- Title: FJ-HRN-2865
- Summary: Kevin Sarbo Interview: Kevin Sarbo Interview
- Description:01:02:21 - Sound Bite: Kevin Sorbo The Illuminati was based on the reality of a government that formed itself in Bavaria back in the 1700s and it was really people that decided that the world was gonna be run the right way by all the other world governments and they sort of became this subversive government that pulled the strings of all the other countries and they manipulated uh whatever wars would be started or if the stock markets were to go up or down I mean they had a hand in it. And rumor has it it lasted up through Hitlers reign and then it disappeared completely but there are still people who believe that it does exist, it hasnt gone away, they just become much more quiet about what they do. So if theres assassinations in the world, if theres terrorist attacks, and the stock market plunges as we do now, that they have a hand in that and theres a reason why they do what they do. My character Thomas Mant is a character that was from birth was raised to be a killer, period. Theres nothing else this man does except kill, and he kills on order who he has to do, theres no feeling, theres no emotion, theres nothing. Everything in his life has been suppressed so hes basically almost like an android. Hes like a person without feelings whatsoever. Theres a civil war so to speak for the lack of a better word that breaks out within the organization and he becomes a target for other people within his organization which he sort of becomes this outcast and everything within him is bread for survival so its kill or be killed for him and he has found out that hes fighting his own people that he thought were that on the same side as him. So hes sort of this anti-hero in a way, because there was nothing redeeming about him in the beginning but through the stages that he has to go through now where emotions come up that hes never had before whether its love, betrayal, hatred, anger, whatever it could be, jealousy, hes experiencing his emotions for the first time so from an actors standpoint its interesting to play this multi-layered person and have these things sort of hit him and how hes going to react to how they hit him, but not only do we hope to make a movie out of this, which were gonna do next spring, we hope to kick it off as a one hour series as well. 01:04:33 - Sound Bite: Kevin Sorbo Thats just the thing, whenever you have a conspiracy theory you cant prove it or disprove it, so theres really an open book with this. You can say and do whatever you want. Technology maybe theyre like the Japan of governments where they come up with things you know, because we know in Japan theres stuff we havent got here yet like technological-wise, that theres waiting every 6 months the cycle to make more money off of us and thats sort of what they have, you know theres the thing about reptilian skin where the bullets will bounce off and um theres uh but theyre all trained from the most extraordinary martial arts, weapons, everything so its gonna be heavy action but its also gonna be sci-fi element and a dramatic episode, I mean element so you cant really say that its just sci-fi, theres sort of a mixture of everything. 01:05:19 - Sound Bite: Kevin Sorbo This is, if I end up getting financing for it my production company was certainly part of it but it was brought to me by Liz Fowler whos a producer and um through David Winning whos directing it. David I worked with many times on Andromeda and weve been talking about this for about 6 months now, and thats how we got together recently at AFM we had a huge uh press conference about it and theres a lot of good buzz, a lot of good buzz. The websites already going crazy. Ive got 3 fan clubs. One in Australia, one here, and one in Europe and theyre all going crazy already about it and I think everybodys brushing up now and their logic and their information about the Illuminati. 01:06:10 - Sound Bite: Kevin Sorbo Well I dont perse, and doing that kind of stuff for the web before Im still like pretty green with the web. I know how to get on, thats about it, but they do want to tease um uh we are going to start putting little, were gonna shoot some little bits of other things that are gonna lead up to, that wont even be in the movie itself but will show people that this is something cool and will be ready for and we just had Lance Hendrickson has joined the cast, CW Howell has joined the cast, so its gonna be interesting to see what happens here. 01:06:41 - Sound Bite: Kevin Sorbo Ive got a production company, its called Touchwood Productions and Ive got about 15 films now that I have in the library and the biggest thing is always raising money. Its always toughest to raise money for these things but I just decided I got tired waiting for managers and agents to help me out because ultimately you end up doing so much work and you have to pay the 10 percent anyway, but I just said you know what Im taking it upon myself and Im gonna do it myself now so Ive got 15 projects, everything from westerns, to comedies, to thrillers, to horror films, to sci-fi. Ive got a really good mixture of things and Im dealing with a company right now out of Chicago, an investment bank lawyer who has a number of guys around the country who are very interested in what I have to offer so I may have a big deal coming in and Ill be very busy once it happens. Its gonna be a good 2 3 years of steady work. 01:07:32 - Sound Bite: Kevin Sorbo Its called A World Fit For Kids. I joined in 96. Hercules was entering its 4th year then and