Neal McDonough Interview

By: Izumi Hasegawa

Izumi Hasegawa: The Street Fighter game is very popular in Japan.  Are you aware how popular the film is as well?

Neal McDonough: I know it’s huge over there. It already sold out the opening weekend in Japan. In Tokyo, there isn’t a theater you can buy a ticket. It’s pretty big. I hope it’s the same here in Los Angeles.

IH: How familiar are you with this game?

NM: I didn’t know anything about it…I mean, obviously I knew what Street Fighter was, ’cause it’s this huge phenomenon and, in the gaming industry, it’s as big as it gets, but I never played the game and I didn’t see the original film. I think, when they asked me to do it, they really liked the idea that I hadn’t seen it because we wanted to make a fresh take on Street Fighter yet stay with the core of what the game was. By doing so, we made Bison into a really wonderfully layered, scary villain. We tried to make him much more of a Richard Branson type by being all put together — an excellent businessman… If you saw him walking down the street, you would think, “Wow, I would love to be that guy.” And then, of course, we veer Bison off into a different direction, and I didn’t play Bison evil at all — I played him like a businessman and some things had to be taken care of, and there are some businessmen who have to cut corners. For Bison, at times, he has to cut people…literally. It has no emotion towards that — it’s just business, and he’s going to take over the world and no one’s going to stop him. To play someone with such conviction and such goals for himself was really great to play. And then, when I saw it the other day, I was like, “Oh my gosh, he’s so scary to watch.” It really worked, so I’m very happy with what Ashok [Amritraj] and Patrick [Aiello] did as producers and what Andrzej [Bartkowiak] did as a director to really make a great new take on Bison.

IH: As far as the action goes, how much training did you have for the martial arts stuff?

NM: We trained for a good bit while we were there, but I’m a pretty athletic guy and I’m always up for the challenge. I’m always doing action stuff anyway, so I always stay in pretty darn good shape — running and stretching and sports and stuff — so it wasn’t such a challenge. The one challenge of it was getting the kicking. You know, being a Western athlete, I wasn’t well-versed in really stretching your legs or getting your hips to open that high and be able to kick, so for months, that’s what I worked on every day. For those kicking shots, they had to look real, and if I didn’t get my leg up and open up enough, it wouldn’t have looked real. I think we got it perfect. When I kick through the air, that was just a great moment. It was cool.

IH: You had training with someone else for the martial arts…?

NM: Dion [Lam], the choreographer who also did the Matrix movies and Crouching Tiger, had his guys working with me every day and making sure I was in the right shape, and it worked. Boy, I saw the fight the other night, and it was visceral. It’s like Bison just wanted to kill and just destroy Chun-Li. Of course, that didn’t happen. And the fights with Gen [Robin Shou] were just raw, and although it looked so raw, it was choreographed to look that way, and my hat’s off to Dion for doing such a good job.

IH: You said you play one of the few characters who has scenes with every other kind of character. Was there someone who you particularly enjoyed working with, or certain scenes that you just really loved?

NM: Well, Michael [Clarke Duncan] and I have been buddies for a long time, so to work with him, we just had a blast. It was always just fun, fun, fun. It’s infectious when you work with a guy like Michael. He’s terrific. And then, of course, I worked with Kristin [Kreuk], who was tireless. She worked 15-hour days six days a week for three months, and she never complained. She always worked hard and it was wonderful. Everyone that I worked with was really terrific.

IH: Your character speaks several languages.

NM: Japanese also, that’s right. [Laughs] Japanese, Russian, Thai, Chinese…we did Swedish, but that part got cut out. Yeah, and it was great. The Russian was probably the most challenging scene because they gave me the dialogue with a dialect coach and we worked on that for several weeks, and of course when it was time for filming, they changed the dialogue around and I really had to hone in my dialect for Russian to make sure that scene worked, and that was the toughest scene I had to do and we did it in one take.  I nailed it in the first shot and it was perfect, and I was very proud of that.

IH: Did you actually study language a little bit, or did you just memorize the lines?

NM: Phonetically I’m very good at. I can’t speak Russian to save my life, but I would spell everything out phonetically in my own phonetic alphabet, and that’s how I would really get to it, and just listen to it over and over and over, and it worked really well. That scene with my daughter was pretty terrific.

IH: What about filming in Thailand? What was that like for you?

NM: Well, for my character to have such greed and want and desire and to live in a place that is completely the opposite, where the people of Thailand are mostly Buddhists and they’re all just kind of calm and happy to be alive type of thing, where I want so much and I’m just miserable as Bison and where you go down the street every day and you see so many people who live with nothing and they all seem so happy… I think that’s the difference between the East and the West. The West are so, “Okay, what’s next?” or complain about what we have and it’s not good enough, where there, this is life and enjoy it, you never know what’s up and it’s very fragile. So for my character, it was particularly good for my acting to be living there. If we shot here in Los Angeles, I never would have had that, and I’m glad I did, and more so for myself to learn a different culture for those months and to bring my family over there, and to be embraced by so many people and be so welcomed — it was really terrific. It’s something I’ll never forget.

