AnnaMay & Dave from Geek World
Interview David Belle
GW
Dave: Hey, how's it going? This is Dave from Geek World.
GW AnnaMay: And Anna from Geek World.
David Belle: I'm doing fine. Thank you so much.
GW
A: Thank you for taking the time...
DB: I'm a little thirsty cause we're already going into our
third interview but I'm holding up ok.
GW
D: Great, great.
GW A: Why don't we start off with a question about the movie District
13: Ultimatum. We were wondering how District 13
changed from the end of the last movie to the beginning of District
13: Ultimatum and how that effected the character of Lieto?
DB: Well I think you can realize at the beginning of the
film in that scene where you see him placing the mines on the wall in
his head he's saying 'wow, things haven't changed, promises were not
kept, I'm gonna start changing things myself.
GW
D: Yeah, we love that scene, we thought that was a really great way to
start off the movie and really funny too even though really awesome.
DB: Thank you very much. I really had a good time
doing that scene also.
GW
A: It seems like... You and Cyril Rafaelli have really great on screen
chemistry, so we were wondering if you guys are also friends off set.
DB: Well as a matter of fact he happens to live two
kilometers (that's like a mile and a half) away from me.
GW
A & D: That's really funny.
GW A: When you and Cyril practice the stunts for a movie like District
B13 or District 13: Ultimatum do you ever
get competitive while you're practicing?
DB: Well yes there is a definite sense of competition but I
would say it's a very positive sense because it is not to say look I'm
better than you but just keep in mind that when we're shooting the film
we're both extremely tired, fatigue is a factor and we're trying to
show look I can do it, you can do it, this worked well for me, make
sure yours is good when you do yours, and the idea is to keep our
creative tension high because we have to throughout the film.
So I would say it's competition in a very positive sense.
GW
A: How do you prepare for a big jump?
DB: Well you have to rehearse it beforehand and take a few
smaller jumps beforehand in order to warm up.
GW
A: Of all the stunts and jumps that you've done in movies what's one
that you are most proud of?
DB: I would say what I'm most proud of are those jumps where
I really had no safety net, no cable, nothing, and when I see those on
the screen I say 'well that's just me and the camera and just beauty of
the stunt and the camera' and I know that I was doing it with no safety
net. Now in the film there's a really nice scene where I'm in
my apartment and the apartment blows up and I go out the window and I
jump up to the balcony above mine, you know that's a nice scene, it was
a very dangerous one, but that scene you know I did have support, there
were some cables, so to me that doesn't have the same degree of merit
as other scenes where I like jump from one roof to another with nothing
underneath.
GW
A: We've come across a few articles where you credit your family,
especially your father, with giving you the inspiration to create
Parkour, can you elaborate on that a little bit?
DB: Well, you know, since my father did not bring me up I was
involved in the normal sports that kids are involved in, basketball,
soccer, gymnastics, you know I had heard that my father had done that
so I was trying to find my own path, and when I found it in Parkour I
realized it was everything I was looking for, I found my personal sense
of balance, my equilibrium, that's what came from it. I had
grown up as a very introverted child, someone who didn't speak a lot,
someone who had studied his lessons but was afraid to speak up in
class, and now through Parkour I have to speak to people and show
myself. It's sort of therapeutic. You know, I was
brought up not by my father but by my grandfather and my grandfather
depicted my father as sort of like a hero, he said 'your father was a
fireman who saved lives' and naturally you know when you're a kid you
want to resemble your father and so when I met him when I found him I
had a lot of questions to ask.
GW
A: We were also wondering if you ever get into trouble for doing
Parkour in public spaces.
DB: Well yes, quite often. Because people get to
know us and they know we're not there to sow chaos, that we respect
people, and that we don't break anything, things are fine, but the
problem is we travel a lot and people don't know us everywhere and so
we always have problems at the beginning.
GW
D: So as long as you're not blowing up sides of walls it's ok?
DB: Yeah, from that perspective yeah it's ok.
GW
A: You move like a real life Spider-Man, when you were growing up were
there any comic books that you were into?
DB: Well yes I did definitely follow the Spider-Man comics
and as a matter of fact Sam Raimi... When Sony Pictures was going to
film Spider-Man 3 Sam Raimi and Sony Pictures
contacted me and had me try on the Spider-man costume, and I did, and
the idea was that I was gonna do the stunts for that production so I
tried on the costume but because of other commitments I couldn't accept
the assignment.
GW
D: Oh wow, that's really cool, we had never heard that, that's really
cool. Let me ask, you've been working as the Parkour
coordinator for the upcoming Prince of Persia
movie, is there anything you can tell us about that?
