Grégoire Canlorbe

Jean-Claude Van Damme

A conversation with Jose Luis Torres II

A conversation with Jose Luis Torres II

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Jose Luis Torres II is an American martial artist, actor, producer, and entrepreneur, holder of the 9th Dan in World Tang Soo Do and founder of NAFMA, promoting martial arts worldwide. Since 1982, he has taught Tang Soo Do at his karate school in New Jersey, which he has led for over twenty-five years. As an actor-producer, he is best known for his roles in the martial-arts thriller Killer Ex (2024), as well as in City of Honor and the upcoming Rise of the Dragon (2026).

  Grégoire Canlorbe: How do you move from kinesiology to martial arts—and, in turn, from martial arts to action movie?

  Jose Luis Torres II: I’ve practiced martial arts since I was five, competing and training throughout my childhood. Over the past forty years, martial arts have been my lifelong passion. When I went to Penn State University, I majored in kinesiology—the study of human movement—with the intention of becoming a chiropractor or physical therapist. 

  Despite my dedication to martial arts and kinesiology, I’d always harbored a dream of acting. In grade school and high school I performed in theater productions, and in college I even took two drama classes. Friends encouraged me to move to Los Angeles, but at the time I was focused on finishing my degree. Then life intervened: I married my college sweetheart, became a father, and built a career to support my family. 

  Over the next twenty-five years I stayed connected to the martial-arts world—making friends with its celebrities at seminars and expos. When the pandemic hit, I launched the Martial Arts Xperience podcast. With everyone stuck at home, I was able to book top martial artists for video interviews and quickly grew an audience of over 10,000 followers. Through the podcast I met my good friend William Christopher Ford (who played Dennis in The Karate Kid and reprised the role in Cobra Kai Season 6). He invited me onto his show 52 Masters and encouraged me to explore on-camera work. I submitted audition tapes and, though most went nowhere, one led to a role in Willie Johnson’s independent film 1 Out of 100. Filming in Maryland, I discovered how much I loved being on set. 

  Director Robert Parham saw potential in me and suggested we collaborate again. Later, at a fundraiser for the Martial Arts History Museum in Los Angeles, I pitched myself to indie filmmaker Jim Towns. I explained that modern action heroes don’t have to be bodybuilder–types but should feel real—like a “Puerto Rican Liam Neeson.” He agreed, sent me the script for Killer Ex, and cast me as a retired assassin drawn back into the field. The grassroots premiere in nearby Burlington, New Jersey, sold 514 tickets on opening night. 

  Now I’m developing my second project, City of Honor—a TV series whose pilot has been picked up by six streaming platforms. We’re currently finalizing investment to produce the entire first season. Martial arts taught me discipline; podcasting taught me persistence; and now, acting is teaching me that it’s never too late to chase a lifelong dream.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: How does your training in kinesiology shape your eye as a martial artist?

  Jose Luis Torres II: I’ve found that my background in kinesiology—understanding muscles, tendons, ranges of motion, and the fluid mechanics of movement—gives me, indeed, a sharper eye when performing. Some actors step in front of the camera and effortlessly look the part; I’m the kind who has to work for it. Knowing exactly how to execute a kick, open the hips, or coordinate a punch lets me elevate my martial-arts routines from mere imitation to authentic, camera-ready action. 

  By combining childhood passion with scientific insight, I’m not just an actor “trying” to fight—I’m a martial artist who knows instinctively how the body moves. That authenticity shows on screen: it doesn’t look like staged choreography, but real, dynamic combat. And while I’m still on my journey toward star-level roles, I’ve already seen audiences respond positively to that genuine fluidity and precision in my first projects—and it’s only the beginning.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: When it comes to the way bodies are being hurt and shaken, how do you assess the fight scene in David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises?

  Jose Luis Torres II: I haven’t watched Eastern Promises in years, but its premise still grips me: a desperate race to rescue an infant from London’s Russian mafia underworld. You’re asking my take on the sauna fight scene featuring a naked Viggo Mortensen, right? I love how they shot it—raw, brutal, and unflinching. I don’t recall who was the stunt or fight coordinator, but the realism of that sequence is astounding. There are no 360° hook kicks or flashy flying sidekicks—instead you see instinctive, animalistic reactions, driven purely by emotion. Mortensen’s character fights with desperation and fury, using every instinct to save that girl.

  Contrast that with Bloodsport’s highly choreographed displays of Jean-Claude Van Damme’s incredible kicking ability. In Bloodsport, the spectacle and precision of each move serve the tournament’s honor-bound stakes. In Eastern Promises, however, the violence feels organic: every punch and grapple reveals Mortensen’s character’s fear and determination. It’s a perfect example of how a fighter’s motivation—honor versus survival—shapes the way they move on screen.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Your character in Killer Ex is a retired professional killer who built a family. How did you get in his shoes so convincingly?

  Jose Luis Torres II: It was actually my first time leading a film, so I didn’t shape the character as much as Jim Towns, our writer–director, did. Still, I found a lot to connect with. As a father of three boys myself, I understood the stakes of a dad doing whatever it takes to protect his family. And at nearly fifty, I knew what it felt like to move like I did in my twenties—stiffer, heavier, a little slower. Rather than hiding that, I leaned into it: my character in Killer Ex is past his prime, worn down by retirement and regret.

  That weariness brought authenticity to the fight scenes. Early on, you’ll see him take worse hits—he’s rusty, out of shape, fighting on instinct rather than precision. But as the story unfolds and his mission sharpens (his son’s life is on the line), he locks in. By the final battles, his technique and focus have returned, driven by pure determination. In Killer Ex, the fights aren’t just choreography; they’re emotional milestones charting his journey from reluctant retiree to fierce protector.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: The movie’s conclusion, which sees a dialog between Gerald Okamura and you precede a voiceover, is full of tension.

  Jose Luis Torres II: It was funny, because in the original edit—and the February screening—we didn’t have Victor’s voiceover at either the beginning or the end of the film. As a producer, I talked to Jim and said, “I really think we need to open and close the movie with Victor reflecting in voiceover.” I felt it was important—like putting a cover on the book, then the back of the book. Jim loved the idea, so we added it in post-production. 

  We’ll be doing the same thing for Killer Ex 2, which we start filming later this summer. Although we’ve already shot the restaurant scene where the family celebrates and comes together, the voiceover dialogue will be recorded afterward and woven in—way, way after the fact.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Killer Ex is built upon the duo that the male protagonist—your character—is forming with a femme fatale—Elena Churinova’s character. How did you get your complicity as co-actors?

  Jose Luis Torres II: So, Elena was cast—as I said, I didn’t have full control over Killer Ex’s casting. That was handled by our writer–director, Jim Towns. Jim had worked with Elena Churinova on another project and thought she’d be a great fit for this film, so he tapped her for the role.

  How was acting with her? It was really good. You know, I’ve heard horror stories and I’ve heard great stories—Elena is the latter. She’s a consummate professional and a genuinely wonderful person. To be honest, this was the first time I’d ever acted on screen opposite a leading lady. Elena had already done twenty or thirty films and loads of stunts, so she was completely at ease.

  We did Zoom reads and table reads together to build rapport. I was nervous—very insecure about how I’d look and sound on camera—but Elena’s warmth and encouragement put me right at ease. She’s a phenomenal actress and an even more phenomenal human being.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: One of the best fights in Killer Ex opposes Elena Churinova to Lawrence Walther. Please tell us about the filming and choreographing of this great confrontation, which violently ends in the toilet.

  Jose Luis Torres II: We shot that fight scene in a single day at a rented roadside motel, which presented tight walls, narrow corridors, and awkwardly placed dressers. Lawrence Walther handled his assassin role; he’s a stunt performer with whom I’ve since formed such a strong bond that I cast him as the police chief in my series City of Honor. Although I served as fight coordinator, we brought in Manny Ayala—who’s worked on blockbusters like The Amazing Spider-Man 2—to consult and fine-tune the choreography.

