Geekscape spoke with talented actor and fight choreographer Joey Ansah, who along with playing the role of ‘Akuma’, is also billed as director and co-writer of the highly anticipated upcoming web series Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist premiering Friday, May 23 on Machinima.com.
Geekscape: “Can you share with us a bit of your martial arts and acting background?”
Joey Ansah: “I’ve been working in the industry for about 13 years—since I was 18 years old. I’ve done martial arts for most of my life—for a good 25 years. I was 5 years-old when I started dabbling—so, I started with a bit of Wushu, actually, but my training really took off with Tae Kwon Do. Earned my first black belt and then, I did Ninjitsu for well over a decade. I’ve done Capoeira for five years, and then I started to cross train. I’ve always been a big Bruce Lee fan, so I’ve always believed in scientifically breaking down and analyzing combat sports and what works and understanding the merits of each system. I do a lot of boxing. I’ve done some Filipino Kali, some elements of Wing Chun, so my trapping game is there which you would have seen in the Bourne Ultimatum. Karate, Aikido–most styles I have crossed trained in, so it means that any film or role I do, I can completely tailor the choreography or the physical performance to that. I’m also an acrobat. I’ve been doing gymnastics, acrobatics and martial arts tricking and all that stuff for well over a decade. So that kind of sums up, in a nutshell, my martial arts background.”
“As an actor, my big Hollywood break was as the character ‘Desh’ in the Bourne Ultimatum in which I had that now famous fight scene with Matt Damon.”
Geekscape: “I love that fight! Wasn’t it nominated for ‘Best Fight’ at the MTV Movie Awards that same year?”
Joey Ansah: “Yeah, I mean those things are so fucking rigged. They claim it’s from public votes. Matt Damon, for whatever reason, was working and didn’t show up to the [MTV Movie Awards], thus we didn’t get it. It is as simple as that. You mark my words: if I ever get an MTV Movie Award for ‘Best Fight’ in the future, I’m going to mention the fact that I am taking this as a double award for Bourne Ultimatum.”
“I mean, that fight was revolutionary. It was such a proud moment because that was my big break and that fight was very dear to me and we suffered. I mean, the book in the throat [punch sequence] we just did for real. We really went to war on that. Matt and I developed a really good sense of trust and that fight stood out not because it had the most intricate, amazing choreography per se, but because it was an honest representation of violence. When you watch a fight break outside a nightclub or outside a bar, you may be standing on the other side of the main road but you feel—what are the elements that you feel? Chaos, desperation, panic, rage. You get butterflies watching it and you’re not even involved. And how often do you watch a fight depicted in the cinema that makes you feel that way emotionally? Very, very rarely. Because the way combat is depicted on screen, you don’t think it is void of that emotional content that Bruce Lee likes to talk about so much. The nice thing about that fight is we were like two dogs—two Rottweilers. Once we came into contact, we almost didn’t break contact until one of us was dead. And kind of like two hurricanes, we moved from room to room, fighting on every surface, doing everything we could. Even though we are two highly trained agents, there’s still an element of desperation in it, and I think that’s why it stood out so strongly. If you remember, there was no theatrical score—kind of making you feel emotional. People held their breath in the cinema when they watched that for the first time.”
“I was 23 when I did that. When the film came out, Rolling Stone Magazine said, ‘Best Movie Fight of all time.’ And I was, like, ‘Wow. I’m just getting started’, you know what I mean? I can’t wait to showcase to the world through film what I’m really able to do, and what really stuck with me was the importance of that emotional content, so any fight scene I do now, even if it’s not all fantastical based narrative around it, something like Street Fighter where people are doing hadoukens, it still has to have that emotional intensity and reality that really draws you in and makes you care about the characters.”
