I like copying and pasting.
This was a different interview, still about Exit Wounds.
Interview with Exit Wounds Stars Steven Seagal, Jill Hennessy and Producer Joel Silver
FilmForce IGN.com
March 15, 2001
Exit Wounds stars Steven Seagal and Jill Hennessy and producer Joel Silver recently met with press in New York, the day after the film's premiere at the Ziegfeld Theater, and IGN FilmForce's Steve Head was in attendance. Steve also had the oppportunity to speak with Steven Seagal for a few moments prior to the premiere; that conversation is also included here.
Exit Wounds teams international star Steven Seagal (Executive Decision, Under Siege) with platinum recording artist DMX (Romeo Must Die) in a high-intensity action thriller. Seagal plays Orin Boyd, a tenured Detroit police officer who joins forces with insider Latrell Walker (DMX). Jill Hennessy (TV's Law & Order) stars as Mulcahy, Boyd's boss; the commander of Detroit's 15th precinct. With Walker as Boyd's inside link to finding stolen drugs, together they uncover a conspiracy which may infest all levels of the police department. And in a corrupt department, no one really knows who to trust.
Joel Silver is one of filmdom's most successful producers. His films include Die Hard, Field of Dreams, and Lethal Weapon 1 - 4. His most recent successes include The Matrix and Romeo Must Die. His current projects include 13 Ghosts, a remake of William Castle's classic horror film, and The Matrix 2 & 3.
Exit Wounds hits theaters March 16th. You can visit the film's official site at ExitWounds.net (or AOL Keyword: Exit Wounds).
IGN FILMFORCE: Steven, are you a rap fan?
SEAGAL: Yeah, I mean, I don't know if I'm a rap fan though. I'm a hip-hop fan. I believe ? and this is my theory, and maybe I'm crazy ? but I believe that rap, American rap, came from Jamiaca. I think it's a Jamaican DJ thing. I think Joel was the inventor of this interesting idea of the marriage of hip-hop and martial arts.
IGN FILMFORCE: You know, a lot of rappers have been getting into acting. However, you're doing the opposite. I'm told you're musically inclined and you've been experimenting with some tunes. Is there Steven Seagal CD in the future?
SEAGAL: I've been a musician since childhood, and music is my first love. I love it. I'm playing a lot and write a lot and I'll have an album coming out. I'm not going to be rapping, but I do like what this producing of my album ? while I'm with a bunch of other good guys ? and like with one of my closest friends whose working on it. So, I certainly will be going into music. It won't be rap, but I'll have some hip-hop in there.
[There's no specified date for the album's release.]
IGN FILMFORCE: How was it like working Andrzej Bartkowiak?
SEAGAL: Wonderful. He's a great guy and a great director.
IGN FILMFORCE: Some of the shots in the film were just incredible...
SILVER: Andrzej is a legendary cinematographer. He's been around forever, and he worked with me on Lethal Weapon 4. And it was during the period when I was doing The Matrix when Keanu had just done a movie with him called Devil's Advocate, and he was very impressed with his work. And (Keanu) said to me, "This guy is great; you should have him direct something for you." So we began talking about it, and Romeo Must Die came from that. So (Andrzej) had a great kind of ability and understanding of the camera. [In Exit Wounds] you're seeing a great cinematographer directing.
IGN FILMFORCE: And the sound mix for Exit Wounds is fantastic; the bullets, the cars, the punches, the explosions, everything...
SEAGAL: Oh yeah. All digital.
SILVER: Digital sound effects. The dubbing of the music and effects is really incredible today. You're feeling gun shots. I mean, it's not the way peole say it is, but the gunshot sounds real. And cars sound real. Among the many things in the evolution (of movies) is to make the sound in the movie incredible. That's what you feel.
IGN FILMFORCE: I've heard some people say this could be your comeback movie. Do you think it is?
SEAGAL: No. Well I never went away, so it really isn't a comeback film.
IGN FILMFORCE: Joel, what prompted you to pair Seagal and DMX?
SILVER: I have a good relationship with Steven. We did a picture together a couple years ago called Executive Decision. Steven came in really insisting that the movie star had to die in the first 20 minutes of the movie. And I convinced Steven to do that. I paid him a lot of money, and he did it. And we always wanted to work together again. And he came to me and he said look, I really wanted to do something that's fresh and original and something that's new, and I'd like you to help me do that.