  A couple of days before shooting, Manny, Elena, and Lawrence rehearsed in my karate school using mats and mock-up dressers to nail the spacing and timing. Once we moved into the actual motel room, Manny’s expertise guided every punch, wall-bounce, and camera angle—Jim Towns shot it all handheld on a Blackmagic to capture that claustrophobic intensity. Manny also designed the dramatic glass break and the final, tongue-in-cheek moment when the toilet seat clocks the assassin, giving the scene a bit of comic relief at the end.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Just as epic, the fight opposing you to Mohammed “Michel” Qissi ends with you diving a knife into him. Please tell us about the backstage of this scene.

  Jose Luis Torres II: I was such a fanboy to work with Mohammed Qissi. I’d met him on social media, and we started forming a friendship—he even appeared on my podcast, where I shared my dreams and aspirations. Later, he flew in as a special guest at my tournament, and that’s when our bond really grew. When I told him about my movie, he didn’t hesitate to help. I was truly honored—everyone knows Qissi’s story with Jean-Claude Van Damme, so working alongside someone of his experience and talent was incredibly humbling.

  Despite my admiration, I refused to embarrass myself. With Elena I was nervous, but with Qissi I went all in: I tapped into my martial-arts confidence, discipline, and focus so I’d look good for both of us. And he matched that energy—he’s the ultimate professional.

  Originally, we planned to shoot his fight scene that summer, but a scheduling conflict meant he couldn’t fly in from Germany until months later from Morocco. When he finally arrived, we had to choreograph everything on the spot. He wanted a heavier boxing element; I wanted to showcase a spinning hook kick—his height made that move especially striking—and we had a blast building it together.

  During the stabbing scene, someone forgot to swap the metal blade for a rubber prop. Mohammed never broke character; he delivered full-force swings until the director finally called “cut.” When they realized the real weapon was still on set, I glanced at him, half panicked—but he just smiled and said, “When the director says action, it’s action. When he says cut, it’s cut.” I couldn’t stop laughing.

  That knife-dive effect was shot tight on a corner, cutting between a rubber knife thrust and a close-up of a machete prop with practical blood drips. For a small-budget film, the result drew great praise, and I’m proud of what we achieved with limited resources.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: You really had a blast working with Mohammed.

  Jose Luis Torres II: Working with Mohammed was a dream come true—and I can’t wait to collaborate with him again on future projects.

  Mohammed really opened doors for me—he introduced me to his contacts, including his cousin, Said Hamdaoui, who did an excellent job in his short scene in the club in The Last Kumite. Since then, I’ve been building those relationships and expanding my network.

  I think The Last Kumite had some of its own difficulties, but it was a great film that truly paid homage to that ’80s-style flick. Obviously we would have loved to see more fighting—a bigger throwback to the original Bloodsport—but they did a very, very good job. It’s so difficult to make movies with tight budgets, time pressures, and all the constraints involved, so I commend everyone who managed to pull it together. I’m really happy for them.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: The platonic, respectful relationship between Victor and Ayana is somewhat reminiscent of that between Ethan Hunt and Ilsa Faust in Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation.

  Jose Luis Torres II: Mission Impossible taking inspiration from Killer Ex’s ideas? Ha, I wish!

  Seriously, though, what really drives the film is the history between Elena’s character and Victor. They were once inseparable—a team on secret missions, jetting around the globe, and very much in love. But Victor longed for a home and a family, while Elena couldn’t imagine giving up the thrill of the field. That difference pulled them apart, yet their bond never truly broke.

  In the story, you see Victor risk everything—even his own family’s safety—to rescue her. And critically, we never crossed the cliché of him betraying his wife. We wanted to walk that fine line: showing Elena and Victor’s deep, lingering affection without slipping into adultery. It was essential to keep their connection honorable, honoring both their past passion and Victor’s commitment to his family.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Speaking of Mission Impossible, did you get to watch the just released, eighth installment?

  Jose Luis Torres II: I haven’t had a chance to see it yet—I’ve been completely tied up with filming, production, and marketing my current project, so it’s on my to-do list. I did, however, catch Michael B. Jordan’s film Sinners (the vampire movie), and I thought he did a fantastic job. It’s incredible what you can achieve with that kind of backing—and that’s exactly the level I’m working toward, so I can bring even more ambitious, magical moments to the screen.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Thank you for your time. Would you like to add a few words?

  Jose Luis Torres II: I’m juggling three major projects right now. We’ve just finished filming City of Honor, a six-episode crime drama in which I play Detective Sergeant Dante Perez of the West End Task Force. The pilot lands June 27 on Prime, Tubi, Uplift TV, Filmzie, Fawesome TV, and TVEI, with additional platforms still signing on. Financiers and production companies are already lining up to continue the series—seasons 2 and 3 synopses are complete, and all of season 1’s scripts are locked. It’s an emotional ensemble piece about a single dad battling grief, alcoholism, and rising city crime, and I believe its layered storytelling will resonate both here and abroad.

  This summer—August into September—I’ll be back in front of the camera for Killer Ex 2 with writer–director Jim Towns. We’re bringing back familiar faces and introducing two new villains: Silvio Simac (of Transporter and Unleashed) as Nikolai, and martial-arts legend Casanova Wong as a powerful Triad boss. Expect bigger characters, sharper choreography, and higher stakes as our hero faces a fresh wave of adversaries.   Looking further ahead, I’m developing Rise of the Dragon, a feature film set to begin shooting in late 2025/early 2026. It’s a passion project—a love letter to classic martial-arts cinema that will deliver authentic fight sequences, gritty atmosphere, and the spirit of ’70s and ’80s kung-fu epics. It’s been an amazing year of building new worlds and characters, and I can’t wait to share these stories with audiences everywhere.

That conversation was originally published on BulletProof Action, in July 2025

A conversation with Loren Avedon, for Bulletproof Action

A conversation with Loren Avedon, for Bulletproof Action

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Loren Rains Avedon is an American martial artist, actor, Emmy Award winning stunt man, co-producer, action director, and second unit director. Grand Master Avedon is a 9th Dan black belt in Hapkido certified by the IHF and the WHF. GM Avedon is also a 9th Dan black belt and Grand Master in Taekwondo serving as the Secretary General of the USTF a Federation created by one of the founders of the Kukkiwon. 10th Dan Grand Master In Kon Park (Dan #303), of more than 70,000,000 Kukkiwon black belts. GM Avedon is known for his portrayal of Jake Donahue in “The King of the Kickboxers”, Scott Wylde in “No Retreat, No Surrender 2: Raging Thunder”, and Will Alexander in “No Retreat, No Surrender 3: Blood Brothers”. In Europe (Germany et al.) the movies were also titled “Karate Tiger 2, 3 and Karate Tiger 5”. These epic starring roles fulfilled his contract with Seasonal Films in Hong Kong. According to Black Belt Magazine in 1992 in the United States the movies ranked numbers four, five and six of the top 10 Martial Arts movies ever made, only surpassed by the legendary Bruce Lee.

Grégoire Canlorbe: How do you remember your collaboration with Cynthia Rothrock in No Retreat, No Surrender 2?

Loren Avedon: She was wonderful to work with, very down to earth and very kind. In the 1980s, we were both doing a lot of tournaments, and I met her as a martial artist when she was training with Master Ernie Reyes Sr. the father of Ernie Reyes jr, as part of the famous “West Coast Demo Team” many years before I saw her on the set. Most of my acting was with Max Thayer in that film but all of us collaborated beautifully, really. We still keep in touch, though of course life takes you where it takes you. Max Thayer is still a dear friend and I see him whenever I am in LA.

Grégoire Canlorbe: In terms of martial arts, how did you allow your character in No Retreat, No Surrender 2 to stand out from Kurt McKinney’s character in the first movie?

Loren Avedon: If you notice Kurt’s technique, he’s doing more crescent kicks and techniques like that rather than spinning heel kicks for example. I don’t know what his martial art background is, but they hired me based on my abilities. And honestly, I don’t want to pump myself up too much, but let’s just say they were very happy that I had all of this capability to do reactions, take a lot of punishment and do most of my own stunts. I was a good athlete. Now you have these athletes that are absolutely incredible with all kinds of creative “trickster” kicking, but that was started in the late 90s.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Do you stand ready to co-act one more time with your No Retreat, No Surrender family in some new sequel?

