Ernie Reyes Jr. Meets World

If you loved martial arts movies in the ‘90s, you were undoubtedly impressed by the punches and kicks of a young Ernie Reyes Jr. And now the gang is hanging out with the man himself, talking about all his iconic roles, from Red Sonja (alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger) to a movie that changed Will’s life forever, The Last Dragon. 

 

Ernie also shares the secrets of the ooze with stories from both working as Donatello’s stunt double and starring in a Teenage Mutsnt Ninja Turtles movie! And you won’t believe how it all began - right alongside his legendary father, choreographer Ernie Reyes Sr.

All this, and we do our own stunts - right here on Pod Meets World!

Follow @podmeetsworldshow on Instagram and TikTok!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:18):
So I didn't talk about it when we were interviewing
Alisa but Alisa Donovan Alisa Donovan from Clueless and many
other things. Uh, because I was I had to like
think it through and like try to remember. But Clueless
is one of those movies that I was such an
idiot about and completely misread when I was a teenager,

(00:42):
Like I walked out of the theater going, what a
dumb like superficial, vapid, Like I just missed all the irony.
I don't know what was going on. I was probably
what fifteen sixty, like super serious rider mode and it's
so embarrassing, and I didn't I should have just probably
talked to her about it because I don't know. But
now i've been thinking about it, I'm like, you, no,

(01:02):
I have to admit this because here's what happened. So
I saw it back then and I hated it, and
I remember kind of just always rolling my eyes, like
completely not getting it. And then whatever. Three years later
in college, I signed up for a class. I ended
up not sticking through it, but I signed up for
a class called women in Film, and it.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Was actually through that one.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Huh, No, I wanted.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
To it was just my but what happened also discriminated against.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Well here's the thing. It was really interesting. So there's
a sister college, Barnard to Columbia, which is an all
girls school, and it's right across the street from the campus.
It's the campus right across the street, and we can
share classes, so you can take BARNERD classes, Barnard can
take Columbia classes. It's kind of ridiculous that it's a
separate Why are they calling it because it's like it's
the idea is that it's like a safe space for women.

(01:51):
It's like only no, not into that school, but you
can take classes there. Classes, So like I could sign
up for a class there, and they could sign up
for classes at Columbia. So it's like they you know,
but as far as dorms, as far as like greens
and all the like school stuff, it's completely separate. Yeah,
it's a bizarre system. But I signed up for this
women in Film class and I get there at Barnard

(02:12):
and of course I am the only guy in a
class of maybe like fifty.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
Women fifty and it sounds ideal.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah, well no, it was super interesting. But what I
realized is like very quickly I was like, gonna become
the voice of the man, like the voice of a
male in the room, and I was like, I don't
know how to play like I don't know how to
play against that or into that. Anyway. I only lasted
like three classes. But the first movie we watched was Clueless,
and it was so funny because I'm sitting there going, oh,

(02:41):
I hated this movie. This is this is gonna be awful.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
I can't believe these women who want to study film,
this is the movie they pick.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
But I just didn't get it right exactly. And then
watched it and fell in love with it, and I
was like, this movie is brilliant. What the hell was
I thinking? And of course it is sort of this
feminist master piece. It has all this life, you know,
so we're The discussion was incredible, and like hearing all
these smart college women like talking about how much this
movie meant to that it was like but anyway, it

(03:09):
was like one of those examples of like and don't
I don't have many of these where I've completely misread
something and gone back and been like, oh, I was
so wrong about that book for that movie. Have you
guys ever had this experience I got a great one.
Oh yeah, tell us.

Speaker 4 (03:23):
So uh it was not long after nine to eleven,
and everybody's just trying to get.

Speaker 3 (03:32):
And everyone's yeah, some their life.

Speaker 4 (03:35):
Kind of back a little bit, and and so Greg
and I were like, let's go to the movies. You know,
I was living with my brother at the time, Like,
let's get out, go to the movies and try to
have some semblance of normalcy again.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
And we sat in there and.

Speaker 4 (03:48):
Watched this movie staring at each other like, this is
the worst thing I've ever seen in my life.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
How does anyone find this funny?

Speaker 4 (03:58):
And then when we watched it again at home, were
howling and we're like, this is one of the funniest
movies I've ever seen.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
Zoolander.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
Oh yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:06):
The first time we saw Zoolander, we were looking at
each other like, what is happening?

Speaker 1 (04:11):
This which a lot that way because it bombed right
like it didn't do it. It's a classic. No, It's
like one of those films that like I remember if
you get the DVD for it, because I love that movie.
I remember watching the DVD and it's the like when
you click on the extras page, you hear Ben Ziller
as Zoolander go like, if you're watching this page, you're
one of hundreds of people who wanted more from Yeah,

(04:34):
but it.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
Is, I mean it is.

Speaker 4 (04:36):
The second time we saw it, we were fun crying, laughing,
like howling and look at each other going how did
we not get this?

Speaker 3 (04:43):
And we figured it.

Speaker 4 (04:43):
Was I can tell you exactly how because we were
it was. We were in a weird headspace. We were
in the theater. There's like the first time kind of
out in public, and somebody left a backpack near us
and then got up and left the theater, probably to
go to the bathroom.

Speaker 3 (04:57):
Or killing candy or something.

Speaker 4 (04:58):
You're just like finding each other and like staring at
this whole thing going on. So there was a lot
going on. So the next time we saw it, though,
we were just yeah, crying.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
I feel like this happens with comedy though, right, Like
sometimes you just miss it and then other times you're
like in the right head space or the right age
or whatever and you just love it.

Speaker 5 (05:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
Jensen walked out of the movie Step Brothers. It was
like this is so bad, I'm walking out of it.
And now it is one of his all time favorite comedies.

Speaker 3 (05:28):
I have we're not just talking about films and stuff.

Speaker 5 (05:30):
Though.

Speaker 3 (05:30):
I found something very strange lately where all of.

Speaker 4 (05:33):
A sudden, out of nowhere, I love fish.

Speaker 3 (05:40):
Never before always like watching eating fish. I never like.
I was like, oh, I'm not a fish guy.

