JCVD CV
Over two thousand words of insights. Courtesy of the French Impact magazine, the June 1989 issue (No. 21) had Jean-Claude Van Damme talk about No Retreat, No Surrender (which began filming in 1984 and finished editing in 1985): “It cost $250,000 and made $18 million. It's a Chinese-produced film, and we were paid very little. We were shooting from five in the morning to midnight for $250 a day.”
Bloodsport was made in 1986 yet released in 1988 despite No Retreat, No Surrender being released in 1986: “The first version of the script was great, but the producer who bought the project changed the original concept. Above all, there are these two idiots - these American detectives who follow me to Hong Kong. In the first script, it was about two marines who managed to capture me just before the final fight. That would have added a certain suspense. Now, it's Laurel and Hardy who appear on the screen. Another aberration: the night before the fight of his life, the hero gets laid with a chick! All this is the fault of the producer, who has nothing to do with Cannon. But Bloodsport was my first big role, so I had to keep quiet!”
Kickboxer (1989): “The work is first and foremost that of a team. I wrote the story, arranged all the fight scenes, the finale of which was shot in only three days from 10 a.m. to midnight. Something easy, fast. But what would people think of an actor who puts his name everywhere, especially someone who is starting out? Sylvester Stallone, Clint Eastwood can afford it. Not me for the moment. Agents, producers would react badly. You have to be very careful in this profession; an omnipresent name can be very dangerous. I am young, I am 28 years old and if I did it, people would say: "Who does he think he is?" even if the film is good.”
In the August 1990 issue (No. 28) of French Impact, JCVD talked about a film that’s referred to as Full Contact but is known as Lionheart (a.k.a. A.W.O.L. or Wrong Bet): “I'm moving more towards comedy, towards well-written stories... Full Contact is a big step forward for me. My character, Lyon, arrives clandestinely in the United States and sees the country as it really is. My films are not all roses. You can't blame them for being violent either. When you get punched hard, you bleed. My films show that and also carry a message. They always give their heroes a reward. The concept of a legionnaire on the run is new to the Americans. For them, the legionnaire is a mystery, something like a purely French Rambo. On the set, there was a real legionnaire. He helped us with the uniforms, the insignia...”
In the February 1991 issue (No. 31) of French Impact, JCVD talked about Cyborg (1989): “I was not very well paid, but I nevertheless had a certain power. That's how I was able to get the best of Cannon's directors, Albert Pyun, for Cyborg. When I came back from shooting Kickboxer, I spent two months re-editing the film for 18 hours per day.”
Predator (1987): “The costume was really not up to par for me. When Arnold Schwarzenegger got sick, the production took the opportunity to hire Kevin Peter Hall, who is taller than me. However, until recently, I was still receiving checks from the production for my participation.”
Double Impact (1991): “We changed a lot of the original script which was set in the last century. But we didn't want a costume film. The Corsican Brothers thus became Double Impact which takes place in Hong Kong and Los Angeles. I play two very different twins. The film is very action-packed, and its humor is close to that of Pierre Richard in his best days.”
In the June 1991 issue (No. 33), writer/director Sheldon Lettich referred to the source material by author Alexandre Dumas: “Not a novel, a short story. It is extremely difficult to obtain it in the United States. To adapt it, I therefore based it on an English play that was inspired by it. But all this has little to do with the film. Double Impact is more based on The Corsican Brothers shot in 1942 by Gregory Ratoff with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. This film is set in 19th century Paris. This is not our case. Cannon initially didn't have Jean-Claude Van Damme in mind for the role. As soon as we heard about the film, Jean-Claude and I realized that the project was perfect for us. We worked on the script before Cannon changed management, and then we took over the rights for another company.”
Sheldon describes his working relationship with JCVD: “Very good. We often think the same thing at the same time. This saves us time and avoids arguments. We generally see things the same way. If we disagree, we admit that the other's idea is better without entering into endless discussions.”
Putting the budge in budget: “About four times that of Full Contact, or $16 million. But the result seems to have cost much more. Double Impact is similar to a James Bond, an Indiana Jones or a Joel Silver production, films that usually require 40 or 50 million. We managed to make Double Impact seem bigger than it actually was. The public will be surprised. On set, we had several teams working simultaneously. In Hong Kong, we employed an incredible number of people. Some days, three different units were working in parallel. While I was directing Jean-Claude on the port, Vic Armstrong, our action director, set up and filmed the stunts. At night, Eddie Armstrong shot street shots. The activity was intense in order to meet our deadlines and budget.”
Lettich lets us know about the integration of the American team in Hong Kong: “There were many difficulties. We didn't have permission to film in the streets. In any case, the authorities would have refused us. It is easier to obtain a pardon from the police. If they interrupt you, you play the innocent by pretending that you didn't know it was forbidden. That's how it works in Hong Kong. The police often visited us following gunshots, noises, which disturbed the neighbors at 3 or 4 in the morning. The cops came back almost every hour. We always got away with it. There were also language and cultural problems. This sometimes led to great tensions between the American team and the Chinese. The Americans found them incompetent on the pretext that they didn't work in the same way.”
