The road to onscreen action roles in Hollywood for Britain's Gary Daniels began just as it did for so many of his contemporaries-from between the pages of a comic book and early glimpses of a Bruce Lee movie. Back in his native England, Daniels, at the age of eight, joined a local martial arts studio called Mongolian Kung-Fu, where he first learned a combined system of karate, ju-jutsu, and aikido. Finding that he really liked the kicking aspect of the martial arts and the flexibility he was developing, after a few years Gary moved on to the more kicking-oriented art of tae kwon do, earning his first degree black belt when he was 17. Gary went on to compete around tournaments in England and Scotland, won his share of trophies, but then got swept up by the new streetsmart kid on the fighting block, kickboxing. This, in turn, led to a totally new direction in Gary's life, as he moved from England to Florida and, finding his fighting skills could translate into an action movie career, he began taking acting lessons. Gary then began the steady climb to becoming a full fledged working actor, and the '90s has seen him co-starring in a slew of martial arts/action flicks, including Ring of Fire, Fist of the North Star, and, most recently, BloodMoon. Gary reveals to AMI readers in this exclusive interview the dynamics of these roles, which require him to continue to build and maintain his fighting physique and the skills he can bring to each new action challenge onscreen.

MA: Gary, what turned you on to kickboxing when it was still so new in your part of the world?

Gary: The PKA (Professional Karate Association) was just starting out in England at that time, so that's when I wanted to make another change. I had an instructor named Nicky Burns who was a PTI (pistol training instructor) from the British Army. He was somebody that I'd seen at the gym I'd trained at, training a lot of boxers, and he was just the most incredible physical fitness trainer. He'd never studied himself per se, but he was a fighter-he really knew now to fight and coach boxers. So I went to him and asked him to train me. It was so different, his style of training, from the martial arts training-you know, the typical traditional stuff you do in taekwondo and what you see in karate schools. He wasn't into forms or pretty kicking; he was a boxing champion in the British Army and bad been a bouncer. He'd seen me train at the gym and knew I was a black belt, and he said to me, "I've seen what you do, and now I'm going to teach you how to fight." And he just totally changed my ideas toward fighting and the martial arts.

MA: What did you go on to do competitively in kickboxing?

Gary: I competed in England for a couple of years. I only had about seven fights, and the, just after my 20th birthday I moved to America. I'd heard there was really good purses in kickboxing in America, but when I got here I found out that that definitely was not the case. But in England you couldn't make any money at the time, so I moved to Florida on the advice of my fight promoter, George Sfetas, who was head of the PKA in England back then. When I first got to America, I was training with a karate instructor in Tampa, Florida named John Graydon, who headed U.S. Karate. He now has hundreds of students and is really wonderful karate instructor. However, the kind of karate they were doing at that time was the point karate, and I'd never seen or done point karate before that. When I was competing in taekwondo tournaments it was semi-contact but conruinous sparring and them in the PKA there was the full-contact kickboxing. When I came to America these guys were doing the point karate, and I'd never tried it or seen it before. So I tried it at a couple of tournaments and it was terrible for me, because it's like tag you know, you barely have to touch a uniform to scene a point. That was an abysmal failure for me, attempting a point karate tournament.

MA: Your acting career began taking shape around this time as well?

Gary: Yes, in Florida I also got involved in acting class. For a couple of years I studied with a lady named Kathy Laughlin who was the regional examine, for the Academy of Dramatic Art. She really opened my eyes to what acting is about, and I did some small parts on "Miami Vice." I did some commercials and industrials and just got my feet wet there in Florida. And then I got an offer from a director to go to the Philippines to do a lead role in action movies. So I took off for the Philippines for two years, at the beginning of 1986. We did two Pictures -- they're what they call "international movies" because they're all shot in English with synch sound with Western actors. I look at them now and just laugh because the standard is pretty bad, but at that time it was a fantastic learning experience. Although I'd been in acting classes for a couple of years, when you actually get on the set it's a whole different ball game. I moved back to America toward the end of '87 and out to California in '88. Things just kind of took off from there. It was a slow process at lust out the ball got telling and it's never really stopped.