Speaker 4 (05:48):
I could eat salmon and I could eat sushi and
that was it, some tuna fish. But now somebody puts
fish in front of me, and I'm like, it's oh
my god, I'd love it.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
What about fish? The band a little bit anti so
I'm at the Greek Yeah, and you're wrong.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
You were wrong about fish, and now yeah fish. I've
never been wrong about anything, so I can't participate in
this conversation.

Speaker 3 (06:10):
But that's that's fair. Sorry, it's so weird.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
You know what. I don't like a lot of Bill
Murray movies, and I don't think. I don't think I'm
wrong about them though, that's like.

Speaker 4 (06:32):
Yeah, not even old Bill Murray movies like Rousebusters and.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
Ghostbusters is fine. Like The Life Aquatic, No, I wasn't.

Speaker 3 (06:40):
I don't enjoy that movie. I wasn't a huge fan
of those either.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
What's the other movie where he's like chasing after Scarlet
Johansson or something. I didn't like that movie translation.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
Doesn't age very well. I like it at the time,
but I've tried to watch it since, and I'm like,
this feels very two thousand and two wish or whatever.
I just like it felt very.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
Two thousand and two. In two thousand and two, I
was like, this is just not for me, so like, yeah,
and that I know there are a lot of people
who love those movies, and I haven't watched them since
I watched them the first time, because it's hard enough
to get me to watch a movie. You try to
get me to watch a movie again that I already
didn't like.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
Oh my god. Yeah, I couldn't imagine.

Speaker 4 (07:20):
Well, here's what I would say, because I kind of
agree with you, and I bet you'd probably agree with
me in this. I much prefer blockbuster Bill Murray to
independent Bill Murray.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
One hundred percent. But you know me, I'm miss blockbuster.

Speaker 3 (07:32):
Yeah, I love a blockbuster the same way I prefer
Ghostbusters Bill Murray to Life and Film.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
Totally.

Speaker 3 (07:40):
Yeah, totally, I'm the same way.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
Welcome to Pod Meets World. I'm Daniel Fischhel, I'm writer Strong,
and I'm wil Fordell.

Speaker 4 (07:47):
Dunk Dunk Dunk, Got dunk, I start doing this, iHeart music,
Start doing the iHeart music.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
We often talk about what it takes to be a
child star. Determination, a bubbly personality, a family willing to

(08:14):
give up a large chunk of their personal lives, and,
in the case of this week's guest, the ability to
kill another man with his bare hands. At the ripe
old age of eleven, Yep, the martial arts prodigy went
straight from the karate mat at his dad's studio to Hollywood,
first appearing in the nineteen eighty five cult classic The
Last Dragon.

Speaker 3 (08:34):
Don't Get Me started, a movie.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
That Will has repeatedly professed his love for, and then
he turned that role into a run of movies that
cemented him as the kid you called when you needed
a karate master. Whether it was sharing the screen with
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Red Sonja, or starring in the TV
show Sidekicks, or yes, hanging out with the freaking teenage

(08:57):
mutant Ninja Turtles as their human best friend. The industry
found a little action star and audiences fell in love
with him. You'd also see him on TV shows like
Highway to Heaven, Mcgiver, Charmed and Superstore, and movies like
Rush Hour too, the Rundown and Say It with Me serves.

(09:22):
This week we welcome the toughest person we have ever
had on the show. Sorry, Bonnie Bartlett, it is Ernie
Reyes Junior. Ye, how are you.

Speaker 5 (09:37):
Guys?

Speaker 2 (09:38):
Oh man, we are great. It's so good to see
you again. Writer was not with Will and I when
we ran into you at the Austin Comic Con. Yes,
and you were the absolute highlight of that weekend for us.
So we are so happy that you decided to us

(10:00):
on our podcast today. Uh, as far as we're aware,
you are the first black belt to ever be on
pod Meets World. But I do have to warn you.
Will and I recently went to about two karate classes
and then we and then we quit at the same time. Yeah,
I'm just I'm just putting that out there.

Speaker 3 (10:21):
For I realized my self defense.

Speaker 4 (10:22):
I just had to outrun Danielle and so that that
was pretty easy. After this, I was like, why am
I paying for this? I just had to push her
down and run that way.

Speaker 5 (10:30):
So yeah, right, Well, I appreciate you guys having me
and nice to meet.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
Yeah you too.

Speaker 2 (10:39):
So let's talk martial arts before we get into your acting.
So your father is a legendary taekwondo champion, and he
had Ernie Raya's West Coast World Martial Arts Studio here
in La right, it's.

Speaker 6 (10:52):
Actually based in northern California as San.

Speaker 2 (10:55):
Jose in San Jose, Okay, So did you did you
always feel as a kid like you had to live
in his shadow or had had to grow up to
be like him.

Speaker 6 (11:09):
I don't think so.

Speaker 5 (11:10):
You know, when I was a kid, you know, and
still my hero was Bruce Lee, and so from a
very early age, you know.

Speaker 6 (11:20):
He kind of set the blueprint for what I wanted
to do for the.

Speaker 5 (11:24):
Rest of my life, and that was to be, you know,
a martial arts action star like Bruce Lee. And my
dad was the one that facilitated making that happen because
I actually had the lifestyle that it would take in
order for me to accomplish that. So I didn't feel
like I was living in a shadow, but I definitely

(11:44):
felt like, you know, he was supporting me in basically
my lifelong dream.

Speaker 2 (11:49):
Oh, I love that.

Speaker 4 (11:51):
Can I ask when's the first time Bruce Lee came
on your radar? Was it a movie or were you
a Green Hornet fan? When's the first time you saw him?

Speaker 6 (11:59):
No, Greenhorn, it was a little bit before my time.

Speaker 5 (12:02):
I think the first time was actually seeing you know,
Enter the Dragon, and I think I actually saw it
in the drive in movie theater.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
And so how old were you when you first got
on the mat?

Speaker 5 (12:17):
Well, I mean, my father had a martial arts school
prior to me being born, so I literally came out kicking.
But you know, so prior to actually taking formal classes,
you're just arounded all the time, so you're just running
while everybody else is you know, practicing basically. But I

(12:39):
think that I actually started like formally training and around
six six years old. Seven years old.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
That's amazing. And so your was your family's introduction to
Hollywood when your father appeared in and was then subsequently
hired to choreograph the martial arts sequences in The Last Dragon.

