Mann on Fire...

In the course of his career, Byron Mann has fought alongside Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal, saved the world for Jet Li & Mel Gibson, been the mentor to Mark Dacascos and even killed Chow Yun-fatt. Mann gives a scene stealing performance in The Man with the Iron Fists and can also be seen on the small screen on Arrow, and is currently on Hong Kong screens in the thriller Cold War. Impact’s Far Eastern Editor Mike Leeder - who also handled much of the casting for the film - caught up with Byron for the following skipchat…

IMPACT: Byron, how did you get involved with The Man with the Iron Fists, and how would you describe your character “Silver Lion”?

Byron Mann: My manager sent the script to me. I read it and thought it was an original story with interesting characters. I put something on tape for several characters and sent it to the filmmakers. A month later, while I was judging a beauty contest in Vancouver (no joke), I got an email on my phone that they were interested. Also thanks to you (Mike Leeder) for also recommending me from the beginning, director RZA really liked my interpretation of one of the characters (Poison Dagger). But due to a strange twist of events, an actor that was originally cast as Silver Lion dropped out at the 11th hour. So RZA made a decisive move to cast me as Silver Lion, the main villain in the movie.

I see Silver Lion as having two roles in this film: first, the loyal lieutenant to Gold Lion. Then, after conspiring to have him killed, Silver Lion becomes the leader of the Lion clan, a position he’s been lusting after his whole life. Once he assumes leadership of the Lion clan, he reveals his true identity: a vain, narcissistic, power-hungry prince of darkness.

IMPACT: Were you aware of RZA and his love for kung fu movies etc before this film? How did you find working with RZA as a director and his vision for the characters, the movie and the world of “Iron Fists’’?

BM: RZA had a very detailed vision for all the characters: their hairdo, costume, weapons, and mannerisms. Yet at the same time, he was very open to ideas. I asked him a lot of questions, and brought a lot of ideas to the character and the scenes. Many of them were left field, weird, freaky ideas. But the more ideas I brought to him, the more he seemed to like it. I would say about half of what you see of Silver Lion in the film were things that we made up on the day -- they were not in the original script. I appreciate that RZA is an artist, someone who’s open to ideas. In the work that we do -- which is essentially creating art -- it takes a lot of collaboration and experimentation; you never know when you’re going to strike “gold.”

IMPACT: The role on paper was pretty cool to begin with, but you added a lot of your own ideas and input for the character, and to many people it’s the standout character in the film. How receptive to your input was RZA?

BM: When I met him right before filming, he told me he liked the “freaky, weird” spin that I had put on Poison Dagger. He said, “Do the same thing when you play Silver Lion.” That was the starting point. I had the same instinct regarding Silver Lion, which is, the moment he becomes leader of the clan, he becomes this wild, unhinged, psychopathic prince of darkness. Like I said, the weirder I went with the character, the more RZA seemed to like it.

IMPACT: How did you find working with RZA and Eli Roth on the project? A lot of people seem to have assumed that perhaps Eli was directing as opposed to RZA himself, whereas it was much more of a partnership with Eli offering support?

BM: No question that RZA was the director. But he was a very busy man: he was directing, acting, writing, and fighting (which takes up a lot of time). Eli supported whenever he could: he would write up scenes on the day when certain parts of the scene or dialogue needed to be tweaked; he would direct certain main unit shots when RZA was not available, or second unit shots when second-unit director Corey Yuen was not available; he would offer a “second-eye” to RZA on directions of certain scenes. In short, Eli Roth -- as well as producer Marc Abraham -- was invaluable to this film, in all phases of production.

IMPACT: It’s an interesting project in that it’s a Western Eastern featuring a cast and crew from both China/Hong Kong & Hollywood. How did you find the production flowing with such a diversity of nationalities and languages being used on set? Your multi-lingual stills -- was it interesting to see the HK crew realize that you weren’t the mere 'American' actor they may have been expecting at first?

BM: Yes, many Chinese crew members were surprised that I could speak both Cantonese and Mandarin. They thought I was from the US, but were pleasantly surprised to find that I was, in fact, from Hong Kong/China. Being able to speak Chinese certainly made it a lot easier on a production like this one.

On this set, there was English, Mandarin, and Cantonese spoken on the set all the time. The First Assistant Director for Corey Yuen, for example, had to translate between English, Mandarin and Cantonese every day on this production! Some days, I would look at a Chinese person on set and both of us would have to think for a minute to figure out what language the other person spoke -- it could be English, Mandarin or Cantonese!

IMPACT: How did you find working as part of such an impressive cast, Russell Crowe, Lucy Liu, RZA, , Daniel Wu, etc

BM: Russell was nice and polite; we chatted about Australian rugby between takes. When RZA yelled “action,” however, Russell turned it up. He’s quite a force of nature -- a strong, intense actor. Lucy was nice and friendly. She’s pretty smart about her character and dialogue. If there were any issues anywhere, she would not hesitate to bring it up with RZA. Sometimes, she’ll come up with dialogue that would augment the scene. For instance, in the scene where her character and Silver Lion discuss how to share the gold, Lucy made up a lot of her dialogue.

Daniel is a really nice guy. Down to earth and humble. He had fans around the set that wanted to see him, but it didn’t seem to faze him. He was shooting another movie when we were shooting “Iron Fists,” so initially a lot of my scenes with Poison Dagger were done with his stand-in, whose English was not very good. When he did make it to the set, I was relieved that I was finally able to do a real scene with Poison Dagger!

IMPACT: Was it interesting for you to be working with a China/Hong Kong crew after doing so much work in the West?

BM: Yes, it felt like coming home. It was a nice feeling. In a way, working on this film was the best of both worlds: working under a Hollywood system, but working with my own people. A true east meets west scenario.

IMPACT: How did you find working with Corey Yuen and his action team on the movie?

BM: Corey Yuen is one of the nicest gentlemen I’ve had the privilege to work with. You don’t find that many masters of this (action) genre who are that nice. He has a team of martial arts champions from all over China who work as his assistants. Everything’s thought out and choreographed beforehand. You just show up and do what he t

ells you. It’s really that simple. And try not to kill yourself along the way!

IMPACT: How would you describe the whole Iron Fists experience from your point of view, and how would you pitch the movie to a potential audience?

BM: Making The Man with the Iron Fists was quite an “original” experience. We were making an original vision of RZA, with actors who were having an original experience working with each other and working in China, and we were all engaging in an original experiment trying to craft this movie together, which required a lot of trial-and-error. I think (it's) “Genghis Khan” meets “Enter The Dragon.” It’s a reinterpretation -- and homage -- to the classic martial arts films, but with a slice of Tarantino hipness and Eli Roth gore all mixed into one film. There’s nothing like it out there.

IMPACT: Now, you're also on the small screen at the moment in ARROW - how would you describe your character on that show?

BM: My character in ARROW, “Yao Fei,” is a mysterious character that Oliver Queen meets on the deserted island. Yao Fei is intricately involved in Oliver Queen’s evolution into the 'Arrow' character. Is he friend or foe? Only time will tell…