Ray Park: My Life as an Action Figure (Part One)

He's the number one reason many of us watched Star Wars: Episode One, and currently the coolest character in the new G.I. Joe movie. But still you'd find it hard to recognise him in the street. That's because British actor Ray Park is usually the man behind the mask. As Darth Maul (Star Wars), Toad (X-Men) and now Snake Eyes (G.I. Joe), Ray has become world famous for bringing spectacular martial arts action to the big screen. His charismatic alter-egos are also keeping kids glued to the TV thanks to videogame interpretations of Hollywood blockbusters.

G.I Joe is the latest to receive the console treatment, allowing publisher Electronic Arts to open door for us to talk about his rise to fame and a lifetime of making fantasy a reality. Here's the first half of the Yahoo! UK Games exclusive interview with real-life action figure Ray Park.

Let's wind this right back to you when you were, say seven years old...before you started to develop your own mystical powers!
My Dad was a big kid himself. So for the first few years I was a bit spoilt, he and my Uncle bought me Batman stuff and Scalextric and Action Man. They were just young men themselves, they were playing with it more than I was!

After seeing [Star Wars] The Empire Strikes Back. I said to my Dad, ‘I want to be able to do a handstand, a front-somersault with someone on my back; I want to learn martial arts. Will you build me a light-sabre?' My Dad was an electrician and said to me ‘Well I can do my best, but it's not going to be like it was in the movie'. So he went out and he got me the old light-sabre, which was a tube with a little light-bulb in it, and I was disappointed because it was nothing like what I thought it should be like.

Is it mainly the fantasy guys who you aspired to be rather than straightforward action men? Instead of Duke you wanted to be Snake Eyes?
I used to make my own ninja stars and weapons. I had my own commando knife with a toothpick in it and a bottle opener. I remember watching The 36 Chambers of Shaolin and asking my Dad if he could build me some iron plates so I could put them on my legs, because I wanted to jump. In my mind, as a kid, I believed that I would be able to jump 20 foot in the air and do somersaults. I remember laying bets with my friends at school in the playground saying ‘I bet you any money, after the summer holidays, I'm going to be able to jump over this fence'. And as a kid I believed it. I didn't know there were special effects or anything like that.

So how was it when you first realised that you could pick up a few scrapes?
I taught myself to know where I was in the air [Ray studied gymnastics]. I thought ‘All I can do is land on my face or land on my head. If I break my neck, or knock myself out, I'm not going to know about it!' So I would practice falls, jumping off a trampoline in the gym to see how far I could get, how far I could push myself.

Did all this make you a celebrity at school, or did you keep yourself to yourself?
You didn't tell anyone you did martial arts; that was the number one rule. I was a big football player, I love football. I played for my school; I played for the years above. My dream was really to play for Scotland or play for England.

I remember one winter after playing, I had mud on my shins still, and riding up to class and kicking off the mud during class. I remember thinking ‘I've got to make a choice here: am I going to make it as a footballer or am I going to make it as a Kung-Fu guy? Something inside me said just stick to the Kung-Fu, because you're going to make it doing that. And I always knew I wanted to be in films. It's funny how I remember that class and I remember making that choice.

This was when I was 13. I just knew back then: I wanted to be in martial arts, I wanted to be in films. I want to work with Jackie Chan. I want to get into Jet Li movies.

When you were a child you wanted to be a comic book hero or Han Solo. But in your teens you were getting stronger as an athlete, aware of how cool this was making you. Did your heroes change?
I never really read comics, I was always a "Beano" and "Dandy" sort of man; the comedy ones. But I was also buying the Bruce Lee limited editions imported from Hong Kong that would take a month to arrive. I had those on order. I did a paper round for my local shop, so he was able to take it off my paper round money. I was always getting the magazines first hand on Saturday mornings. While I was waiting for my round to get made up I was reading the magazines. That was lucky actually, and I hadn't thought about that until now - being able to pull the magazines off the shelf without being told not to touch them, or having someone looking at you like you were about to steal it, or ‘You'd better pay for it' [laughs].

Bruce Lee was more than a comic book character though... he really did all that.
Yeah, this was also my Dad's passion. I always looked up to my parents, and my Dad would always test me on what I'd learned at Kung-Fu. My Dad had to learn to look after himself, coming from Glasgow, so he taught me the other side of things. But I didn't go to martial arts to learn how to defend myself; I went because I really liked to do what the guys did in the movies... and have special powers!

Has there ever been a point, even now, that you've realised that what you're doing for real is perhaps even better than magic, better than fantasy, the ability to have all this freedom of movement and confidence in your own physicality?
There's always been this great mystery behind training and doing things, and that takes a lot of time and practice. Some people think that you get it Like That. But I remember working really hard to even do a move that's effortless. But I remember my Dad telling me, ‘No matter what you do just make it look easy. Even if it's hard, don't let anyone know that it's hard, make it look effortless'. He always instilled this in me, even if it was to do with press-ups - he said ‘Don't show you're tired'.

Everything changed for me after having two kids, and my wife changed, we became very focused. Now it means more to me to be able to get them to jump and do a butterfly twist and I think ‘Wow, I can do a somersault' and my kids will see that and think it's normal. My teachers and my masters kept themselves to themselves, and I would always be wanting for them to do this fantastic move and showing it off. I want my kids to be exposed to that so that it's just normal for them. I wouldn't be saying ‘You've got to be doing back-somersaults everyday', it'll be something that they' will pick up on their own. If they want to do it they can come and ask, but martial arts is for myself; I would never push it on my kids. But if they were doing role playing and storytelling and dress up, and be able to live out what I do in films but in the house, that would make them laugh and be silly. The kids have really helped me become a better performer and a better actor in a sense.

Tomorrow Ray talks about landing the role of Snake Eyes in the G.I Joe movie, how his crazy on-screen personas have helped playtime with the kids, and reveals a secret passion for comedy...

- More on Y! Games: Read part two of our Ray Park interview