His father, legendary kung-fu instructor and actor Bruce Lee (Enter the Dragon), started training Brandon in the martial arts as a small child, before his sudden death in Hong Kong when Brandon was just eight. His mother Linda, an American of Scandinavian ancestry, rised him and his sister in Los Angeles, where he decided to become an actor.

Brandon has used his athletic skills in all of his films up to now, but insists that he should be considered primarily an actor, not a professional martial artist.

Lee spoke to me on the set of his newest film, The Crow, directed by Alex Proyas. The interview was conducted in stages between takes, so often you will find Brandon picking up and elaborating on his earlier thoughts.

He is bringing to life the independent comic book character Eric Draven, (The Crow) a rock musician who returns from the dead in order to avenge his fianceé's murder by a group of gangsters. Wearing Kiss-style makeup, he relaxed between scenes as we discussed this, his first fantasy film and his career up to now.

Martial Arts Legends: Many actors draw from personal experiences when they are creating a character. How do you find the motivation for somebody like The Crow? Is he a hero, ghost, goblin, villian?
Brandon Lee: He has some powers that make him different than a normal man, but he is still a normal man. He is reacting to a very terrible tragedy which is not only his own death, but more importantly, the death of the woman he loved. The only thing that makes this remarkable is that his own death was involved and he has come back from the dead. I think you are dealing with a man who has been pushed to the limits of his own sanity by this situation that he finds himself in.

MAL: Did you do any special training or preparation for this particular character?
Lee: Well, I had some ideas about the physicality of the character. For example, I lost some weight for the part, first of all because I was kind of modeling his physicality after someone like Iggy Pop or, you know, Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes -- that real skinny, gaunt, rock-and-roll look. Also because he is the man that comes back from the dead, I felt he should not have a real robust, healthy appearance, if you know what I mean.

MAL: I do. Did the make-up help you create the character?
Lee: Yeah, it really has. I was talking about how you are dealing with a man who has been pushed to the limits of his own sanity. I think in some ways what happens is, he finds himself in a situation that he, Eric Draven, is not really capable of dealing with. Somehow creating this persona of the Crow, which involves the make-up and some of the kind of totem, totemistic---is that a word, totem-like? ---using some of the totems he picks up in his adventures. Like the spent shell casings he ties in his hair, and the electrical tape he applies to his body, he creates someone who is capable of dealing with the situation.

MAL: Do you think he dies at the end of the film?
Lee: I don't think that he was ever alive, not in the usual sense of the word. I think that he has been given a certain amount of time and at the end of that time he returns to where he was before.

MAL: More than once you have said that you always wanted to be an actor. What was it that attracted you to acting rather than something with a pension plan and regular meals?
Lee: I can't tell you that there was any particular decision where I chose not to follow some other career. Since my earliest memories I always wanted to be an actor and I pursued that from the time I was very young. I read somewhere that anyone that can be persuaded not to be an actor should be persuaded, and I have really never felt that there were other paths for me. It is all I have ever wanted to do, and it is all I have ever pursued. I have been fortunate enough now to start to build a career doing that.

MAL: What training have you had as an actor?
Lee: I went to theater school at Emerson College in Boston [Massachusetts]. After that I went to New York and joined a theater company called the American New Theater. Eric Morris was the artistic director.

MAL: How old were you then?
Lee: Oh, 18, 19. Then Eric moved his company to Los Angeles. I moved with him and continued training with him for about four or five years, during which time I started getting some work. I still take acting classes today.

MAL: You did some work in off-Broadway theater when you were in New York?
Lee: Well, if I wasn't officially off-Broadway it was off, off, Broadway. [laughter]

MAL: Do you remember anything you appeared in?
Lee: Sure. We did a play called Full Fed Beast.

MAL: Was that with the New American Theater?
Lee: Actually, this was with a company that got started in Los Angeles. There was a writer by the name of John Lee Hancock who's now enjoying a great deal of success. He just sold a script called Perfect World that Clint Eastwood is going to direct with Kevin Costner and Eastwood [starring in it]. His first play was Full Fed Beast, so it was an original work we did out there.

MAL: This was in Los Angeles?
Lee: This was in Los Angeles.

MAL: In '86, you played the son of Kwai Chang Caine in Kung Fu: The Movie. Was that your first TV appearance?
Lee: That was my first professional job.

MAL: I think you played Caine's grandson in Kung-Fu: The Next Generation?
Lee: Yeah. It was a strange experience because I was essentially playing my own grandson, I think. If I was Kwai Chang Caine's son in Kung Fu: The Movie and then I was playing a descendant of Kwai Chang Caine in the present day, then I was also playing my own grandson somehow.

MAL: Were you approached about the new series?
Lee: No!

MAL: The most popular Chinese character in America is Kwai Chang Caine and he has always been played by a person who is not ever Eurasian, David Carradine. Does that cause any resentment among the Chinese actors?
Lee: Yes, I think that it does. You had the same thing when Joel Grey played the Korean character in Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins. The fact of the matter is that when my dad was over here, during the years he was doing the Green Hornet, he eventually had to go to Hong Kong to pursue his career because he ran up against this barrier that existed at that time. This was thirty years ago, where there was not a Chinese leading man working in either film or television. There still is not a Chinese leading man working in America [today] --- not one. There are some very fine actors, but no Chinese leading men, no one somebody would bank a film on who is Asian in America.

MAL: Do you think maybe you will be the first?
Lee: Well, half of the first anyway. [laughter]

MAL: Like your father, you also went to Hong Kong to make your first feature film?
Lee: Yeah. I worked on one. It was called Legacy of Rage.

