Super Megafest 2013: Ray Park Panel

Hanna Lafftery ’16 / Emertainment Monthly Staff
Media by: Tory DeYeso ’16 / Emertainment Monthly Staff
Ray Park’s Q&A was an interesting look into Park is a Scottish-born stuntman and martial artist who is most famous for his role as Darth Maul in Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. He was also Christopher Walken’s stunt double in Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow and played Snake Eyes in G.I. Joe: Retaliation.

Park grew up with Star Wars and recalled asking his father, an electrical engineer, to make him a light saber after he saw the first movie. One of his favorite memories of working on Phantom Menace was the allowance of an earring he had gotten during filming. “George was staring at me after the makeup was done, and I was like, oh no, he’s noticed the earring and he’s going to make me take it out…so, I apologized…but he said that it was fine, and he liked,” Park said, and thinks it’s funny whenever he sees stills of Darth Maul that show the earring “since it’s not the character, it’s me.”
Park also discussed his inspiration for becoming a stuntman, citing that his father’s love for Bruce Lee’s martial arts films and actors such as Jackie Chan influenced him with their physicality. “Things like the A-team really influenced me,” Park recalled, “because they were stunt guys, and on their off days they saved people.”
He mentioned the importance of letting the costume inspire the physicality of the character, which he said was especially true for his role of Snake Eyes. He said that it was like when someone “puts on a good coat, there’s something magical about it…same thing about Snake Eyes. Once you’re in it, you’re in it.”

Related: Super Megafest 2013: Manu Bennett Panel

Park found that there is a lot of allure in playing a character that he loved as a child and mentioned that he would also love to play Iron Fist (another of his childhood favorites) in a Marvel Comics television series.
Park’s newest film is called The Jinn, and will be released by Exxodus Pictures in North America this April.