00:00We're alive! We're alive!
00:02Hi and welcome into EOM Presents. This is Thomas Manning.
00:05And today we're welcoming somebody to the show who is one of the great action stars working in film today.
00:11That's right, we have Joe Taslam joining us to talk about The Furious.
00:15If you keep up with action movies at all, then I'd say there's a good chance you've heard of this
00:19film.
00:20But if not, I'll just say that it's one of the most impressive displays of what can be accomplished with
00:25action filmmaking that I've ever seen.
00:28We have a whole series of interviews with folks who worked on this film, so be on the lookout for
00:33the rest of those here on Elements of Madness.
00:36Thank you so much to Joe Taslam for sharing his time, and I hope you all enjoy the conversation as
00:40we talk about The Furious.
00:41Hey, Thomas!
00:43Hey, Joe, good to meet you. I appreciate your time.
00:45Thomas, I appreciate you doing this for us. Thank you so much.
00:48Oh, yeah, yeah. Just I'm in love with this film, and I've already talked to Kenji and Bill as well.
00:55So I'm happy to add you to the list of people we're talking to.
00:58About The Furious, and to start out, I have to say that the emotional through line that carries your character
01:06through the film is his relationship with his wife.
01:09And even though you don't share the screen together, I believe everything about that relationship and your journey as a
01:16character.
01:17So how did you work to develop that connection between your characters, even without actually sharing any scenes?
01:24I think the understanding of, there's a scene in the end that when he's talking to Shamiao in a jail,
01:32that something happened that, you know, in the discussion before she's gone missing, that they had an argument about something.
01:42And then Nia Navien's character believed that it's impossible to save the city, everything is corrupted, what we're doing, you
01:51know, which is probably just get out of here and then live our normal life, what we're doing here.
01:56And then, of course, the wife, you know, disagree, and then went by herself and gone missing.
02:05After that, it's all about regret, I think.
02:09And then that triggers him to pursue more, deeper, because he made a mistake.
02:17So for me, regret is a word that motivates him so much, because he made a mistake so hard that
02:27he lost the love of his life.
02:30And at the same time, their dream is to save those kids, supposed to be permanent, but at one point,
02:38Nia Navien gave up.
02:42So the journey of Nia Navien starting from there, even though that's like happening in the end of the movie,
02:48for me, it's quite clear.
02:50It's very clear that now, in order for him to search for the love of his life, at the same
02:56time, it's called almost like redemption, what he, at one point, he gave up on these kids.
03:04You know, this is two motivations, for sure, for me, what I believe with Nia Navien.
03:08That's why he's just relentless, you know, risking his life by going deeper and deeper.
03:16And knowing that he's not a Kung Fu master like Xie Miao, so for me, that's even harder, it's even
03:23more immense of how determined he is doing this.
03:29And love is something, regrets is also equally involved in that motivation, yeah.
03:36Yeah, and, you know, I also love how you convey to the audience how much pain your character is in,
03:42that kind of goes along with the regret, you know.
03:44And that's physically and emotionally, and, you know, as much as you're still your cool cigarette-smoking self, you know,
03:50I don't doubt that pain that you're carrying every step.
03:53And I think that feels like something that's important to you as an actor and as an action star.
03:59And, you know, I was wondering if you could expand on, you know, bringing that honesty and that vulnerability and
04:04what that means to you in the case of a film like this.
04:08I believe as an actor, you want to embody the character first, I think action second.
04:16I think Kenji also agreed to it, we discussed about it.
04:19I think we need to deliver this character first and whatever happens.
04:24And the action is just going to, you know, it's a vehicle for us to get more audience, to entertain
04:30them.
04:31But the most important thing is people need to understand this character first.
04:36And he's a chain smoker, but for me, there's also something beautiful.
04:40It's a flaw.
04:42And that he's a man, he has a flaw.
04:45I think it's quite symbolic that he is hurting himself.
04:48I think it's a symbolic thing.
04:50The regrets and then his stress and then, what do you call it, nonstop thinking about the choice that he
04:59made.
04:59And then a cigarette is a symbolic thing for him that he is destroying himself now.
05:06He cannot really fight that long because his endurance is bad because he's a chain smoker.
05:11And that's something for me.
05:13It's not like for coolness or it's not like trying to tell something about, but it's actually part of his
05:21character.
05:22It's a part of his character.
05:24And then the beautiful thing about it, you see, Van Navin is probably the only character in the ensemble that
05:31he gets tired.
05:32He gets, you know, he's struggling.
05:34You know, he could die any second.
05:36You know, he's always in danger.
05:37And he's not a Kung Fu master.
05:39He knows how to fight.
05:40He knows how to defend himself.
05:41But in the process of that, what I believe when I was doing it, I always believed that this character
05:47could die any time.
05:49But he just relentlessly get up and kept going.
05:52And then the way he fights, it never really composed like Shen Miao, never really composed like Brian Lee.
06:00You can tell he's always on edge.
06:04And that's, for me, is something connected to very bad life habit, very bad habit.
06:10And then, of course, that affects his fitness.
06:14At the same time, mentally, he's just not stopped thinking about the regret and then looking for his wife.
06:20There's a lot of things going on in this character, to be honest.
06:22And I like to put it as heavy as I could because those motivations, those things helped me a lot
06:33going forward.
06:35You know, for me, action is hard physically, but action is easy.
06:41But to make people believe, to make people feel that character when he's doing action is the hardest part.
06:50Because there's a lot of action movies that's so badass and so acrobatic and so flashy and stylish.
06:57But a lot of action movies that I watch, I didn't feel anything.
07:00So for me, as an actor that, lucky enough, I know how to fight.
07:05People hire me because people think I know how to fight.
07:08I hope they still believe that.
07:11But I always believe action without strong characterization, that people, maybe entertain people, but you feel nothing, you know.
07:21Yeah.
07:22Yeah.
07:23Well, I think we're going to wrap it up here in just a minute.
07:25But real quick, I want to ask about working with Sham Yao.
07:29And, you know, in your first fight together, I was like, stop fighting, guys.
07:33You're on the same side.
07:34But, you know, at the same time, from an entertainment perspective, I'm like,
07:38I hope this fight keeps going on for a little while.
07:40So, you know, so I have to ask, how fortunate do you feel that you only had to fight him
07:44once in this movie?
07:45Because I think the movie would have been over a lot sooner if that fight kept going on.
07:50Well, I mean, that fight is the storytelling.
07:52I think Kenji designed that fight for these two characters to understand each other.
07:56And then they kind of like, you know, feeling intuition-wise, I know he's not a bad guy, but I
08:00don't know what his motivation.
08:02And he feels the same way with me.
08:05So, in that situation, I believe it's such a beautiful storytelling without lines, without verbal, that these two characters connect
08:13with martial arts, their own discipline.
08:15With Sham Yao, with his wushu and kung fu and Naveen, with his judo background.
08:21But you see throughout the fight, they actually nonstop talking.
08:24They nonstop trying to understand each other until he saw that photo of a little kid and realized, all right,
08:30this guy is not a bad person.
08:32And then Sham Yao, at the same time, realized, oh, he cares.
08:36Well, he's not a bad person.
08:38And from there, they starting to work together.
08:40For me, that's beautiful.
08:41Yeah.
08:42Well, Joe, it was really a privilege to talk with you today and love your work and love everything that
08:47you do.
08:47So, congratulations on the film and hopefully we share another conversation in the future.
08:51Looking forward to talk again.
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