Loren Avedon: Assuredly, and I would be especially thrilled if the Blood Brothers were reunited. For, whenever Keith and I are together, everybody goes kind of crazy. Keith and I are currently putting together a film interviewing screen writers and we might have something together very soon.

Grégoire Canlorbe: The King of the Kickboxers—sometimes known as Karate Tiger 5 in Europe—is thematically similar to Kickboxer but original in its snuff film storyline.

Loren Avedon: We—Billy and I and the whole team were trying to create that experience of revenge as written by Keith Strandberg. We were focused on the “snuff film” plot. In KOTKB my much old brother is killed at the beginning of the film. In Kickboxer, the brothers are closer in age. By the way, Dennis Alexio, the gentleman who played Jean-Claude’s brother, was a good friend of mine.

Grégoire Canlorbe: The final fight is quite phenomenal. Please tell us about how it was choreographed, executed, and shot.

Loren Avedon: Billy was phenomenal to work with, and fight with. Without him, it wouldn’t be such a great picture. He is so humble. He came to me in the beginning of the film and said “Loren, this is your movie and I want to do everything I can to make it great”. The film was shot in 14 weeks and the conditions were very hard. It was hot and humid all the time in Thailand, and I got tremendously ill, several times. Billy came in 35 pounds heavier and left about 30 pounds lighter. It was so much fun though, but a lot of pain as well, all part of making a great action movie.

At the time, there was no pre-visualization, no monitors, no playback, none of that. It made the filming of the final fight more challenging, choreographing everything on the spot, but working with the best in Hong Kong they didn’t need playback, they knew immediately if we needed another take. There was a brilliant choreographer, who also grabbed the camera and shot the fight—Tony Leung Shin-Hong. He is still working in Hong Kong today as a director and action choreographer. He is the Green Dragon Master in the first IP Man.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Please tell us about that movie called Los Angeles: Street Fighter also called Ninja Turf which is quite early in your acting career.

Loren Avedon: It was just kind of fun to be in a film with my Masters. We shot a lot of it sort of on the fly. We didn’t have permits. We would do it on the weekends, as Master Jun Chong and Master Philip Rhee were running the Taekwondo studio during the weak. A great example of how we got away with many shots is when we’re walking up as a gang to the actual “Fairfax” High School campus after school had let out for the day, so that’s the real Fairfax High School, and those are real students there. We just pushed them all out of the way and did the scene. Master Rhee, in the end of the film, hits me a couple times with a real wooden sword, and kicks me in the stomach, I throw my feet in the air and land face down flat a stunt commonly called a “dead man”. All I did was put some cardboard down on the alley street to cover all the disgusting trash and human feces there in that alley near “skid row” in downtown LA, where all of the drunks, drug addicts and homeless people were living on the street were before we came. It was pretty yucky in that alley, but we made a fun low budget movie.

I had been around film cameras all my life because of my mother. She was a TV commercial producer and director, and advertising creative director. She put me in many of her commercials. She knew all the big movie and TV stars, so I grew up around all of these big stars. All of her friends were, you know, my uncles, and aunts really, as my Father and Mother were never married, and my Dad had moved to Italy with his daughters by marriage, to run “Eve of Rome”, where he met his second wife Princess Luciana Pignatelli Avedon. It was martial arts that really changed my life. I needed male role models and I found them in the great Martial Artists at Jun Chong Taekwondo.

Grégoire Canlorbe: How do you think that Los Angeles has evolved since the time of Ninja Turf?

Loren Avedon: That’s a pretty sad question to answer, because Los Angeles has become less relevant in filmmaking. I just visited Los Angeles last May of 2023, and it was nice because there was recently some rain, and everything was green, as there had been such a long drought, the air was a bit fresher. But Los Angeles is, shall we say, not what it used to be. Now it’s easier to shoot in other places and with digital cameras, worldwide locations, it is far easier and cheaper to shoot great movies with the ability to move quickly, and with far less hassle. Los Angeles has become ridiculously expensive and is truthfully “shot out” which means that the locations have been used in so many movies and TV shows. Audiences know its Los Angeles. Unless you are working on a studio production which I did very often as a stunt man, stunt double. I got back into stunting so I could be a good single Father to my daughter Nicole. I was not going to let her grow up without a Father like I did. She has turned into a wonderful young lady. Daughters need their Fathers, and I was determined to be the Father I never had.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Many of those 80ties movies in the martial arts and action genres were produced by that iconic duo that are Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus. How do you assess their legacy?

Loren Avedon: Cannon Films, Golan Globus productions made all of these tremendous Chuck Norris movies. Using Israeli funding and locations in Israel. They were really instrumental in making martial arts movies outside of Hong Kong productions. It’s wonderful—I love watching those old movies. I just saw Richard Norton when flipping through the television channels last night. That was probably one of their productions. I never worked with Cannon, it wasn’t my time.

Grégoire Canlorbe: What is your take on the Ninja saga starring Scott Adkins?

Loren Avedon: I think it’s phenomenal. Scott is an amazing martial artist and a good action actor. But when you’re in the business, you become a bit more critical of things; you see things that others don’t. And the time that he had to shoot these movies is much shorter than that I had, usually about 3 weeks. The movies I am so well known for we had at least 3 1⁄2 months for principal photography.

Grégoire Canlorbe: How do you explain that unique innovativeness witnessed over the course of Asian history when it comes to martial arts?

Loren Avedon: I think it just comes down to necessity. You know, all of these weapons and things that they used were developed using farm tools, because people weren’t allowed to have swords or anything like that because of the laws preventing common people possessing weapons. Only the Emperors armies could have weapons of war. Lords, Kings or only those who could afford the expense of maintaining and army with such weapons helped keep the masses in line. Weapons were allowed only for the elite and the warrior class, devoted to their duty to protect their Kingdoms. I am so grateful most of the Chinese martial arts were preserved to some degree. It was some Army general or someone who whispered in Mao Zedong’s ear that convinced him to renounce his original plan to eliminate all martial arts and execute all Masters. Thank God that Mao eventually allowed it to become a sport instead— wushu.

I was just telling my wife the other day that I would fly to San Francisco to get videotapes of these 1970’s Chinese movies, made in Hong Kong or Taiwan because it was so entertaining to watch the choreography. In those days they would go out, as you probably know, and not have any script, just find an open field, or any place they could shoot, and figure out when they got there how to create a fight scene and to carry on with it until they had a feature length film. They just wanted it to be exciting and entertaining to watch so they could show it in the theaters. They used action to bridge the gaps between any culture because a punch in the face is a universal language. Throughout history, when we come to today, the Chinese and all Asia are still practicing martial arts. If you’ve seen on YouTube the videos of all the children practicing in China, I wish we had that in the West, honestly. We are losing one of the most important things all humans need especially growing up, discipline.

By the way, even in the 20th century, Bruce Lee got in a lot of trouble for practicing Wing Chun in San Francisco and for teaching white people, but that’s the truth. Kung Fu and the Shaolin Temple and all they do to Master an ancient art is absolutely phenomenal. I believe that Mao would not have survived as a dictator if he had destroyed the Shaolin Temple. The Chinese people would never allow that.

Grégoire Canlorbe: What about a new collaboration with the director of the two first No Retreat, No Surrender—Corey Yuen?

Loren Avedon: I believe Corey Yuen is between the U.S. and Hong Kong and working on other things. I don’t know exactly what’s going on with him, but whenever we do the new Blood Brothers, Keith and I want to hire a Chinese director assuredly. We want that ground pounding action.

Grégoire Canlorbe: What martial-arts movie do you believe could be made about the contemporary relationship between America and China? What kind of story could be told?

Loren Avedon: Throughout history, we have come to the aid of the Chinese many times, my Father included. My Father was a fighter pilot in the Navy in WW2 and the Korean war. Inside of one of his leather flight jackets is the Taiwanese flag, which of course is a disputed territory. In Chinese it reads “this is a friend of Taiwan, protect him and help him all you can” China and America are linked far more than people really know or will admit, and clearly that connection and how the Chinese know that the United States and the West have always come to their aid historically to free them from foreign occupation and allow them to be a sovereign nation. Most recently from Japanese occupation for 40+ years in WW2 is something that should be conveyed cinematically. It has been done in “Empire of the Sun”. It would be great to do a series like “The Crown” about China, but there just isn’t enough interest in doing so in the west.

