Nick Mancuso Interview Nick Mancuso is an accomplished character actor and played the scenery-chewing villain Antonio Serrano in Rapid Fire, Brandon Lee's best-completed film. BLR: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you became an actor? Nick Mancuso: It was really quite by accident. My English High School teacher, Gustav Van Viersen-trip, had a unusual sense of humour and used to give out quizzes to see which one of us had the quickest memory. In those days mine was pretty fast - one day he asked us to memorize the poem Flight: "for I have slipped the surely bonds of earth" and we had twelve minutes to do it in - he had the timer on and after the time was up he looked at me and said "you know it don't you Nick?" I said I did and then said the magic words "stand up in front of the class and .. recite it out loud". I did - he clapped his hands together and made me join the drama club - I was 16. At 17 I appeared in first semi-professional play in summer stock in Toronto, Canada at the poor Alex theatre. I was terrified since I was very shy back then and the idea of acting seemed like a solution to me for my terminal shyness. On stage I was able to pretend to be someone else, someone I was not. In my first performance as Laertes in Hamlet, I guess my imagination was so strong that when I came on the boards it was as if I had been transported into another world, I felt I actually was in the castle and the king, Claudius was really the king etc. I guess actors are like children who never really grow up and who keep with them the fascination of the imaginative and unconscious worlds that live within us all and so sadly get squashed by the reality of adulthood. I remember the smell of the greasepaint and the kaleidoscopic lights overhead, the multi-colours of stage and the dark hush of the audience as we all began to dream the worlds of William Shakespeare. BLR: How did you come to be cast in Rapid Fire? NM: I originally was brought into the casting session with the director and was auditioning for the role of Brandon Lee's partner ultimately played by Powers Boothe, - on which I asked the director if I could read for the role of Antonio Serrano. Up until that point I had not played heavies or villains, quite the opposite. He thought it was a terrific idea; I read and got the part. BLR: How do you prepare for a role like Antonio Serrano? NM: Since the script was pretty pedantic and since Serrano was written as a cliché I decided to play him over the top, like someone who had watched too many gangster films and had decided to model himself on them. Serrano was a narcissistic, self-obsessed sociopath. How does one prepare for this kind of character? Cautiously and with one intention only, to enjoy it. If the actor enjoys playing the role, the audience will too. Arsenio Hall described this character when I appeared on the show as one of the most chilling villains of the year. It's funny since the character was humorous in my mind and a caricature, consciously so- something the critics missed totally - this was all done tongue-in-cheek. BLR: You've had quite a varied career; of your work, is there something that stands out as a particular favourite? NM: I enjoyed a little known picture entitled Maria Chapdelaine which I shot in French in northern Ontario and which was inducted into the national film review in Washington as one of the best ten pictures of the year - it was lovingly directed by Gille Carl, and shot by Pierre Mignon and Richard Leiterman. It's a beautiful unknown film and in my opinion a work of art. Ticket to Heaven by Ralph Thomas, a Canadian picture in 1981, won me the Canadian Oscar (the Genie) and many acting awards around the world - one of the few pictures in my career that had a strong and serious theme: brainwashing. BLR: What did you make of Brandon's acting ability? NM: He had I believe all the attributes that would have made him a major film star, not just in martial arts. Brandon Lee takes flight in Rapid Fire BLR: You worked with both Steven Segal and Brandon Lee on Rapid Fire and Under Siege, how did these two action stars differ on and off screen and what was your relationship with Brandon during the fight scenes? NM: Stephen Segal is a mystery man, both on and off the screen - he is a genuine Aikido master - he cut a swath into Hollywood and the world stage in a few years that has not been repeated by martial artists turned actors, though his scope was limited he does what he does very well. BLR: Any on/off set memories you can share about Brandon with us? NM: Working with Brandon was a very pleasant experience. We became friends and I got to know him as a human being: simple, direct and honest and truly a dedicated craftsman. He loved acting and had a golden heart. It was very distressing to me to learn he had been killed on the set. I remember him telling me that in Hong Kong actors were sometimes killed in the martial movies because of the extreme dangers involved in the fighting. How ironic that he died the way he did in America, not in Hong Kong. This was the direct result of incompetence and long and insane hours of work, [it] should never have happened if correct protocol on gun safety in film had been used. Greed and human error, [a] bad combination. BLR: What did you think about Rapid Fire as a film? Could it have been better in any way, and if so how? NM: Rapid Fire was a mediocre script at best: no real characters to speak of, no real suspense of mystery in it; straightforward action drama with martial arts as an addendum. I played Serrano over the top precisely for this reason, kind of like putting sauce over bad meat. BLR: Did his death have any impact on Hollywood in your opinion? NM: Hollywood has always had high standards in safety, especially after the death of an actor who was playing with a gun on a set and killed himself. The problem is that the right to work states [you] don't have the same degree of professionalism when it comes to this area and this is [the] result of saving money on productions. Bad idea in this area and indicative of what has happened to the industry the last fifteen years. This is unfortunately across the board in all the arts and crafts of filming; making cost cutting measures while the profits move completely into the pockets of upper management. As for changing Hollywood, no. Hollywood is not the problem BLR: You are working on a project called The Dinner; can you give us an insight into it and what it is about? NM: As for The Dinner, [it's] now re-titled Stage Fright it has been in the works for several years now and got back to work on it when I can and when I can afford it. The subtitle is "life is real .. only then.. when I am not". It's really a study of sorts of the actors process, as the camera held by me follows me around the world from set to set, hopefully I will [have] the money someday to finish it and release it