Two Darths

	A movie article by C. Charlotte Pollnitz Copyright © 1999 C. Charlotte Pollnitz

July 11-12.

Evil has a new face, but it's not really as you'd expect underneath the make-up! Ray Park is a fine figure of a man, standing about 5', 10", he looks taller when he is not being swathed in the long black Maul robes we've become so accustomed to seeing him in. Muscles seem to burst forth everywhere on his well toned physique, traces of bulging leg muscles even manage to escape the loose confines of his combat style pants. Not surprising really, considering his background in martial arts and the strict fitness regime he adheres to,

" I try and make an effort to do at least 45 minutes to an hour, just on conditioning, like toning up or maybe doing weights to keep my fitness there. But if I'm normally training, if I've got nothing to do, or if I'm in-between jobs, I train for about 5 hours a day, but not solid, I split my hours up, maybe do a two hour session in the morning and a two and a half hour session later in the evening. But when I was competing, I was doing 8-10 hours a day, it was a job for me. I've done other sports like ballet and gymnastics. Gymnastics is a big influence in my martial arts. I used to teach it, I'm a qualified coach and I'm also a qualified coach in martial arts. The place where I teach is a center of excellence for gymnastics, so I'm always surrounded by gymnastics. My training is in that, I do loads of tumbling, I'm not great, I just love doing it, and I use that to build up my martial arts and make them stronger. I started doing ballet 'cos there was nice girls in the classes."

He smiles as he speaks, his skin sports a mild tan, which in turn makes his deep blue eyes stand out warmly, his full head of dark hair sports flecks of blonde highlights. Not quite the bald, glowing red-eyed, tattooed character we are used to seeing on the big screen! Indeed not, gone are the scowling looks and the frowning, angry expressions, replaced instead with a quietness, and almost boyish coyness. He oozes confidence, yet is very soft spoken and comes across as a very well mannered young man, apologizing profusely for not being able to perform the promised martial arts demo,

"Originally I was supposed to come out here and do the demo, but I chipped a bone. I know it sounds like a poor excuse. I got injured years ago when I was first competing, and it's only last year that it got aggravated again and it's just lasted so long. Before coming out when I was training, working my fitness to do the demo, and it's just got tighter. It's an old injury, a lot of scar tissue, which I don't want to aggravate even more. And I'm really frustrated, I really want to do it, 'cos I love performing. It means I can't do any running or any jogging, or any skipping or tumbling stuff. All I can do is just conditioning at the moment, so I'm afraid I can't. Sorry."

He keeps his reserve also, when being approached about current projects, for example, when asked about rumours that he is involved with the up-coming X-Men movie, his answer is simple, "Possibly, I couldn't say!" You may put that down to purely technical reasons, i.e, he is under contract not to talk about future roles, however, there is an almost superstitious air about whether he talks about parts before they are finally secured,

"If I said anything I'd jinx myself, and I wouldn't want to jinx myself, because I've been lucky so far and everything that's come to me has just either come through what I've done, hard work, or I've heard that something's happening next week and I've gone along and been successful in achieving that. As for things that are going to happen in the future, it seems so far away from me, and a lot can happen in three weeks! I don't want to jinx myself, but hopefully in a few months time I'll be able to say, 'Yeah, yeah, I'm doing this'."

A wise decision, given the fluidity of the movie world. He was , however willing to discuss a role he had just finished,

" I was working with Tim Burton on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The same stuntman who was on Star Wars, Nick Gillard, asked me to come down. I didn't take it as seriously as Star Wars, it was just fun 'cos I wasn't on it all the way through, I was just on it when required, doing days here and there. And he (Nick) asked me to come in and do the fights for the headless horseman, so all the fights and stuff, and maybe a few of the jumps was for the headless horseman, but I didn't do any of the horse work, one of the other guys did that, 'cos I can't ride. I left the dangerous stuff to the stuntmen!"

Movies are an area Ray Park has been interested in since he was a teenager, however, taking a non-conventional route to get to be in them,

"I never went to drama school when I was in London, I just purely tried to get into movies using my martial arts and that was my main aim, to try and win and maybe get discovered at a competition. I was hoping that maybe Jackie Chan might be at a competition one day and might see me competing, and go "Hey, I want you to come in my movie!" So that's what I tried to do. My parents couldn't afford to send me to acting school, so I just tried to use my martial arts to get into the movies."

Well, if he was going on a hunch, he certainly was right! He was discovered while competing and given a stunt double part in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. Episode One stunt co-ordinator Nick Gilliard heard about him through this movie, and the rest is history!

"The stunt co-ordinator asked me to come down and work for him for a week. He wrote a fight to show George Lucas which was in the story and the script, he (Nick) heard about me through doing Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, where I was hired because of my martial arts and gymnastics. The stunt co-ordinator (Nick) was really impressed and within that week I met Rick McCallum, David Brown, and I met George and they were really impressed by what I was doing. They hadn't cast anyone for Darth Maul yet, so I knew I could be in with a good chance if I played my cards right. So at the end of the week I didn't think too much of it, but they got me into make-up as the character, and I thought, this could help me. We had to act out the fight scene and actually play the role, and that just helped me get the part of the character. When George saw it on tape, and saw me doing my stuff, he was very impressed and said "Right, let's get Ray to do this," and here I am!"

During his work on Episode One, Park had to endure hours of make-up each day, to transform him into the evil Darth Maul, arriving at the studio at the crack of dawn to get into make-up and costume,

"I was in the studio at 5 O' clock in the morning and it took an hour and a half to two hours. Sometimes I had to be on set by eight, seven thirty, because the crew were called in at eight, so I was usually the first one there and the last one to leave. The actual make-up was more alcohol based, normal aqua colour, but had a lot of alcohol as well, especially the black, because the black had to last the longest."