Xi Jinping is a very powerful and smart leader. I hope that all of this, shall we say, South Pacific conflict, the Chinese trying to claim a little bit more of the international waters by creating man made islands, can be resolved peacefully. Because we see that the world is really kind of in turmoil now, all of this war and various things going on all around the world, such as Global Climate Change. In China we don’t really know what’s going on, because we’re given what we’re allowed to see by the media. Militarily the NSA here in the United States knows a lot more.

China has 5,000 years of history, America’s not even 250 years old. We can all learn from each other. People don’t really seem to understand that shamefully. There are almost two billion people in China while we’re only a few hundred million. We should all work together because this earth is all we have. We can destroy it many times over. I pray for the day we all come together to clean up the planet and live sustainably after 150 years of the Industrial revolution. We need to continue that relationship with China and remain allies, in spite of human rights abuses and China’s Communist regime.

The Chinese know from our history with them. The last sort of conflict that really was an issue China got involved with openly was the Korean War, which my father was a part of. He was called back into the service and trained Naval Aviators. His call sign was “Deadeye” because he was a double Ace plus. As a Commander in the Navy and was being groomed to become an Admiral. He was a top gun instructor during the Korean war, flew many missions in the war and also trained the ROK Airforce. He decided not to make the Navy his career, he’d seen so many men die in combat and didn’t want the responsibility of sending men into battle. He’d seen enough death. In WW2 the average fighter pilot was only to survive 5 missions. My Father was an amazing pilot, got his pilots license in 1936 at age 12. He had logged enough hours in flight and was granted that license at such a young age, amazing.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Do you sense the art of fighting when one is working as a producer willing to deliver a qualitative action movie has something to do with the art of fighting as a martial artist?

Loren Avedon: It’s about fighting with enhanced realism for me. You have to Master technique, then heighten creatively but realistically. If you see some Marial Arts movies today, they’re over-choreographed; it lacks the proper rhythm and reactions. There must be a certain time for reaction and also for a little bit of acting within the fighting. People need time to absorb what they’ve seen. I think it’s the video game generation that ruined things. A fight should be creative but more importantly believable. The Chinese were great at that and also allowed me to do as much of the action as possible. Truthfully, they demanded that.

Grégoire Canlorbe: You stood as a second unit director on Tiger Claws III, didn’t you?

Loren Avedon: Let’s just say I had to jump in every once in a while, and help. There was a cameraman and choreographer there. While Jalal was directing other things, I would take a splinter unit camera and direct my fights and some shots that were needed in other parts of that studio. He had converted a movie theater that he owned in Toronto, Canada into a studio. I think of the name of the studio/theater was “The Donlands”. His company is “Film One”.

I love to work in Canada. It’s a bit cold in Canada but people there are so friendly, it was a lot of fun. Jalal and I may be doing some things together in the near future. It’s interesting how the floodgates have opened during the pandemic, when people had to stay home the dusted off their old DVDs or Video cassettes and all of a sudden people were watching old movies. Keith Vitali just did this film with Cynthia and did a screen fight with Benny the Jet Urquides. And that’s full circle from “Wheels on Meals”. There’s a lot going on and a lot of possibilities for the future.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Do you have any project behind the camera?

Loren Avedon: I would like to get behind the camera more when I get back into the entire business. Because it’s a business. You have to pay back your investors and have everything under wraps. Working on a film with the Chinese was great. Having a say in the choreography as they allowed me to do when we were shooting “The King of the Kickboxers” and all my other Hong Kong movies. They would ask; “Loren, what do you think about this? What do you think about that?” That’s great because that’s the part of the process. It takes a team.

So, I would like to go back to Asia and hire a Hong Kong director to shoot, but then be there in the editing room as well. Because I’m sure you realize that the editing of the movies is a very important part of the whole process. You can shoot something phenomenal, but what I learned from them is they had the editor there on the set and he was taking notes on what takes were best etc. The assembly of the product is really important.

They’re shooting movies in twenty-one days now, I had three and a half months. The possibilities are endless when you have time. I already have several writers that are interested in penning the script if we’re to film in Asia. We’ll see. It’s all about writing for budget, and getting it done where it is really believable and exciting. You can see when it looks more like a martial arts demo which is what a lot of these movies made today look like, and when there is real contact and all of the little tricks that I’m not going to share.

Grégoire Canlorbe: To you, spirituality and martial arts have some strong connection, don’t they?

Loren Avedon: To me, martial arts are a very important part of spirituality indeed. The physical world is only what you make of it, what you interpret. So as a martial artist, it’s mind, body, and spirit every time. I always come back to the training and to the discipline of martial arts because that structure allows me to do much more than, let’s say, I would be physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually able to do otherwise. There are times where you have to be fearless. You’re scared to death, but you can’t show that nor can you let fear control you.

I don’t know who I would be or what I would be without the training and the experiences of being a dedicated martial artist learning and practicing with great Masters. Martial Arts training and practice allow you to transcend the physical. You become able to do things that most athletes cannot. The most physically demanding and athletically demanding dangerous stunts and fight choreography take after take, over and over and over again to perfection. If you watch those videos on YouTube, people breaking cinder blocks, capping blocks, bricks, huge blocks of ice, 2 x 4” wood pine against the grain, even young women, how does their petite little hand do that without their mind and their spirit, rigorous physical conditioning, and their control of the moment? Not thinking about the bricks but rather going through them. Mind over matter.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Martial arts are, it seems, is a path to the Ki or Chi and all the supernatural realm that is surrounding us.

Loren Avedon: I have taught so many thousands of martial artists and I always say that, whenever I am fighting or teaching, my Ki or Chi will change. And it will change the energy of a room, or of an entire situation. What does that come from? It’s obvious that there’s more going on than we see and that enables a Martial Artist to transcend the physical with your mind and your spirit using your body.

I did a seminar in Hawaii about Action film making. I was hired by the Big Island Film Office to put together basically a Martial Arts stunt fighting demo and also break down the fights in IP Man to show and explain martial arts in film. We didn’t get into much of the spirituality of that, but let’s just say in Hawaii like in certain other places of the world, you get that feeling that there is so much more going on than what we see. And if you don’t have that sixth sense or that ability to feel like Bruce Lee said, “don’t think, feel,” you wouldn’t be able to feel what’s going on behind the physical realm. What happens through training is you develop that sixth sense.

Grégoire Canlorbe: How do you sum up the specificities of taekwondo with other martial arts?

Loren Avedon: Olympic Taekwondo has evolved. I was very involved in taekwondo and studied many different Kwans or styles. I’ve been to the Kukkiwon many times. My Grandmaster took me all around the world. He was in charge of Taekwondo competitions by the WTF (World Tae Kwon Do Federation) and the Kukkiwon for all sanctioned competitions in Central and South America for about 10 years starting in the year 2000. Today’s Taekwondo only exists because when Korea was occupied by Japan, I think from 1904 to 1945, they had to adapt their martial arts to the Japanese way. It’s an amalgam of many things. From that came Tang Soo Do, and after WW2 when Korea was a sovereign Nation again came the development of Taekwondo, and Hapkido (from small circle) Japanese Jiujitsu.

Taekwondo now as a sport, I don’t enjoy todays Taekwondo as much the Old Olympic style of the eighties and nineties that had a 36’ x 36’ competition ring (square) with a 3’ warning track indicating when a competitor is out of bounds. Points could only be scored by a player (competitor) by hitting the opponent with “trembling shock” to the body or head or KO. These days, I rather would watch the international taekwondo, or open style karate tournaments where they’re punching, kicking, sweeping, stomping the head, doing what is necessary but in a controlled environment. I also enjoy JUDO competitions, it is exciting and is somewhat similar to the close quarters joint locks and throws of Hapkido, but without striking, or the finishing techniques of Combat Hapkido. The beauty of Taekwondo as a sport developed from the simple truth that it is too easy to punch somebody in the face, but if you could kick them in the face, or kick them in the body, or do something very acrobatic and stylish, involving beautiful footwork and dynamic kicking it was much more beautiful, exciting, and effective as a sport and Martial Art. The ancient art of Korean tae kyon developed to be modern Taekwondo. Tae Kwon Do still has the best kicking techniques of any Martial Art.

