Acting Like Fighters
When Cung Le began pre-empting his Strikeforce middleweight title defense to further his acting career, the critics – although frustrated – remained patient with him. Le was a character the likes of which the MMA had not yet seen. But since he defeated Frank Shamrock 18 months ago, a shift has developed that has slowly but surely eroded mixed martial arts. More and more fighters are keeping one eye on fighting and the other on greener pastures, namely Hollywood.
That’s a problem for a young sport still finding its footing.
Last week, MMAweekly wrote that Jason David Frank, a former actor in the children’s fantasy martial arts television program “Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers,” has been training for years to enter the cage professionally. Fast on the heels of that revelation were two more. The first was that former UFC light-heavyweight champ Quinton “Rampage” Jackson was willing to postpone another shot at his former title in order to play Mr. T’s role in the film version of “The A-Team.” The second was that the face of women’s MMA, Gina Carano, scored the lead in an upcoming Steven Soderbergh (“Ocean’s 11″) film “Knockout.”
Much of this move toward acting has to do with the way MMA has marketed its stars as personalities. It’s similar to professional wrestling, another form of entertainment that has yielded its fair share of Hollywood stars (sadly, Koko B. Ware wasn’t one of ‘em). Another reason for the shift is the economics. Would you rather get $750K to get cracked in the face or $3 million to pretend you are?
In a recent interview, probably given as he was finding a replacement for Jackson in the main event of UFC 107, the organization’s president, Dana White, dropped this nugget:
“I hate it with a [expletive] passion. You’re a fighter; you’re not a movie star. It’s so [expletive] funny because fighters want to be movie stars, and movie stars want to act like they’re fighters. This [expletive] drives me [expletive] nuts. So yeah, I’m not a big fan of fighters doing movies. When your career is over, if you turn into a movie star, that’s awesome. Guess what Rashad Evans is thinking about right now, he’s thinking about beating [Jackson's] [expletive] ass. He’s not sitting around thinking about how him and his mom used to watch the [expletive] ‘Love Boat’ together and (how) he wants to get the role of Isaac the bartender.”
After the jump are four fighters who would probably kill to play Isaac the bartender.
Cung Le
You know how I can tell Cung is Holywood material?
He reached a certain level of status in his profession and immediately wanted to branch off into totally unrelated fields, leaving behind everything and everyone that got him to that point to begin with …
Yup. Sounds like Hollywood to me. All that’s left for him to do now is to start designing handbags.
Gina Carano
Besides her Peabody Award-worthy work on “American Gladiators,” it must have been Carano’s physical beauty that got her the role in the Soderbergh picture. I do say, it’s high time Hollywood sought out the attractiveness of cage fighters so the filmgoing public no longer has to suffer with the worn-down ruggedness of Hollywood starlets. But really, has someone checked to make sure Soderbergh’s hands are still on the proverbial wheel here? Carano is known for being camera shy, not known for owning any acting skills and can’t possibly be a bigger box office draw than say, Meryl Streep, Amy Adams or Mandy Moore … you know, girls that really kick butt in their films.
Perhaps they’ve hired her for her physicality, but then what are stunt women for? And what’s the difference between a bad actor who does his or her own stunt and a stunt person starring in their own movie? And does anyone have Jackie Chan‘s phone number?
Jason David Frank
Look, it’d be too easy to make a bunch of Dragonzord jokes. We don’t go for the obvious yuks here at Sidelines … we’re above that and – oh, who am I kidding? The only way this could be a good thing for fans is if a scale-model city scape is created within the cage and Mr. Frank and his opponent wear rubber suits and smash stuff. You’re laughing but think about it for a second. It’s sinking in, right? There it is. Doesn’t sound so bad at second blush, huh? Now you want the Pay-Per-View. Oh my God, I’m gunning for Dana White’s job.
Quinton “Rampage” Jackson
I suppose I should be thankful Jackson’s in this movie because otherwise this role probably would have gone to Tyrese. Still, it’s not like Mr. T had big shoes to fill and I don’t know why they had to exit Hollywood to find a muscle-y black actor to drive Ray (Ralph) Fiennes and Bradley Cooper around. I mean, Samuel L. Jackson was pretty upset about all the snakes on that plane and I’m sure he would have worn a mohawk. He had no problem donning goofy wigs in “Soul Men,” “Jumper” or “Pulp Fiction.” Even a Wayans? Are you telling me no Wayans would have done the A-Team movie? There are, like, a dozen brothers in that family – they could have cast one Wayan per scene.
On the plus side, it’s totally promising that they replaced a moderately charismatic former bouncer with a moderately charismatic cage fighter. One word: Growth. Also, thank goodness LL Cool J wasn’t cast in this. Rappers might have made the film seem silly to close-minded audiences.
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Photos courtesy of Flickr
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