I really was very impressed with DMX during the whole experience on Romeo Must Die. I like working with him. I liked him. And I was very impressed with the reaction of the audience when he was in the picture. And the studio was very impressed to, so they said why don't we do a picture with him. So I thought, you know, he's smart. He didn't want to go into a starring role. He wants to build into that. He really... he gets it. I mean he really gets it. And so we decided to do this picture with the two of them together. And we just kind of worked it out. It went along, and I'm very happy with it.
IGN FILMFORCE: Steven, what was the most surprising thing about working with DMX?
SEAGAL: You know, I don't mean to sound precocious or anything, maybe it's my age, but I like to do my research. I kind of investigated him a little before we began, and ? there were no surprises. DMX was a gentleman with me. He's reflective, thoughtful, gentle.
IGN FILMFORCE: In the past, people have been critical of some of the rappers because they get into the acting and they don't really know how to act. What are your thoughts on this?
SEAGAL: I can remember from time to time saying to people in the press... They'd say, "Well how's that? Is his acting good?" Man, [DMX's] acting is as good as anybody. It's good acting.
SILVER: I'm sitting there last night, and I watch a dialogue scene between guys on the screen. DMX and Drag-On, and the audience applauds it. I mean, how often do you hear an audience applaud a dialogue scene like that. Because they move the audience. They were moved by it. X's music is playing. And then when they touch fists throughout the glass, the audience was taken, as you say, over the top. They went with it. In that sense, do you think they have to step up? I think that X is a natural. I mean he's a natural. He just has tremendous force. Tremendous power. He's great. He's so intense. And the audience gets that. DraGon was great too. I worked with a lot of rappers. I've worked with those guys, and my bridge with them has been fantastic. And whatever they would do together. Whenever Steven and X would be in a scene together, you could always feel the heat. And that's what it's about. If the audience sees and feels things are real, then they buy it.
IGN FILMFORCE: Can you tell us about the combat scene with DMX?
SEAGAL: That was the hardest moment in the movie. [DMX] is not really fighter, and he's got a little bit of a bad shoulder. And as soon as I got behind him, in that scene where they wanted me to grab him by the shoulder. It hurt. A lot. Yes, that was kind of hard for me, and it was hard for him. You know, he respects me and I respect him. And we just didn't want to do it.
IGN FILMFORCE: There's also fight scene that you have with Michael Jai White, who is actually a martial artist. It's interesting that you chose to do it in sort of a samurai style. Who decided to do it that way?
SEAGAL: You know, that's really... I mean, ultimately everything was up to Joel, and I just kind of tried to sort of follow orders, but with the sword choreography, it wasn't really samurai, which is Japanese.
IGN FILMFORCE: Jill, how did it go for you on the set with Seagal and DMX?
HENNESSY: Ohhh yeah! (She laughs) The only woman in a sea of testosterone. Does the word party mean anything? Like one of the best times in my life. It was just fabulous. I'd just come off of working on Jackie, Ethel, Joan, where I played Jackie Kennedy, surrounded by women in Hyannis Port. Suddenly I'm with Steven.
SEAGAL: With no estrogen. (Jill and Steven laugh)
HENNESSY: ...And I'm doing a scene with him; one of my first scenes with him is was... aaa... he's wearing boxer shorts. So here I walk into this scene, there's this guy with these great legs. And I'm, you know, focusing on the scene. I've got guys in the background working out. It was really quite wonderful.
IGN FILMFORCE: Did you deliver your lines?
HENNESSY: It was tough.
IGN FILMFORCE: Isiah Washington and Anthony Anderson...
SILVER: They're great. I mean they're guys that you go to and they're there. It's like in the bank. I mean, they are phenomenal. And they do what they gotta do. Isiah was a bad guy in Romeo, and he's a very good guy in this movie. And Anthony is always great in whatever he does. And matter of fact, we did an MTV special about the movie, and it's hosted by Anthony and Tom Arnold in the setting of the "Detroit A.M." So it worked for MTV too.
IGN FILMFORCE: Steven, with the Oscars coming up, what do you think of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon? Is it your pick for best film?
