Photos by Greg Lynch Jr.

Who would win in a lightsaber battle: Kylo Ren or Darth Maul? Put my Republic credits on Maul all the way. I have more faith in his double-ended lightsaber beating Ren's non-functional cross-guard lightsaber any day. Plus Darth Maul was portrayed by Ray Park, a genuine practitioner of Wushu and Kung Fu. Before his debut in Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace (1999), Ray had already succeeded with an impressive competitive record. His first international competition was in 1990 at the Chin Woo Wushu International, held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and his first international Wushu competition where he represented his country, Great Britain, was in 1991 in Beijing. He was the “first westerner to get over 9 in Changquan,” says Ray with a modest laugh.

Ray Park was featured on the cover of our JULY+AUGUST 2016 issue. I first met him in 2003 where we had an informal chat, at a baseball game no less, where he through the first pitch dressed as Snake Eyes while promoting G.I. Joe: Retaliation. Ray has a contagious enthusiasm for martial arts and our conversation was all too short. For the cover story, I met him again at the Silicon Valley Comic Con, in a hotel bar near the convention. We were both early to the interview, one that his publicist had set at an hour. We sat down for some beers. “That’s good tea. I like that tea,” said Ray after a swig off his Stella Artois. Then once we started talking, well, when two martial arts fanatics get going, there's just no stopping, and we wound up talking for several hours, long after I turned my recorder off. Here is some of the remainder of what I did record and couldn't fit into the cover story.

GC: What inspires you?

RP: When I look at my kids – my son's competed – he's training – he does about four days a week, four hours a day, sixteen hours a week training – more than I ever did at eight years old. Our Kung Fu classes were an hour and a half maybe? Two hours? I tried to get in as many Kung Fu classes as my mum and dad could afford. It was like two pound a class. It was kid's classes and adult classes. So I watch my son train and I watch my daughter. She does softball three days a week. She's playing games and then she's doing softball. And I sort of kind of think, what do they think of their dad? As a guy in movies. We talk about film and I mess around at home – daddy's fat, you know – we play around. But it always goes back to playing around with them. I don't want to fight with my daughter because she is tough. She's got one mean kick and punch. And I'm really proud of her. This next couple of weeks I'm actually floating around the house and I'm going to take her to a class – some kickboxing to try out. She won't listen to me. She wants to beat me up, so I need to take her somewhere where she'll listen to someone else. And so my kids inspire me.

GC: Have any new movies caught your attention?

RP: The movies I used to get was from a comic book store and he used to get stuff from Hong Kong. I don't think they were all bootleg. I think they were all legit. He no longer does that so Netflix is my only thing. I watched Donnie Yen and Michelle Yeoh on the new Crouching Tiger, and that was the latest thing. That inspired me to look at my collection and revisit some of my old stuff that I was inspired about. There's been a bunch of stuff I've been watching, Flashpoint, Special IDwith Donnie Yen. I've been following Donnie a lot recently. Anything of his that comes out, I'll watch. I really admire the way he looks great. It just seems like he's really disciplined. Sammo Hung looks good as well. I love watching him. He's got sort of a new color in his career with the characters he's playing.

GC: Speaking of Donnie, I'm sure you're following him working on Rogue One

RP: I saw on Twitter from one of my fans, I've known him for years, and he said, "Hey look! Good news." I was like, "Yes!" Because he was on Blade II (2002), I was like, "Yeah!" And I just feel like they didn't use him enough on that. They didn't utilize him the way they should have done on that movie. He's so good. Now I can envision him as being a Jedi master. Very Zen. Without knowing any write-ups about it. Just from the picture I saw, that's what I'm seeing. He might end up being a bad guy, you don't know. I'm excited and maybe one day I hope to get to meet him. Maybe he can punch and beat me up on a movie set.

GC: What do you think of Stormtrooper TR-8R's Tonfa and Kylo Ren's new lightsaber?


