The BULLETPROOF MONK panel
by JoBlo

Who was there?
Actor Seann William Scott
Actress Jamie King

This one didn’t start off too well, with the stars being about 40 minutes late for the panel, while we basically just sat there waiting (and yeah, the shitty muzak playing in the background didn’t help). Anyway, once they did show up, both Scott and King seemed in high spirits, and both seemed a little overwhelmed to be sitting in front of such a huge audience. “So what do we say or do now?”, said Scott. The moderator then took a moment to tell them that this would basically be a Q&A with the audience, and with that, the questions began. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that they also gave us the first look at the trailer for the film (scheduled to be released the spring of 2003, and co-starring the masterful Chow Yun-Fat), which actually managed to make me smile a little, and appreciate the cool kung fu stuff, so who knows. It’s always hard to say how a movie will turn out after seeing the trailer, but from the looks of things, this seems to be a film ready to capitalize on the whole “asian action star/American comedy goof” sub-genre that’s been developing of late (RUSH HOUR, SHANGHAI NOON), so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

As for the two stars in attendance, they were both pretty interesting and entertaining to watch, especially Scott, who was hilarious and almost as over-the-top as the character that he’s probably best known for at this point: Stifler from the AMERICAN PIE movies. The two also seemed to be quite “buddy buddy” with one another, with Scott suggesting on more than one occasion that they got it “going on”, but then again, if I was acting with a girl as purty as King, God knows that I’d be telling the world about it as well. Here are some of the basics that I got out of this 45-minute panel.

• When asked how it was working with first-time director Paul Hunter, both actors agreed that they enjoyed working with the dude (Duh! Have you ever heard any actor say otherwise??)
• Scott confessed that he is “obsessed with movies himself” and that he “watches them all the time”
• What kind of training did they have to do for this movie? King said that they had about 3-4 months of training before filming even began, but that they trained during the shoot as well. They were taught everything from kung fu to street fighting to gymnastics. King also said that they did most of their own stunts (at least the ones that they could do). Scott said that all he did was “lose weight for the part”, since he had gained some for his role as Stifler in AMERICAN PIE 2, to create something different for his character. He was joking, of course, and folks laughed. They did say that there is “more to the movie than just martial arts” though.
• King said that she actually broke her finger during shooting, but Scott made sure that everyone knew that she didn’t break it during the actual shoot of the movie, but rather when she was walking up some stairs off-screen. King admitted to it, but said that she was talking to the director of the film on her cellular at the time, so it kinda was part of the film after all.
• When asked about the sequel to DUDE, WHERE’S MY CAR (which actually garnered a number of questions from the crowd), Scott said that he was completely unaware of the project, until he finally learned “computers”, got online and read something about it for the first time and was like, “What the...??”
• And how was it working with the legendary Chow Yun-Fat? King replied with a very simple, but obviously quite reverent, “It was very cool!” She said that she was always afraid to approach him on the set like “Am I cool enough to talk to him?”, but that he was always very nice to everyone, always messing around with them but also super-professional. He would apparently come in and do all of his stuff in two takes, and everyone would be like, “Wow, how did he do all that?”
• Scott also said much of the same about Yun-Fat, and how he also knew everyone’s name on the first day on the set. He also joked that he was a lot like THE GODFATHER, but without “being a killer” (pun intended?). Apparently, everyone just worshipped the dude on the set, but he was apparently very gracious about the whole thing. Scott would worry about certain things at times and Yun-Fat would just tell him stuff like “This is a movie…just have fun”. He also used to apparently help Scott out with his aches and pains from time to time, like he would go to his trailer, when Scott’s back was hurting and do some shite on it, until it felt better. Scott was surprised when some of it actually worked. Overall, Scott said that he didn’t know if he’s ever gonna have another experience like it, “It was unbelievable”.
• When asked about his kiss with Jason Biggs in AMERICAN PIE 2, Scott joked about how he seems to be kissing guys in every one of his movies nowadays. He said that his kiss with Ashton Kutcher in DUDE, WHERE’S MY CAR was especially weird, since they’re both friends in real life. He said that he thought the scene was “cool” when he read it in the script, but when the actual day came to shoot it, he realized that it “wasn’t so cool after all”. He also said to look for him kissing yet another guy in the upcoming film OLD SCHOOL starring Luke Wilson, Will Ferrell and Vince Vaughn. King joked about how Scott now has it in his contracts that he has to kiss a guy in every one of his movies.
• An audience member asked Scott what some of his favorite films were from the past few months and he replied: "SEXY BEAST, CHOPPER, SESSION 9 and LANTANA". The man apparently had solid taste in movies and digs his indies, eh?
• An audience member asked King what it was like going out with a rock star (she dated Kid Rock for a while), to which she replied “Adventurous”.
• In the end, someone got up and asked Scott about how he managed to become this great, fallible actor in the same vein as Han Solo and Indiana Jones, to which Scott visibly blushed, got up and thanked the guy, “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever told me, man!”. He also relayed quite an interesting tale about his own foray into the business. He grew up in Minnesota, loving sports and movies. He worked at a movie theater where he used to do everything, and one night, he saw a few movies at the same time, and something in his mind said, “This is what I want to do”. His older brother then turned him on to Chow Yun-Fat and John Woo, gave him THE KILLER, HARD BOILED and A BETTER TOMORROW series to watch, at which point, he flipped out even more, and wanted to be like Chow Yun-Fat and make people “feel” the same way that he felt while watching these movies. At 18, he moved to L.A. and three years later, he got his groundbreaking role as Stifler in AMERICAN PIE. But the ironic twist of fate was completed when he was in Australia with his brother, promoting AMERICAN PIE 2, and having just auditioned for the role in BULLETPROOF MONK. Scott and his brother kept laughing about the fact that he was actually UP for the part, and about how unbelievable it was, especially since many other young Hollywood stars were up for the role. Then one night, he got a call from the producer of BULLETPROOF MONK in his hotel room, who asked him how he was, and he said “fine”. He then said that it was a “good day”, to which Scott replied, “Yeah, I guess. It’s a good day”. The producer then proceeded to tell him that he got the part opposite Chow Yun-Fat in the movie, and Scott flipped out! He said that he was gonna work extra hard on the part, etc and so forth. After the call, he turned to his brother and told him the great news, to which both of them just laughed and STILL couldn’t believe that it was happening. Seeing Scott tell this story with his mom in the 3rd row was a really nice moment at the Con, with a dude who obviously LOVES what he’s doing, and really appreciates the breaks that he’s been given (he kept referring to how “lucky” he had been as well). A great story, a really funny guy and seemingly very down to earth.