I was getting inundated with a lot of people asking for charitable help whether it was pediatric AIDS, you know all great things and important things but I felt so many people were already involved in that, I wanted to get involved with a charity that was, kids were basically healthy but living in an unhealthy environment, so I found this company through a friend of a friend called LA Fit for Kids, we started talking, we changed the title to A World Fit for Kids, um uh its sort of a double-mentoring program where we trained inner-city teens to become mentors to children within their own community basically saving 2 lives at the same time but we also incorporate you know righting childhood obesity, we have physical fitness, uh anything that they want to be a part of that if they like chess, if they like basketball, if they like dancing, whatever it may be, we make sure they have access to that afterschool hours and I deal with over 12,000 kids in LA county and LA county school district has a 54 percent dropout rate, we have a 100 percent graduation rate for kids in our program, so once again it comes down to money it comes down to you know we have like geez 125 people on the payroll, uh were non-profit but certainly people that work in the office work on 80 hour weeks they pay for their work so that is the only place that money goes in terms of paying people so they can sustain a living and still be a part of this program and we just kicked off with a big golf tournament in Vegas about a month ago and we had Frank OHarris from the Pittsburgh Steelers, we had uh Dr. Jay you know we had um oh my gosh we John Ratzenberger from Cheers and many other things hes been in. We had Patrick Warburton, we had a lot of actors that showed up to support in it and golf in it. It went really really well. We had a ? with Gary Valentine and we had a music night and we had just a mixture of many different things besides the golf and Planet Hollywood was kind enough to host and were doing it again next year. 01:09:50 - Sound Bite: Kevin Sorbo Oh theres big changes in terms of the economy in trying to raise money for anything. I mean I knew it was going to be tough this year. I just decided to do it with my foundation. I said you know what, I got this, I got the connections, weve got the golf course, Ive got Planet Hollywood on board, weve got everything going. We made some money which was surprising. We actually thought we were going to lose money because we spared no expense in flying people in and putting people up in a nice hotel but uh we had great auction items and Continental Airlines came in to help out, they sponsored us as well, so it was, its only gonna get bigger and better and you see that certainly in the film industry as well. I think if anything, the economys been a boom for small independent films. Youre not gonna see many 80 100 million dollar movies being made right now, but I think this has opened the door for a lot of people like myself who want to get their foot in there who want to be creative but be creative in an economical way. So its been, you know its been interesting, its been an education for me over this last year but you know its it was to be expected. Itll go back up again, I mean it was insane. It was like 10 years ago with the dot com industry. It was all phantom money out there. These things werent real. It had to correct itself. You know you cant have double digit appreciation on homes for 7 8 years in a row, thats insane, you know thats not real. Were giving loans to people who are claiming welfare as income, I mean come on you know its absolute insanity, but it had to correct itself. You know it sucks for everybody. I dont care what income level youre at everybody got affected by it and it hurts, it hurts no matter where you are in your life, but you know what, its gonna come back. Its gonna come back. 01:12:05 - Sound Bite: Kevin Sorbo I think you know you come to this town, I didnt know anybody when I moved out to Los Angeles. I didnt know a person. I knew I wanted to be an actor as everybody does out in this town. It doesnt matter where you go, what line of work people are in, theyre all like oh I want to kinda get in the film business and a friend of mine gave me some advice before I came out here and said remember its called show business not show show. And Ive always remembered that. That it is a business and you have to treat it as such. You have to get yourself in the right acting classes, get yourself, dont be, I go crazy when people stay with the same acting coach for like 20 years or something, you know. Move on, take what you can get from that person, go on and try somebody else. Little pieces here and there, do the local theater around here. I think people still have interest in it. People come out here and they wish there as more theatergoing on and anything pound the pavement, get yourself out there. People think people, their doors getting knocked on by Steven Spielberg, it doesnt work that way. My commercial days, I was very fortunate. I did made a good living doing commercials which enabled me not to have to work any jobs which put me in place where I could do the theater, I could do the good acting classes, I could hone the craft and then spend the time pounding the pavement and getting out there and making phone calls and knocking on the doors of casting directors. You gotta play that game, its just part of the town. Its part of the business and part of the way its set up and the weird thing is I used to go to acting class I could see who was there basically just to be lazy about