RP: When we were on Phantom Menace, Andreas Petrides was the assistant stunt coordinator. When we were by ourselves, we would just play around with ideas. Like if it wasn’t two lightsabers, what other kind of weapon could you use? We even played with Nunchuks– the idea of Nunchuks – how would it be? He was a martial artist, stuntman, military guy – great at what he was doing. And that really helped me to come up with what I was doing. We came up with Tonfa – how would it work? How would you do that? Tonfa and a blade – we were just playing with different ideas. And I think he was enjoying it as much as I was. And then to see that, and to think back – oh yeah, okay. Technology changes, doesn’t it?

I was kind of scared of using the new Kylo Ren’s lightsaber at a convention before the movie was released because the ones they had at conventions, the hilt was thick. It was heavy. I can handle that but I didn’t want to mess up just playing, because I don’t really know the logistics of it, what not to do. I didn’t want to mess that up for the film because everyone was, "What do you think about the new lightsaber?" A lot of people were asking me that. My answer to that was, me as a martial artist, I’m really interested in how I want to use that because I want to play with it. I see the traditional old Claymore, you know, the knights sword. I respected it. I didn’t want to play with it and drop it by accident. But I didn’t. I was okay. I can’t help but put a Wushu flair into things. Even if I’m using a Roman soldier short sword, I’m going to spin it like a Wushu blade.

A lot has changed since Phantom Menace. Before that, if I saw something an American Hollywood production do, something like that, I’d be like, yeah, that’s Wushu. That’s Kung Fu. That’s Hong Kong. That’s Jet Li. Then I’d be curious about who was the fight coordinator or arranger, what influence they had, who was it? Who doubled him? But now, it happens all the time. If I was on a movie again, what would be my magic to offer because everyone is so used to seeing it? I can only offer myself. Sometimes I feel there’s a lot I can show in Kung Fu and Wushu that hasn’t been seen yet. Even if it seems like it’s made up, there’s some moves that are instilled in me. Like Tony Jaa, Ong Bak (2006), some of the stunts we were doing for Iron Fist. Kurt Wong was supposed to do it. They were looking for Misty Knight. And I was suggesting Dwayne Johnson or Michael Jai White to play Luke Cage. They saw Ong Bak and they were asking, "So what could we do better than that?" And I said, "Well, you got to show it. Like Bruce. You got to show the move." On Twitter, I heard about the new guy on it. When Daredevil came out, and Jessica Jones, I really liked it. And then I heard the barman was Power Man, Luke Cage. And then I was, "Okay, they’re going to get into Iron Fist," because I started to see Iron Fist in the cartoons. And I said they’re going to do this. It’s going to happen. When I was on G.I. Joe 1, I thought maybe they’ll consider me. I was a little bit younger back then. But since then I’ve never got my hopes up. I’ll be the guy, like Jackie, that you’ll visit in the teashop with mystical powers that will send you on a journey. That might be me. I’ll be the bum in the alleyway, the old master kind of thing. I really wanted to play Iron Fist but I also knew I lacked the experience back then. It was a good opportunity to have and, yeah, I was full of confidence back then, but looking at it now and what I’ve done, the experience I’ve gained over the years, I’m so glad I didn’t get to do it. I’m sure I would have done a good job. I was in my physical prime. But as an older man, just thinking back, I was a different person back then. I had a different outlook on things and I’ve learned so much more. And I was in good hands – Kurt Wong, to get to work with him, it was a process. It was an experience. So I’m glad for the new guy. I hear he’s in Game of Thrones. I’m sure he’ll do well. I’ll watch it. Elodie – she’s playing Elektra. That’s great!

GC: Anyone else on your "hit list" to work with besides Donnie?

RP: There's always been Jackie. I just recently re-watched Forbidden Kingdom (2008). I talked about that in the article last time – Monkey Magic. It was one of my favorite stories as a kid. I went to Wushu because of Jet Li. Also because I wanted to get into films, wanted to work with Jackie Chan. All of those guys were just my idols. Of course, I want to work with Van Damme, Chuck Norris, Steven Seagal.

GC: Are you seeking any non-action roles?