And what exactly is the movie about? Here's the official press release from MGM:

"Chow Yun-Fat plays a mysterious monk with no name zigzagging the globe to protect an ancient scroll -- a scroll that holds the key to unlimited power. Now the monk must find a protégé, the next guardian of the Scroll of the Ultimate.  Kar (Seann William Scott) is an unlikely candidate, a streetwise young man whose only interest is himself, but when he saves the Bulletproof Monk from capture, the two become partners in a scheme to save the world from the scroll's most avid pursuer. Together, with the help of a sexy Russian mafia princess called Bad Girl (James King), they seek out, find and face the ultimate enemy in a final spectacular battle packed with dazzling effects and action."
 

SAN DIEGO COMIC CON 2002

The Arrow and I went down to San Diego for yet another awesome COMIC CONVENTION this year (check out our 2000 and 2001 reports respectively), and let me tell you...there was a lot of shit going on and lots of cool and surprising cameos. Starting Wednesday, each of the panel coverages will go up, so check out what's to come below. And yes, the always popular PHOTO GALLERY will be up on Friday.

The Hellboy panel:
Writer/director Guillermo Del Toro, actor Ron Perlman and writer/artist Mike Mignola discuss the upcoming comic-to-film project, as Del Toro sneaks a few dozen "fucks" in there before the panel's first 10 minutes is up.

The Bulletproof Monk panel:
Actor Seann William Scott and actress/babe Jamie King sit down and discuss their collaboration on the upcoming THE BULLETPROOF MONK, which also co-stars the very cool Chow Yun-Fat.

The House of the Dead panel:
Writers Mark. A. Altman and Dave Parker discuss the 2003 release of yet another video game making its way to the big screen: THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD. And what's this about a VAMPIRELLA movie? Stay tuned.

SONY/COLUMBIA

The XXX panel:
Actress/babe Asia Argento hops on stage and tells us a little something about herself and her upcoming movie with a certain Vin Diesel. Does Vin show up unexpectedly?? (only in my dreams... ;)

The Tooth Fairy panel:
Actress/babe Emma Caulfield discusses her upcoming foray into genre flicks with TOOTH FAIRY, and the Arrow takes a few moments to discuss the film with director Jonathan Liebesman. Tooth-pulling ensues.

NEW LINE

The LOTR: The Two Towers panel:
No footage was shown but we did get a couple of bits tossed our way, as well as some cameos by Frodo, Pippin and Merry themselves (aka Elijah Wood, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan).

WARNER BROS

The Ecks vs Sever panel:
Actress/babe Lucy Lui sits next to actor/Darth Maul Ray Park and director Kaos (who explained the origins of his name) to discuss their collaboration with the man with the golden cock, Antonio Banderas, in a little something called BALLISTIC: ECKS VS SEVER (and yes, it's also based on a video game).

The Dreamcatcher panel:
Actor/all-around cool guy Jason Lee and actor Timothy Olyphant get on stage to field some questions about the film which they are presently shooting, based on a Stephen King novel, entitled DREAMCATCHER, but are instead pelted with questions about Kevin Smith movies and requests to repeat cool quotes from said flicks.

The Terminator 3 surprise:
Unbeknownst to most, director Jonathan Mostow was nice enough to drop by the Con, in order to show off a few minutes of the highly anticipated sequel to the sequel of THE TERMINATOR. Another "small" cameo dropped by to pay his props to the fanboys, a gentleman by the name of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

UNIVERSAL

The Hulk panel:
Director Ang Lee and producers Gale Anne Hurd, Larry J. Franco and Avi Arad stop by to show us some stills of the 2003 release of THE HULK (that's right, no actual footage or pics of the green monster...darn!) and answer some questions.

FOX

The Solaris surprise:
Yet another big surprise came in writer/director/king of the world James Cameron showing up for a quick Q&A about the upcoming sci-fi flick SOLARIS (which he produced and Steven Soderbergh wrote and directed), as well as a 4-minute clip from the actual movie, starring George Clooney.

The X-Men 2 panel:
Director Bryan Singer was nice enough to leave his Vancouver set of X2 and come down to Diego for some questions from the audience and to show us the coolest 2-minute clip that I saw all weekend. Wow!! The man apparently has only been shooting from about 3-4 weeks, but from what we all saw of the clip...this movie looks like a fuckin' slam-dunk!

The Daredevil panel:
This was one of the biggest panels with writer/director Mark Steven Johnson leading the pack, alongside DAREDEVIL himself, Ben Affleck, as well as producer Avi Arad, Gary Foster and comic guru Joe Quesada. Yet another exclusive clip was shown from the movie, and it will also be discussed.

The official 2002 JoBlo.com Photo Gallery:
Pictures from our trip to California / Vegas for anyone who gives a shit. Here are the links to last year's photo gallery and the one from 2000.