If you notice, a lot of MMA champions, including Anderson Silva, Anthony Pettis are Taekwondo stylists originally. This is because Taekwondo has great footwork. And the lack of footwork is the problem with a lot of the other martial arts, no disrespect but it’s true. If you can’t move with speed and balance you cannot win in a striking art. All great MMA fighters have mastered a traditional martial art, just think about Bruce Lee. He learned Wing Chun, which is for very close quarter fighting, but does have foot effective foot work, that is very interesting as it involves almost a pigeon toed and bent knee movement which can bridge distance at speed. Bruce Lee realized boxing and other true kicking arts required good foot work. He mimicked Muhammad Ali’s dancing and shuffling to execute his kicking techniques and close distance. Wing Chun was developed 300+ years ago by a 5’ 1” woman to defeat a 6’ tall man in close quarters.

Grégoire Canlorbe: How does the king of the kickboxers (you) assess Kickboxer?

Loren Avedon: Jean-Claude’s style was great, but I think what the movie was focusing on his learning to transcend fear and anger, pain emotional a physical by hard training and conditioning through extreme martial arts training to reach higher degree of Ki/Chi through that training and heighten your degree of consciousness and power to defeat a larger stronger opponent with things like level change, kicking techniques (jumping kicks), and low kicks to the legs and femoral nerve. Your forge steel through fire and hammering that steel to develop a lethal weapon.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Yes, the training in the stone city amidst the ancient warriors. Becoming supernatural through martial arts is a topic you can find in the first No Retreat, No Surrender as well.

Loren Avedon: You must be referring to the training with Bruce Lee’s ghost.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Indeed. Would you be intrigued by a sequel to the very first installment which would be featuring Donnie Yen as Ip Man’s ghost?

Loren Avedon: I heard there was a direct sequel to the first No Retreat, No Surrender in the works, I don’t know whether they plan to have Donnie Yen act as Ip Man’s ghost. If that’s their choice and it’s done well, not in a corny way, it will be interesting.

Honestly, I had not seen the first No Retreat, No Surrender before I went to Thailand to star in No Retreat, No Surrender 2, Raging Thunder. I had just come back with my Father from a Safari in Kenya and Tanzania, I had great experience in Africa discovering a whole new culture, that’s the beauty of travel. Mark Twain has a great quote about how travel breaks down all barriers and prejudices: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome,  charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the  earth all one’s lifetime.” 

But spirituality was the question raised about Kickboxer vs my movies in Hong Kong. There wasn’t so much spirituality in No Retreat, No Surrender 2,Raging Thunder, No Retreat, No Surrender 3, Blood Brothers. But it was introduced by the character Prang in, The King of the Kickboxers.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Thank you for your time Loren is there anything you would like to add?

Loren Avedon: Thank you for the interview. It’s nice to still be relevant and recognized for my work, and to have people that are still interested in those early Hong Kong action movies. When on Facebook there was that picture of Keith Vitali and I implying the possibility of doing another Blood Brothers, it was like an avalanche of messages and comments looking forward to that possibility. I barely got any sleep because of all of the messages, all of the people wanting to get involved. As I mentioned, we are in the process of developing a script at the moment that will star, Keith and I. It would be wonderful for the fans to see us together again, introducing a new Martial Arts star would be great if we can find one that has all the qualities required. We will be working on that aggressively very soon. After all we have 3 generations of fans now. The market for such a film is there and will be very successful.

Have you practiced any Martial Arts?

Grégoire Canlorbe: Not really. I did some Muay Thai some years ago.

Loren Avedon: Muay Thai is a hardcore striking art. I don’t like taking the leg kicks, I learned how to absorb them by training in Muay Thai. I trained in many different martial arts, because if you don’t have the complete understanding of other styles technique, you’re really missing out. And I’m still learning, that’s the beauty of it. You take yourself out of the world and put yourself into an entire other world where there is structure and discipline, and you connect with everyone while respecting their ways and their rules and their beliefs.

Look at South Korea, it’s one of the largest economies in the world though a very small area. I’m just very grateful as a Westerner to be accepted into their world and to be embraced by them and that’s the beautiful thing. You can bridge so many gaps, language barriers, or anything with sport. And martial arts and taekwondo, whether it’s the Olympic style or old- school hardcore knock’em out drag’em out Karate, is where you’re able to learn about yourself and to be able to engage with others without having to ever be violent. Because it’s not about violence, it’s about developing your mind body and spirit and living your life the Martial way, with honor.

That interview was initially published on Bulletproof Action, in February 2024

A conversation with Alan Delabie, for Bulletproof Action

A conversation with Alan Delabie, for Bulletproof Action

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Alan Delabie is a French director, screenwriter, actor, producer, and martial artist. A black belt in karate shotokan, he is also trained in full contact and kickboxing and won the Nunchaku European Championship. In the movie field, he is notably known for the Borrowed Time trilogy, the last installment of which he co-directed with the man who mentored him in his cinematic adventure, David Worth.

  Delabie has won awards at several film festivals, including the Los Angeles Films Awards, the Los Angeles Actors Awards, as well as festivals in Istanbul, Tokyo and New York. He also received an award at the famous Gala Action Martial Arts Magazine in Atlantic City. In 2023, he played the role of a vampire in The Last Nosferatu, for which he received the award for best actor. Still the same year, he played Alex Lapierre in thriller Shepherd Code.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Please tell us about The Last Nosferatu.

  Alan Delabie: I fell in love at a very young age with two movie genres: action, and horror. One of my challenges has been of directing a werewolf movie, so I wrote a werewolf screenplay. I ended up turning to a vampire movie’s project as it was too hard to find the money for a werewolf movie: at least, one that can compare favorably with Stuart Walker’s Werewolf of London and John Landis’s An American Werewolf in London.

  The Last Nosferatu tells a story that has nothing to do with that in Murnau’s movie; but the Nosferatu is not some unique character, it is a type of vampire instead. There is no action in The Last Nosferatu, which is all about horror with a special emphasis put on characters development and makeup. I wanted the process of my character’s transitioning from human to vampire to be as convincing as possible, both psychologically and in terms of physical changes.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: How do you assess Klaus Kinski’s vampire in Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu?

  Alan Delabie: Klaus Kinski, quite a personality—truly a madman, just as much a great actor! I love his work, as well as that of his daughter, Nastassja Kinski, the panther in Paul Schrader’s Cat People. Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu and Klaus Kinski’s vampire portrayal in the latter are certainly great. I nonetheless prefer the original Nosferatu movie, which Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s directing—and Max Schreck’s acting and makeup—make an unsurpassable classic. The fact it is silent, and black and white, only increases the mystery and horror…

  Grégoire Canlorbe: What is your assessment of contemporary horror movies?

  Alan Delabie: Today many of those horror movies with spectacular visuals just forget that they should have a good screenplay. Conversely many independent horror movies have a creativeness and crafty screenplay that are counterbalancing their lack of technical, financial means. That classic that is A Nightmare on Elm Street, which frightened me while I was a child, was already made with a budget only of $1.1 million (what remains relatively low, even in the 1980s). Yet it could rely on Wes Craven’s brilliant writing and directing, not to speak of Robert Englund’s legendary interpretation. A blockbuster remake of Nosferatu, as dazzling as its CGI would be, could barely hold a candle to the 1922 movie, no more than the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street can compare with the original Freddy movie.

  Over the course of one of my stays in Los Angeles, I was surprised to notice how the house that “acted” as that of Heather Langenkamp’s character, Nancy Thompson, and the house that “acted” as that of Johnny Depp’s character, Glen Lantz, are really standing in front of each other.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: It seems turning a Hollywood dream into a reality is what the “borrowed time” of your life path is being spent notably.