His character was completely bald, so he was also had to have his head shaved on a daily basis, a task he didn't mind at all!

" I had to shave my head every day. I actually enjoyed it! I spoke to one of my friends before I got the part, and we were thinking it would be really cool if we got a job where we had to shave our heads, got paid to do it, which would be nice. And it turned around that I actually got a job where I had to shave my head, so I didn't mind, it was pretty cool!

Not only was the make-up session and head shaving a daily ritual, Park had to rehearse the end fight sequence every day, for two whole months, with he, Ewan McGregor and Liam Neeson, all under the strict instruction of Nick Gillard.

"What was tough was rehearsing every day and trying to come up with new and different moves, of not trying to be stale and have the same stuff. You want to be different, because this is the biggest movie for 15-20 years, and you want to come up with something fresh and looking good. You don't want to do stuff that's in other movies and copy stuff, so you want to try and come up with something original, and that was hard. But every day working and training, you just get into that mode, and it just becomes part of you."

The final filming of the fight scene took a further two and a half weeks, during which time both Jedi and Sith were getting through many lightsabres, roughly about 18 per day,

"The other guys, Ewan and Liam went actually through more than me, but we did go through so many, at the end of it. Even one take, half a portion of a fight sequence, the lightsabres were bent and crooked. There was a guy on standby who had his own cart on the side with loads of poles and he was working round the clock, we kept him working!"

And during the shoot, even after all the weeks of practicing, were there a few close shaves with the deadly lightsabres?

"It was close because we were very tight when we were doing stuff, so on my behalf I had to be really, professional, because I'm a martial artist and that's what I do, so I had to cover for them as well as cover for me. Even though they made a mistake, I felt bad, it was just the way it was, but no-one got hurt and they were really good, they picked it up fast and they didn't want to get hurt, as well as hurt me, so, it was pretty good!"

Did he get to keep any of the lightsabres or Darth Maul props?

"I didn't keep anything, I wish I did 'cos I was told I could have kept the lenses, but I didn't want to feel like I was greedy, asking for too much. I had five costumes and six pairs of boots, and I don't know a hundred different lightsabres, and, you know, you want to keep the lighsabre, but I just felt I'm asking for too much."

With Episode One being his first real acting role, and as an untrained actor, it may have been a little difficult for Park to get inspiration for this evil character, to fully emerse himself in the role, as professionally trained actors do. He drew on inspiration from his martial arts background, and as early on as seeing the storyboards, he already had a firm idea of how to portray Darth Maul,

"Seeing the storyboards, of this guy fighting with a double ended lightsabre and he's confident and he's flying about, I thought, well, that's me, I can do this. So, from doing the test, from my martial arts and just me playing around, is how it came about. When I go to competitions, I try to be flash, but in a really modest way, because you have to be, not arrogant, but you have to be very confident, as if to say, I'm going to win this, but in a very, shy way, without being over the top. So I tried putting that into the character."

And a great job he did too! There have been stories where principal characters in the Star Wars trilogy were not fully aware of plots and storylines, for example, Dave Prowse not knowing that his character, Darth Vader, was Luke Skywalker's father. Was he aware of the outcome of Darth Maul?

"I knew of the outcome of it no matter what, so it wasn't a surprise to me, but you know, of course, if you played the part, deep down you'd think, hopefully they won't kill me off in the fight, I was thinking that for the last past year, but I knew that no matter what was going to happen."

With Darth Maul's cult status from Episode One, he is by far, one of the most popular characters from the movie, Park personally thinks that his role of Maul will not be reprised in Episode Two, that's not to say he would not be interested in the role if it were, far from it!

"Personally, I don't think so, that's not because anyone's told me, but because that's my own opinion. It's better that way, but if they do say I'm coming back, then I'd be out celebrating! I don't want to get my hopes up, just in case."

As for rumours that are rife on the net about him already being signed up for stunt choreography, well, that is also up in the air,

"I really don't know at this moment and if they told me, and they told me not to say, then that's what I'd say. But at the moment I don't know. I'd love to, 'cos that's what I enjoy doing, but I really don't know!"

With martial arts being his first love, he has been practicing from the tender age of seven, does he think he'll give up the new found fame and his acting career and continue with competing again?

"I'd love to, I've got itchy feet 'cos I want to do it. But I'd have to stop doing everything and totally commit myself. I'd have to go back out to China or Malaysia, because in the three years that I have stopped competing, things have advanced so much in competition, so I'd have to go and find out what I've missed. I'd have to totally train and change whatI do, give up everything for a while, which I would do, but I want to try and carry on through my acting, still train really hard and proceed with my acting as well. It's a catch 22, but I will get to do what I want to do."

Then, despite the a-fore-mentioned bone chip injury, Park proceeded to give a short exhibition of sword moves used in Episode One. Plastic lightsabre in hand, he demonstrated with two small boys from the audience, not only enthusiastically strutting his stuff, but also making lightsabre noises by mouth, and instructing them on how to do the moves and poses, 'Don't beat me up , okay?" he told one of them. The whole audience laughed. When he struck a direct Maul pose, body taught and in the correct position, face angry and starring, the crowd, particularly the female members, went wild! He proceeded to have the hungry crowd eating from the palm of his hand when he gave another sword demo, this time, picking a man from the audience.

Leaving the talk, I got the feeling that Ray Park is an all-round Mr Nice Guy. He is genuine, modest, very down to earth, and seems totally unaffected by his new found fame, not bad for a 24-year-old who has been catapulted into the world's limelight. Good on you Ray! Well done!

Read Part Two of this article >>>

Copyright © 1999 C. Charlotte Pollnitz.