Jason Scott Lee:
Primal Man

ason Scott Lee is the wonder boy of Asian American actors, as in, Wonder what happened to Jason Scott Lee. Who can blame us? No other Asian actor has wowed us so completely with so much emotional intensity and physical power showcased in so many quality roles -- only to disappear like some one-hit wonder.

During a glorious four-year golden age that began in 1990, the young paragon played an Inuit Eskimo (Map of the Human Heart), a Polynesian prince (Rapa Nui), an Indian wild boy (Jungle Book) and practically every Asiatic ethnicity in between, including the ultimate icon of his own: Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story. Five have been bona fide romantic leads in quality films -- a major achievement for anyone, all the more so for an Asian actor in Hollywood.

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For most, what made Jason Scott Lee so memorable was his primal physicality. Sweat glistening over rippling muscles, Lee has battled, raged and made hot love -- not exactly the images Hollywood links with Asian men. Like a true hero, he has saved studios big bucks in wardrobe costs and spared millions of females the rigors of imagining the physique attached to those smoldering eyes and full lips. And just when the world burned to see and know more, he disappeared.

So what happened to him?

After Jungle Book (1994) and the cinematically beautiful, financially ugly Rapa Nui (1994), Lee sleepwalked through several forgettable movies. The last most of us saw him, he was Aladdin in the 1999 Hallmark miniseries Arabian Nights -- unless you were in London the following year and caught the stage production of The King and I or a series of B movies (Dracula Resurrection, Prophey IV) or noticed his voice in a Disney cartoon feature (Lilo & Stitch)

Few Hollywood careers have risen to such a sustained crescendo, then dropped off so precipitously just when the world was hungering for more. But, as we discovered, Lee doesn't share the priorities that drive most actors.

Jason Scott Lee was born in Los Angeles on November 19, 1966 to a Chinese-Hawaiian father and a Chinese mother, third of five children. He was two when his family moved to Oahu. A year after graduating from Pearl City High with a mediocre record, he returned to the mainland to enroll at Fullerton Community College. Before long he turned to acting. His sand-and-surf physique caught the eyes of casting directors. He landed a series of minor movie roles beginning with a chicano in Born in East LA (1987), a Corean American in American Eyes (1989), a hoverboarder in Back to the Future Part II (1989), a Vietnamese in Vestige of Honor (1990), and Kyle in Ghoulies 3: Ghoulies Go to College (1991).

What put Jason Scott Lee on the map of rising young actors was Map of the Human Heart (1992). As a young Inuit named Avik, Lee starred in a beautifully photographed and memorable saga of identity and passion opposite Anne Parillaud (Nikita). It was an ideal showcase for Lee's emotional intensity and raw physicality.

Before Map made its way into theaters, Lee auditioned for The Last of the Mohicans. He was deemed not to have the right look to play a Mohican. But the casting director thought highly enough of his acting ability to suggest him to a friend casting the lead in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993). The young actor's success in capturing the icon's moves and moods brought international celebrity, making him a latter-day reincarnation of Bruce Lee to the under-40 set.

Dragon opened many doors, but Lee seemed to take only those leading to the great outdoors, notably Rapa Nui and Jungle Book. Having been typecast as Primal Man, Lee seemed averse to roles calling for street clothes. His passing from the limelight coincided with his immersion into his small farm in a remote area of the Big Island.

Lee has emerged periodically to do movies. Most recently, he spent the late summer and fall of 2003 in Kazakhstan filming a historical epic with the working title Nomad. When we caught up with him, Lee had spent several weeks recuperating on his farm. During our conversation his mood ranges from gentle and contemplative to indignant. Through it all, he seems to draw strength and serenity from the holistic philosophy around which he has built his second incarnation.

GS: How did you become involved in The Nomad?
JSL: The script was presented to me a while back, I think maybe a couple of years back and I had read it and really liked it and expressed my interest in it. Much later they eventually contacted me.

GS: Who sent you the script?
JSL: I'm not sure. From what I understand, the director had seen Map of the Human Heart and I guess he felt that I could play this one character that had an age change.

GS: How big is the age change?
JSL: Twenty years.

GS: What age do you start at?
JSL: In my late thirties, and then aging into the fifties.

GS: I understand you're playing the advisor to the future king of Kazakhstan.
JSL: I'm sort of his mentor and teacher.

GS: Is it a physical role?
JSL: There are some fighting sequences.

GS: Your work has largely been in adventure and action. Is this along the same lines?
JSL: It's a more dramatic role with bits of fighting sequences set against an epic backdrop.

GS: Who is the king of Kazakhstan that you're mentoring?
JSL: He has two names. One is... [long pause] Forgive me! When I leave work I'm completely removed from it so the names and things... [laughs]

GS: That's okay. You've said that you only do one movie a year because it's so grueling.
JSL: Yeah, it takes about a month, maybe even a month and a half to come down off a trip like that.

GS: And you're not even done with it.
JSL: I'm not finished and that was four months of intensive involvement in a foreign country.

GS: Is it based on a true story?
JSL: The Kazakh people I guess are wanting their story to be brought to the world. Their country is kind of an obscure place. They just want to be accounted for.

GS: Are they really a branch of the Mongol race?
JSL: Yeah. You know when people say Asia very few times that area central asia gets accounted for. People mostly take into consideration Japan or Corea or China and places in the far east, India or so. This area surprised me quite a bit. I found the people looking very very Asian with some influence from Turkish tribes.

GS: Are they closer to the Genghis Khan stock?
JSL: Oh yeah.

GS: If you're walking around there, they can't tell you're not a Kazakh?
JSL: No, sometimes people start speaking to me in Kazakh.

GS: Are you playing a Kazakh? They weren't casting you because the mentor was maybe Chinese, Japanese or Corean?
JSL: No, that's what I mean. The impression that people get when they say Kazakhstan or Central Asia. These are all warring tribes with their heritage in the Mongol era. You look at what Genghis Khan did during his lifespan and what his sons did, what kind of territory they occupied. It was massive, it's bigger than China. In fact, they owned part of China.