MA: What were your, earlier acting roles once you got to the West Coast?

Gary: I read for a I'M movie called Ring of Fire, a Dim Wilson movie, and I got a small part in that, and I got my SAG card from that movie. Then I did three non-union really low-budget movies for a company called Cine Fatal. One was called Capital Punishment with David Carradine and Tadashi Yamashita, and another was Full Impact, and another was called American Streetfighter. Then, in 1992, 1 got offered a part in a movie which Albert pyun was directing, called Knights, which costarred Lance Henriksen, Kathy Long, and Kris Kristofferson, and I was the fourth or fifth lead in that picture. When I first saw Knights screened at the American Film Market, my end fight scene with Kathy Long had been cut out; that was the first time any of my scenes had ever been cut out of a movie, and it was really a horrible feeling. The, I spent almost four months in Hong Kong doing a Jackie Chan movie for Golden Harvest City Hunter We shot in Japan and then Hong Kong, and that was another big learning experience. Jackie was someone I'd been watching since I was a young child, so it was great to work with him. After City Hunter I came back to America and the first movie I did here was a movie called Firepower for PM, with Chad McQueen. And the, I did a movie toward the end of '93 called Deadly Target, where I was the lead, another action movie obviously. But then it was in '94 when 1 had the big break, which is Fist of the North Star.

MA: What was important for you about getting the role in Fist?

Gary: I was very interested because I was already a fan of the Japanimation movie, and the comic books, and the Kenshiro character in Fist was like a cross between Bruce Lee and Mad Max. So being such a huge Brace Lee fan and he being such an influence on my life, I wanted to do this. We finally made Fist in 1995, and I was very excited about because We had Christopher Penn, Costas Mandylor, Malcolm McDowell, and Mario Van Peebles all involved-so it was a big budget step-up for me also. But after seeing the movie, I liked it but I was very disappointed in the way the action scenes were shot. The director didn't like shooting fights; as far as he was concerned, Fist was a love story, about the love triangle between Kenshim, Shut, and Julia And I'm like, this is Fist of the North Star not Gone with the Wind you know! But the director kept telling in, this is a cross-over movie for you, we're trying to get yen a bigger audience than just the martial artists, and I said put, Id like that too, I need great drama and relationships and characters, hot you cannot neglect the action.

MA: What have been some of the additional benefits you gained from the various fighting systems you have practiced?

Gary: The benefits I've gotten from the martial arts are too numerous to count it's totally affected my whole life. The benefits are both mental and physical. For me, martial arts is life, and life is martial arts you cannot separate the two. And so, all the benefits I feel I've got in my life have come from my martial arts training. Physically, it has improved my flexibility, stamina, strength, endurance, and coordination-everything Obviously a tot of the strength comes from the weight training, flexibility comes from the martial arts training. My stamina was really improved in my kickboxing days, endurance as well, and obviously coordination. Martial arts is one sport where you use everything your hands, feet, elbows, knees, legs, arms, torso, even you, head in certain instances. So definitely, the benefits have bee, numerous. Mentally, it's given me the ability to totally push myself physically, to push myself to the limits without surrendering to physical pain. I think thats one of the greatest things about the martial art, for me it's gave me such a strong mind, and I believe to make any mental and spiritual gains, you have to push yourself to the physical limit, and me martial arts gave me that kind of mindset where you have to go through pain. They don't really give you a lot of choice when you're training: You have to go through the pain and you can't give up.

MA: As yet, acquired new fighting skills, were there ocher forms of xcrelse which you found important to be active in at the same time to improve your martial arts performance?

Gary: I definitely believe in cross training, not just doing the forms and the fighting techniques of martial arts. Weight training is very important. Running ... was always a big part of my training, especially when I was doing competitions. You really need endurance when you're fighting; you could have two fighters in the ring who are terrific technically, but it's the one that's got the best endurance that's going to win the fight. I didn't do weight training so much for size sub to be a bodybuilder, hot I would do a lot of circuits, where I would do light weights for muscular end ........ So, once again, cross-training is very important to me. It's not mat a matter of going to the dojo and studying the martial arts, it's really all-around fitness. You have to have muscle strength, you have to have flexibility, you have to have endurance and another part of the training is bone conditioning for your knuckles and the bones in yen, forearms and arms. So, there's more than just one part to being a complete martial artist.