Speaker 5 (12:57):
Well, no, actually, so what you know, we my father
had a kind of famous martial arts demonstration team called
the West Coast Demo Team.

Speaker 6 (13:06):
And what we would do.

Speaker 5 (13:07):
Is is we would travel every weekend all across the
country competing in martial arts tournaments.

Speaker 6 (13:13):
But we also would be you know, at the nighttime finals.

Speaker 5 (13:17):
We would also do a demonstration, so we would compete
during the day, and how it works in martial arts
tournaments back then was is you would compete during the day.
If you won your division, then everybody would come back
for the nighttime finals to compete for like a grand championship.

Speaker 6 (13:33):
So we would compete.

Speaker 5 (13:34):
During the day most of the time, win our divisions,
come back at night, perform as entertainment, and then also compete.

Speaker 6 (13:43):
And so we did.

Speaker 5 (13:44):
That, you know, every weekend for probably five years before
I even got into movies or television. And they were
filming the Barry Gordy's The Last Dragon, and they were
about three weeks away from finishing production and they were

(14:04):
they had yet to film the climactic fight scene and
they were looking to kind of bump up the action.
So we flew out to New York and basically did
a martial arts demonstration for Barry Gordy, all choreographed to music. Now,
this is something that we had been doing the last
five years every weekend in front of live audiences, so

(14:26):
we were very polished when it came to performing and
it was all choreographed to music. Prior to I'd say that,
you know, the late seventies martial arts demonstrations were very sterile,
very serious. It was very quiet, you know, and then
we came on and it was like disco music and
all We're doing skits and wearing wigs and really made

(14:47):
it more of a show. So we performed for you know,
Barry Gordy, and on the spot, he was like, Okay,
we're going to write this kid into the film.

Speaker 4 (14:56):
Oh yeah, so I was going to say, you were
not just in the final scene, You're a pretty major
character in the film by the end.

Speaker 5 (15:03):
Yeah. Yeah. They went back and you know, kind of
figured out different little ways to incorporate me into to
the movie. And the cool part about that was is
my first film was a movie that actually Bruce Lee
was in, and he wasn't even live at that point.

(15:24):
It was pretty It was pretty wild.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
Who introduced you guys to Barry Gordy.

Speaker 5 (15:29):
So I was doing a martial arts demonstration in Las
Vegas and after the martial arts after the demonstration, and
the crowd was kind of going crazy, and a lady
came up to my dad and said, does he speak English?

(15:52):
So she produced herself. Her name was Sally Baker. She's
a long time you know vet in Hollywood. She had shows,
you know, from the sixties called Hobo Kelly. She's just
a long time like industry veteran, and she said, you know,
I'm a manager and my husband and I work in
the industry. We think that your kid has talent. We'd

(16:13):
love to represent you know, your kid, to see if
there was something that we can do for him. At
that time, I was still competing and we were still traveling,
so as much as like the dream was there, we
weren't really in any position to like pursue a Hollywood career.
And so we said, thank you very much, but you know,
we're really not equipped to do anything like that at

(16:34):
this point, you know. And so five years went by
and we had kind of run our course in terms
of competing and doing demonstrations, and now it was like,
we're looking to do the next step. And my dad
had kept her card and calls her up five years
later and says, you know, we basically told her, now's

(16:57):
the time that we would like to, you know, pursue
you know, an entertainment career. And she was like, well,
you know, has he grown any And my Dad's like, no,
five years ago.

Speaker 3 (17:12):
One thing children are known for it's not growing.

Speaker 5 (17:17):
Yeah, And so she was the one who really ushered
me into Hollywood, had you know, the relationships with Motown
and Susanda Paz executive over there, and she was the
one that got the ball rolling.

Speaker 1 (17:31):
I'm so it's so fascinating to me to think about
martial arts as performance, you know, like because it sounds
like you didn't really separate the two. You know, you
were competing and doing shows, and I just feel like
the like we think about that with dancing, for instance,
pretty you know, if you're a dancer, you're also an actor.
If you're a singer, you're also an actor usually, But
this is so cool that were you were you separating them?

(17:54):
Were you more into competition before you you started doing
the film work or was it always kind of just
the same skill.

Speaker 5 (18:00):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (18:01):
No, I mean I always was.

Speaker 5 (18:03):
Yeah. And again it goes back to Bruce Lee for me,
you know, it was just like he had set the
bar so high and he was a real martial artist
even though he was a performing artist as well, and
so I was in the beginning, was really just trying
to be the best martial artist I could be. I
was like, I want to be like Bruce Lee, and
it was more about the skill set than it was

(18:25):
about like performing. But then they all they pretty like
quickly merged together, and then it was just I need
to get my skill level to the highest level it
possibly can be, and then that also supports me as
a performer entertainer. So it kind of just was all
one thing pretty early on.

Speaker 4 (18:45):
Well that's I mean, so Last Dragon was hugely important
in my life. It's massively important to me. It was
one of the first real martial that and Sho Kasugi's
movies like Revenge of the Ninja and things like that
just helped to craft who I was.

Speaker 3 (19:00):
And the thing that was so cool about The Last Dragon.

Speaker 4 (19:03):
It came out, what eighty five, So I was nine,
you were the best martial artist on screen.

Speaker 3 (19:11):
So there's a kid you were what eleven at the time, twelve?

Speaker 6 (19:15):
Yeah I was.

Speaker 5 (19:16):
I was twelve. Yeah I looked like I was.

Speaker 4 (19:19):
You looked a lot younger, but you're twelve, and so
I'm watching a kid who's by far the best martial
artist in the movie. I mean, I still I can
picture the double kick you do right now where you
jump off the stage and you kick the two guys
at the same time, and at nine years old, I'm
sitting there watching going that's.

Speaker 3 (19:36):
All I want.

Speaker 4 (19:37):
I want to be that guy. I want to be
that guy right there. And my dad because of this,
signed me up for my first karate class.

Speaker 3 (19:43):
Like two weeks after. I saw The Last Dragon nine
times in a row.