GS: Does this take place during the Genghis Khan era?
JSL: This is much later. It takes place in the 1600s.

GS: Are you doing a lot of horseback riding and swordsmanship?
JSL: Yeah.

GS: What were the conditions like in Kazakhstan?
JSL: The culture and the food is very different. There are some western establishments but I always found myself eating more of the Uygur food or the Kazakh food. A lot of other tribes like the Uzbek people and their food is fantastic. I was leaning more on that kind of food. The city that we were staying in is fairly cosmopolitan.

GS: What city is that?
JSL: It's called Almaty.

GS: Is that the capitol?
JSL: It used to be but they moved the capitol up north to a place called Astana, so we stayed in Almaty.

GS: Would we consider it modern?
JSL: They have automobiles, they have electricity, they have air conditioning. They have quite a few modern conveniences.

GS: So it wasn't like when you were filming Rapa Nui?
JSL: No, Rapa Nui is much more primitive.

GS: There wasn't much hardship?
JSL: Not in that sense, but in the sense of climate changes and locations. Logistically it was pretty heavy duty for the crew. It was hard, the pace.

GS: Why is it taking so long to film a movie that normally takes about six to eight weeks?
JSL: There's a lot of things they overlooked because no one had ever tried to do an epic in the western sense with Hollywood people and such in Kazakhstan. When you're trying to organize 400 extras or so, and 400 horses, who have no idea what making a movie is all about, you tend to have a communication breakdown. Things that you thought you could shoot in a day would take a week.

GS: Is this a Hollywood project in the sense of being directed and produced by a Hollywood studio?
JSL: Yeah, the Kazakh people -- producers as well and investors -- are all looking to it as maybe their Lord of the Rings for like what it did for New Zealand.

GS: It might be a six or eight hour movie?
JSL: No, I think the only reason it's taking so long is... I mean, I don't really care how long it takes because Ivan Passer is given the latitude to make the shots right. Because everything is on location, he's waiting for the right setup, the right lighting and all these things.

Jason Scott Lee at the video premier of Dracula Resurrection (2003) and being styled into his role as Father Uffizi, the badass vampire-slayer.

GS: So you're having to hurry up and wait a lot.
JSL: Oh yeah. I don't mind if he's getting the shots. In a sense we're making a movie the way maybe Kubrick made it or maybe John Ford or David Lean.

GS: In the sense of the authenticity of location?
JSL: Yeah, yeah. I dreamed of working for a person who has this kind of attitude. Also the producers weren't as pushy as they are in Hollywood. They have a tendency to let him shoot and let him shoot. I'm grateful for having had this kind of experience because I've always wanted to work with those kinds of directors who took their time.

GS: So it's a high quality project?
JSL: Yeah.

GS: Do you think it will have mass appeal for American audiences?
JSL: I'm not sure. There is a quality to it that I haven't seen in epic movies for a while.

GS: Is it like The Last Emperor in terms of epic scope and grandeur?
JSL: The thing about this film is that there's a funny kind of gentleness about it. That's the rare thing that I don't find in ...

GS: So the pacing is not as tight as most Hollywood films.
JSL: No.

GS: You've done a lot of location work in the last two or three years.
JSL: My work throughout my career has been location.

GS: That's true.
JSL: Soldier I did in Los Angeles and maybe bits and pieces of Dragon.

GS: Who plays the main character?
JSL: His name is Kuno Becker. He's originally from Mexico and he lives in Los Angeles. They chose him because he's one of the up and coming young actors, on the hot list, I guess.

GS: So they really are shooting for mass appeal.
JSL: They told me how many countries are involved, something ridiculous like 28 countries.

GS: What's the budget?
JSL: We started at twenty million. The reason we broke down, weather was one reason and financing was another. I think they had to go back and look to the investors and refinance the movie because we spent the twenty million.

GS: Is that the reason for ...
JSL: It's still not a Lord of the Rings $200 million-plus kind of thing.

GS: You were in a new Dracula movie, playing Father Uffizi, a vampire killer...
JSL: Vampire slayer? [laughs] That was fun. I'd rather do something that has fantasy when it comes to violence rather than realistic violence. Some people say it's too gorey or too bloody but I enjoy that kind of character.

GS: You seem to have gotten good reviews from fans of the horror genre for stealing the scenes and being the real center of the action. Do you agree?
JSL: Yeah. Over the years I've learned how to handle myself physically. I know what dynamics work on the screen, through movement and through action. I definitely put it all together when I do something like that. But also the way it's written. The mystery of the character as sort of a quiet, dark hunter of vampires is rather appealing. I enjoyed reading the script. They told me that's the chracter they wanted me to play. I go, ¡§Oh great!¡¨ We may be working with a three million dollar budget but hey, the guy's a fantastic director and the producer and the director are just great guys. For me it has to be those two worlds coming together -- a great group of people first off, and if the script is suited for what I can do, even better.

GS: So you're not trying to shy away from playing the action figure.
JSL: That's who I am! I live my life in action. I play harder than I work. In that sense, it's just another thing. Some people aren't physical actors.

GS: There's been speculation that maybe you're trying not to be typecast as an action an action actor.
JSL: Well, everyone is an action actor.

GS: In the physical sense. You're not trying to get away from that at all?
JSL: No, it's who I am! I dn't know what kind of speculation you heard, but I don't think people really know me. [laughs]

GS: You have no interest in going back into pure drama or romance?
JSL: If the story is right I'd do it, but a lot of the stories I've seen that have been presented to me for drama have not been very appealing.

GS: You're playing an Italian in the Dracula movies.
JSL: I'm not being typecast am I? [laughs]

GS: That's refreshing.
JSL: That's what's interesting. A lot of people are adopted or carry an English name and you look at them and they look Corean or something . It's the kind of world we live in now. It creates more interest, more questions as to who the character is.

GS: There's no effort to make you look Italian?
JSL: There's a back story that evolved from bits and scenes that I did with Roy Scheider where he is my mentor. He sort of brings up a little bit of the back story of finding me in a burned-out mission somewhere.

GS: So your ethnicity is worked in.
JSL: Yeah.