MA: What is a typical week like for your nowadays, when you're not on location somewhere, as far as strength training and cardiovascular training are concerned?

Gary: I can't say that I have a typical week, hot I will tell you what I fit into each week. I work weights on a three day split: three days on, one day off. Most week, I'm doing weights six days a week, two body parts each time. I run three times a week, running three to four miles each time. I work out in my garage, where I have all my martial arts equipment, three to four times a week, and I play soccer twice a week. So, I'm often training two or three times a day. I'm either lifting weights in the morning and running in the afternoons and then doing my martial arts in the evening, or I run in the morning and the, do martial arts. I'm combining the running, the weight training and the martial arts training throughout. I take one day off, but I'm also a firm believer in listening to my body: if I wake up one morning and I feel over trained or really tired, I'll take the day off if I ever get in that condition.

MA: What exercises do yen find most useful in the gym, as far as cross-training for strength and flexibility that directly benefit you, fighting skills?

Gary: Weight training is really important because, for me, when I build muscle, in my mind I believe I'm building armor. When I'm fighting, it's good to have muscle because muscle helps to absorb the impact of some of the blows, so it's very important for that alone. A lot of it, pulling movements in weight training, like the pull-downs or rowing, anything where you're pulling, I find also helps my grappling. When I'm on the ground and grappling with somebody, all the pulling movements help give me that strength to pull in my opponent into my range where I an work him. All the pushing movements, which are working your triceps, and all the extension movements, obviously help a lot with punching techniques. And for my kicking techniques, the same goes for the legs when you're doing squats: the power you're building in your legs is very, very important for kicking. I know that a lot of martial arts teachers believe that you shouldn't do weight training, [believing that] it affect, your speed and coordination or whatever. I absolutely don't believe that [to be true]. If you train right, it's going to help you, if you train wrong (e.g., if yen do martial arts once a week and weight train six days a week), of course you're going to get overtight and it's going to hinder you, martial art,. But the idea is to balance it out, ying and yang, fifty-fifty-your weight training suit martial it, must go together. As Bruce Lee said, all the technique in the world is no good without the power to perform it,. Weight training, then definitely enhances martial arts performance, whether You're a stand up fighter who punches and kicks or a ground fighter who like, to grapple .

MA: How has your approach to staying in optimum physical condition changed since you moved to California?

Gary: When I came to California I really did get more him the weight training mode; that's realty when I hit the split workouts and doing two body parts a day. I feel that before I'd been over training with weights, and a lot of people had told me at the time that I was doing too much and that I had to cut down to maximize my growth potential. But I didn't understand it at that time, because when I was younger I felt that every time I came out of the gym I had to be so tired-that was the only way I felt like I had a good workout. I'm not sure if it was because I came to California or just because I was older and a little wise,, but yes, I definitely started doing my split workout. Up to this date, I do two body parts every time I go in the gym I don't like to be in the gym for much more than an hour. One of the biggest differences when I came to California was I met a guy named Scott Hayes who's a nutritionist. I spent six months with him and he taught me about diet, and I really realized at that point that diet is 90 percent of the look that you're going to get. You know, he didn't change my training, but he totally changed my diet, and that made a large difference in my life.

MA: What are some of the stances within your fighting arts that you find useful as far as building you, strength flexibility, balance, or stamina?