“Career wise, kind of up to now, before Street Fighter: Legacy, my main job titles were ‘actor’, and I’ve done a lot of straight drama probably more than I’ve done action; it’s just the action stuff is more notable. And a lot of choreography and action direction. Street Fighter: Legacy was my directorial debut in short form, and now Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist is my full-feature length directorial debut, writing debut, every credit you can think of: choreographer, one of the star actors, the lead writer, director, one of the producers, etc. Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist is kind of the total sum of everything that I am and everything that I do, creatively, put together in one package. ”
Geekscape: “All you need to do is catering and you have the entire bill covered.”
Joey Ansah: “It’s a megalomaniac’s dream, isn’t it?”
Geekscape: “Just listening to you talk about narratives through fight choreography and with no music–you clearly understand what you’re doing and how it should be done. When taking on Street Fighter’s most iconic characters such as Ryu and Ken, icons people have loved for over 20 years, how much fun or difficulty did you and Christian Howard [who co-wrote the story over the last three years] experience in developing Ken and Ryu’s relationship as friends and rivals?”
Joey Ansah: “To be honest, it was a super fun, engrossing experience. It looked difficult on paper, but look—if you love something, it’s not difficult. It is hard work, yes, and there is long hours, but you don’t perceive it to be tough because it’s doing what you love, you know? Christian and I have been massive Street Fighter fans from way back in the day. I first met Christian ten years ago, actually. On a film I was doing, he came on board to be a screen fighter, and he was very talented and I thought that this is a guy I would like to keep working with; I see great potential in this guy. We’ve got the similar mind set creatively, the way we perceive films. When watch a film together, we instantly cite the exact some moments and parts and details.”
“So, you know, any true Street Fighter fan would have played all the games, watched all the main anime, watched the Street Fighter movie, Street Fighter: Alpha Generations, and then the UDON comic book series also gives some nice narrative in places. The problem with the Street Fighter mythology is that it’s very convoluted; it has been retro-fitted as the series goes forward, and occasionally you get some odd contradictions and stuff. To make it even more complex, some of the official Street Fighter animes will provide a certain backstory narrative arc, but then Capcom will say “this isn’t canon.” For lack of there being any other explanation or having a lot of fans are like, ‘I don’t really care if Capcom says it is canon or not—we like this idea.’ Street Fighter Alpha: Generations proposed that Akuma is Ryu’s father other than the bloodline thing. Some people really loved that concept—that kind of Star Wars/Vader and Luke kind of link through destiny, whereas other people were like, ‘No. Fuck that. That’s not canon.’ What we’ve done is left that open—that element has been addressed, but we haven’t definitively said ‘It’s this way or it’s that way.’ We’ve done it in a very tasteful way that leaves you–the viewer–a chance to make up your own mind as to what happens.”
Mas Oyama
“It’s interesting—being a massive fan of martial arts and famous martial artists, like stories of Musashi Miyamoto, the greatest swordsman that ever lived, and his Musha shugyo—his warrior’s pilgrimage that he went on challenging people. The famous karate master Mas Oyama who founded Kyokushin karate—and he went off and lived on a mountain for like a year and a half and ‘beasted’ himself, and he shaved his eyebrows off and when he came out [of the mountain], his hair was wild and he developed this technique called ‘The God Hand’ that literally, if he hit you with it, you’re fucked. If you blocked it, it would break your arm. If you didn’t block it, you were mashed up. A lot of the original mythology behind Ryu and Akuma was based on this real life character Mas Oyama. So that’s a great place to start–is to think, ‘What was the foundation for the original creative designers at Capcom? What were their sources of inspiration?’”
Benny ‘The Jet’ Urquidez
“Benny ‘The Jet’ Urquidez and the famous fighter Joe Lewis, who were students of Bruce Lee at one time, they are kind of inspirations for Ken as well. I don’t know how much you know about Benny Urquidez, but he was the first Westerner to go to Japan and beat them at their own game, and he famously wore red trousers. For those of you who don’t know, Benny the Jet was in two Jackie Chan films: Wheels on Meals (he’s the white dude that had that famous fight with Jackie Chan), and also Dragons Forever, that famous fight in the factory at the end. That’s Benny the Jet and he was one of the greatest fighters that has ever lived. If you go watch some of his old fights in Japan, you’ll be, like, ‘God damn! Even his hair is like Ken’s!'”