GS: They apparently don't know what to call the other movie you've done -- Prophecy 4 or 5.
JSL: [laughs] I haven't heard from there in a while.

GS: What was that role about?
JSL: That was to be with friends and have fun. [laughs] These are the same guys that did Dracula [Resurrection]. So they called back and said, ¡§Hey, Jason, would you like to come out and play with us again?¡¨ I said, ¡§Sure! What's the time frame?¡¨ I was able to fit it in so I went out and did it. It's a mercenary role and there's a very minute section of a small little scuffle. That's more of a dramatic role actually but in the horror genre.

GS: There's been talk about a project called Silk Curtain you're supposed to be in negotiations for. What kind of movie is that?
JSL: You remember in The Last Emperor there was the Emperess Dowager.

GS: The old lady?
JSL: It's based on her life.

GS: So she's like the last empress then.
JSL: Like the prequel to The Last Emperor.

GS: What role would you be playing in that?
JSL: There were a couple of roles. We did a sort of a theater reading in Honolulu because the writer is out of Honolulu. I think it's either a prince or something. It was a while ago, maybe five years ago. A lot of independents are struggling to get financing.

GS: You've been involved in herbal medicine and growing plants. How deeply are you into that now?
JSL: I have a small farm on the Big Island.

GS: What do you grow there?
JSL: I have pear trees, mandarin orange trees, lemon, citrus... And I've been trying to do barley and buckwheat.

GS: You mean as cash crops?
JSL: Not necessarily cash crops but just for my own interest.

GS: Is this an expensive hobby or a self-sustaining business?
JSL: It's not entirely expensive, but it's geared more toward a philosophical interest. I had gone to Japan and studied with Masanobu Fukuoka who is the father of natural farming. Along with tending the land is a lot of philosophy that goes with it. When he was brought to my attention I realized that it was in direct accordance with my acting approach and also my martial arts approach, from what I garnered.

GS: Are you physically involved in farming day to day?
JSL: My main problem is going off to do movies.

GS: How can you keep it going if you're away for months at a time?
JSL: What's happened is that I don't do as many movies as I used to. It's sort of an evolution of the mind, I guess. For me it was never about career that I got into acting and it was never about fame. Those were not priorities. I did it because it was something I had a talent in, as well as in martial arts, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to open a school of martial arts.

GS: But you actually opened a farm though.
JSL: I didn't open the farm. My farm is just my place that I live in.

GS: How many acres is it?
JSL: I only work within a three- or four-acre area.

GS: That's a lot for one person.
JSL: Yeah, I'm busy. That's why I'm never not on the farm.


In Dragon Jason Scott Lee recreates the famous hall-of-mirrors scene from Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon (1973).

GS: Is the point of it that the actual act of cultivating is good for your soul and evolution or that the fruits of it are healthful for your body?
JSL: The reason I got into it is because I felt it encompassed everything. It encompassed art, it emcompassed life, it encompassed politics, it encompassed a lot of the wholeness of life, not just one aspect of it. I'm not doing it to create a separatist feeling in my mind. I'm trying to create a wholeness in my mind. If I can maintain that path, than everything else will be better for it -- relationships, career, acting ability, martial arts ability, observing nature and learning by the observation of those things.

GS: So it's more a part of your effort at self-actualization then.
JSL: Sure, yeah.

GS: So you see it as a way to balance out your acting and other areas of your life?
JSL: I don't think ¡§balance out¡¨ is what I'm doing.

GS: Is that your spiritual home, the farm?
JSL: You know in the sense that, cultivation and farming, if looked at in a narrow way is just that, farming for maybe profit or maybe for sale. It's not that. I'm looking at it not just as a plot of land. It's everything around it. It's like, instead of just having an open field, but knowing that all the insects in that area are affecting that field. You know that you'd better start planting trees that give nutrients to the soil because what's around you is just as important as your little focus of attention. The whole collapse of industrial agriculture -- they focus on that one plot of land to produce as much as they can and leave out everything else around it. So what happens is that everything around it turns to desert. That's what I'm trying to rebel against, that mindset of just looking at something for human benefit.

GS: So when did you get involved enough to actually buy the farm.
JSL: I bought the farm about five yearsa ago. Then I was introduced to Fukuoka about three years ago. That took my interest to a higher place by meeting this mentor.

GS: Does anyone else live there with you or do you use it a retreat for yourself?
JSL: No, it's just my place. I have friends that have worked with me here and every once in a while I'll hire a hand if it's heavy work or some friends of mine visit and they pitch in. My idea originally was to have a place as an artists' retreat for fellow artists and friends I've met through the years in the business of acting. Everything from physical artists like actors to poets to writers and painters. I've always wanted to engage like that and sort of preserve the art of conversation with artists. This was the kind of place that I was able to start establishing. I found that the best place to do that was in nature because it allows you a whole different perspective. Hopefully by having a place like this where people can come and not only engage in art but engage with the earth, engage with the land and sea, the art will maybe say a lot more. Hopefully the art will fluorish as presenting a whole perspective rather than just a perspective that's a piece of the pie.

GS: So you're being a patron of the arts in the sense that you're trying to help these artists evolve to a more holistic sense of themselves.
JSL: To whatever perspective they achieve. All I know is that the closer you are to nature, the better off you are. The further away from nature civilization moves, the more confused it gets.

GS: So you're actually getting back to being a primal man.
JSL: Yeah, and that's the same idea in the martial arts as simplicity. Like Bruce said, the hardest thing to convey is simplicity. And I'm realizing what those words mean. Something that you do on a daily basis is something with your actions, the way you see the world, those are the things that catapult you to a different frame of mind.

GS: So was this evolution toward a holistic philosophy catalized by your role in Dragon?
JSL: The catalyst was my original interest in acting. But I didn't know that's what I was looking for in acting -- and I think a lot of actors will attest to this -- is to find the road back to nature. In acting class they tell you to be like an infant, discover things anew, be fresh. That means nature. And my work with Jerry Poteet -- him being my mentor and me being the student -- all the conversations that we had over tea were just that, about that road back to nature, finding simplicity in action and reaction and you do that with an empty mind. So when you find an interest in philosophy that feeds you that same source of knowledge, such as buddhism, when they speak of all is nothing, you realize what they're trying to say. In a sense, this is a path. It's just a path.