SEAGAL: Actually Billy Elliot was my pick for best film. But they're all friends of mine, Ang Lee and Sihung Lung. I saw that movie four times before it came out, and cried when I saw it. I loved that movie. Loved it.
IGN FILMFORCE: Your love for all things Far East, has this changed you and affected your daily life?
SEAGAL: I spent a lot of time there, and Joel will tell you I don't think like the average Easterner. It's hard for me. I don't really have that background.
IGN FILMFORCE: Did you teach DMX any moves?
SEAGAL: I showed him a few things, but you know, like I said, there's a guy called Dion Lam, who I've known from Hong Kong; actually I know Yuen Wu Ping and his father, the original master. But I knew Dion a little bit, and then Joel was smart enough to bring him in and it was great. I mean, I just had to ? for the first time in my life ? sit back and do what I was told. When Dion would choreograph stuff, once in a while throw my own stuff in there, and kind of shape it to be mine once in a while, but most of the time it was Dion teaching.
Producer Joel Silver
IGN FILMFORCE: Joel, you were one of the first producers to get martial arts and hip-hop in the same auditoruim. When you came in, I thought DMX was coming in. Interesting that you all share the same audience. You said this can work...
SILVER: My knowledge and understanding of the martial arts that we're talking about came from Larry and Andy Wachowski, because they had tremendous interest in the combination fo essentially Japanese and Chinese martial arts. And I met all these guys from them, and we made The Matrix. And they kind of told me about Jet Li, and I had met Jet Li when we did Lethal 4, so I've had a lot of experience with this kind of picture. Then when we decided to do Romeo Must Die, the story led us to this urban take about two families, and it just made sense to kind of glean the hip-hop with the martial arts, because I had Jet Li and I had Aaliyah. So it worked well. And when something works, there's no reason why we can't continue it.
We changed a little bit, and [Exit Wounds] is a harder movie. It's a really solid urban contemporary story. And it's just a good blend of the two of these guys together. I think it was successful.
IGN FILMFORCE: When you did Romeo Must Die in Oakland, it didn't look like anything I'd seen in Oakland.
SILVER: It was shot in Vancouver.
Let me tell you something, in about two weeks were going to start shooting a movie in Oakland that you're going to know about, The Matrix 2 and 3. So we'll be there. It's starting.
IGN FILMFORCE:Where about, and for how long?
SILVER: We're going to shoot about twelve weeks there. And then if there's a strike, or isn't a strike, we'll shut down for twelve weeks. We're using an old naval base that was decommissioned.
IGN FILMFORCE: And how are things coming along with 13 Ghosts?
SILVER: Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic.
IGN FILMFORCE: Steven, you have a large following in the black community. Can you comment on that?
SEAGAL: I was born in Detriot, in an all black neighborhood. I didn't know I was white until I was twelve (laughs). So I mean, we're the same.
When I was in Asia, I was the first white ? I don't like to say white because I'm not really white either ? but I was the first non-Asian in the history of Japan to open up his own dojo there. And for the first couple years they had a lot of people coming trying to kick my ass, just because they thought I was audacious to do that. And I did it because my teacher told me to do it. Back then it was hard. Now it's not so hard because everybody respects me. I mean, it seems like some of them do anyway.
IGN FILMFORCE: What was your reaction to the screening last night... It was phenomenal. It was out-there; definitely rowdy.
SEAGAL: It was incredible. It just doesn't get better than that. We hoped that the audience would like it. I mean, those people in there were winners from a radio promotion, so they weren't planted. We promoted all over New York, and like the 103rd caller called in and got the ticket. And it was full of journalists like yourself and our friends. And to see that reaction, it was just exciting.
IGN FILMFORCE: Steven, last night's premiere ? outside and inside the theater ? was crazy with fans and moviegoers, and you weren't concerned about getting out and shaking hands with everyone. Have you ever had a bad fan experience, where maybe things got a little out of hand?
SEAGAL: Once in a while there's been somebody who has come up as if he wanted to see if I am who I am. And when it gets to that, I just give them the look like if you're ready to come, come. (Laughs) And then they always say 'No thanks. I think I'll just like maybe... go the... other way.'
My people are my people. They love me and I love them. I would not be here without them.
)