“We just delved into the body [of the mythology] and said, ‘We need to fill in the gaps.’ A lot of the canon, or what has been established by Capcom—the origins of Ryu and Ken—you can describe as just a backbone…there is no meat on it. There’s no detail in it. It is just a series of events on a timeline. So we took that backbone and then had to add meat—‘characterization’—into it. Our aim, narratively, is that fans (and Capcom) will hopefully regard this as the definitive backstory of Ryu, Ken, Gouki, Gouken, and that whole subsequent line of fighters, because we tied together all these loose ends into one cohesive story that hopefully now everyone is like, “This is what happened in the past—let’s all agree on that–and now let’s continue to build the world narratively on top of that.”
Geekscape: When you completed Street Fighter: Legacy, did you expect fans to react so positively to it as they did, or did the fan response catch you by surprise?
Joey Ansah: “Yeah, I mean, you set out to do something great, you got to have confidence in your vision. If you’re going out to make a piece of art, and you’re like, ‘Ugh, I don’t know if people are going to like this’, you’re setting yourself up for a fall to begin with. A lot of people don’t know that Capcom—it was positioned as a fan film—but look…I’m an experienced film maker with a lot of experience, all the rest of the crew were [experienced], and I got Capcom to finance [the film] out of the marketing budget this industry fights for, and you will have noticed that Street Fighter: Legacy was released at the same time Super Street Fighter IV came out.”
“There was a bit of worry from some people at Capcom Marketing that ‘Oh, what if fans don’t like it? It could have a negative backlash on the release of the game.’ So I was, like, ‘Look, guys. We’ll take Capcom’s logo off it. We’ll position it more as a fan film that I’ve done that Capcom has endorsed, so in the event fans don’t like it, they can lay all their blame on me. If they do like it, it still gives a positive boost to the Street Fighter brand.’ But it was great—we got 1.1 million hits in the first week, and we created a new channel with no subscribers that wasn’t pushed by anyone like Machinima at the time. It was completely organic. I had to do my own marketing. I got Collider to break the story, and yeah—I think people were just, like, ‘Finally! This has been done right and it is dead faithful to the game.’ [Street Fighter: Legacy] was our ‘dress rehearsal’; it’s not to say that by any means it was perfect, but it was a good first stab and it was a good foundation that we could build Assassin’s Fist on—knowing what works and doesn’t work.”
Geekscape: You play the role of Akuma—alongside Ryu and Ken, one of the most loved characters in the franchise. When you put on the gi, put on the makeup, and the costume is complete, what do you feel you need to get across to the audience watching Street Fighter; Assassin’s Fist as to who Akuma is and what do you feel you bring to the character?
Joey Ansah: “With any experience—even if you’re going for an honest, deep, truly emotional realization, people are always initially blinded by the frivolous surface, so you’ve got to get the look—the external look of Akuma right. He needs to be huge. I got the biggest I’ve ever been in my life. Do give you an example, in the Bourne Ultimatum, I must have been like 78 kilos (171 pounds). In bulking for [the role of] Akuma, I got to 101 kilos (222 pounds) before cutting down. You’ve seen the poster, right? And that maybe doesn’t do justice to how big I am when you see me come into the series. As an actor, it’s a very powerful feeling–wearing the hair, wearing the beads, and you’ve got to adopt a specific kind of posture. You have to change your entire physicality. And I speak only Japanese in the series. I speak exclusively Japanese, so it is the most different character I’ve ever played to myself. It’s cool. I’m very pleased watching it back. I am pleased with the portrayal, and yeah…it feels very powerful as he is one of the most iconic anti-heroes/villains in video game lore.” [End]
Look for Geekscape’s interview with Ryu from Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist, actor Mike Moh, this Tuesday!
Source: Geekscape.net interview was conducted on Wednesday, May 15, 2014.