GS: What part of your day do you devote to martial arts?
JSL: [Laughs] Every day.

GS: In the holistic sense?
JSL: But the actual fighting training, is that what you're getting at?

GS: Right, the physical training.
JSL: Say someone is a Shaolin martial artist. What does a Shaolin marital artist do? He lives the life of a monk. He sweeps the floors, he carries buckets of water on his shoulders, he chops wood. Maybe he'll have a session with the high lama, or high teacher, and go through the series of movements and things, imitating animals, imitating natural things, observing a praying mantis. I'm not looking at martial arts in the modern sense of looking at these certain techniques. I've spent enough time with Jerry Poteet to realize that a lot of techniques, once you learn them, are really fundamentals and the only way to exercise those fundamentals is through the mental aspect. I don't believe in overworking the body and training and training and trianing it like Bruce did. I think the path I'm taking is more being the average man, the normal, the simple man with a lot of slow gardening movements, pulling weeds, cutting things. I chop wood, I carry water, I do these things but the emptying of the mind is much more of an important practice than the actual physical practice.

GS: I understand you're not practicing martial arts for the fighting aspect necessarily, but that is one aspect of it.
JSL: It has martial applications. I studied under jeet kune do. That's the most offensive art there is, but I'm saying to reach a higher sensitivity and awareness, [I have to] reach not a higher physical level but a metaphysical level. I stopped doing martial arts after Dragon because I pretty much felt that I was peaking physically. But mentally I had no place to go until I came back to Jerry Poteet again and said, ¡§I have these questions.¡¨ And he said, ¡§I've waited two years for you to come back to ask me these questions.¡¨ After that we went and advanced into the metaphysical world of martial arts.

GS: So your feeling is that by moving to the metaphysical plane you've also improved the physical aspect of your martial arts.
JSL: Oh yeah. There's no question.

GS: Your reactions are quicker?
JSL: Yeah, my reflexes are much more refined.

GS: Is that the ultimate, to be so atuned to your sense of being that you react with the least amount of resistance?
JSL: Yes, that is the same philosophy as what I've learned in natural farming, is don't try to do more, try to do less. But by doing less in the daoist sense, you accomplish more.

GS: So you're not fighting yourself.
JSL: Exactly, you're not fighting nature, you're not fighting the land. If you take a field and you say, ¡§I'm going to plow it and till it¡¨, already you've started on the wrong foot because you've destroyed something that has been developed over millions of years, destroyed the topsoil by turning it over. You're not working with nature. That's not helping the earthworms. You're just killing everything off. So in a sense, what people are trying to do in the martial arts to reach a metaphysical plane is to find how to lose the ego. And the only way to lose the ego is to look at things and try to benefit not just you but the things around you.

GS: At this point are you trying to attain the ultimate level of martial arts?
JSL: I don't know what the ultimate level is. I don't think there is an end road.

GS: A higher level than the physical level.
JSL: Once you gain a sense of awareness and high sensitivity in the physical body, sensitivity in your martial arts, that has to go somewhere. So if your awareness increases, how does it increase? It has to increase into the external world. So the external world eventually effects you as much as your internal world. So by cultivating the internal and external on both the physical and metaphysical planes, there is a cohesive sensibility there that cannot be attained by the intellect.

GS: To bring it down to practical application, you're saying when you reach a certain plane, you can address a lot of the physical conflicts with your mind, or get rid of the need for physical confrontation.
JSL: Yeah, yeah. I was always a surfer, but I no longer care for surfing because I don't really care for competition. I don't think competition is really a natural thing. I think challenging oneself is a natural thing, but challenging yourself doesn't mean competition necessarily.

GS: So most of your physical exercise comes from doing everyday things on your farm rather than actually practicing forms or movement.
JSL: Exactly. What Bruce tried to teach is that practicality is the essence of simplicity. I started discovering that that was true but I wanted to know for myself not just take his word. As I started doing all these practical chores and things, it's like, Yeah now I feel inside, outside what this means. But you never get the feeling unless you do it. Same thing with the martial arts. You're not gonna get anything out of it unless you put something into it.

GS: Do you actually make your own herbal medicines?
JSL: There are herbal drinks and tonics that I take that I am religious about, but I'm just on the tip of the iceberg with that. That is a whole world that is fascinating to me but I'm not going to dedicate my time to it because it's everywhere. People can grow herbs. I'm sure there are higher levels of herbalists like Chinese herbalists who can take your pulse from your hand or your wrist and diagnose you and these things but I'm just more with herbalism. There are herbs in my forest that I take and that I use for tea and such things and growing certain vegetables that you dry out and use for some kind of tea or tonic. That's my level of herbalism. I'm not a very enlightened herbalist.

GS: Where is your farm? Is it near Kona?
JSL: Closer to Hilo.

GS: Is it near the ocean?
JSL: It's in the mountains.

GS: It's pretty remote then?
JSL: Oh, very remote.

GS: Do you need a four-wheel drive to get there?
JSL: Not necessarily.

Jason Scott Lee with Lauren Holly as Linda Lee in Dragon: Bruce Lee Story.

GS: Maybe when you get a lot of rain.
JSL: Yeah, yeah. [laughs]

GS: You were born in Los Angeles.
JSL: That's correct.

GS: And you have three brothers and a sister. Which sibling are you?
JSL: The middle. It's my sister, my brother, then myself, then my two younger brothers who are actually twins.

GS: What were your parents doing at the time you were born?
JSL: My father was working for the telephone company out there. GTE I believe, as an engineer. My mother was going to school and taking waitressing jobs. I think it was Los Angeles Community College. They moved down to Gardena after that.

GS: You wouldn't have any memories of your first years in LA.
JSL: I do.

GS: But you were only two.
JSL: Yeah, but I think people have memories of that. I remember going over to my neighbor's house. The neighbors at the tinme were my godparents. They were an older caucasian couple, Frank and Stella. I remember my father's car at the time, Chevy Impala station wagon.

