israel would then no longer be in a position to continue its nibbling on territories? Do Fatah, in power in the West Bank, and Hamas, in power in the Gaza Strip, really have a stake in the war’s ending–given that the financial rent they derive from the military conflict would itself cease on that occasion? For the Palestinian Authority, wouldn’t stopping the attacks, reprisals, and rocket fires be the best weapon against Israel—given that it would deprive Israel of any justification for its settlement policy and force nations in the whole world to take the side of the Palestinians against the Israelis? Being not in the know, I do not want to make any assertion; but only to raise a number of questions that, in my opinion, are worth asking. Let me add that a religious government, as is the case of Hamas, is, in my eyes, a foolish and disastrous thing; since such a government could never represent the entire population, some individuals being firmly religious, others not or even not at all. It is much wiser for a government to refrain from imposing any dogma or rite regarding religion; and to recognize in everyone the freedom to practice or not some spirituality and the freedom to practice it in the way that suits him personally. Such would be one of the pillars of my policy if I were to find myself at the head of the Palestinian Authority; but being not a man of power, I no more aspire to occupy such a position than I would be able to hoist myself into it.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: With regard to the Koran, do you believe that it should be taken literally—or that it contains an allegorical meaning that should be deciphered with the help of ancillary knowledge?

  Abdelkrim Qissi: First of all, please know that I am in no way claiming that what I am telling you is the truth; it is only my conception of the truth. I am submitting it to you in the framework of an exchange, not of a debate. I don’t just deny myself the status of teacher, preacher or preacher; I see it as an incompatibility with well-understood spirituality, which is a personal, intimate affair. What I understand about the Quran is that a huge gulf exists between the word interpreted and taught by men and the WORD drawn directly from the source (the Book itself). Allah, I understand him as the source of all that exists; so that God is both present in His creation and located upstream from it. It is impossible to love God without loving His creation which prolongs it: impossible to love Allah, he who is in the trees, if the wood is cut without moderation; impossible to love him, He who is in the human, if one hurts one’s neighbor. The words of the Koran (which it is customary to recite in singing it) are not only made to rock, cuddle, the ears of the devotee. That is the lowest, most superficial, level of listening there is, the furthest from what is attentive listening to what the Koran seeks to communicate to us and make us understand.

Abdelkrim Qissi (on the right) as The Big Arab and Jean-Claude Van Damme (on the left) as Rudy Cafmeyer in The Order

  I didn’t learn Arabic at school; I learned it late, when I applied myself to reading a comparative edition of the Koran including the original text in Arabic and a French translation. The main words of the Book, what I call the catchwords, resonate differently from anything I have been taught. Often they are not even translated. Here are some examples of those words: Allah, Islam, Muslim, Koran, Jihad. Those words have very precise and deep meanings, characteristics and specificities. I’m not going to teach you what they mean, because that is research unique to each of us. What I can say and repeat is that there is a huge gulf between what you have been taught and what the Quran can teach you. Many counterfeiters have seized the content to use it for their own ends. Such is what created the innumerable religions, themselves divided into different sects, schools and currents of thought. To conclude my answer: from my reading, I do not see any contradiction in the Book, I do not see any violence. I perceive only love for God in it and that goes without saying, for His creation as well.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Tell us about your meetings with Roger Moore (on the set of The Quest) and Charlton Heston (on the set of The Order). What is your favorite James Bond?

  Abdelkrim Qissi: The shootings of The Quest and The Order were effectively the occasion of magnificent encounters: Pjetër Malota (who played the Spanish fighter in The Quest), Takis Triggelis (who played the French fighter), Cesar Carneiro (who played the Brazilian fighter), Stefanos Miltsanakis (who played the Greek fighter—and who passed away two years ago, God rest his soul!), Janet Gunn (who played the journalist), Roger Moore (God rest his soul!), and many others. The four and a half months that The Quest team spent in Thailand allowed me to closely interact with Roger Moore to the point where he became a friend; as well as his wife, with whom I have had long discussions around spirituality, being myself sick of spirituality as you must have noticed. Moore was an extraordinary man; of unparalleled kindness, simplicity, and humanism, he warmly encouraged me, as well as the youth in general. Unlike Roger Moore on the set of The Quest, Charlton Heston remained somewhat aloof, withdrawn, on the set of The Order; and had a very small role, so he didn’t stay long on the spot. Being then of a very advanced age already, I think he was a little tired. He nevertheless gave me the impression of a respectful and respectable gentleman, of great kindness.

Mongolian champion (played by Abdelkrim Qissi) having just defeated, killed, Siamese champion (played by Jen Sung), in the Quest

  As for my opinion on the evolution of the James Bond, it seems to me futile to want to compare them given how the historical contexts, perceptions of the character, filmic means, are each time different. It would be like pretending to compare Mohamed Ali, Mike Tyson, and Joe Louis! Roger Moore in James Bond evoked Simon Templar, alias “the Saint,” and Lord Brett Sinclair, the sidekick of Tony Curtis’ Daniel Wilde in The Pretenders. Moore played a gallant, charming, light Bond, devoid of the slightest hint of violence, not less than strong and talented. Sean Connery and Roger Moore are the only James Bond that we can almost classify in the same category: by the finesse, the tact, which they have in common and that is ultimately lacking in the others (all the more as the more recent episodes put the action forward). Some say Daniel Craig is the best James Bond, I don’t agree. Pierce Brosnan, for example, was not bad at all, as well as a Timothy Dalton already in a more violent register as would be, nearly twenty years later, Daniel Craig.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Who from Tong Po or Chong Li [antagonist in Bloodsport] would win if they fought with each other? Same question for Attila and Khan

  Abdelkrim Qissi: Regarding Tong Po versus Chong Li: if we talk about the actors, I think that my brother, a professional boxer, would win against Bolo Yeung, who, to my knowledge, is an accomplished actor without really being an experienced martial artist or boxer. Now, if we talk about the characters, it seems to me that, by comparing the performances of Tong Po and Chong Li in their respective films, the former is clearly more dangerous, more gifted, more powerful, in Kickboxer than the latter is in Bloodsport; so that, if they were to come face to face, Tong Po would win hands-down over Chong Li. Regarding Khan versus Attila, it seems to me that the former’s power (including mental) in The Quest is without comparison with that of the latter in Full Contact; and that the Mongol would be the big winner in a hypothetical confrontation with Attila.

