[Movies] Ray Park Discusses Playing Snake Eyes in G.I. Joe: Retaliation Posted by Larry Csonka on 03.14.2013
See what he has to say…
- Ray Park recently spoke about playing the role of Snake eyes in G.I. Joe: Retaliation. Here are the highlights…
On Changes to the Snake Eyes Suit: The changes with my costume are completely different. How I look and how the suit looks is completely different. It's more of an armor battle gear. Both suits from both movies were laser scanned to my body, so I had to go and stand there and they scan my body. They do the mold and make the suit. This one is more for like, ready for battle. More tailored for Snake. Chest plates and forearm, and back plate. And I actually like it. I like the look from the first movie. It was nice. But this, it's real. There's a person inside. Where as before it was... There's challenges as well. With the first one it was a challenge because I had never done anything like that before, with the suit. With the mask. I always talk about the challenges I had because I wanna perform the best way I can. Do the moves I want to do but, for something simple to me like a backward flip, is impossible to do in the suit, because the chest plate comes up and chokes you. So I have to change it a bit, which is good for the character because I'm not being myself, I'm being Snake. So I change the backflip. So instead of going backwards, I'll twist it, just so I'll have the leverage with the arms, and that's because of the chest plate. But I like that because it adds a different dimension to the character. Breathing is a lot better. My peripheral is better. But still, it's like I'm wearing sunglasses in a nightclub. But, you have to be Snake Eyes. And I like that because I really have to focus like the first movie. And I didn't talk much while I was on set, because I'm in the mask and no one could hear me anyway. So I just concentrate on what I'm doing, and breathing. I do the same with this. At least I can take it off a lot easier than the first one. So I really dig this suit. Loved the first one, and I really dig this one. I like it. I like the look of Snake. And when I see pictures of myself as Snake, I become an even bigger fanboy of myself as Snake. I really like it. I feel lucky to be playing the part in this movie. And I love the changes.
On Amping Up The Fight Scenes With Storm Shadow: Yeah, we wanted to make it real. Like it's two brothers fighting, there's a lot of aggression. Instead of flashy-flashy and doing flips in the air, we wanted to tell the story throughout the fight as well. There's a lot of good moves, a lot of great choreography that we worked on.
Did He Want to Return to The Clone Wars to Voice Darth Maul?: I wanted to. Be really nice. But they had their own actors. I think Sam Jackson is one of the actors from the movies that actually voices his own character. So it would have been nice. It just didn't work out. But I'm always involved with it, you know, because that's my character. That's what got me into this world... I'm really lucky. George gave me my first big break and now here I am playing Snake Eyes.