Speaker 4 (19:47):
But the thing that was so great is not only
were you the best martial artist in the film, but
you're one of the funniest characters in the film. You
were actually really funny. And the idea that this was
your first movie is insane to me. So if you
guys have not seen Last Dragon, you've got to go
what you have to go watch it. He steals the movie.
The martial arts is absolutely incredible. And then on top

(20:08):
of that, I learned how much I love women because
Vanity walks on screen and my life was forever change.
So Martial Arts and Vanity and then I'm sure Danielle
will get into it. But we got a chance to
work with the great Julius Carrey who was on our show,
and he must have hated me by the end of

(20:29):
working together because I was just going, Okay, what then,
what was it like working on Last Dragon?

Speaker 3 (20:33):
What was the next day like its it.

Speaker 4 (20:35):
So I just wanted to tell you how important that
movie and you specifically were to me as a little kid.

Speaker 3 (20:42):
It was so awesome change my life. It really did
change my life.

Speaker 6 (20:45):
That's awesome. Man, I really appreciate that.

Speaker 5 (20:48):
It was great.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
So, Ernie, did you end up did you take any
sort of acting classes or did you kind of just
learn that you could do this on the fly.

Speaker 5 (20:55):
Yeah, I mean that was the thing is so when
we did these martial arts administrations, you know, I was
kind of like the center of attention when it came
to that. And so what we would do is we
would create these fight scenes or skits basically, so I
had a lot of like live performance where you get
the feedback instantaneously.

Speaker 6 (21:17):
And we definitely involved.

Speaker 5 (21:19):
A lot of comedy you know in our in our
you know fight scenes and you know, taking a cue
from people like Jackie Chan and and and people like that.
And also even just at a young age, realizing hey
that Jackie Chan had influences like Charlie Chaplin and Key

(21:40):
all these so I really got I mean that was
like where I kind of cut my teeth in terms
of just performing. And so I knew how to be
funny and how to do the things that I know
would get a reaction from the audiences. And that's really
where it all came from. And uh and then just
watching movies. Yeah, but and that was a very confident

(22:00):
so I thought I could pretty much do anything. And yeah,
I didn't really get into like any kind of formal
acting training or anything until like way later and probably
into my twenties.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
So that same year that you were in The Last Dragon,
you're in Red Sonia with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Brigitte Nielsen,
a pair of wild action stars in the eighties who
apparently may or may not have been having an affair
during the shoot. What memories do you have of filming
that movie?

Speaker 5 (22:35):
You know what, it was actually like one of my
favorite movie making experiences. You know, we filmed it was
Dina Dilarentis Productions, who were filming in Italy at this
amazing Italian movie studio where the wardrobe designers were like
these serious craftsmen. And you know, I got to go

(22:55):
horseback riding every day in the countryside. I got to
you know, practice sword fights, you know, I uh, after
work every day. My dad had me really training like
a man out of a very early age, you know,
doing he didn't. That was one of the things in

(23:17):
terms of my training was he never really took into
consideration like, hey, this is a kid. I just pretty
much had the same He trained me as if he
was training. So there was no kind of like, oh, well,
we're going to modify this to make it a little
easier for you or less you know, strenuous. I was
just training all the time. So it was very cool.
I got to lift weights with Arnold Schwarzenegger every day

(23:38):
after six months, and I had show him hissing routines
and like you know, and you get a kick out
of that. So that was amazing. And then Brigitte Nielsen,
you know, at nineteen years old, she was about six
foot two. I think I was a four foot two
or something, so like it was just like the best
possible and you know, this is pre cgi, so all

(24:00):
effects were practical, all the sets were built, and so
I was literally running around like a you know, a
tyrant prince with my own castle and servants, and I
mean it was wild, but it was it was like
definitely an amazing core memory just growing up as a kid,
Like you couldn't beat it. In terms of just the
whole filmmaking process and everything like that.

Speaker 3 (24:21):
Now, was this this was between? Is it between or
after Destroyer? So is Barbarian then Rensnia then Destroyer?

Speaker 5 (24:29):
Right? I think that it.

Speaker 6 (24:33):
I think that it was.

Speaker 5 (24:34):
I'm not quite sure on that, Yeah, but it was,
you know, in the early days of Arnold, you know,
becoming prior to becoming the biggest movie star in the world.
When They're coming, we had finished work and his mom
was visiting on the set, and so we went to
say goodbye in his dressing room and he gave us

(24:57):
a VHS copy of a v tape and he said,
you know, I just filmed this movie right before this one,
and it's coming out this summer. This was in around
Christmas time, and so my dad and I went back
to our hotel room and popped in the VHS and
upcomes Terminator. Oh so we got to see Terminator on

(25:17):
VHS like six months before the world did. And you
know that sent him into superstardom. And I was like,
I want to do movies like that. Dad.

Speaker 3 (25:27):
Yeah, Wow, amazing.

Speaker 2 (25:29):
You mentioned that your dad didn't train you like a
kid who was training. You were just any old other
adult he would have trained or himself. Was that hard
for you or did you love it? Did you want it?
Or did you ever feel like you were missing out
on a childhood?

Speaker 5 (25:44):
Oh? I mean I definitely wanted it, but I definitely
also felt like I was missing out on a child Okay,
because every weekend we were traveling and that was like
our focus of life, like it really was, And so
I did I did miss out on a lot of
the normal things, maybe all the normal things that childhood
consists of. And we were just training every day all

(26:06):
day long, you know, and then traveling on the weekends.
A lot of times I would miss school on a
Friday so that we could get to the tournament on
a Saturday wherever it was. And yeah, so I definitely
felt like that. It's like, oh I got you know,
my friend, and there just wasn't any of that. And
it was also you know, it kind of prepped me

(26:27):
for the life that I was going to live as
I continued into Hollywood, because then you again miss out
on all these kind of normal childhood things. So I
wanted it, and I definitely felt like I missed out
on a lot of stuff, you know, as I was
growing up and you know, I just kind of processed
it as like that was the sacrifice that I had

(26:49):
to make in order to do what I wanted to do.
And you know, my dad was like, you know, all
the other kids are doing normal things, but they're also
not getting to do the things that you're getting to do,
So you have to kind of choose one one way
or the other.

Speaker 2 (27:02):
Right, Yeah, that's a good way of thinking about it.
Not any not everyone is weightlifting with Arnold Schwarzenegger running
around an Italian villa.

Speaker 1 (27:10):
That was for you.

Speaker 4 (27:12):
Yeah, you have that opportunity.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
So were you also attending traditional school and auditioning and competing?
What was your schooling situation?