Abdelkrim Qissi as Attila, Khan, and The Big Arab

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Thank you for your time. Would you like to add something?

  Abdelkrim Qissi: We talked about thriller and action movie; but I must confess that my personal preference as a spectator goes to contemplative, spiritual films. So I haven’t seen most of Jean-Claude’s films (including Legionnaire, of which one spoke highly to me of the introductory boxing sequence). There are certainly thrillers and action films with a contemplative, spiritual dimension, and that I particularly appreciate for that. Among other examples, Gladiator, by Ridley Scott; or Heat, by Michael Mann.

That conversation was originally published in The Postil Magazine’s December 2021 issue

A conversation with Mohamed Qissi, for The Postil Magazine

A conversation with Mohamed Qissi, for The Postil Magazine

by ·

Mohamed Qissi, known as Michel Qissi, is a Belgian-Moroccan actor, director, screenwriter, stuntman, and martial choreographer. He is notably known for having played alongside Jean-Claude Van Damme in Bloodsport, Kickboxer, and Lionheart; and choreographed the fights in Kickboxer, where he plays cult villain Tong Po.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: From Mohamed, your first name was changed into Michel; then became Mohamed again. How come?

  Mohamed Qissi: When I was little, and I helped Jean-Claude in his mother’s flower shop in Brussels, Avenue Buyl, his mother, whom I called mamie, and his father whom I called papi, both called me Michel. Jean-Claude, with whom we got to know each other when we were young, also called me that way; and when we both went to America in 1982, he continued to call me Michel. Today, it’s been twenty years since I returned to Morocco and took the first name of my origins, the one my parents gave me and that everyone continues to attribute to me here.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: You were a choreographer on Kickboxer. Please tell us about that experience. What does distinguish dance choreography from fight choreography?

  Mohamed Qissi: I indeed took care of the choreography and of the casting of the fighters in Kickboxer, what was an extraordinary experience. The fact that Jean-Claude and I had trained together for years and years, since we were little, was of a huge help to us in our fight at the end of the film. There is dance in this fight, a visual beauty of the moves, which is why it looks so good on screen.

  Dance and fight choreographies are nonetheless completely different things. I wouldn’t be able to choreograph a dance scene; but a fight choreography where the movements are of impeccable fluidity, elegance, where a kind of dance is played, a warlike-style dance, is something that is possible for me. The risk of injury is much greater in combat choreography than it is in dance choreography. The actors recruited for fight scenes don’t just have to know how to act; they have to know how to fight, what is not something you learn in six months. They must be experienced fighters, who know how to control themselves, control their strength, and resist fatigue.

Kickboxer fanart by Stevan Aleksić ART

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Is Tong Po an entirely bad character? Or does he keep a part of light in him like Darth Vader?

  Mohamed Qissi: The utter nastiness of Tong Po is plainly evident in the film. It impressed the spectators. As for Tong Po’s past and why he has become such an evil being, devoid of any light, the film remains a mystery. While it is true that some are born with a mental disorder, we are never born wicked. We are all angels when we come to the world. An unhappy childhood, marked by mistreatment and sexual abuse, is one of the things that can explain why some take a fatal path while growing up. At the moment, I am being offered the launching of an opus that would explore Tong Po’s youth, the education he received, the life’s challenges that he encountered and which rendered him the brutal and cruel being that the Sloane brothers have to face in Kickboxer…

Mohamed Qissi as Tong Po in Kickboxer and Kickboxer 2: The Road Back

  Grégoire Canlorbe: What do you think of Dave Bautista as Tong Po in Kickboxer: Vengeance, remake of the original Kickboxer movie?

  Mohamed Qissi: It is an honor for me that Dave Bautista, someone who enormously matters in the cinema world, whom we have seen playing in important films like Blade Runner 2049, took over the character of Tong Po whom I was the first to bring to life. An honor and a pleasure.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Would you say that the “American dream” that you lived is still possible for a young person in Morocco today?

  Mohamed Qissi: Everything is possible in life, whether you are a Moroccan or someone from another country. Everything is possible provided that you are passionate, patient, and persevering; and that you work hard, get up early every morning, and enter those places where your passion brings you. If you are passionate about cinema, go where the cinema is. Whatever is the environment in which your passion finds itself, you will meet good and bad people there; go to the right people, those who will help you. With advances in communication, contacting the right person is easier today than it was in the 1980s.

Grégoire Canlorbe (in the middle) with the Qissi brothers

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Thank you for your time. In the end, what message do you want to convey?

Mohamed Qissi: My message to everyone, especially young people, is the following. On the one hand, respect your body, stay away from all bad drugs. The good drug is sport; the bad one is stuff like cigarettes, alcohol, or cocaine. On the other hand, respect your parents whoever they are; listen to and respect their advice—especially when it comes from wise people.

That conversation was initially published in The Postil Magazine’s October 2021 issue