DB: Well as a matter of fact yes you know the thing was I was
shooting District 13: Ultimatum and so I couldn't
move I wasn't available but because he [Jerry Bruckheimer] had asked me
various times if I could help out with the choreography and I was told
'when Jerry Bruckheimer wants something Jerry Bruckheimer gets it' and
so every time I had a break in the shooting I would go to Pinewood
Studios in England for two weeks or three weeks and I would work with
an assistant choreographer and he would get the actors doubles and they
shot a whole bunch of scenes and we also trained little Daston because
when he's when the character is small there's a kid who plays that role
and we had to train the kid and that was a lot of work but we got along
great with Jake and the director and I would say it was a very good
experience, it really was.
GW
D: That's great, that's great. Just to follow that up, when
developing the Parkour scenes for Prince of Persia
did you play any of the videogames? (Geek
World note: we think the question got a little lost in translation so
the answer doesn't actually have to do with whether or not he played
the videogames)
DB: Exactly, I was asked to
contribute [on Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time]
to the decor to choreographing the scene and the visual elements I was
asked for my opinion regarding the choice of the decor and I remember
that there was one scene that was taking place at a castle, I think
this was Benjamin Gates scene, and the fact is that the script writer
the screenwriter had already written the scene but I didn't know that
and I visualized the scene and I imagined how the choreography would
be, I put myself in the character's shoes and I explained to them how I
thought the scene would go and they said 'this is impeccable, let's go
and let's shoot and then the screenwriters came and they said we
already wrote this scene and now because of what you did now we have to
rewrite it. I wasn't just there to do the movements, I was
also there to provide them information on the decor, where the
obstacles should be, the staging of each scene, more than just the
choreography, the choice of the movements, and I would meet with
everybody and I usually had a lot of ideas and then they would choose
what they considered the best and they would work over that and the
next day we would actually shoot, I'd meet with the storyboarders, with
the entire team, with the director, with the assistant, because they
had to see I had to explain the scene as I envisioned it from start to
finish to see if they liked it, fortunately they usually liked my first
suggestion. I would discuss all that then with the head of
the cores and I would say at this place this should happen, it was
really quite a lot of work.
GW
D: That's great. So, there's a fantastic scene in District
13: Ultimatum where it's a rooftop chase, how long does it
take you guys to shoot a scene like that?
DB: The chase scene on the roof?
GW
D: Yeah.
DB: It took about a week.
GW
D: Wow.
GW A: And how many times did you have to do the big jump?
DB: As few as possible. Maximum of three
times. In the best of circumstances on the first shoot it
worked.
GW
D: I can imagine. I can see that. And one other
question we wanted to know is have you ever thought about going to
Japan and participating in Ninja Warrior?
DB: Yes, as a matter of fact I saw that with some friends and
we think it's pretty amusing, it's pretty cool actually. I
might take a spin down there to have a good time.
GW
A: We would love to see that.
GW D: We would love to see that, we think you'd probably be very very
good at that.
DB: That's right, it might be fun.
GW
A: Is there anything else that you would like to tell people about District
13: Ultimatum or just about Parkour or anything else you are
currently working on?
DB: Well I think there's a chance that there might be a
sequel to District 13 in the United States.
GW
A: Nice!
GW D: Oh, really? Oh that could be amazing, is there anything
you can tell us about that? That's big, we had no idea.
DB: Well I can't tell you much more I can just say that the
project is underway and it will arrive soon.
GW
D: That is great. That definitely makes us very happy and I'm
sure many other people in our geek world.
DB: I think this would be a co-production between the United
States and France and there would be an American star who would play
the role of the policeman.
GW
A: Oh neat.
GW D: Oh wow. I just have to ask, do you guys already have
some ideas of certain cities or monuments that we might see some
Parkour action on?
DB: I can't go that far because we still haven't done the
scouting of locations yet but in any case you know your cities better
than I do and the scenes will be shot in the cities that are most
appropriate for the spirit of District 13 wherever
they may be.
GW
D: Oh, that's great.
DB: What do you think of Boston?
GW
D: Boston's a cool place.
GW A: I think San Francisco has some really great landmarks that
Parkour could look really cool on.
DB: Ok, I will pass that information on.
GW
D: Could I just ask one more question?
DB: Go right ahead.
GW
D: Is there any place in the world that has a certain monument or
landscape that you've always wanted to do a cool Parkour scene on?
DB: There's a whole bunch of beautiful places where I would
love to film. There a places in Morocco, in Greece, in
Venice, there's a whole variety of possibilities.
GW
D: Well hopefully we'll get to see a bunch of those cause we... it's
pretty amazing seeing you do those things and we're up for as many District
13 movies as we can get.
GW A: Thank you so much for taking the time to record this interview
with us.
DB: Thank you so much, thank you for taking the time to do
this interview and let me just say that if the film actually gets done
by the time it gets done I promise by that time to speak American
English, that would be motivation for me.
GW
D: Well as long as you keep jumping across buildings that's uh...
GW A: That's translation enough.
DB: OK. Thank you.
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