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

Born in Glasgow; raised in London; honed in Hollywood. Ray Park has made his name as two of the most iconic action figures in the history of the big screen: sinister Darth Maul (Star Wars) and all-American superhero Snake Eyes (G.I. Joe).

Ray is currently shooting the newest season of Heroes while busily promoting G.I. Joe across America. At home, however, he's proudly hailed as Dad where the world of martial arts and fantasy role-play make life more fun.

In this second half of our exclusive interview with Ray he talks about playing as Snake Eyes in the EA videogame and how strange it is to come full circle and see himself as an action figure in the local Toys R Us...

The GI Joe game has been made so that parents can play alongside their child. Have you had chance to try this out yet with your family at home?
We bought a Wii last year, purely for the kids. We don't play a lot of games, we don't watch a lot of TV at home; we're very physical - reading books, role-playing and just being out. I'm always training as well, so if I'm in the garden they're out with me. As long as I practice a little bit every day, even if it means being silly with the kids, showing them some funny stuff with the weapons, it still keeps me sharp.

How does it feel to play as Snake Eyes in EA's newest game?
I was just amazed that you could run around as Snake Eyes. If I had a character [in a movie] that can do a forward roll and a somersault and pull out his sword, I'd do that more than running and shooting a gun.

Do you remember Snake Eyes from playing with Action Man?
I didn't have Snake Eyes, I had the same Action Man you could dress him up a million different ways. But it was when my brother got into Action Man I used to mess up his games because he had all the little toys, we were into Thunder Cats and He-Man and Battle of the Planets. That's when I knew about Snake Eyes.

You must've been thinking back to all this when the opportunity arose to play Snake Eyes? I hear that you chased down that role to make sure it was yours.
I had a call from a friend of mine in the media, and he said ‘Look Ray, they're making a Snake Eyes / Storm Shadow movie and they're looking for the real deals, get your people on it!' And I'm like, ‘I don't have people!'

A couple of friends made calls for me and I asked a stunt guy I knew, ‘Look can I use your studio? I wanna make a Snake Eyes audition tape,' because I heard that Elija Wood did that for Lord of the Rings. But then I got a call asking about my availability, and that it was all top secret. So it just all happened, it all fell into place: luck, and fate.

I cleansed for four days, not eating, just drinking, I didn't do a lot of talking, did a lot of research online. At the time I was recovering from knee surgery, I could hardly walk and hadn't practiced martial arts for eight months because of my knee. But I had to lose about 5lbs to be able to do this audition. Just so that I felt cleansed and sharp.

It seems that Snake Eyes is the main draw for the movie, which must feel great.
For me it was a way to get back into my childhood again. My mother-in-law calls me Peter Pan, she says ‘You're the boy who doesn't grow up'. But I like it, because I don't think we should grow up, and I'm able to live that through my job. It's not really a job - I enjoy it, it's part of my life.

There are different aspects of maturity though, look at the kind of preparation you had to do. That's serious. And that takes experience.
Experience does come into play. I must admit that I'm always saying to my wife: Why wasn't I like this when I was competing? Why was it such a big deal?'

You do get older and more mature and slower, but I enjoy it more than ever now, I really do get a great buzz out of it. Especially now with my two kids - it's great that there's movies out there called Kung-Fu Panda and they're cartoons, because we can play Kung-Fu games now, and they can pretend because they're cartoons.

Does being a family man affect the kind of roles you decide to take from now on?
[My kids] haven't seen any of my films to be honest with you; we don't watch them at home. They've seen images of Darth Maul because they've been to a couple of shows but they've never seen the movie. They don't know about Vader or Darth Maul or the bad guys. They know about Yoda, and the good stuff about Star Wars.

Have you ever had the chance to meet any of your other heroes? Perhaps Chuck Norris when you were working on The Legend of Bruce Lee?
Yeah, in fact my Dad asked ‘Have you made that call yet to Chuck, to pay your respect and let him know that you're playing him? You'd better do it!' My Dad loved Chuck Norris as well so he was on at me about that. I got to meet Jim Carey the other day in San Diego, and I said to my mate ‘I'm going to buy his autograph' and my mate says ‘Why don't you just tell him who you are?!' and I said ‘Nah, nah, nah...I don't want any work stuff to get in the way, I want to meet him as a fan'.

Do you prefer anonymity? When you're out of character, do you prefer it that you don't have to be that big Hollywood guy in the street?
I'm a Dad, and it's nice to have a hissy fit every now and again, like when the kids are messing about and you're telling them to get in the car, you know [laughs]. Sometimes when I'm at the supermarkets someone will be staring at me, and I'm thinking ‘Why is he staring?' And then he'll come up and ask for my autograph, and that will completely throw me off. I think it's from growing up in London and Glasgow as well where people would look at you. It was either because they liked you or they were screwing you about.

Do you still feel like the London kid who's suddenly in the middle of Hollywood and it's all a bit mad?
I didn't really like LA at first, not for the first 10 years after Star Wars. It was only when my daughter was born and it was a big decision for us to sell our house in England and for me to come out. I no longer had agents and managers keeping me away from stuff, I started to make decisions for myself. I was doing a lot of reading, and thought to myself ‘I've got to take control of what I'm doing. I've got to be the boss of myself'. And ever since I started making my own decisions and taking responsibility for what I do that's when things started to pay off.

Where do you see your career heading after you've made the most of your physical ability? You've been involved with comedy before now [Charlie Chaplin]
The great thing about stuff that I've done is it's that sort of fantasy, comic book-y, sci-fi, stuff. And I always wanted to be like Arnold Schwarzenegger, or Rocky Balboa, or Rambo. They were the other idols that I used to look up to. Now as I've got older and I have more opportunities, I've started to think ‘You know what, I don't want to be in an all-out action movie with me in the lead and I'm saving the world. I would like to do something different'. Maybe I could be a football coach and take a bunch of girls over to Hong Kong but we get caught up; something different.

We'll see what happens. I hope I get to play Danny Rand, who's Iron Fist. That's what I really want to do as a martial arts / super-hero role. I wouldn't mind doing a circus performer, like a period piece where I get to show something different and is also a challenge to me - a physical challenge. Working on Heroes now is great, because I get to show off what I can do. I'm still waiting to get killed off... because I always get killed off [laughs].

What does it feel like looking at all the paraphernalia that has been created around the characters you play in the movies? You played with the action figures with your brother, but now you are an action figure!
It's crazy! But it is cool lining up a bunch of toys and thinking, Wow I was part of this. To think, my Dad used to buy all these toys for me as a kid! He's such a big kid. I'm always sending toys and t-shirts over to him even now.

Many thanks to Ray Park and EA

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