Speaker 5 (27:23):
So, yeah, I was like up until about the sixth
grade was like my regular schooling situation, and then after
that it was just homeschooling. Before homeschooling and a tutor
when I was on set and everything.

Speaker 2 (27:37):
Okay, wow, Beau Scott, you I mean, how did you
You were so busy?

Speaker 5 (27:41):
Yeah? I mean I was like busy and working really
hard too. You know, it wasn't just like busy busy,
It was like but also very strenuous, you know, Yeah,
it was. It was a lot of work. I mean
I worked really hard as a kid.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
Okay, so now we're at around the time of side Kicks,
and here you enter our world of TV child acting.
So the synopsis was an ordinary cop tutors a young
boy who insists on helping him in cases with his
mastery of martial arts. I mean, this truly feels like
it was written for you. Was it written for you?

Speaker 5 (28:18):
Yes? So what happened was is after the Last Dragon,
Motown wanted to develop a television series for me, and
at that time, you know, they weren't going to be
able to get a network television deal in Hollywood, so
they partnered up with Disney and it was a co

(28:38):
production between Motown and Disney, and so everything was I mean,
my name was Ernie in the shows.

Speaker 4 (28:48):
You've made it when the show's about you and it's
like you're raven or you're earning, or it's like they're
not even changing your name anymore.

Speaker 5 (28:55):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 6 (28:56):
So yeah, it was.

Speaker 5 (28:58):
It was there, and we were you know, I was
there when we were pitching the shows and we were
going to the exit all the different networks, and I'd
be in Brandon Tartakoff's office and would move the furniture
out of the way, and my dad would attack me,
and then I'd beat my dad up, and the executives
were like whoa you know, demo in all these executive offices,

(29:20):
and then the networks, and then we finally landed over
at ABC.

Speaker 4 (29:24):
So again watching this as a little kid, just sit
either watching us seeing him do that, I was like that,
I want to do that.

Speaker 3 (29:29):
I want to do that.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
How were you so good?

Speaker 5 (29:35):
Yeah, I mean it's just honestly, it was like a
lot of training. You know, obviously I had like physical,
you know, gifts in terms of just athleticism, but yeah,
it was just a lot of training. You know. I
trained and trained and trained and trained, and I was motivated.
You know, I was inspired by Bruce Lee. So it
wasn't just like hey, I'm going to karate class or

(29:56):
whatever I was trying to I was trying to be
as good as Bruce Lee. I mean, you can see
my performance that I was generally yes, and it was
important to me, you know, I at a very early age,
it was very important to me that you know, I
represented you know, standard of excellence because that's what Bruce

(30:18):
Lee meant to me.

Speaker 4 (30:19):
You know, wow, wow, Yeah, did you only study taekwondo
or because of Bruce Lee? Did you try kundo or
did you go to hot keto or was it just
one style mostly?

Speaker 5 (30:29):
Yeah, I mean my primary base was taekwondo. That's where
you get all the kicking and all of that stuff.
But you know, we were boxing and kickboxing and doing
Filipino martial arts, had a little bit of you know,
training with Dan and Nisantos, you know, who was Bruce
Lee's student and training partner.

Speaker 6 (30:50):
So I mean, and I was also exposed to.

Speaker 5 (30:55):
I was also exposed to all the greatest martial artists
at least in our country, so I had a reference point.
And so we would travel doing seminars with you know,
a panel of the greatest like martial artists in America
at the time. So I was exposed to it all.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
So the cop Insidekicks was Gil Gerard better known as
Buck Rogers, a TV legend. What was that like for
the karate champ when sharing scenes with him?

Speaker 6 (31:34):
Yeah, that was amazing.

Speaker 5 (31:35):
I mean, you know, first of all, I hadn't seen
the show, but I knew who Buck Rogers was. Yeah,
this is pretty cool, you know, and at that time,
I think he had taken like a hiatus from you know,
the entertainment business for a while and was like coming back.
So that was cool. And he, you know, he was
Buck Rogers. I mean he you know, I mean it

(31:57):
was like the first time that I kind of fell
that like, hey, this guy is you know, from in
it from a TV perspective, like, hey, this is like
a star and Arnold and all the people prior to
that were not established at that time.

Speaker 6 (32:11):
So even Arnold, yeah he was a star, but he wasn't.

Speaker 5 (32:14):
Like a superstar. Buck Rogers had already had like an
entire career, you know, the sidekick. So I definitely was
able to kind of feel feel that in just his presence.
But he's a great guy and I really enjoyed working
with him.

Speaker 2 (32:28):
How is your dad? What is your What was your
dad's thoughts and feelings? Did he express them to you?
Seeing you go from you know, a martial artist who
was training every weekend and working really hard, but then
all of a sudden accomplishing his other dream of becoming
a movie star and now a TV star. How was
your dad feeling through all this?

Speaker 6 (32:47):
You know, I don't know, I don't know exactly.

Speaker 5 (32:49):
I know that He's super proud of me, you know,
you know, and it was a reflection of his It's
a reflection of him as a martial arts teacher as well,
and so that I think that he was very proud
of that, you know. But my dad, we were on
a mission, so it was always very like, you know,
we were very it was very serious.

Speaker 6 (33:11):
You know, we were having I was having fun, but
it was a very serious thing.

Speaker 5 (33:15):
And then coupled you know, and that's how entertainment business is, right,
There's a lot going on, but then coupled with it
is just like I'm this martial arts guy, so it's
all very like focused and you know, and again that's
where you miss out on a lot of the other
things that are just like more fun and that kind
of stuff. But yeah, I think that he's just generally

(33:39):
was very proud of me, you know, and what we
were accomplishing, and we worked you know up and you know,
we also were Corey, so he was working on the show,
so it wasn't just like a regular set parent who's
just like there and whatever.

Speaker 6 (33:51):
He was involved in the production aspect of it.

Speaker 5 (33:54):
So he's going to production meetings as having working with
the stunt coordinators, and then he was the choreographer for
Sidekicks as well. So all the stuff that I did
when I was a kid, you know, he was choreographing
all of that stuff.

Speaker 6 (34:07):
And I was to a lot of it, to be honest,
but that.

