If you're playing a cop in a modern film, you don't have to walk with your spine straight up and bow before a fight. There's a lot of free form of expressing yourself as an actor.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I know an actor who would play one type of part but could never get cast as tough. Once he got cast as tough, as a cop, he only got offered cop roles. It's a funny business in that regard. It's all about perception.
A lot of people don't realize, when you are acting in a martial arts film, you're not just performing martial arts. You're not just performing martial arts. You're actually acting as much as any other actor.
As an actor, you try to put a little bit of yourself in everything you do.
Actors are conditioned to develop a system for expressing as much as they can in the shortest amount of time because you're going to get all cut up in a movie.
Boxing is a lot of preparation and then improvising, so there are parallels to being an actor.
I have always done my own stunts, and I have been in hundreds of fights in films, but I have never been in a fist fight outside the movies.
Sometimes I think being an actor is like being a dog for a director; it's like they throw a stick, and you want to fetch it and bring it back to them. You want a pat on the head for it.
As an actor, you are either emulating someone else, or some version of yourself.
I like to stay within the context of the character's background. If he's a cop, I have to make sure the audience is convinced that this person, a cop, can do only so much without a gun.
As an actor, you're trained to do the right thing, be politically correct, say your lines, say the right thing about the people you're working with.