Cung Le: MMA's original martial arts action star
Action movies have always gravitated towards highly trained martial artists, who could already fly through the air and pull off the kind of high wire acrobatics only a fighter or experienced practitioner could do without additional training.
From the early era of Bruce Lee films to Chuck Norris all the way to Jean Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal, being a martial artist first and actor second was the lay of the land for most action movies made in the 1970s and 1980s. Those types of films never went away necessarily, but the genre turned back up a few notches with movies like "The Matrix" bringing martial arts and action to the forefront once again.
So it was only natural that Hollywood would turn to today's modern martial artists stars to put in big money roles like UFC women's bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey, whose first film opened last weekend with "The Expendables 3" landing in theaters nationwide. Prior to Rousey, famous MMA names like Randy Couture and Gina Carano were on the marquees of huge feature films.
UFC Fight Night headliner Cung Le was ahead of almost everybody else when it came to landing major roles in martial arts films and action movies. Coming from a traditional martial arts background called San Shou, Le had the kind of flashy moves that would translate well on film and it didn't hurt that he was a high level athlete who could choreograph fight scenes and do his own stunts.
Le first appeared on film back in 1997 and made sporadic appearances in several movies over the years, but finally landed a major part in the 2009 science-fiction movie "Pandorum," where he starred alongside veteran actor Dennis Quaid. He took on parts in the film adaptation of the popular video game "Tekken" and even landed a starring role in a few features including the movie "Dragon Eyes," where he shared the lead alongside Jean Claude Van Damme. And during all of this, Le was fighting at the top levels of the sport as the Strikeforce middleweight champion.
It wasn't easy for Le, who often times had to balance acting commitments with his training schedule and over the last few years the juggling act has gotten harder and harder because as his roles in movies expanded and the fighters he was facing got tougher, some difficult decisions had to be made.
"I believe it's still a work in progress balancing out the film career and the fight career," Le told FOX Sports recently. "I think if it's a big lead part and you're away for months at a time, it's a little more difficult. Ever since my first big part was in 'Pandorum' with Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster I just realized being away from training for two months and at the same time staying at a certain weight and not training a certain way because the role required me to be thinner and not as muscular, it was definitely tasking to play this character and have these long days and long shoots.
"My roles in China are getting bigger and bigger. I'm working with big named producers. I can say I'm part of a movie that was nominated for two Academy Awards, so I can say no MMA fighters could say that yet."
The film Le is referencing is 2013's "The Grandmaster," based on the life of the man who trained Bruce Lee, and the movie was nominated for Oscars in Best Achievement in Cinematography as well as Best Achievement in Costume Design. He's worked with some of Asia's best martial arts directors and also starred in the film "The Man with the Iron Fists" alongside Russell Crowe and Lucy Liu. He's actually been offered a lot of parts lately including a role working with Bill Kong, who is famously known as one of the producers on the Academy Award winning film "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."
Despite Le's first instinct to accept an invitation like that he ultimately had to turn Kong down because of his upcoming fight against Michael Bisping in China. As Le tells it, these are the kinds of sacrifices that have to be made when working at two jobs that require equal amounts of dedication.
"I actually had a pretty big part with Bill Kong and Sammo Hung, they wanted me to start filming like two weeks before my fight and I said I couldn't do it," Le revealed. "They tried to move everything like the week after my fight, but I might come in with some bruises and limping around. My foot might be banged up from kicking Michael Bisping, so it's kind of risky, and they said that's a risk they were willing to take. Then that plane got shot down by the Russian border, and they had to scrap that whole scene because that's where they were filming that part.
"I definitely put this fight front and center, and I'm not really entertaining taking parts before the fight. I've just been training, eating and sleeping and prepping for this fight."
Now, at first it might be easy to look at Le and then immediately shift focus to someone like Ronda Rousey and ask how she can film back-to-back-to-back roles in movies like "The Expendables 3," "Fast and the Furious 7" and "Entourage" while defending her title on three occasions over the last nine months without skipping a beat.
While Le wants to take nothing away from Rousey's amazing accomplishments, he can't deny that her road to victory has been much easier than what he's dealt with while battling against type casting in Hollywood as well as facing a huge list of monsters in the middleweight division. It's a problem he believes Rousey hasn't run into yet but she will one day and that's when fighting and acting will come to a real impasse.
"Ronda, if she had some kind of opponent that would give her a match, then I think it would be more difficult for her. But she's just walking through everyone. If her fights aren't lasting more than one round, she's not having any problem at all. She can actually do both because right now I don't see anyone giving her any competition so she better take advantage of it because I'm sure the girls will get better. I'm happy for her and I'm happy for all the fighters who transition over because we can't fight forever. As soon as you start taking on those parts, like for me with 'Pandorum,' they wanted me to get down and lose 20 pounds and keep that weight off for two months," Le said.
"My role into the Hollywood scene is a little bit harder than Ronda's. Ronda's a big name, she's on fire right now, and that's great for her. It's a nice ride in for her. I'm an Asian, I'm known typically as the Triad (Asian gangster) or the dude who gets killed or loses a fight and makes the other guy look good. That's why now I'm working on producing my own films and doing it my way, working with the people I can trust and make a dynamic movie that has a good storyline with an awesome fight scene."
Le's newest ideas for films involve him as a producer and executive as well as actor in some parts, but mostly focusing on making the kinds of movies he knows fans would want to see while cutting out so many of the middle men that often make films impossible to navigate. He's set up his own series of movies already with scripts written and production ready to begin -- after he gets done in his fight against Bisping.
"I've got four scripts right now. One of them is with Russell Peters and it's an action-comedy and we're in the stage of they're sending me back notes on the scripts so my writer can make changes and once that happens the next stage is the financing of the movie. The other one is 'Targets' and it's action-adventure and the guy who did all the action for 'The Expendables,' J.J. Perry, this is going to be his first directing job. I already had a distributor for it. I'm working on bringing in investors, so in a way I'm producing the movie and putting it together. Getting my hands mixed into a lot of different things," Le said.
"I turned down some parts, and I put this fight front and center. It's been long overdue. Those projects are just waiting for me to get back and locked down and get them up and running. As soon as we're done, I'll move on it but I'm taking it one day at a time and see what happens. Take it however it comes."
Everything got put on the back burner for his fight with Bisping because Le knows the former Ultimate Fighter winner and top 10-ranked middleweight deserves his utmost attention. He's not fighting to gain exposure for his acting career any more than he's acting just to stay relevant in MMA. Both are things he loves doing immensely, although one day Le knows he's eventually going to have to make a choice to focus on something exclusively.
That day is not today, however, and now Le is just worried about burying his fist or foot upside Bisping's head and walking out of Macau, China, with his third victory inside the UFC Octagon.
"I feel like all I have to do is be Cung Le the night of the fight," Le said, "and everything will fall into place."