Speaker 5 (34:10):
Was his position. We would work together and I would say, hell,
what about this and what about that? But he that
was his position, was the choreographer. So we were working
together side Rice versus you know, you know, just being
a parent and being there just because the child needs
to have somebody an adult on set.

Speaker 2 (34:31):
Yes, okay, so let's get into teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
In the first movie, you are the stunt double for Donatello, right, yes,
you were in the foam latex costume fighting members of
the Foot Clan. Please tell us how that came to be.

Speaker 6 (34:48):
Yeah, So Golden Harvest comes back to Bruce Lee again.

Speaker 5 (34:53):
Who's responsible for you know, Bruce Lee, Jet Lee, Jackie Chant.
So after Sidekicks got you, after Sidekicks Gots canceled, then
I went back to kind of being like a regular teenager.
And I actually went to a small school, but it
was it was for actors and actresses and models and

(35:14):
people like that that were in the industry and working.
But I was now in a school again and for
people there, and I was making friends at least during
school time, you know.

Speaker 6 (35:25):
Oh yeah, so Golden Harvest and so there was that
time period where I wasn't working.

Speaker 5 (35:31):
I was just enjoying being like a young teenager. And
so Pat Johnson, who was the stunt coordinator, So Golden
Harvest was bringing four Hong Kong stunt guys to work
on the first American production. And during that time, like
in the eighties, especially for martial arts films, like the
Hong Kong guys were like up here in terms of

(35:54):
like the action output that they were doing. And so
they were bringing four Golden Harvest was bringing for Hong
Kong guys to do all the action for the Turtles.
One of the guys broke his back in pre production.
So Pat Johnson, the stunt coordinator, called me up. And
I had known Pat from way back in the day.

(36:17):
He used to be judge me as a young kid
in my martial arts competitions and things like that. And
he said, listen, this is not an acting job, but
this is a stunt job.

Speaker 6 (36:26):
Are you willing to come? And I was like, Golden Harvest,
are you kidding me?

Speaker 5 (36:30):
Like yes, absolutely, And so now I'm like going and
immediately I go to They fly me out to London
to the Jim Henson Creature Shop and I get a
full cast, and you know, I'm seeing all the stuff
that they've worked on. I mean, I'm like, this is magical.
Right then, I actually knew, like, Okay, I'm doing something

(36:52):
very cool here.

Speaker 6 (36:53):
I wasn't too familiar with the Ninja Turtles in terms
of the property or whatever.

Speaker 5 (36:57):
I was kind of familiar with the toys. But now
I'm at the Jim Henson Creature Shop and I'm getting
a full body cast, you know, and we fly out
and then I go from there and I go straight
to North Carolina where we were filming and and started
working with you know, the Hong Kong guys.

Speaker 6 (37:18):
And that was amazing. It was it was really special.

Speaker 5 (37:20):
But I was really like the really hooked for me
was Golden Harvest, and it just went back to Bruce
Lee again. I was like, I'm actually getting to work
with the company that made me. And you know that
the Golden Harvest has such an iconic.

Speaker 4 (37:32):
Logo logo right when it pops up you know exactly.

Speaker 3 (37:38):
It's right underneath the Lucasfilm Limited. Like the lucasfilm comes
up for Star Wars, Golden Harvest comes up. It's like, oh, yes,
this is going to be a fun ninety minutes. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:46):
So were there other kids in the suits or were
you the only kid?

Speaker 5 (37:51):
I was the only kid. Yeah. The Hong Kong guys
were just men, and I was. I was so I
was seventeen in between. It was the summer in between
my junior and senior year of high school.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
Wow, oh my gosh.

Speaker 5 (38:03):
And I was emancipated, so I could go and work
and I didn't need an adult.

Speaker 6 (38:07):
And also this was the first.

Speaker 5 (38:09):
Time that my dad wasn't with me, and so this
was like a big deal for me.

Speaker 6 (38:15):
I was like, okay, I'm a stunt man.

Speaker 5 (38:17):
I was a stunt boy, you say, right, you know.

Speaker 6 (38:20):
I'm away.

Speaker 5 (38:22):
And the cool part about it is is that I
got to choreograph, you know, all of my own stuff.
So now I'm doing what I used to do with
just me and my dad, and I'm getting to do
it myself. And so basically, you know, the stunt coordinator
would break down a scene.

Speaker 6 (38:38):
And we're like, okay, we're going to do the rooftop.

Speaker 5 (38:39):
Fight scene or whatever. And then I would go and
come up with the choreography and then I'd present it
to the stunt coordinator, and ten out of ten times
he was like perfect, you know the choreography. So it's
like all of that, you know, it was a pretty
special moment for him.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
Yeah, and when you're and when you're doing the choreography,
are you wearing the suit to like know what you
can do or can't do or well, preliminary.

Speaker 5 (39:04):
We just go and kind of work stuff out and
then yeah, then you're going, Okay, now we have to
try it with a suit.

Speaker 6 (39:12):
It was pretty crazy. The suit was like, you know,
thirty forty.

Speaker 5 (39:15):
Pounds, Oh my god, home Latex rubber. You know, it's
like a ball. No. I mean my body first of all,
is in North Carolina is like one hundred degrees outside.
Oh my, one hundred percent humidity. And we're you know,
doing fight scenes all day long, like literally twelve fourteen,
sixteen hours a day. And imagine like a nerve football.

(39:39):
You know, you don't get into the water.

Speaker 6 (39:41):
It's just like a giant sponge.

Speaker 5 (39:43):
So you're going your sweating and it's just the suit's
getting heavier and heavier as the day goes on, and
you're basically slashing around in your sweat for like fourteen
hours a day. I mean it was hard work. My
body temperature got up to one hundred and two degrees
every day.

Speaker 3 (39:59):
Yeah. No, there's there's.

Speaker 5 (40:01):
Story hey guys.

Speaker 4 (40:02):
Yeah, there's teenage mutant Ninja Turtle stories about the first
filming of that movie where they were like right on
the line of safety for a lot of that film apparently.

Speaker 5 (40:13):
Yeah, big time.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
Yeah, oh my gosh, yeah.

Speaker 5 (40:17):
Crazy, But that's where all that training comes in. You know.
It's just mental and physical that it's like, all right,
this is like I always kind of looked at it
on the first movie like it was like a black
belt test. It was like you always knew what you
were getting into like every single day, and it was
just a matter of like controlling your mind basically, because

(40:38):
a big part of it is just like mental.