IH: How many weeks were you there?

NM: A little over three months.

IH: And the food? [Laughs]

NM: I could eat Thai food all day long. I love Thai food. Pao is like meat with basil and chilis and such, and that was basically my staple and that’s what I really like to eat. But lots of fruits and vegetables and meat dishes, and that’s what I kind of live on anyway, and it was great for me.

IH: There are so many Thai restaurants in LA…

NM: We’re right around the corner from my favorite restaurant in town, Chan Dara. It’s just terrific food, and we were there two nights ago and we were there three nights ago. [Laughs] They have takeout.

IH: Where is it?

NM: There are a couple of them, actually. There’s one right up on Sunset, and there’s one in like Eastern, Hancock Park area. But it’s pretty great. You must try it.

IH: For the action sequences, are you the kind of actor who likes to try to do as much of the stunts as he can, or do you let the stuntman do their job…?

NM: I try to do everything. I think it’s being the youngest of six kids, that we were all so rough with each other, and five boys and one girl, so when it comes to that kind of stuff, it’s like sports for me. I want to get in there and run with the ball and hit the home-run. So for me, we choreographed it so much that I knew I wasn’t going to get hurt, but I really liked doing that kind of thing and I always have, from Walking Tall or any of the films of Band Of Brothers – I like to get in there and do my dirty work.

IH: Did they give you some sort of backstory information about Michael’s character, your character, and Robin Shou’s character?

NM: Yeah, there was a basic outline of what Bison was and where he came from and what he had to do, so what we did is infuse some more stuff to that. Instead of being in the big red suit, we said, “Okay, what’s more updated?” and we decided he came from Ireland and his parents are missionaries, and then they moved to Bangkok to do holy work and they died, and I was left in Bangkok by myself at a very young age, and as soon as I got enough money, I went back to Ireland and schooled myself and learned all kinds of things. But by that point, I’d already sold my soul. And then, as soon as I amassed enough power, I was going to come back to Bangkok — the place that treated me badly — and treat it badly, and squash it, and then that’s kind of the goal for Bison.

IH: Did you get some information between your character and Michael Clarke Duncan and Robin Shou’s? Because Robin Shou’s character used to work with you…

NM: Oh yeah, we were a team. We were the team of evil, and now that he’s gone off to the good side… We all knew what our characters were and where we were going and where we came from, and we all came from the same kind of place together, and it made for pretty terrific acting and a fun film to make.

IH: Do you want to talk about what you do now on TV or other movies — things you might have coming up?

NM: Yeah, right now, we’re almost finished with the season on [Desperate] Housewives. We’ve got five episodes left, and that’s just been a ball. To stay in town and work is a blessing itself because I get to hang out with my wife Ruve and my kids, and that’s my favorite thing on Earth. And to get to work with great actors on Housewives and be part of such a cool storyline, I’m having a wonderful year. This is obviously the year of the villain for Neal McDonough, but the year before that was the year of Tin Man – I played a good guy in that, so who knows what’s in store for me next, but I’m very fortunate and very blessed, especially in this environment.

IH: Do you know how much longer you’ll be on Housewives? I know Conan O’Brien is supposed to be moving into the stage next door, and he talked about incorporating more things with the cast there…

NM: That’s right. I can’t say how much longer I’ll be on, but I’m supposed to be just for one season. I’m not so sure of that anymore, but I’m having a wonderful time doing it, and to play this type of character has just been fun.

IH: Did you watch Housewives before you joined the cast?

NM: No, I didn’t. Kind of like Street Fighter, I knew what it was — it was huge. Desperate Housewives is the number one show in the world really, and so no, I never really watched it before. I don’t really go to films or watch TV that much. I draw from myself and my personal life as an actor, instead of so much from other films.

IH: So the Housewives is kind of like a chick TV show…?

NM: Not this year. Have you seen this year’s show?

IH: I did not this year.

NM: I’m causing lots of death and destruction on the show this year, and to play a multi-personality type of character that I have been, it’s pretty amazing, and the challenges that you have in playing a character with multiple personalities are fun. It makes me realize how fortunate I am to be who I am. So yeah, it’s great to be part of it.

IH: Do you have any hope for a Street Fighter franchise?

NM: Oh yeah. If they want to make more Street Fighters, I’ll be first in line to sign up for it. And who knows? So hopefully it does really well at the box office and we’ll have this discussion, but what was number two like in a year so, who knows? Fingers crossed.