FiLM Grenade

Ray Park best known for his role as Darth Maul in Star Wars Episode I, has been a fan of Snake Eyes since he was a child. He finally gets to live out his dream and play his favorite G.I. Joe character heres what he had to say.

Most recently Ray Park has been cast as the black ninja (and always the hardest toy to find in stores) known as Snake Eyes in the upcoming GI Joe live action movie. When I bring it up, he lights up like a kid who wore that toy’s joints out as much as you and I did:

One of the reasons I always wanted to play Snake Eyes is because I played as him when I was a kid. Star Wars fans and the fans I’ve met at conventions have said “You’d be the best Snake Eyes ever if they did a GI Joe movie!” So when I heard they were actually going to do it I did everything possible to try and get in a meeting or try and get an audition cause I wanted to do it for myself, I wanted to do it for the fans and I wanted to do it for my cousins and all my nephews and my kids. It’s great to be here and to be able to tell those stories.

So that was your favorite GI Joe character?

That and Storm Shadow, believe it or not. I actually liked Storm Shadow a lot because whenever you saw a ninja movie with a white ninja or a red ninja. He always looked different…and I like Snake Eyes because he was different as well. He was a commando. He reminded me of the British special forces – the SAS. That’s why I like that kind of stuff.

I’ve always been fascinated by anything special forces, you know? Anything that’s military, or warrior or…really just anything to do with weapons. Especially traditional weapons. I loved [them] as a kid.

When did you actually start actually playing with weapons? Well not “playing” with weapons, but training with them?

When I was 7. That was the first time I started to get into martial arts. And I got into martial arts purely because I saw Star Wars and I was blown away by the lightsabers and my dad introduced me to Bruce Lee and kung fu movies and I’m like, “I didn’t know it was all special effects”. I thought it was really real [at the time]. So I wanted to do what the guys were doing in the films, so I thought, “how am I going to do that?” – through martial arts. So that’s why I got into martial arts.

So, growing up as a GI Joe fan – is this movie staying true? Will it make all the GI Joe fans who played with all the toys, read all the comics and watched the cartoons as kids (or full grown adults) happy?

Oh definitely. Yeah, definitely. You should be big time excited. I’m excited and I’m on set. The sets are unbelievable! The costumes, the wardrobe, the look is unbelievable and it’s such a nice, fun set to be on. I mean, I’m lucky – I’m playing Snake Eyes! I get to live out [the character] that I’ve been playing since I was a kid and now I get to actually be Snake Eyes! It’s just bizarre. I feel very lucky.

I am personally very excited about this information, Snake Eyes was always my favorite character, as well and i am glad that a fan was able to play him. I’m also still very impressed with the costume design and how authentic and cool they made it. Let us know what you think of the new G.I. Joe movie in theaters August 7th, 2009.

Click HERE for more of the interview!

Source: Geekscape!