Interview with RZA, writer/director/star of The Man with the Iron Fists

“I said to [Quentin] Tarantino, I want to do what you do.” That is what the acclaimed music producer and leader of the Wu-Tang Clan turned director RZA said when asked how his new project movie The Man with the Iron Fists came to be.

RZA (aka, Robert Diggs) studied Tarantino for two years on set to learn from the man he affectionately refers to as the “Godfather” of the samurai movies. Shortly after his hands-on filmmaker schooling, RZA began writing Iron Fists with horror filmmaker Eli Roth (Hostel, Hostel: Part II, Cabin Fever). A few weeks ago, RZA sat down with us to chat about his new movie. Immediately, his enthusiasm for the film is apparent, and it’s contagious. He has clearly found a new love and is infatuated with the filmmaking process. His excitement is reminiscent of a little boy on Christmas morning. It becomes obvious that he cares about his movie, the people involved in making it, and for his audience as well. He wants everyone to feel the same excitement that he felt when he first saw films like Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, Kill Bill, and Death Proof. All movies that are similar to The Man with the Iron Fists and combine RZA’s love for a specific style of filmmaking and his love of kung fu, which began at an early age.

We sit down and right off the bat, RZA comments on the old school tape recorder that one of us has brought to record the interview. It just so happens that the writer is having problems with his technology, and it conjures up a nice memory for RZA.

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RZA: Nice Man! That was my foundation. Get a tape recorder, get a set of comic-books, and rap.

PRESS: Do you have it still?

RZA:ODB’s (Old Dirty Bastard’s) brother might have it, it was at his house. We would record on that.

CinemaNerdz: How about the kung fu movies? Is that when you watched all of those?

RZA: In those days, we had Saturday morning Kung Fu Theater, and I would stay over at his house because his mom had a job and they always had pancakes. I would stay the weekends and we would watch kung fu together and fight it with each other. Then at night, we would make demo tapes – we would rap about it.

CinemaNerdz: I like the movie poster for the film.

RZA: Thank you, thank you. Our team is so great – they are really creative with the art. They’ve been doing a great job with the energy of this thing.

PRESS: I like the tagline too! “You can’t spell Kung Fu without F and U.”

RZA: I was nervous about that tagline. In China and Hong Kong I did a martial arts video, and I got approached by martial artists. They take it very seriously there. You heard the story about Bruce Lee coming to fight there. That’s part of their culture. I said I hope nobody wants to come and f**k me up! But it [the tagline] has been going over well.

CinemaNerdz: Can you tell us how this film came to be? You co-wrote it with Eli [Roth]….

RZA: I thought of the story in my head – I actually wrote it out. I talked about it with Eli and he saw this whole vision. I’m not a screenwriter, it is not in my repertoire – I was just hoping I was good at it.

CinemaNerdz: I’m not surprised, you seem to do everything!

RZA: Eli agreed to come and help me. We spent about a year together. We would just sit wherever we were at and write until we got to a format that was presentable to movie studios. We wanted them to see the same vision that we did. I think we did it. I know we did. That’s the beginning of this. And it goes back to me being a nine-year-old kid and watching kung fu movies, having an imagination about it and dreaming I was a kung fu fighter. Then when I got to Hollywood with Ghost Dog with Jim Jarmusch, and then Kill Bill with Quentin all this stuff got me to realize that it was possible for me to bring this passionate project to life. When Quentin asked me to work on the music for Kill Bill, he said to me “I like the way you do it. I want you to produce my soundtrack, and my score.” Quentin said that he loved Wu-Tang and was a big fan. I said no problem, but I like what you do as well. The way you think in your mind, I would love to become your student in filming.

I went to China when they filmed Kill Bill. I took notes and sat in the corner. I talked to the crew, same as I did with Jim Jarmusch. For this movie, Iron Fists, we got specialty makeup Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger, they do The Walking Dead now, but I met them on the set of Death Proof. I seen them doing their work and I thought wow, why keep it classical in the age of digital? They felt that the classical was going to last longer than the digital that has break-up over the years. If you watch Ghostbusters – Slimer don’t look like Slimer no more! I told them, “When I do my movie I want to hire you guys!” Then a few years later when I got my budget, I said, “I want those guys!”

CinemaNerdz: Were you always the director of this movie – even when you were writing it with Eli?