  Alan Delabie: Living the Hollywood dream was a childhood dream, which I would never give up. I had already performed many stage demonstrations on French and Belgian television, and acted in TV movies and series like À tort ou à raison [Rightly or Wrongly], when Jalal Merhi offered me that I be part of his TV program Master of the Arts (aka Road to Hollywood). I would later write and film, and act in, my first feature, Eight Hours, a psychological thriller that would end up being projected in San Diego. Then I would start acting in a number of short movies and web series in America, and have the idea of the Borrowed Time web series. The unexpected fruit of that idea would be a movie trilogy.

  You know, it is an illusion to think that you gonna become a Hollywood actor just because you proved your worth as a martial artist. A martial artist who wants to be an actor, but who is no good actor, just a good martial artist, can hardly impress Hollywood and get a role in some major production. By contrast a good, charismatic actor, if he is no martial artist, can still end up in a Marvel production in which he will have doubles carrying out all (or some of) the stunts and fights.

  Assuredly a good way of challenging, proving my actor abilities was through venturing into the horror genre as I did with The Last Nosferatu, Meosha Bean’s MVB Films Halloween Horror Stories Vol II, or even with Chris Power’s Bloodslinger, a Canadian feature that is nicely interweaving horror and western.

The Last Nosferatu – makeup, and practical effects

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Two cases of a filmic intertwining between horror and action that come to my mind: George Romero’s Land of the Dead, and Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2 with its iconic shootout in the hospital…

  Alan Delabie: I am an admirer of George Romero’s work, which The Walking Dead and its slowly walking zombies, who cannot get killed unless they’re shot in the head, have been massively inspired by. My favorite movies by Romero are Night of the Living Dead, and Dawn of the Dead. Land of the Dead is a good installment in Romero’s Dead series though.

  You do well to mention that unofficial sequel to Night of the Living Dead that is Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2, as Fulci is one of those brazen masters of horror who’ve left their imprint on my filmic sensibility. The scene of the hospital shootout, or that of the eye, or that of the shark, they highlight how Fulci was willing to push the limits of what can be shown onscreen. Joe D’Amato—just think of his Anthropophagus—is another of those cheeky pioneers who were afraid of nothing.

  You must know that Catriona MacColl, who extensively collaborated with Lucio Fulci, acts as Franck Denard’s mother in Borrowed Time. She is my spiritual mother in the movie field actually. We did a short movie together, Mourir d’Aimer [Dying of Loving].

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Speaking of Franck Denard, how did you have the idea of that character? Is he a projection of you in some other timeline?

  Alan Delabie: No, Franck Denard is completely opposite of me. While I was in San Diego on a rainy, gloomy day, I decided to spend time writing and then came up with the idea of a short web series about a man who, while leaving prison and suffering from a brain tumor, establishes himself as a vigilante.

  After I made a few capsules, and a friend of mine in Los Angeles, Meosha Bean, discovered those, she suggested to me that the idea should be developed into a feature. Anatomy of an Antihero: Redemption (aka Borrowed Time), with she standing as a director and me as a writer, would be launched shortly after. Although the end of Borrowed Time implied a collapsing Franck Denard, shedding tears of blood and refusing to continue to take his medications, was about to die on the beach, a producer would express interest in launching a sequel. I proposed that we work instead on a prequel dealing with Denard’s stay in prison and what happens between his release and those ulterior events related in Borrowed Time. The producer agreed, and I started writing Denard: Anatomy of an Antihero (aka Borrowed Time 2), which I would direct as well.

  It was too hard to get the authorization to film in a jail, so the prequel, which I first planned to contain a large segment—half of the plot—set in a prison environment, would end up with only a few custodial scenes, all in the form of flashbacks. The success the second installment would meet on streaming platforms would arouse the launch of Borrowed Time 3: Falling Apart, which I would co-direct with David Worth. When working on Anatomy of an Antihero: Redemption, I could hardly imagine there would be any additional installment; but I now believe a trilogy is what Borrowed Time had always been destined to be.

Eric Roberts, Alan Delabie, and Merrick McCartha

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Two climactic moments in the saga are respectively your fight with Abdelkrim Qissi, and the training montage featuring you alongside Mohammed Qissi.

  Alan Delabie: Yes, and you can discern some inspiration from Abdel’s fight at the end of Lionheart. I somewhat regret that Abdel and I didn’t find time to rehearse our choreography as thoroughly as we should have. David, who was kind enough to check the editing of the training montage, gave me some helpful advice.

  Besides Abdelkrim and Mohammed, the Borrowed Time have assuredly allowed me to collaborate with a variety of other great actors: to name but a few, Eric Roberts, Costas Mandylor, Louis Mandylor, Patrick Kilpatrick, Matthias Hues, or Bob Wall, legendary opponent of Bruce Lee.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Did those contracts you made with producers ask you to cede the copyright on Borrowed Time?

  Alan Delabie: No, I could keep the copyright.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: How both of you came to codirect Borrowed Time 3: Falling Apart is a high moment in that adventure that has been your mentorship by David Worth.

  Alan Delabie: It’s been more than thirteen years since I’ve been in touch with David. I had the audacity to reach him, and to introduce him to the early tentative steps of my work in the movie field. Since then, indeed, he has been mentoring me, and following and assessing my modest achievements.

  The first time I would meet David physically would be in 2013 in Los Angeles. At the time, he was teaching in San Francisco and doing several rounds trips between L.A. and San Francisco. When meeting we felt a time would come when we would do some movies together. A few years later, I would write Borrowed Time 3 and then submit the screenplay to David, who would see some potential in it. That is when I asked him whether he would agree to take charge of the L.A. part, while I would personally take care of the Europe part. David accepted my offer, and we would have much pleasure working together on the movie. After the filming was complete, David let me know that, whenever I would have a new project situated in L.A., he would be there to help me.

  David has been checking my work since even before he codirected Borrowed Time 3. You can easily imagine how stressed I am whenever the man who directed Kickboxer and made the photo for two Clint Eastwood classics is judging my way of filming, editing, and acting. His criticism is always constructive though.

  Here are two things he taught me, which I would like to convey in turn. Firstly: no matter how you edit it, if that footage you’re working on is bad, you cannot fix it. Secondly: it’s better for that footage you’re working on to have a good sound and average picture quality than have an average sound quality and good picture quality. Sound is really what gonna allow you to stand out.

David Worth (on the right), and Alan Delabie

  Grégoire Canlorbe: You used to be compared to Jean-Claude Van Damme.

  Alan Delabie: I indeed used to be compared to him, and to personally find inspiration in him. I am just being myself today. Jean-Claude’s charisma is unique, and unsurpassable. He has a warrior face that is cute, angelic at the same time. Whenever he acts as a dark character, he doesn’t shine really. JCVD is clearly at his best when he acts as a light-hearted, combative character, one who may go through sadness and anger, but in all circumstances remains cheerful and gentle and never stops fighting. It is something David Worth could capture beautifully.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: A contemporary horror movie that was made from a modest budget is Damien Leone’s Terrifier. The latter and its sequel, Terrifier 2, were respectively made from $35 000 and $250 000. Both movies are great, and have been successful financially and in terms of buzz. Do you believe an independent action movie can be as fortunate nowadays?

  Alan Delabie: Two remarkably well chosen examples. Damien Leone has managed to create a clown character who is truly terrifying and catchy, and who rivals with Stephen King’s It. I prefer the first Terrifier installment, which I find to be more effective and original.

  Yes, an independent action movie can be just as “fortunate,” both “financially and in terms of buzz,” but it is harder. You must know that, nowadays, an independent action movie with a budget exceeding $300 000 is never gonna be able to recoup its costs most likely. It is something I learnt through Don “The Dragon” Wilson, who is accustomed to acting in action movies with a budget situated between $300 000 and $500 000. The reason is situated at the marketing level. An independent action movie just cannot compete with all those action blockbusters that can put dozens of millions of dollars into their communication and advertising.

  True, your movie may still create a buzz with a modest marketing budget (or even no marketing budget at all), but a buzz is something way easier to arouse with a horror independent movie than it is with an action independent movie. Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey had a fun, original concept that caused a sensation. Anyway all independent movies, when it comes to breaking even, face a same problem at the level of distribution. Given the public at large is increasingly relinquishing both the movie theaters and physical supports, it is increasingly unlikely for an independent movie to be offered a release other than just on a streaming platform. Yet that type of release is less rentable.