RP: Heroes was a little less. I had a bunch of ideas of what I could have done for my character. Again I was a bit too scared to speak up. The producers were, "Yeah, if you have ideas…" I just went with the flow because I was just very grateful and happy to be on it. Whatever they threw at me, if I had to do something, that's what I would do, especially if it was physical. I worked with Kevin Sorbo on a movie called Avarice [a.k.a. Black Box (2012)] and that was a non-action role. It was a young director from Vancouver [Matthew Schilling] and the DP on it. He worked with me on King of Fighters (2010); he says, "Have Ray for this role." I was playing a tweaked-out drug dealer sort of gangster and I'm like, "Why are you recommending me to play this role?" It was a small role but he was talking to me and said, "Ray, I know it doesn't seem like a lot of pay but the director really likes you and I told him you'd be perfect for this." And I'm like, "Okay. Alright. But I've never done anything like this before." There was hardly any dialog. When we drove out to the middle of the desert, the director was so cool. He said, "Look, Ray, this is where we're at; this is the story; this is what's happening." I just wanted to go along with it. He made me feel so comfortable and this was the place when I was really feeling like I didn't want to act anymore. It was all baloney and I'm not going to do the action I want to do. Because all of the action stuff I've done hasn't really been set up to where I thought I was going to do, what I wanted to do in movies. But I'm very grateful, and very lucky, to be doing it. That day, I just came alive. I got into the character. I had just shaven my hair to kind of a mohawky kind of thing, so he's licked it over and gave me some like Egyptian eye makeup. I had this real dated '70s suit, driving this old banger of a Mustang. I had the best acting day of my life. I drove home going, "Woo hoo!" and told my wife, "I'm going to carry on acting because I think I can do it." And I've had a couple sticky moments in my career, and it was all because I didn't prepare, or listen. I was listening to too many people and was worried about how I sounded. And that eats at me because I know I can do so much better than that. So I don't mind people hiding me in makeup. It doesn't bother me. As long as I get to play a character and bring him to life with my action, and people go, "You know, that guy's familiar." And then they find out it's me and they're like, "Yeah!" I want to be that silent character, that character in the back, and stand out because of what I'm doing. I also want to do more martial arts stuff. As you get older, you get thinking I better do more upright, maybe Wing Chun, maybe not so much of the high kicking, holding my leg up there.

GC: Have you been following the trend of martial arts on TV?

RP: I'd love to get on Into the Badlands. I'd love to do that. I started watching it. Danny Wu is great. He's a Wushu dude. Fans are tweeting about it and I got excited about it, so I'd love to be on there. I'd just love to be part of that. I've been training hard since Season 1 on the possibility that it could happen. I started to change up my training and my diet. I started practicing my basics again. That's what I was doing training. You never know. Might get the call. Because if I don't have something to focus on, I go, "Why am I training?" And I hate that because it never used to be like that. I put training before everything. There's only so much conditioning I can do and there's only enough time in the day when I can train – three hours, four hours, when the kids are at school. I like climbing ropes, I love hitting bags, pushing it. But I also want to do the artistic, the Kung Fu and Wushu. Sometimes at the end of my four hours, I go "aw," and you've had your lunch, and it's the afternoon, and you go, "'I got to get the kids to gymnastics at four," I could do five to six. And then, over the winter months, it gets darker quicker so my neighbors get in, get home, and I don't want to be out because I train at home. I don't want to be out back doing stuff. That puts me off now. I go, "That's okay, I'll just eat. I'll pick the kids up. I'll watch them." It'd be nice to get back into, as much as I do conditioning, I do as much Kung Fu. I try and remember my basics when I'm conditioning.

For G.I. Joe, I was just kickboxing and Wushu, flipping. I didn't hardly do as much conditioning as I'm doing now. But now, I think it's because I've been watching my son, the conditioning he's doing, it's reminding me of the kind of stuff we used to do. It's nice to do it with him. It's nice to go, "Come on, son, get up that rope. I can do it." But he's only eight years old so I got to give him some slack.

For Part 2. click here.