RZA: Yes. I wrote it to be the director. Eli believed in me as a director and Quentin said I graduated. It was always the plan for me to direct it, however, to act in it was not always the plan. It wasn’t a solid plan in my mind. Really the producers said, “Oh no Bobby, you’re the blacksmith.” I mean, I could do it of course, but I’m doing other things. I have my hands full! It was a challenge, and when I do something I study it. I was called to act in the movie Derailed personally by Howard Weinstein, he called my house. I went to a coach immediately after that. I read books. There’s actually a great book by Tony Barr called Acting for the Camera, and it has great exercises in it. I got the book and I would hang with Method Man – he had already made movies, he’s a star already. I would practice with him. The book had information about how you just take words and change them around.

Here’s an example “good morning, what’s for breakfast – eggs. Have a good day.” That’s how that would go – it sounds like I’m going to work. Now, I do the same scene like I just had great sex last night. Now say the same thing and somebody died last night. Those exercises were invaluable to me. Then I met coaches. One coach that I met, a female coach, gave me a piece of information that when it came time to write my screenplay with Eli, because of what she told me as an acting coach, it helped me in the writing process. I don’t mind sharing things because people shared with me, knowledge should be free. This, for a small part in Repo Men, she said, “what your character is making a song, and after that song they are going to pump you and take his f***in’ heart out. What you have to do in your mind is create the history of this character and the reason for him that we [the audience] would never know. If you can create that and believe that history, it will come through your acting.” And what I did [in Repo Men] was become a lost father looking for his missing daughter. When I look at the film I do look like that. I look like a lost man definitely.

We were writing, we said why is Lady Silk, Jamie Chung’s character, the way she is? In the movie you don’t see this, but she’s a f***in’ orphan. Her mother is kidnapped to the brothels and her father kills himself because of his gambling debt. Her mother doesn’t want to do it, so she kills herself in front of her and gives her some words of wisdom about men. And that is the mentality behind that character. You have to write that for each character. That’s what helped me evolve from the writer to the actor then to the director. It was a challenging process and a tedious one. I got a lot of opposition from my music buddies, my partners. I do have a music company; I do have the Wu-Tang Company which me and my brothers are partners in. He would say, “when are you coming back to make another album? F**k this movie s**t. You are making millions in music, why would you want to walk away from that and do this?” I said, “It’s not about the money. My heart is in this [acting and directing].”

PRESS: When people see the film are they going to be able to tell it was Tarantino influenced?

RZA: Yeah, you are gonna blame him for some stuff. You’re gonna blame Eli for some of the stuff and also me. The funny thing is you are going to be blaming the wrong people for the wrong reasons!

CinemaNerdz: Can you talk a little bit about the gore factor in this movie? Eli likes the gore, that’s kind of what he’s known for.

RZA: We are definitely not shy with the gore. I was like put that in, I need more.

CinemaNerdz: So you started needing more? I would think that would’ve been Eli’s part!

RZA: Exactly! This is a rated R film. We didn’t want NC-17, but I just got the DVD the other day and we just put back in about fifteen more minutes of the film, which includes some nice gore.

PRESS: The first cut of the film was four hours. Is there a longer cut that we will see in the future?

RZA: There will be a longer cut that will come on the DVD. That four-hour cut was me as a first time director loving everything that I did. That’s like your son, he may need to cut his hair, but he’s your son and he’s beautiful to you. You don’t see those flaws. But there are flaws. This was my first big endeavor and surrounded myself with a great group of people and I was not shy to take advice. I was like, “we should make two movies out of this!” Like Kill Bill I’ve seen what Quentin did. Eli was like, “Bobby, that took years to get there.” He was like, “I’ve done the four hour cut, I’ve been there, you have to go in and cut it and streamline that story.” Eli said, “you have a long shot, too long, where these guys were walking into the Forbidden City,” and he was right I did have a long shot, I mean you could’ve eaten a whole f***in’ Snickers bar during that shot!

PRESS: So are you happy with the final cut?

RZA: Oh yeah, I’m definitely happy with it. There’s a few things that I thought the audience would enjoy that aren’t there, but I got them back into the DVD. The film is about 96 minutes, the story is there, the action is there, the spirit is there – there was no compromising, [editing] was only an issue of style.