Don « The Dragon » Wilson and Alan Delabie

  Grégoire Canlorbe: You’re acting as a French professional killer, Alex Lapierre, in Shepherd Code. It seems you’re inscribing yourself in the lineage of Alain Delon in Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samouraï…

  Alan Delabie: Alain Delon with his stern face and cold, stoic interpretation was perfect as Jeff Costello. I would love to meet him someday. To me, he is a lion, so are Jean-Paul Belmondo, Lino Ventura, Jean Gabin, and Michel Constantin. Alex Lapierre is a role that would fit Van Damme better than Delon though.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: How was the Shepherd Code project born? What is its spirit?

  Alan Delabie: At first, while there were three of us to be willing to invest into a new movie project, I wanted to direct a sequel to The Last Nosferatu. I planned my character to be chased by an equivalent of Van Helsing, whom I wanted to be played by Silvio Lumac. As my makeup artist wasn’t available at the time, I turned to another synopsis of mine, one about a hired killer who wants to make his last mission before retiring.

  I developed a screenplay from that synopsis, and then had the project launched with Don Wilson cast as the backer of my character’s last mission and David Worth attached to the project as an assistant producer. I also cast Silvio Lumac as a rival assassin, whose relationship with Alex Lapierre is similar to that Antonio Banderas’s character is having with Sylvester Stallone’s character in Richard Donner’s Assassins. I codirected Shepherd Code with Lh Chambat, who had edited The Last Nosferatu. We shot in L.A., Bristol, Lisbon, and Paris.

  Shepherd Code isn’t only about suspense and action. The introspection Lapierre finds himself proceeding with as he is carrying out what is supposed to be his last mission, the way he becomes aware of the source of his troubles, it is something I also wanted to stand at the core of Shepherd Code.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Are there a few scenes of Shepherd Code you would like to tease?

  Alan Delabie: Yes, one in the desert with a white car whose trunk is being opened. Another one I would like to tease features two characters—the one played by Michael Morris and mine—shooting at the same time. Both scenes clearly have a Tarantino vibe. There is still another scene I would like to tease, which features David Worth doing a cool cameo.

Michael Morris, and Alan Delabie – Shepherd Code extract

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Both Shepherd Code and Borrowed Time 3 had parts shot in Los Angeles. L.A. is reportedly a good place for filming, with great urban landscape for action.

  Alan Delabie: Honestly L.A. is a nightmare for movies. You cannot shoot there without any license. If you start filming in the street without any delivered authorization, you soon end up getting stopped by the police and finding yourself with a fine. We were lucky that we could rent locations for the filming in L.A.; but, frankly, the urban landscape isn’t especially nice there.

  Most of those scenes featuring a shootout in the streets of L.A. are actually filmed in a studio nowadays. That is because insecurity and violence are now reigning in L.A., and you can be easily mugged or have your equipment stolen whenever you’re filming there. It happened on Shepherd Code’s set. Our boom operator had his boom mic stolen just in front of us, but we could get it back fortunately. It is no wonder that many companies delocalized their filmings from L.A. to Atlanta. Anyway we could capture some strong visuals in L.A., especially that scene on a building’s roof. What we shot in the desert is just as impressive.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Does the way Paris was shot in John Wick 4 resonate with you?

  Alan Delabie: I like the three previous John Wick movies very much, but that fourth installment left me somewhat disappointed. It is as if the magic, including in the Paris segment, had vanished. It was nice to see Scott Adkins being offered an original role (in the Berlin segment) though. To me, his best movies are Undisputed II: Last Man Standing (aka Boyka) and its sequels, as well as Avengement and The Debt Collector and its sequel.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Do you believe the sound, visual quality is something you can achieve even with modest technical means?

  Alan Delabie: A few months ago I was with David Worth, who had just bought a new iPhone. We did some videos tests with his iPhone, and we witnessed how it could shoot in 6K not less than in slow mention. With two iPhones (at least, that model or one comparable), two tripods, and a lavalier microphone, you’re perfectly in a position to shoot something that is quite good in terms of sound and visuals. David suggested to me that I watch Tangerine, a feature that was shot entirely with three iPhones. I must say the movie isn’t bad at all.

  I positively react to the fact that, in a sense, it is now increasingly easier to get the technical means to make one’s movie, and even to have one’s work released. If you cannot have your film rendered available on a streaming platform, you can still post it on YouTube, which remains a way of getting your work known. But beware: if you want to make a (good) movie, you must be able to proceed with a team job and, accordingly, to delegate some tasks and to respect, listen your colleagues. Also, you must be ready to be held to account whenever you’re getting your funds through a crowdfunding or some directly reached investor or sponsor.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: How do you feel about The Last Kumite?

  Alan Delabie: Quite a cool project. I am somewhat disappointed that Émilien De Falco wasn’t part of the adventure, as he would have been perfect as a lead character. It obviously remains a great cast with people like Matthias Hues, Billy Blanks, Kurt McKinney, Cynthia Rothrock, and both Qissi brothers. I heard there was a fight between Billy and Matthias, which I obviously look forward to discovering. I collaborated with Animal King, a capoeira master who fights in The Last Kumite. I must say he is very talented.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: You’re regularly involved with the score of your movies. Would you be ready to collaborate with Goblin band, who composed the soundtrack of many Dario Argento and other Italian horror classics?

  Alan Delabie: I love Goblin’s work. To me, they reached their summit with the soundtrack of Luigi Cozzi’s Contamination. Yes, I would be ready to collaborate with them, as well as with Fabio Frizzi, the composer on Zombi 2 and many other Lucio Fulci classics.

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

  Alan Delabie: It was quite sympathetic. I may be the conductor whenever I am alone to direct a movie; but I would be nothing without my collaborators. I may do my best to deliver a good movie; but my work could hardly shine if it weren’t for the talent of each of my actors, and that of each of my technicians. That’s why I attach special importance to bringing to light my collaborators and their credits, and to carrying out an authentic team job in a spirit of gratefulness.

That conversation was initially published on Bulletproof Action, on 3 October 2023

A conversation with Ron Smoorenburg, for Bulletproof Action

A conversation with Ron Smoorenburg, for Bulletproof Action

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By Bram Heimens

  Ron Smoorenburg is a Dutch martial artist, actor, stuntman, and fight choreographer. He is notably known for his respective fights with Scott Adkins in Ninja: Shadow of a Tear, with Michael Jai White in Never Back Down: No Surrender, and—above all—with Jackie Chan in Benny Chan’s and Jackie Chan’s Who Am I? He currently lives in Thailand.

  One the newest projects Ron Smoorenburg is being involved with, here as an actor, is feature Funayurei, which is being directed by Abel Ernest Tembo from a screenplay by Grégoire Canlorbe.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: You started your practicing martial arts at the early age of seven, in Netherlands. At the time of your youth, were martial arts, and those movies centered on martial arts, as popular in Netherlands as they were, say, in America?

  Ron Smoorenburg: Actually it was the best time ever in the 80’s early 90’s and I’m very happy to be born in this generation. These days movies were motivating, actors looked ripped and movies had great training sessions on music, there were lots of martial art movies on VHS video cassette, I remember watching Karate Kid on a birthday party and we all stood up and jumped around doing kicks, a start of a journey which never stopped since then. We also had this series called ‘The Master’ a ninja tv series, all the kids were making ninja stars and literally playing ninja outside. When I was 12 I saw Young master on tv from Jackie Chan and a few years later JCVD’s Bloodsport came out and No Retreat No Surrender movies we basically watched everyday till there was no sound anymore.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: How did Jackie Chan notice you, and end up hiring you to play the strongest of the two opponents at the end of Who Am I?

  Ron Smoorenburg: My boss in the office I worked saw an article about Jackie Chan casting for 300 extras in his movie shooting in Holland. I asked half a day off to send a letter and pictures to the agency in Rotterdam. After pushing a lot I was chosen out of 1000 applicants to become an extra.