Speaker 1 (40:40):
You know, Yeah, how did did you fit in with
the Golden Harvest guys? Or did it take a little bit? Yeah,
I mean you must have been nervous, right, yeah.

Speaker 5 (40:48):
No, I mean this was like the dream come true,
and honestly, in my mind, I was like, this is
my opportunity to demonstrate what I can do. That was
like I went into that with that mindset and it
worked out pretty much like I had hoped for it.

Speaker 4 (41:05):
Yeah, well, I mean it was a smash that when
it first came out. I remember, I think I saw
it three times in the theater. Like it was this
was comic books and martial arts together for the first time,
but it was also the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which
was a little bit more subversive of.

Speaker 3 (41:19):
A comic book.

Speaker 4 (41:19):
Then a lot of people knew, Like if you knew,
you knew, but if you didn't, I mean, most of
the actors that were cast in the film didn't know
what Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was. So it's it's one
of those things where it was a real if you know,
you know moment, And so for somebody who was a
fan seeing it brought to life and and the puppetry.

Speaker 3 (41:39):
Was decent, it was good.

Speaker 4 (41:41):
So it was you figured it was, oh, it's gonna
look like crappy foam suits or and everybody was worried.
The fans were worried beforehand, and then the first pictures
kind of leaked and there was no online, so it
was just kind of like, you know what's gonna, Well
I heard this, I heard that, Well, I heard it's
gonna and then next thing, you know, I have a
strange connection with the film where the the the human
Kid played by Michael Turney. Okay, Michael's mom was my

(42:04):
manager for years, so whenever Michael wanted to get out
of New York City, she would send him to our
house in Connecticut. So he was like, he and I
would hang out together, and so he's telling me all about, yeah,
I'm doing this teenage mutant ninja Turtle. So I like,
I already knew it. I was like, oh my god,
they're doing the Ninja Turtles. And then when it came out,
it was like a phenomenon right at the time. I mean, yeah,
massive part the whole thing again.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
Yeah, so was that then? Was there any part of
it that was hard because that's obviously a massive hit,
but nobody could see you inside the suit. Did you
have that feeling of like, I'm a massive reason this
movie is so successful and yet no one even knows
it was me.

Speaker 6 (42:41):
Yeah, It's well, it's interesting.

Speaker 5 (42:43):
So, you know, going back to the martial arts community,
there's a whole martial arts community right all across the country,
and it's pretty much like a kind of subculture at
that time. Yeah, you know, but they had been following
my career since the Last Dragon and so now here
we are, how many every years later, and so there

(43:04):
was at least in my martial arts world, they knew that, hey,
and we were kind of promoting it as such. But
on the last day of filming, the executive producer from
Golden Harvest, who you know, they took.

Speaker 6 (43:18):
A liking to me.

Speaker 5 (43:19):
There was four Hong Kong stunt guys, three Hong Kong
stunt guys and me. The Hong Kong guys couldn't even
speak English. So when Golden Harvest met me and they
could see that I could do the martial arts and
compete with all the best guys at Golden Harvest, and
I spoke English and was just like a California kid.

(43:40):
On the last day of filming, the executive producers says
to me, Hey, we're gonna in the sequel. They already
knew that they had a smash hit on it their hands,
and last day they said, hey, we're gonna write you
into the second movie as a human character. So I
was like, oh.

Speaker 3 (43:58):
My worked, Yes, oh my god. It's a great segue
to the Secret of the US Party two.

Speaker 6 (44:06):
Too.

Speaker 2 (44:07):
It's the nineteen ninety one sequel, and you play Keno,
the smart mouthed pizza delivery boy slash karate kid who
becomes best friends with the Turtles to fight the evil Shredder.
So this had to be every kid's dream come true.
You are now best friends with the Ninja Turtles. What
was it like to go from being in that awful

(44:30):
suit to now you're you get to be you? What
was that like?

Speaker 5 (44:35):
Ye, well it was a lot cooler, like literally, yeah,
I mean it was amazing, you know. And so what
happened was is after the second movie, I mean after
the first movie, then they basically one of my friends,
you know, from the martial arts community, replaced me inside

(44:57):
the suit and now I'm like a human character. So
I already knew what the workload was like inside the costumes. Yeah,
just that alone made me a happy camper, you know.

Speaker 6 (45:08):
And no, it was amazing.

Speaker 5 (45:09):
I mean it was very surreal, and you know, it
was also kind of like my part of my plan.
I was like, hey, now I'm actually getting to do
what I want to do.

Speaker 6 (45:19):
And I'm actually human character. I mean, it was it
was amazing.

Speaker 5 (45:22):
Now, so it was in between my junior and senior
year of high school that we filmed the movie came out. Now,
I just graduated high school and yes, starring in the
Teenage Being a Ninja Turtle movie. I mean it was like,
you know, peak just Peak Frenzy good times. It was

(45:44):
just like the dream come true. Really, it was like
a dream come true. Like it was amazing, Like there
was It's just unbelievable really, you know. And yeah, so
they replaced the Hong Kong guys with the American guys,
a lot of the guys who we're competing on the
martial arts circuits because that's kind of where I had

(46:04):
come from. And so then they brought in all American
guys and and then again, you know, I got to
choreograph my own you know, fight scenes, which was like
for me as the marshal the outside of the acting
and everybody seeing me really being able to perform martial
arts choreography that person that I was personally choreographing, and

(46:26):
we have that opening mall sequence, and I mean it
was just like I couldn't ask for anything better really,
to tell you the truth.

Speaker 4 (46:33):
Well, the only thing you could ask for better is
to also have a song by Vanilla Ice, which is
I mean cinematic glory is sitting there watching Vanilla Ice
dancing with the Turtles.

Speaker 3 (46:49):
It's got to be pretty awesome.

Speaker 5 (46:50):
Yeah, I mean it was. It was crazy. I mean
it was all just kind of like.

Speaker 6 (46:54):
A surreal you know, surreal you know, and I had kind.

Speaker 5 (46:59):
Of you know, I I grew up like in a
hip hop generation, like the early day days of hip
hop and seeing where it was and now I was
in the movie, and yeah, it was just yeah, it
was pretty wild like Vanilla's and he was like peak,
the height of his popularity.