GS: That's quite a memory for a two-year-old
JSL: But you see pictures too.

GS: Then you went to the North Shore when you were two?
JSL: No, Kaimuki area.

GS: We imagined you living near Haleiwa and going to Matsumoto's for shave ice.
JSL: [Laughs] We did that a lot, yeah. When you live on Oahu and you know the waves are best on the North Shore you tend to always travel in your teen years, you always take the bus or have a friend who has a car and travel out that way and get all those goodies along the way.

GS: Did you enjoy your early years in Oahu?
JSL: Oh, yeah, my dad was a fisherman and he was also a real outdoors kinda guy, so he would always take us out.

GS: So he gave up his work for the phone company?
JSL: He transfered to the Oahu branch of the phone company.

GS: Did you have any career ambitions?
JSL: Not really careerwise. You have no idea what the world means, what it pretends to be. You're just living day by day. People tell you to go to college, enter a university, study study study. If you don't know what to do, go to college anyway and take liberal arts or something that will give you diversity and all these ridiculous things.

GS: That's what your parents were telling you?
JSL: Yeah. Even now I think everybody thinks to get a higher education is the only way to live.

GS: What made you pick Fullerton of all places?
JSL: I have what we call here in Hawaii calabash cousins or calabash relatives who lived in Fullerton. I went out there on a vacation just to see California, see LA, I had a friend going to college in Whittier, so I ended up staying in Fullerton.

GS: Did you like coming back to the LA area?
JSL: It was new. It was very different which I thought was good. The main reason I moved was because I wanted to see for myself if academics was all people said it was. Like that you would learn if you went into academics. I realized that wasn't true for me. But I did it well. I put my nose to the grindstone and whacked away at it.

GS: So you did well at Fullerton college?
JSL: Yeah. I studied for a year and a half there.

GS: What were you studying?
JSL: It was just a liberal arts degree which means just history, mathematics and science. Just a gamut of things.

GS: That's when you got interested in acting?
JSL: Yeah. I met Sal Mineo at Fullerton College. He was my acting mentor.

GS: Did he get you into Born in East LA?
JSL: Kind of. He was the one who got me the agent who sent me out on that call.

GS: How did you get an agent while you were just a college student?
JSL: I was out of college at the time. I had been in Fullerton College for a year and a half and then I moved up to the LA area, Silverlake, I was trying to continue my studies at LACC. By that time I realized that I didn't want to be an academic person. But I wanted to keep my parents happy and sttay in school. So wgebn I went to LACC I was doing painting, I was doing life drawing, I was doing music, I was in piano, I was studying Chinese. It was kind of a free-for-all. I didn't last even last one semester there until I got Born in East LA. And that was goign to take me away for ten to 12 weeks. So I said it's impossible to stay in school. So I optioned to go the other route, the free-forming route. I don't really believe in education as such but I do believe in mentorship. I do believe in teachers.

GS: How had you proven yourself? Did Sal Mineo identify you as a talent?
JSL: I met him in Fullerton College. He just said, ¡§I'm starting a theater in the Los Angeles area and if you want I would love to have you as one of the participants or to do some work there.¡¨ So I took him up on the opportunity and moved up there. He basically said, ¡§You have a lot of potential.¡¨ That was it.

GS: This was '85?
JSL: '85, 86.

GS: So when you got the part in Born in East LA, did you say to yourself, ¡§This is the life I want for myself¡¨?
JSL: Well, when I met Sal, after studying for a while -- meaning after reading some books about acting and this and that, and some of the books that Sal presented to me -- and the way he taught, I realized that this is something I could do for the rest of my life. I realized there was no end. It was all according to your imagination.

GS: So you liked it for freeing you?
JSL: At first you're completely afraid of it and that's sort of a good sign. If you're afraid of something and you find interest in it, go for it. Then it became like a therapy for my strict Chinese upbringing. So it started becoming more emotionalized after so many years of suppressing it, having a very strict father. Then it becomes sort of a lifestyle, and eventually it becomes an art, hopefully when you get your heels down.

GS: One of the most interesting movies you've been in is Map of the Human Heart. How did you get cast to star in that?
JSL: That was an audition, straight in. I read the script first and thought this is the most amazing movies I've ever read. I don't think I've come close to reading something like that since. But as far as giving you a visual interpretation of a movie, it was just there, the ethnicity and the whole thing. It was just very clear. And it was right up my vision of the kind of movie I wanted to do. It was primal, it had ethnic foundation, it had international appeal. At the time I don't think anyone really knew how to market an art film which is what it was being called.
When I went in for the audition, I looked on the list and there were names I had seen, and I thought, ¡§Oh my god, it's going to be tough!¡¨ Like Lou Diamond Phillips and Keanu Reeves. When you hadn't really done anything and you look at that those names you think it might be tough going, might be just another audition.

GS: Did they recognize your physicality at the time?
JSL: I talked to Vincent Ward the director at the time and I said why did you hire me? He said because you're the most believable person out of everyone that came in. I buy it. I said, ¡§Okay, that's all I needed to know!¡¨

GS: Is that still one of your favorite roles?
JSL: Yeah. When I look back, it's hard because everybody's involved in making you look the way that it is and it's all complementary to each other when it does come out right. Like Vincent's interest in believability. He sent me on this reasearch trip to the Artic and I spent like a week in just a small village, basically just snow, with 300 people in the community. And I really got a sense of things and how these indigenous people lived and how they walked and how they expressed themselves. It wasn't too far off the mark of how a lot of our native Hawaiian people are. In that sense, I sort of feel like they've given me a license to be a champion of indigenous cultures. I get it, I understand. I grew up in it and I know. Whereas I don't think some actors can actually claim that.

GS: How did you feel doing that love scene?
JSL: The main thing I remember was that I was cold,. My buttocks cheeks were shaking and Vincent was on that giant crane with a loudhailer, one of those bullhorn things, going, ¡§Jason, could you please stop shaking your buttocks!¡¨ [laughs] I said, ¡§Yeah, fat chance of that! How do you control that?¡¨ I am a physical actor but there are some things you just can't control.