it. maybe theyre there trying to get laid, pardon my French, or theyre there because they want to be good at their profession and there is a difference and you just gotta, you gotta focus on what you want and where you want that to be because I remember my um my old commercial agent. I used to bug them all the time. Id hear about stuff from other guys, say hey how come Im not in that one, how come Im not in that one. And they go Kevin, weve got other clients. You realize your other clients dont give a damn about me, I dont give a damn about them. For me it was give me the opportunity to be rejected. Thats the way I looked at it. Just get me in the door because Im good in the door. Just get me through the door and uh I think you have to have a belief and I havent had a belief since I was 11 years old and Im gonna make it and knock on wood Ive been lucky. 01:14:32 - Sound Bite: Kevin Sorbo You know its funny. When I, it all started with Hercules obviously and we started that series back in 93. I cant believe its that long ago. And Im down in New Zealand and I get down there and I didnt know anybody obviously down there. It was all New Zealand crew that all went on to win Academy Awards in Lord of the Rings. Everybody who learned on Hercules went on to Lord of the Rings, and uh I was on the set and were rehearsing for the first big fight scene I ever had to do, it was like the first week I was down there, and I think they were impressed, because I was pretty athletic. You know I grew up playing a lot of sports and I was into it and my ego was still such that I can do that. I want to do that. And then actually the director came down to do the second, well we decided with 5 2 hour movies before it went to 1 hour series so he came down to do the second movie, he came on the set of the first movie, he was watching and he goes, Oh my gosh, your actors doing all his own stunts. And he was sort of surprised by that and yeah theres something, theres one thing thats kind of cool about it but I got beat up pretty bad. Ive had both knees redone ever since then. I took a couple of bad sword wounds, a body, head everything. But you know theyre there is an ego about it for guys and you think you can do, Ive gotten a little smarter about it now that I look at some things, but certainly there were some things, I had to jump off this thing right here, that you know somebody would come in and say you better not do that and I started realizing as the series went on that you know what Im being kind of stupid here being in positions where I can really get hurt forever and there are stunt guys that its their job so let them do their job so I still jump in and do a lot of it and its just because I think that kid is still inside of me thats not too bright so I still want to jump sometimes. 01:16:39 - Sound Bite: Kevin Sorbo Well I mean from the coolest thing Ive ever done within the business happened right away with Hercules. I got to work an entire year with Anthony Quinn. He played Zeus so from a professional point of view, to work with somebody whos done 270 movies and 6 Academy Award nominations and 2 wins, to be able to spend an entire year, season, it was 9, 10 months we were down together just there in New Zealand, and every week having dinner with the man and you know knock up his brain for anecdotes and stories and you know people he worked with, it was an amazing education for me and also the fact that here was a guy that at the time he was in his late 70s um that still wanted to rehearse, he still had a passion about his craft at this stage in his life when he didnt have to do anymore he still loved acting. And he would talk about the scenes and break them down like an acting coach would and look at the exposition and says, this is bullshit, we dont need any of this, and take stuff out and then he really made me listen because he would say, he would go, Im not gonna say any of this, this is shit. Im not gonna say this. Im gonna say maybe this or I know, Ill say something that makes sense and then youll listen to me and think of something, right sweetheart? Now go because Im still a firm believer in the script. I certainly will fight with writers if things dont make sense and I find holes and Ill say please fix the holes, but like the written word thats in front of me and I respect the writers craft so I was just so amazed at what he did and unfortunately I picked up some of his habits. I know Ive made a few writers mad through the last few years but you know he makes sense, he makes sense, so that was probably one of the probably one of the coolest things thats happened to me. 01:18:21 - Sound Bite: Kevin Sorbo Oh he was, yes he was. Its weird because I never called him Tony. I only say it now since hes passed away for some reason. Maybe he said he was my second my other father. He told my father that, he said, I am his other father. And uh we remained friends up until the day he died and it was interesting going to dinner with him because he would always face himself to the door of the restaurant because he wanted people to see him. He said, I have earned this. And New Zealand, it doesnt matter where you are, they know Anthony Quinn. And so people coming in and fawn over him, I would just sit there and watch and say okay, you know, hes earned this. And he enjoys it this late stage in his life, he says why not, sort of his yes Im still around and Im wonderful. But it was interesting.
- Collection: Historic Films
- Producer:Historic Films
- Transmission Date:01/01/2008
- Rights:On request
- Decade: 2000s
- File Name: FJ-HRN-2865