Gary: In the Chinese kung-fu systems there's a lot of stance training. When I studied Hung ga, did a lot of, horse stances, cycle stances, and cross horse stances, which are all very, very low stances which build very strong legs. As far as stance training that is pretty much the only kind of stance naming which I could recommend or say benefited me strength-wise. There are a lot of exercises, and there are a lot of parts of training in martial arts which can benefit weight or people in general in their conditioning. Hitting a heavy bag, for example, I believe is one of the hardest training exercises there is. I'd tell anybody, if you can go three rounds for three minutes on a heavy bag 11 not, you're doing great. When you hit a heavy bag, you're getting resistance training which build, you, cardio and endurance and coordination. So hitting a heavy bag is one of the greatest all around workouts I can think of. Obviously, stretching is very important: in martial arts we emphasize stretching because we do a lot of kicking. But stretching can help everybody, not just martial artists. I mean, if you're very tired and you wake up in the morning and you yawn, you can pull a muscle. If you're reaching up to grab a can, of food out of a cupboard, you can pull a muscle. So flexibility is important in all aspects of life, especially to athletes. Once again, it goes back to cross-training running that we do for the martial arts can help everybody. Jumping rope is [also] something I do, especially when I'm kickboxing, and that can help anybody because it's a great all-around fat burner and muscle toner.

MA: What do you see as being the major differences between depicting fight scenes for Asian and American movies, and how are audience expectation different?

Gary: I love to watch the Chinese movies, but when a lot of those techniques are applied to Westerners, they don't work so well. I really feel that if a Chi.... director is going to work here, he has to learn to adapt the Chinese style of choreography to fit Westerners: we are a lot bigger than Asians, we move a lot differently than Asians, and in some cases even though I was really enjoying doing the fights on the set-I loved the choreography while we were doing it-when I see the finished product, some of it looks just a little too busy to me. [Asian fight scenes] don't concentrate or focus so much on power as they do on all these fancy techniques, and sometimes that gets lost on the bigger guys. It really does. I think what Westerners want to see is very different than what the Chinese want to a,, when it conics to fight scenes. Jackie Chan's been tremendously successful in Asia, hot he's taken a long time- he's already done 40 movies-to cross over to the West. Why is that? I don't think Americans believe so much in his fight scenes, whereas people like Bruce Lee, Van Damme, and Seagal are hugely popular here because they don't have these 15 minute fight scenes. When they do fights, it's about power-bang, bang, and they hit a guy once or twice and the guy go,, down. I think that's what Westerners or at least Americans appreciate more: to see that power in the fight scenes rather than a very, very intricate 10 or 15 minute light scene.

MA: Western audiences will tend to view fighting skills as purely a weapon, whereas Asians might appreciate them as much for being an art as for their martial power.

Gary: Exactly. There is one fight that I do like in Fist of the North Star where I fight the troops of the had guy, right before the end fight scene. Fortunately, the end fight scene was shot the first three days of the shoot, so the director hadn't had time to get tired of filming fights.

MA: At this point, which of you, movies are you most satisfied with as far as the execution of action sequences?

Gary: I really I don't feel I have one movie yet that I feel has shown off what I can do martial arts wise. In the scale of things, I would have to say I really enjoyed White Tiger on the whole, as a movie, and I got to do 99 percent of the choreography on that, even though I didn't get control of camera angles and editing. When you're chose, to choreograph a fight, you really should be given the power to pick the camera angles, the lenses, and be in on the editing. Unfortunately, I wasn't, so even though I choreographed it, it didn't turn out on screen exactly how I had visualized it.

MA: What are some of the advantages and risks for you in undertaking a role in an action movie rather than a strictly martial arts format?

Gary: Very often an action movie is considered a bigger budget movie than a martial arts movie. A, action movie consist, if car chases, guns blasting, explosions, high falls; that is a lot more expensive than getting two people that can do martial arts fighting it . . . mg or arena. It's a lot more expensive-so, if you've got a bigger budget movie, often you get better quality control. And better quality in a movie and a bigger budget attract better actor,, ban,, directors, and better writers. When I travel around the world promoting my movies, I often hear people telling me, "Oh, we really enjoy watching you doing martial arts, you should put more martial arts back into your movies." So they may get disappointed if they see me doing straight roles. But I feel if I can go away from the martial arts a little bit, go and do an action movie or a, acting movie, and it makes money, and does well, then I get a little bit more power. And if I decide to go back to doing the martial arts, then there's, more leverage, so then I can make hopefully better quality martial arts movies. I mean, I really want to branch out and do a lot of different things, but my heart is in martial arts- I've been doing it since I was a kid!

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Interview by Martial Arts Illustrated, December 1998.
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