GS: It must have been like 15 degrees.
JSL: It was an English countryside in late winter.

GS: Any other memories?
JSL: Just some of the hunting episodes I had when I was in the research of it. Also getting to locations was the most adventurous thing I've ever been a part of. You wake up in the morning, you put on your costumes, you jump into a Twin Otter plane, you head up, you fly for an hour to I-don't-know-where, you land in an open place that's just ice and rock, and you get into a skiddoo with a box trailer in the back and you head out for another hour and you're on location. There were no roads, there was nothing, just ice. But he color of the ice and the gradations of the sky, it was just mind-blowing. After a taste of that kind of adventure, anything that came my way that was going to take me to some remote area of the globe, I was going to go. I've been fortunate that way. My perspective is a lot more different than a lot of actors because of that.

GS: So maybe instead of Dragon, Map of the Human Heart is what got you into this primal man type of role.
JSL: Yeah, martial arts really evolved from that kind of mindset because people up there were really survivalist.

GS: Tell us how you landed the Dragon role.
JSL: [Dragon director] Rob Cohen was friends with Bonnie Timmerman who was the casting agent [for Map]. He called her on a whim and said, ¡§I'm looking for an actor to play this part and I'm finding it hard to cast, do you have anyone in mind?¡¨ ¡§Not really but I just ran into this actor who auditioned for me. I think that might be your guy. He has a good physique and did the reading tremendously well but we had an advisor here who claimed he didn't really pass for Mohican, but I think he's in between agents now so you might want to call him at home. Here's his number.¡¨

Jason Scott Lee as Bruce Lee in a fight sequence from Dragon: Bruce Lee Story.

So Rob called me and left a message and I had no idea who he who. I had finished Map of the Human Heart maybe six months ago and I was still high from that experience. I talked to Rob and Rob said, ¡§Would you come in and meet some people? I want to give you a script to read.¡¨ So I came in and everyone was waiting for me and I'm sitting there and he said, ¡§This is the Bruce Lee project.¡¨ I said, ¡§The Bruce Lee project? You mean like a biography? You want me to do his voiceover?¡¨ He goes, ¡§No no no, this is like his biography.¡¨ I said, ¡§You want me to play Bruce Lee?¡¨ He says, ¡§Right now what I'm feeling is that you're the guy.¡§

GS: He said that right off the bat?
JSL: I said, ¡§Why do you think that? He goes, ¡§Because you're athletic. I've looked at martial artists but I had a hard time believing in their ability as actors.¡¨ He apparently saw some footage from Map of the Human Heart and said, ¡§Hey, this guy has some ability to act.¡¨ He said, ¡§Please take the script and read it...¡¨ I said, ¡§You know what, I don't even know if I want to read the script because if you're talking about what I saw when I was young, it's impossible. You gotta be kidding me!¡¨
I've always been fairly honest with myself about what I can and can't do. Then after I turned him down he says, ¡§That's why I want you even more.¡¨ I said, ¡§Why is that?¡¨ He goes, ¡§Anybody that's that honest, who says they can't do it, that's the guy you want because anybody who thinks they can emulate Bruce is kidding himself.¡¨ There was no one out there at the time who could emulate him. People had tried. But when you're thrust into it and you know that everything is going against you, time and your own abilities, you're just going, ¡§This is hell!¡¨ But the outcome was close enough, I think. It gave an impression of the man and that's all I could do for my abilities at the time.

GS: When people think of Bruce Lee these days, they think of Dragon.
JSL: Yeah, because it's sort of an updated rendition of the man.

GS: ...With better scripts and...
JSL: ...better lighting, better camera work.

GS: So you've become Bruce Lee in a way. You've talked about how you learned from Bruce Lee's teachings but are there ways in which you are similar to Bruce Lee or that you share a lot of the same traits as Bruce Lee.
JSL: Yeah, I think there are some things. I can be very animated when I need to. I think that's something Bruce had. Physical abilities. I've been an athlete all my life. But I think the thing that differentiates myself and Bruce is his drive in the martial arts. His drive was in the combative sense and the physicality sense. It was much more fire going on. He had more gas to carry it out longer.

GS: He had more demons to drive him?
JSL: Yeah, yeah, to exorcise. Bruce in a sense was a street kid and he was a street fighter and grew up brawling and being kind of a punk.

GS: He had more to prove.
JSL: For myself, I didn't have all that stuff to have to get rid of.

GS: How did you have the physique and the athletic ability at that stage? What had you done to build yourself up to being a Bruce Lee prospect?
JSL: Ever since I was small we were playing on the beaches. Eventually we got into surfing and being in the ocean all day. And I was a gymnast for four or five years. In my elementary school days and my intermediate school.

GS: So that built up your physique?
JSL: My balance and my coordination and all the handstand stuff I do, or the kip-ups and whatnot.

GS: Despite all that, you still didn't want the part?
JSL: I had seen Bruce Lee movies. He was in a whole another stratosphere. He could practically fly as far as I was concerned. And the dynamics of his actions in the movies -- you can't get that in six months. You can try but you're going to have to enhance it somehow.

GS: You mentioned that you had to practice or had to take lessons for quite while before the film. You were saying that there was much that was painful and that you couldn't do. What were they trying to make you do that was so difficult?
JSL: At first I had a trainer. They gave me who they told me was going to be my trainer and had a knowledge of the arts in jeet kune do and apparently he didn't know it. It was kind of funny. I didn't know either at the time so I was kinda going along with it.

GS: You had never taken any martial arts?
JSL: I had done some tai chi but it was nothing combative. I kinda felt like I was being set off on the wrong foot. A lot of it was, ¡§Since you don't know the martial arts, we're going to lay down some dance steps.¡¨ You put your feet here and he moves there. That's not gonna work. You can't do that even with a ballerina. They have to know the technique. They have to know what to do. You can't tell them to go to this spot and move to that spot. It doesn't work that way. It was just ovewhelming because the time was being shortened and we were coming down to the wire and they wanted me to do this kind of screen test. I mean physically, yeah my body was fine. But in terms of coordination in the combative sense, I was way off in left field.