  I had to play 3 days as a business guy in the background and you can actually see me in one of the scenes. After the Dutch local stunt team laughed about my ambition and literally ridiculed me I asked one of the JC team members if I can do action, he asked me to give him a showreel. I was a graphic designer so the same night I made up a cover like I was already some kind of action guy in movies. I just had the record highest (kick 11 feet) on national tv and I always did movie fight demo’s on martial art events. I also was the first Karateka doing a free style Kata – A karate form on music and I had all of this on tape.

  And the next day after the team of JC saw the video in a lunch break they called me over to do the same moves live in front of them. They said I was the best out of 20 guys auditioning for the role of the final fight scene. 10 minutes later someone came to take measurements for the suit I had to wear in the final fight. It was like winning the lottery but another challenge emerged.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Did you have some trouble adapting to the quick rhythmic movements of Jackie Chan?

  Ron Smoorenburg: To answer this question the best is that you can compare it with putting someone in a racecar who never drove a Formule 1 race. Even though I am a martial artist all my life, fighting someone like Jackie, top of the top level in a 1st movie ever is definitely a challenge.

  I was always looking at JCVD doing splits high kicks, and JCVD doesn’t really use these rhythms Jackie uses. Even action veterans like Scott Adkins and Eric Jacobus admit that this HK style isn’t easy in the beginning and especially fighting these stars with the added pressure as well.

  I managed to pick it up. Sadly in the beginning they let another stuntman Brad Allen do a combo for me which I wasn’t even allowed to try before Jackie got a little upset, in the documentary they reversed it so they show Jackie got t little upset then bringing the stunt double, but that wasn’t the case so I felt a little bit hurt by this and it did even affect my career a little.

  In reality every stuntman should know that fighting Jackie isn’t easy and even his team members came to me saying after 15 years they were still nervous fighting Jackie. So what can we do? I have to see it positively and learning the hard way and having lots of pressure is part of the game sometimes. This is my big dream and no one will take it away, that’s why I never stopped.

  To be honest every movie after this experience was more easy as I was used to this huge amount of pressure. I can tell you even people who are in the stunt biz for years would still have a challenge right now if they have to fight Jackie, believe me.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: What is your view of the evolution of Jackie Chan’s career following the retrocession of Hong Kong?

  Ron Smoorenburg: I think he should leave politics to the politicians, he came from HK and he has a huge fanbase there, and things are sensitive.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: How did it feel to act as a villain in Clarence Fok Yiu-leung’s Martial Angels?

  Ron Smoorenburg: Actually he gave me a hell of an opportunity but with acting I was still beginning so I definitely could have done better now. It was a cool movie with 7 action girls and a great concept.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Please tell us about the backstage of that fight in Prachya Pinkaew’s Tom-Yum-Goong in which you’re one of many fighters facing Tony Jaa.

  Ron Smoorenburg: When I came to Thailand to do a European tv series, I visited the set of this movie and met the director Prachya, I literally did the same as I did with Who am I? I had to show some moves to the director and they asked me if I was ok to be in a group fight because they already shot all other fights, I was happy to be doing action in Asia and with a cool action star like Tony Jaa so I agreed. We got on really well. He actually gave me a real good kick straight in the face and that was very memorable.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: How do you account for the popularity of Thailand when it comes to choosing the main location for the plot in an action movie?

  Ron Smoorenburg: Thailand got it all, urban, forest, alleys, rooftops, mountains, beaches, also some very gritty and characteristic streets in Bangkok from rough to high class. You can get a lot of things done in Thailand.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: After spending so many years in Thailand, do you sense your heart and soul have become those of a Thai man?

  Ron Smoorenburg: Yes I have this sense of freedom and life which I don’t find in the west, Bangkok is alive day and night, I train in the night, also the Thai smile and general happiness is here for a fact and when I go back to Holland I see people running faster and looking more serious to be honest.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: You acted in Nicolas Winding Refn’s Only God Forgives. Esthetically speaking, how do you assess the fight opposing Vithaya Pansringarm to Ryan Gosling?

  Ron Smoorenburg: I’m not a fan of it, its not really memorable, I feel its just choreo to be choreo.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: Do you share the common line of criticism that the way of filming the stunt and action stuff in John Wick movies lacks any true artistic dimension, thus boiling down to a mere “technician” work?

  Ron Smoorenburg: I felt that for the first 3 parts, there were no rewinders for me like the movies I described when I was young. But John Wick 4, did change it for me, having people like Donnie Yen, Scott Adkins, Marko Zaror they gave flavor to it. The other JW parts were more like ok there’s another guy in a black suit coming, and you just know he’s going to lose the same way as all the others did.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: You fought Scott Adkins in Ninja: Shadow of a Tear. How was the fight choreographed, executed, and shot? How do you sum up what makes the prowess of Isaac Florentine in filming action?

  Ron Smoorenburg: This was a scene where we had to do all in 1 take and this is very cool that Isaac did this together with Choreographer Tim Man who is a genius. It was shot very well and we did have 1 rehearsal for it (Not like Jackie Chan where they do it straight away on the spot) In the original choreo I actually did a few jump kicks, but it was cut for some reason, its sad because I also like to show stuff. Still this fight is very nice and Scott Adkins is a beast (endurance wise) when it comes to shooting.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: You acted in Michael Jai White’s Never Back Down: No Surrender, in which you fought White himself. How do you assess Michael Jai White as a movie director, and as a martial artist?

  Ron Smoorenburg: I felt he was very good at punches besides his kicks, he’s a real martial artist and you can see and feel he loves it. Also to me he’s always a gentleman.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: In Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, you acted alongside the late Michael Clarke Duncan. Did you have much interaction with him behind the camera?

  Ron Smoorenburg: Not too much but he was always smiling, he’s super humble and what a personality. Also if you see where he came from before he became an actor it’s more than respect what he did.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: To you, does Desperate Housewife’s Neal McDonough’s portrayal of Bison in Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li compare with that of Raúl Juliá in Street Fighter?

  Ron Smoorenburg: No it doesn’t work, they shouldn’t do these things.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: You were cast in Death Note: L Change the Word. Did you read the manga, Death Note?

  Ron Smoorenburg: Yes it’s super cool and I’m happy to be part of it.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: How did you enter the world of Bollywood? How does it feel to be part of the latter?

  Ron Smoorenburg: We have Bollywood movies shooting in Thailand, and some directors remembered me and the stunt team and ask us to came over to Bollywood and south India for other movies. It’s always a challenge getting your money though in 90% of the cases to be honest. And they are not that safe as well. The coolest movie I did was definitely Brothers with Akshay Kumar with a cool MMA fight in the ring. That movie also had good drama and was a remake of Warrior.

  Grégoire Canlorbe: What can you tell us of that new project you’re being involved with as an actor, alongside Mark Stas—Funayurei?

  Ron Smoorenburg: I’m very excited about this project as I will fight alongside Mark. Mark is amazing and for me a new action star not less than Donnie Yen, Jackie or Jet Li, for real. Marks action style and adaptation, implementation is amazing. Real time on the spot he can even adapt if needed. He’s a true master. I actually contacted him years ago and he came to Thailand, We did 2 big fights in English Dogs the movie and it’s very memorable. We always look out for the next time to fight and one of the main reasons I upgrade myself so hard is to prepare for my next fight.

  I created my own movie style Recharge and I feel it’s the perfect to fight Mark with Wing Flow. I love Mark and really he deserves all the best. Having Mark is having a Diamond on board. Every investor/director/producer should be very happy to have him, and I’m happy to work alongside or fight with him.

By Bram Heimens

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

  Ron Smoorenburg: Currently RECHARGE, the fighting style I developed is going really well, its based on chain lighting and has lots of unique combos and some unique kicks I designed from scratch. The message I have for performers and artists is to always be unique and creative, never follow the herd. Now I’m going to USA with my Management, Hollywood productions, Varol Porsemay to set a foot on the ground there. I realize I have to offer something, that’s why I work day and night on it. It’s like as a car which can have a nice a cover but also needs a good engine. The stronger the engine is the better the car, so keep working on yourself, and with Love… you get what you can carry. As I always say, LIFE IS ACTION.

That conversation was originally published by Bulletproof Action, in April 2023

A conversation with David Worth, for Bulletproof Action

A conversation with David Worth, for Bulletproof Action

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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

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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

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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