MAL: That was in Cantonese. Do you speak Cantonese?
Lee: Well, I speak it well, but my vocabulary has suffered a lot over the years.

MAL: Did you meet any of you aunts and uncles while you were working in Hong Kong?
Lee: Yes, I saw my uncle Peter, my father's older brother. I didn't [actually] meet them; I knew them all, of course. I grew up in Hong Kong until I was nine years old.

MAL: In 1990, you played a martial arts-trained spy in Laser Mission with Ernest Borgnine, who's one of those character actors that everybody remembers.
Lee: Oh, he was a wonderful man....very kind to me, very helpful. I enjoyed working with him a lot.

MAL: That file wasn't made in Hong Kong?
Lee: That was made in Namibia [formerly Angola].

MAL: Then in 1991, you made Showdown in Little Tokyo with Dolph Lundgren. Was that your next film?
Lee: Yes, that was the first film I made in the United States.

MAL: In 1992, you both starred in and were fight coordinator for Rapid Fire.
Lee: Along with Jeff Imada---we both did the fight choreography.

MAL: Gentlemen's Quarterly once quoted you as saying that a fight scene might be used to help reveal character. Can you give me an example from your work of a fight scene helping to reveal character?
Lee: Certainly. For example, in this particular film. [The Crow], I have the unique opportunity to play someone who is essentially invulnerable, and you have to take into account this fact when you are choreographing [fights] for this character. He is going to approach any kind of violent situation in a very different way than a normal man would, due simply to the fact that he has very little concern for being hurt.

MAL: In Rapid Fire, your character did not seem to enjoy hurting people, but I could not put my finger on how you were giving that impression. Was there something you thought out to help do that?
Lee: I simply felt that this was a young man who was a highly trained martial artist, but someone very much like myself, or most people, who is not accustomed to finding himself in violent life or death situations. This, once again, was an aspect of his character that had to be shown in the choreography. He was mostly out just to survive, to preserve his own life. Given an opportunity in any situation, he would certainly just as soon run, or get away from the conflict, because it was not a conflict of his choosing.

MAL: On a television interview, you mentioned you have a videotape where you put together a compilation of your favorite fight scenes. Could you tell me some of the scenes on there?
Lee: A lot of my dad's stuff. A lot of Jackie Chan's stuff. There are [in it] some other actors from over in Hong Kong, like Samo Hung, Yuen Biao, and a director named Tsui Hark. Aside from my dad's films, its mostly all [fight scenes from] Chinese films.

MAL: No John Wayne?
Lee: Nope, no John Wayne. Did you ever hear the story about John Wayne when he was in Greatest Story Ever Told?

MAL: No.
Lee: Well, there he is at the bottom of the cross, Christ is dying, and I believe his line was, "Truly he was the son of God." So he said the line and the director came over to him and said, "You think could you do that with a little more awe?" He said, "Sure," and so they roll the cameras for a second take and he said, (Brandon assumes a Texas twang) "Aweeee, truly he is the son of God." [laughter] It's suppose to be a true story, I don't know.

MAL: Do you have a regular exercise schedule?
Lee: Yes [pausing]. It includes working out at the martial arts academy, the Inosanto academy, the same one I have been going to since I was about 13. And then the rest of it pretty much depends on the film I am doing.

MAL: Like gymnastics for Showdown?
Lee: Yeah. Or weight training. I did some weight training for Rapid Fire. I haven't done any for this, [but] I have done a lot of cardiovascular work. Just boring everyday stuff like jumping rope and running, stairmaster and life cycle, and stuff like that because, like I said, I wanted to lose some weight.

MAL: So your primary martial arts instructor is still Dan Inosanto? He was one of your father's students, wasn't he?
Lee: He was one of my dad's students and he was a real close friend of the family when I was growing up. After my dad died and we moved back to the United States, I didn't really train at all for about 5 years. And then when I felt the urge to get back into it I naturally went to Danny's school.

MAL: People Weekly reported that you had an encounter with a real knife-carrying burglar about five years ago. Was that true?
Lee: I came home and found somebody in the middle of robbing my house, yeah.

MAL: Nearly everybody who has studied the martial arts, including me, wonders what would happen if they had to use them for real. Did instinct take over? What do you remember of the incident?
Lee: I am very pleased to say that instinct took over quite completely. We do knife-fighting drills down at the academy quite frequently and not just static knife-fighting drills, but the kind where one person will wear a fencer's mask and the other person will come at him quite vigourously with a rubber blade, and try and score. I really just clicked right back into [that training]. I am back at the academy, what should I do? It was a relatively brief encounter, I took the knife away from him, broke his arm, dislocated his shoulder, broke his nose and his jaw, then the police came and took him away.

MAL: Did you have to appear as a witness?
Lee: I had to show up, but I didn't have to say anything because he plead guilty.

MAL: This sounds somewhat foolish, but I wonder why you didn't get in trouble for beating the guy up?
Lee: No, not at all. When the police first came they cuffed us both, you know, but I understood that. It took about two or three minutes to figure out what was going on, and some of my neighbors came out and collaborated my story. At that point they let me go and were very polite about the whole thing.

MAL: I know you don't usually discuss your father because he died while you were quite young. Do you have any feelings about Dragon, the new film biography that is coming out about him?
Lee: Well, I haven't been real closely connected with the project. Mostly, I am glad they are making a film about him because I think he had a huge impact in his short life. There is a contribution that he made that certainly deserves to be remembered. So I am glad they are making a film and I truly hope they do a wonderful job.

by William Wilson Goodson, Jr.
Martial Arts Legends, August 1993

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