GS: Were they stretching out your legs? What kind of stuff did you find painful?
JSL: Yeah, all that kind of stuff -- lifting weights and bouncing around putting on K-Earth Radio and bouncing back and forth with the music. Bruce did that. That was sort of a theatrical effect even for his kiiyaiis. It wasn't the technique for learning jeet kune do. That was just bogus. It wasn't until later that I found out. It was like after I had done the screentest and they said, ¡§Go ahead, you got the green light to do the movie¡¨.
Linda Lee calls and says, ¡§There's a lot of Bruce's students who want to know who's playing Bruce and they want to meet him.¡¨ So she sent me around and this trainer drove me around to meet all these guys, about five of them. The last guy I met was Jerry Poteet. At first I thought, This is all well and good, maybe I can learn a little bit from each one. He was the only person who gave me a demonstration that I thought worthy of what I wanted to learn and was saying things that made sense. I told the director, ¡§I'm not going to do the movie without this guy. This guy is my ace in the hole.¡¨ Sure enough throughout the years he's proven it to me. So it wasn't just like an overnight sensation to meet someone and learn from him and move on. He's become my friend and he's become my teacher.

GS: You're still close to him?
JSL: Oh, yeah.

GS: By the time you did Dragon you must have gotten to a certain stage in your acting career because of Map of the Human Heart.
JSL: No, because it hadn't come out yet. It came out a few weeks after Dragon came out.

GS: You said you were between agents. Why?
JSL: When I did Map of the Human Heart, I thought the agent was greedy.

GS: What do you mean?
JSL: He wanted to hold out for more money and we were getting down to the wire as for the research part of the project.

GS: What did you want to hold out for and what did they offer?
JSL: They wanted to offer one-fifty and he wanted four something.

GS: That seems reasonable for that kind of role.
JSL: I was looking at it like it's a great role. I'm a nobody and they could care less.

GS: You fired him and said, ¡§I'll take it¡¨?
JSL: I may have been able to hold out and play that game but I never understood that game. Back then you're in it because you just enjoy doing it. Eventually you fit into the system that had been established. But for the most part you're going, ¡§F***! This is the best thing I've ever read!¡¨

GS: Is that when you parted company, before you took on Map of the Human Heart?
JSL: He said he was really upset by my decision to take the role and not be in support with him.

GS: Was he a big-time agent?
JSL: Not really, but I think he was very ambitious. But I just said, ¡§Oh well.¡¨ So after Map I was looking for new representation.

GS: So at the time you did Dragon did you have an agent?
JSL: No, when I got the part I took it into the agencies.

GS: Which agency?
JSL: I ended up going to UTA.

GS: Is that a medium-sized agency?
JSL: Not really, it's top-five like William Morris and CAA and ICM.

GS: Did he drive a hard bargain and get you top-dollar on Dragon?
JSL: No, not necessarily.

GS: What did he get you for Dragon?
JSL: Why do these figures even matter? So the public can see how much money I've made?

GS: Not necessarily how much you made but how much an actor would get at that stage for that kind of role. Some readers are aspiring actors so they have a legitimate interest.
JSL: But when you say a figure like that and throw it out there people take it at face value.

GS: We're talking about twelve years ago.
JSL: I mean they take it for face value that that's the money you're going to get. That's not the money you're going to get; you get about fifty percent of that.

GS: Was it in the six figures?
JSL: Yeah, yeah. Definitely, it was more than what I got for Map of the Human Heart but not by much.

GS: Mid six figures?
JSL: No, not even there.

GS: Did you get any residuals?
JSL: Yeah, whenever you work for a studio you get residuals.

GS: But you never made big money off this huge movie?
JSL: No, I could have done big money, say in the sense of Van Damme. You can make like ten million a picture or whatever.

Lee with Lauren Holly as Linda Lee in Dragon: Bruce Lee Story.

GS: Van Damme made ten million a picture?
JSL: Oh yeah, he's getting paid that, or Segal and those people. It all depends on what track you want to take. You can do that and say you're a clever businessman, but it depends on what you do with that money.

GS: Weren't you annoying your agents by not taking those kinds of parts?
JSL: Yeah, I've had discussions with heads of agencies, the head of my agency, one of the top guys. Basically they told me, ¡§You gotta understand this: work begets work.¡¨ I said, ¡§That's not true. Good work begets good work.¡¨ They said, ¡§We don't know how long we're going to hold out keeping you on our roster if you don't do some jobs.¡¨ I said, ¡§Well, you can let me go any time.¡¨
One of the agents was really behind me, and he goes, ¡§This is a different guy. You can't treat him like the rest.¡¨ I said, ¡§I'm not the kind of person to beg and plead to stay somewhere. You want me out of here, I'm out of here. I don't give a s***. My path is my path. It's not directed by you or anyone else. And my principles are my principles.¡¨
People tell me, ¡§After Dragon came out, you should have struck while the iron was hot.¡¨ I said, ¡§What does that mean? Does that mean that you can be a big success because you struck then? You're saying my career's going to be more prolific if I did that? How do you know?¡¨
Then I said, ¡§I'm moving back to Hawaii after Dragon.¡¨ They said, ¡§Why are you doing that? You're going to kill your career.¡¨ I said, ¡§Really, how do you know that? Have you done it? Has anyone ever done it? No. Then you're speaking from speculation. I think everyone should just shut the hell up.¡¨ [laughs]

GS: You've really had to fight to act in quality films.
JSL: You have to create your own character. You can't just be a run-of-the-mill, afraid of the system, afraid of these kind of people. I tell people not to get into acting because I was willing to sacrifice everything, my entire life, to remain pretty much on the bottom. If you want to make that kind of sacrifice, then make that kind of sacrifice. If good fortune befalls you, let it befall you. If it doesn't, it doesn't. But you'll always know you made the choice on your own.¡¨

GS: Has good fortune befallen you?
JSL: Absolutely. And it could be everything -- being born under the right star, or just having raw talent or some abilities. As you mature, you sense a feeling of refinement. I don't know what those things do, but maybe that's a quality they don't see in other performers. I'm not really sure.