Narrative subversion (the thickened plot gets twisted): “In fact, the Chinese are very strong. Because we didn't trust Chinese operators, we had to bring a team from Los Angeles at great expense. The cinematographer was good but still made mistakes. The footage filmed by the local crew was much better. And the Chinese needed only one take, while the Americans, by asking for much more time, gave us blurry and poorly framed images. There were racial prejudices that I admit I felt. But we paid dearly for our distrust of the Chinese. And these problems also occurred in all other areas of the filming of Double Impact, the clothes for example. At the end of the filming, we realized that we had worked with wonderful people. We realized the stupidity of our behavior.”
In the June 1992 issue (No. 39) of French Impact, it was revealed that the original director of Universal Soldier was going to be Andrew Davis until he had loftier goals in mind for the film - an oil rig and computer-generated imagery. The bill would have been hefty. If JCVD and Dolph Lundgren weren't in the pipeline, Universal Soldier would have been scrapped. Replacement director Roland Emmerich said: “I was a little nervous about working with these two stars. There are so many stories about the problems they cause on set. But Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren were very cooperative. From the first day of shooting, they followed my instructions without complaint. I think the audience will be surprised by their performances. They are doing something they have never done before.”
JCVD was asked about Andy Davis (as he was referred to in the mag): “That's a long time ago! Andy Davis is an excellent director, but his conception of Universal Soldier was not ours. He wanted a more political, more high-tech film. His Universal Soldier was set on an oil platform in the middle of the North Sea. It would have cost too much to put this scenario on film. But the concept remained the same, super soldiers chasing the one who was part of them. Roland Emmerich brought more direct, stronger elements to it.”
JCVD’s current progress at the time: “For the moment, I am filming Crossing the Line directed by Robert Harmon. My character has nothing to do with those I have played so far. He escapes from prison, crosses the Canadian border and finds refuge in a family consisting of a mother and her two children. Since there is no father, he gradually becomes one. The woman, played by Rosanna Arquette, is fighting against a powerful corporation when I arrive. Influential businessmen are trying to take her land by all means. Of course, I take her side in this fight... In its conception, Crossing the Line is a bit like Shane with Alan Ladd. So we can define it as a modern western. Crossing the Line fully satisfies me; it allows me to play a lonely, sensitive guy, not a slap machine.”
In the October 1994 issue (No. 53) of French Impact, I was reminded of the fact that producer Edward Pressman had produced Brandon Lee’s The Crow as well as JCVD’s Street Fighter (1994). The journalist, Marc Toullec, wrote: “Street Fighter also offers the cream of the crop when it comes to combining action and special effects, the grafting of Van Damme's face onto the body of a kamikaze stuntman. An extremely effective and invisible technique developed after the accidental loss of Brandon Lee on The Crow. Essential when you want to stick as closely as possible to the video game.”
In the July 1996 issue (No. 63) of French Impact, JCVD discussed Hard Target (1993): “Oh yes, the script was problematic even before the shooting began. No one ignored it, including John Woo. But he was absolutely determined to shoot as quickly as possible, not to lose contact with the managers at Universal. I had warned him, asking him to take his time, to work on the script. That's his problem: the stories, both the one in Hard Target and the one in Broken Arrow, although the images are always superb. I followed John Woo once, just because I loved him. I never want to get back into filming with him.”
Referring to acting in his directorial debut, JCVD confided in Marc Toullec about The Quest (1996): “Both director and actor, you are really the slave of the film. Not funny at all. I don't want to start again, not immediately at least. Wake up at six in the morning, an hour's drive then ten to twelve hours of work on the set, return to a hotel without air conditioning in often overwhelming heat. And it could stop there if I was only the director. But no, because I am the main actor, I have to appear in great shape, without an ounce of fat. I still had to train hard. Both physically and psychologically, I felt the need. I went to bed around one o'clock under sleeping pills. In the morning, it was hard, really very hard to get out of bed.”
The casting process: “I made sure that the athletes could also act. I rejected excellent martial artists who were incapable of translating emotions through dialogue or eyes, even if their time on screen did not exceed one or two scenes. We had to audition among the 1,000 candidates. As much as on the fight itself, I concentrated on the competitors, on their resumes. Sumo for example. It represents Okinawa which was not at the time attached to Japan. Hence the presence of a real Japanese at the beginning. In the ring, I couldn't film him like the others, because of his mass. I mainly showed his eyes, recorded his power through his breath. A real bull in the arena. Each fighter has a different style, the result of ten to thirty years of training. I asked each one to give the best of themselves: their best kick, their best jump, their best sequence.”
Reminiscent of actor-turned-director Jackie Chan: “To film certain movements, we went to twenty-two different takes. On the set, I already knew precisely what I wanted and how to get it: I had mentally pre-cut The Quest, visualized the choreography very precisely. I must admit that the last minutes of the fight against the Mongol were inspired by John Ford's The Quiet Man, when John Wayne and Victor McLaglen throw punches across the entire village with all the locals following them.”