Mark Dacascos...

What made you get into acting?

So the rest as they say it history!

Being as athletic as you are at 45 (almost 46) what drives you, both mentally and physically?

So you got a lot to aspire to, especially when you've got a 91 year old kung fu teacher that can still do the splits!

What's you most physically demanding role to date?

What was your journey through the martial arts?

WOW, I would have never pictured you as a Buddhist monk...

Haha... So that's being a Shaolin monk over with then!

Actually it was pretty much by chance. My parents are kung fu teachers, so I've been into martial arts all my life. I started training when I was 4, first tournament when I was 7 and competed often until I was 18. I was in San Francisco 'China Town' when I was almost 19 years old, walking through china town with my then girlfriend. Two gentlemen stopped me and asked me if I was an actor and I said "No". They handed me a card, said they were doing a movie and asked me to audition for it, I said "No" and handed them back their card. They handed it back to me and said please think about it.
That afternoon I was talking to my mom about it and she said "You should do it, it's a great adventure, it's something different
...try it!!" ...So I tried it and got the part!

Well yeah. I'd never taken an acting lesson thus far and I've never seen such a beautiful Chinese woman acting in front of me, as the lovely Joan Chen and she was 21 years old. The Movie was 'Dim Sum' (1985). The story was originally following 5 girls but that changed to 2 and unfortunately Joan and my parts whittled down to nothing but the cool thing is that I've got the out-takes and I have a copy of it, because Joan entered them into an out-takes film festival and I think we won.

I was in a Gymnastics team when I was 19 that was like 26+
years ago and I'm still doing back flips and side flips.
I achieve the consistency as I've never stopped, I never
stopped being physical and both of my parents still train
and they're in their 60's! I have a 91 year old kung fu teacher
who can still do the splits & a lot of my training partners
in martial arts are still going as strong if not
stronger than me! So I have a lot of inspiration,
I mean that I'm fortunate to have a lot of well
disciplined, motivated people around me.

Exactly, if he's doing splits at 91, then I've got no excuses at 45!
Just Stay fit and healthy! I mean those same people that continue to develop their bodies are also focused on developing their minds and better themselves.

I'm not in the fantasy that I could jump as high as I could when
I was 20, but there is no way I would count it out either. I mean
I know my bones and joints have gone through a lot and there
is now way I can avoid that, as every now and then my knees get tender and that didn't happen before but it does now, maybe a little harder to get out of bed , but that's just the way it is. Right now I'm training 6 days a week, I feel so happy to go and train and love what
I do. When I met with the producer (Steve Wang) last week
and vowed to make an action film better that 'Drive' (www.imdb.com/title/tt0116147) and I think we can really do it.

There were lots of different things I've gone through ...In 'Brotherhood of the Wolf' (www.imdb.com/title/tt0237534) we we're doing chorography, it was very cold, there were rain machines, we were slipping and sliding all over mud and I had that huge trench coat on. The opening scene when I was fighting those guys with a staff in the mud ... it was very difficult, but I have to say that probably the most physically challenging was 'Drive'. There was a couple of fight scenes that we we're actually able to rehearse before shooting, but once we got into it the film there was any time to rehearse. So I would just get to set and I'd be given these moves that I'd wonder if I could do them or not and luckily I'd get an idea on how to do it and we would shoot it until he was happy and move on. We did this everyday and I came home with bruise, aches and pains with a huge smile on my face and I know we accomplished something very special.

My father (creator of Wun Hop Keun Do) has always been very encouraging to study other martial arts, study Boxing,
study Capoeira, study Wu Shu, study Muay Thai,
study all these different things inc grappling and judo,
because you'll need everything in an actual fight.
Learning different martial arts also helps break down
cultural differences, as in cuisine, martial arts lets
you understand some parts of a different culture.

My journey through the martial arts started with my father and step mother who raised me, but I've always been interested in the philosophical aspects of martial arts and the spiritual aspects, which is why at 17 years old, living in Germany at that time, I sold my drum set which I had earned from teaching private lessons and moved
myself to TAI PEI Taiwan. I move to study Mandarin (Chinese)
and further my martial arts with the idea that I would someday
join a Buddhist monastery.

Haha, well you know what happened Noel, the thing is I had seen so many martial arts movies and I was very impressionable. When I was 17 or so, JET Li's Shaolin Temple came out. This was back when we only had 3 channels at the time. So I loved all the spiritual aspects that Shaolin Temple and the philosophy it brought with it.
So I went to Taiwan with the hopes of eventually doing that and studied Mandarin and martial arts for 6 months and then got a call from my father as his martial arts school was getting very, very busy and he asked me to please come back and help him, now that at least is what I remember. But the truth is I was living on very little money at the time. I was teaching German and English to businessmen for extra money, as I was paying for my rent, mandarin/kung fu classes. So after that was all said and done I had maybe $1.40c which took care of my food for the day and transportation. That meant that sometimes if I took the bus I wouldn't have lunch. I lived on the 7th floor with no elevator and didn't eat very much, maybe just enough to sustain my energy, I mean it was rough! So when he asked me to come back and the
idea of a hot shower and a refrigerator, we didn't even have
a refrigerator in my apartment.

The idea of having access to food was colorful.

Haha... So my hunger was stronger than my spirituality

Hahahaha... right out the window!

......To be continued in - !

www.dacascos.com/