GS: One of the low points of your career was Rapa Nui in terms of sacrifice and difficulty. You've said that experience made you decide to do only one film a year.
JSL: That was six months away from home and the entire time I enjoyed it! I've gone back there to visit friends many many times. It's not something that I've left in my past. That island enlightened me to a certain degree about life. It actually is a catalyst to how I live now. Easter Island in the native language is called Rapa Nui. It's the longest time I've spent with native people, real indigenous people who were still living a life of simplicity and isolation. And I felt the power behind that kind of lifestyle.
Earlier when I was saying that living away from nature people become confused, they no longer have strength of character. They no longer have honor. And those are the things that make a performer dynamic and powerful and someone with conviction. When you play a man of honor -- and these are apparently the heroes of our time -- you'd better have it. If you don't have it, you can't make it up. It's not something you can fake. It's all a part of having your own principles and being an artist of originality.

GS: What did you think of Kevin Costner as a director?
JSL: He didn't direct us. Kevin Reynolds worked with us. Kevin Costner was the producer.

GS: He never went there?
JSL: He came. He tried to direct until I told Kevin Reynolds, ¡§Uh, aren't you the director, Kevin?¡¨ He said, ¡§Yeah.¡¨ I said, ¡§Well, there's another guy sitting there who's giving me directions so maybe you should go talk to him.¡¨ [laughs]

GS: What did Kevin Costner think of that?
JSL: He didn't know. I just kind of brushed him off. The moment I met him in Hollywood at his production office, I realized I probably wasn't going to work with him, not as a director per se. There was a feeling of speaking down to someone. I didn't care for that attitude. I think no matter how much experience you have, there's no sense in speaking down to someone. You don't create good communication.

GS: He's authoritarian?
JSL: I don't know if that's his entire character but it's what I felt with my introduction to him.

GS: When you were casting Rapa Nui, had Dragon come out?
JSL: No, it hadn't. I had just finished it.

GS: So you were working without much of a track record. How did you get cast?
JSL: I auditioned.

GS: They just recognized your physical abilities?
JSL: I don't know. Kevin Reynolds just said, ¡§I like what you did.¡¨ There's some merit to that.

GS: So the first movie you were cast in after your movies started coming out was Jungle Book.
JSL: Yeah. I had met the director, Stephen Sommers and the producer. They said they wanted me for the part. That's one I didn't have to audition.

GS: So you were already a big name at that point.
JSL: Yes and no. I guess, yeah. Not a big name but I was a new sensation. I was the new kid on the block.

GS: Was the money much better for Jungle Book?
JSL: Yeah, yeah. Triple maybe the amount I got.

GS: Almost seven figures.
JSL: No, no, but maybe triple the amount I got for Dragon.

GS: Did you enjoy working on Jungle Book?
JSL: Yeah, Jungle Book was sort of a highlight because it allowed me to work with animals and also gave me a sense of playing fantasy with something I had grown up in childhood with, the idea of Mowgli.

GS: Did you also like doing a film that was directed at a younger, less sophisticated audience?
JSL: I didn't take it that way. I wanted to do something a little more hardcore, like the reality of a boy being raised by wolves. That would have been more fascinating to me. That was the line of study I had taken. But when I read Stephen Sommers's script, I realized that wasn't going to be true. This was going to be for Disney per se and it was going to have that storybook feel to it. I just worked with it and fit into that style of performance.

GS: There was a Peter Pan quality in the way you played Mowgli, a pixielike quality.
JSL: Yeah, that's what they were going for. Once you started seeing the color, the costuming, the sets, and how the performers were doing each role, I thought, ¡§Well this is fitting for this one.¡¨ So you just play it a certain way.

GS: There was a kind of a hiatus after Jungle Book
JSL: Actually before Jungle Book.

GS: Why was there that hiatus?
JSL: I was exploring a personal relationship.

GS: Did that personal relationship go anywhere?
JSL: Yeah, straight down the tubes. [laughs]

GS: Are you married now?
JSL: No, no. No children.

GS: Can we ask who the personal relationship was with?
JSL: Of course not. [laughs]

GS: Is there a significant other to whom you will eventually get married?
JSL: No. No scandals, sorry. [laughs]

GS: You did The King and I on the stage in London. How did you get involved in that stage production?
JSL: They were doing it in New York and they originally asked me to open the show in New York. But I was skeptical about doing stage at that time and I had other film obligations, so I backed out. When they said they were going to do it in London, the timing was right. I accepted it because I had never done anything on a big stage, especially on a big stage in the West End of London. It was in one of the old Dame theaters and there was just a classic feel to it all with a classic tale of this King of Siam. And I had never sang on stage so I thought, ¡§This is going to be challenging, this is going to be scary, this is going to be great!¡¨ I went and started taking voice lessons and started feeling what it's like to play in a big space. I think actors should do a big stage production if they can.

GS: Did you enjoy it enough to do it again?
JSL: Yeah, I'd definitely do it again. I have a different perspective on it now. If you look back on a job or a role, you go, ¡§I could have done this or I could have done that!¡¨ At the time you don't think of it because you're caught up in the whole thing.

GS: Would you do the King of Siam role again?
JSL: Yeah, I'd do it in Hawaii. I'd love to do something like that in Hawaii.

GS: But you had to cut it short because your father died?
JSL: Yeah, my father was ill so I came home and took care of him. I helped out my mom. I didn't fulfill my one-year obligatioin but I did about six months.

GS: Are you close to your family?
JSL: We're not the Waltons but we're close enough. We talk. We're not estranged from each other.

GS: It's said you speak Chinese.
JSL: The only Chinese I learned is from the martial arts. I know a little Spanish, a little French and a little Russian. I know a little Japanese but not Chinese.

GS: Have you ever felt obligated to represent Asian Americans?
JSL: Yeah. A lot of the Asian American population is struggling to get recognition. Whenever they have someone who can raise a torch to their cause, they put a lot of responsbility on that person. And I think that person in a way has been me.

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