CinemaNerdz: Do you find that it is really hard to be in a movie and also be its director? I don’t think people talk enough about this. You are a first-time director and you are also in it, so who do you go to to guide you through your performance since you cannot see it?

PRESS: Along those lines, how is directing yourself versus directing other people?

RZA: The difficult part was that some days I had to direct someone in the morning, then after lunch, I would have to get into costume and get ready for my part. And I’m a director worrying about everything else and now I have to be ready to act. I would have to breathe, relax and focus on myself. Eli stayed with me through the whole shoot. If I ever felt nervous about anything, I would just ask him, “Yo man, do you think I logged that right?” [Eli would say,] “Bobby you’re doing great.” So I just let myself be free as an actor. But the funny thing is I would get into the character, he was quiet, deep kind of morbid and I would be acting and suddenly be like “cut, cut, cut!” “Hold up, is Eli watching the monitor? Tell him to turn that s**t off.” It was like that. There was one scene with me and Jamie [Chung] and every eye in that room was on the monitor. It was her first day and she had all of that beautiful s**t on. Who wouldn’t be on the monitor right? And I’m supposed to have some interaction with her and it took sixteen takes. It was the most takes I did for the film. All for this one f***in’ line. That’s a record. The thing was that I felt too many eyes were pulling away. I was conscious of it, but I didn’t have a director to f***in’ fly with me. Do you know what I mean? I just had to learn how to channel myself and then bring myself back. I don’t know if you’ve seen me on Californication but I did that so easy because of what I went through on Iron Fists. So [directing] definitely made me a better everything. It really helped. But no it was not an easy job.

PRESS: So it comes out in a few weeks and you’ve said that this movie is your baby. How are you feeling?

RZA: I’m definitely nervous. I was nervous to make the film. It is a nerve-racking thing when people trust you with large sums of money and expect you to bring back a decent product. I’m nervous for the fact that it ain’t just for myself. I’ve got Russell Crowe’s trust in me to come on board for the film and of course it’s very different from other films that he’s done. I’ve got Chung Le who is an established fighter, Rick Yune who is always a villain and I’m like, “I want you to be the hero.” Lucy Liu, I’ve got to give her credit for flying to China. It was not easy to get her. She put some trust in me. So, then you’ve got the studio, and about 400 people including the cast and crew. The Chinese government, they don’t even green light American movies over there – even Harvey Weinstein has a hard time doing Marco Polo right now. He called me and was like what the f**k did you do to get it? So the success of it is important to me just not to me because I’ve already accomplished it. I’ve achieved the dream. But the success of it commercially is important so that all of the people who have invested their time and trust in me can feel the gratitude coming from the people. I’m nervous about that. That’s why I’m like “please, please, please, please, please go see my movie November 2nd!”

CinemaNerdz: What do you do when you have that doubt? When you think this movie is going to rock, or maybe not. Do you ever get that way?

RZA: It’s not about doubt, the future is always uncertain. Do you know what I mean? It’s still nervousness. Even if it does do big, there’s still nervousness. That’s a different kind of pressure that would come on me then too. One thing I like about my kind of celebrity is that I’m the kind of celebrity that can go to Starbucks, shake a few hands and that’s cool but it ain’t no paparazzi looking at me. Do you know what I mean? If I go to the strip club in Atlanta like I did the other night, I can get in there and just get out. (Laughs) I like that. Sometimes the bigger the thing gets, you lose freedom. I worry about that as well. I’ve got a lot of calculating to do. I want it to be successful for everyone involved. I know one thing, it’s a fun movie. I will not say that just cuz I made it. I saw the first 35 minutes sitting beside Quentin and I was nervous as a f**k because he is the godfather but it didn’t take more than six or seven minutes and he was laughing, full out. He was into it.

PRESS: Is this something that you feel that you’re dabbling in or do you see yourself doing more films? Do you see a future in directing?

RZA: I see a future in it. I see that I’ve graduated college. Do you know what I mean? Music was something that I did all my life. I felt like I proved that already. We’ve got platinum records we got Grammys, nominated for Oscars and BAFTAs. On film, this is like my new love, my new girl. You know how it is with your new girl – you want to do it every night. This is my calling, if I’m allowed to do it. I don’t control everything, but if there’s a spot for me, I will take it. I love it.

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See writer/director/star RZA’s new film
The Man with the Iron Fists in theaters beginning November 2, 2012!