Speaker 3 (47:15):
Oh yeah, time.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
So what was Vanilla like on set?

Speaker 5 (47:19):
Uh? No, you know, I didn't get to spend too
much time with him because the only stuff that I
did that we were working together was the scene the
end the sequence where they're in the club and they're dancing.
But really I just come in towards the end, so
I didn't actually get a lot of like work.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
Time Okay with him, Okay, cool? How long would you say?
Rehearsals for big fight scenes usually take.

Speaker 6 (47:48):
Yeah, well, you know in yeah, that's a good question.

Speaker 5 (47:52):
There was probably. I mean, you get probably a few
weeks ahead of the production, and that's kind of just
like start planner stuff and like yeah, just kind of
planning things out. But in my reality, like in my mind,
as soon as I was reading the script before we
even got to this, like I was putting it all
together in my head. As soon as I read the

(48:14):
script the first time, I was kind of imagining what
all the stuff could be. So when by the time
I got to the actual production, like I pretty much
knew what I wanted to do and had it all
kind of planned out and written out in my script
and had it all prepared, you know, beforehand. So for me,
like the rehearsal time was more for the other people,

(48:37):
like I'd do I'd grown grown up doing most starts fights, right,
I can on the spot like do whatever.

Speaker 2 (48:44):
Sure for you, but I'm sure everyone else needs some work.

Speaker 5 (48:48):
Yeah, And it's a it's a you know, it's a
dance routine. It's a choreography. It's by numbers and beats
and and that kind of thing. And but the guys
were great, The stun guys were great. That I got
to work with, and you know, we didn't have a
lot of time. I'll put it that way. It wasn't
like this long, you know, and Golden Harvest, they're not
you know, it's not like, hey, it's like, you know, right.

Speaker 4 (49:14):
In between the first movie and the second movie, did
you deep dive the Ninja Turtles? Like by that point,
were you just grabbing everything you could about the.

Speaker 3 (49:24):
All the comic books, all the books, everything you could say.

Speaker 5 (49:27):
No, not really to tell you the truth. I mean,
in between after the first movie, I went on like
a whole promo tour in the martial arts community, and
so we were I mean, I would be like opening
martial arts. That was like one of the most special
parts about being in the Ninja Turtles is how much
of an impact that it made on the martial arts industry, right,

(49:49):
you know, thousands and thousands and thousands of kids signed
up for martial arts because of the Ninja Turtles. And
we were we're in a we weren't on the you know,
on the outside, we were we came from that world
and had a whole long history at that point.

Speaker 6 (50:08):
So we came back to.

Speaker 5 (50:10):
All the tournaments that I used to, all the like,
you know, five star rated tournaments. We came back and
I was making appearances and promoting, and martial arts schools
were popping up all over the country, and I would
go to grand openings and literally they'll be like on
the grand opening, the school owner would sign up one
hundred people like from scratch, just and I was there.

Speaker 6 (50:32):
I mean it was It was really wild.

Speaker 5 (50:34):
So even though I was in the costume the martial
arts community, once the movie became a hit, they knew
that I had done all the martial arts for the
character Don Tello, and so in between the movies, I
basically was out in the martial arts community, promoting martial arts,
promoting martial arts for kids as a positive way of life,

(50:55):
and you know, all of that in between, So there
wasn't much time to sit down and read a comic.

Speaker 2 (51:02):
Yeah, exactly. Well, here we are in twenty twenty five,
and after all the popularity of the Ninja Turtles, it
seems to me that the level of nostalgia is actually
highest for a movie released three years after Turtles two
Surf Ninjas. This was another vehicle for you alongside Rob Schneider,

(51:25):
your dad, Philip Tan and a boy Meets World guest
star Keoni Young.

Speaker 1 (51:30):
So oh yeah, yes, So was.

Speaker 2 (51:33):
This project also built around you?

Speaker 5 (51:37):
Yeah? So New Line on the first Ninja Turtles, New
Line Cinema was not the New Line Cinema that did
Lord of Rings or anything like that. Newline Cinema was
a small indie film and the first Ninja Turtle movie
when you know, when it was released, was the highest
grossing independent film of all time in the history of
movie making. And so New Line on the Monday after

(52:03):
Secret of the Ooze came out, I had like a
front cover of the La Times calendar section and it
was like Ninja Turtles Mania or whatever. And so Newline called, uh,
you know my team, and was like, we want to
make movies with Ernie. And so that's how that whole thing,
you know transpired. So it went from you know, the

(52:25):
first Ninja Turtles in the suit to starring alongside the Turtles,
all within the same company, and then New Line developing
and producing a movie for me as a vehicle for
me to star. Wow.

Speaker 2 (52:39):
So was it incredibly popular when it came out or
did it really get its legs in vhs?

Speaker 5 (52:46):
It got its legs in VHS, So, like I remember
going to the market the Monday, and I could kind
of like the writing was a little bit on the
wall in terms of well, first of all, we did
test screenings.

Speaker 6 (53:04):
I did it.

Speaker 5 (53:04):
I showed up to about ten test screenings of Surfing Engine.
So in the test screenings, you have a full full house.
They don't know what they're about to see, but it's
packed in there. And I'm sitting next to Bob Shay,
you know, the CEO of New Line Cinema, and the
kids are going crazy. They're in their chairs, they're jumping

(53:27):
up and down, they're singing the song. They're like, it's
going crazy. And the test ratings was ninety eight to
one hundred percent good to excellent. It was testing higher
than both Ninja Turtle movies, and so when it came out,
it was definitely So I go to the market, but

(53:49):
I could kind of see the writing on the wall
just like, and you know, you kind of drive around
town on the weekend at the movies and you're kind
of like looking around and you.

Speaker 6 (53:58):
Can feel it, just like you can fill the build up,
you know.

Speaker 5 (54:01):
And so I go to the market, uh, and I
open up the Hollywood Reporter and it's like Surf Ninja
just wipes out up the box office. Good. Yeah, it was.
It was a pretty crazy moment because you know, it's
the you have this plan and it's all work and

(54:23):
it's all going well, and now the vehicle now this
is where if you if you, if if this hits,
now you're into what like you really are? That was
my goal is like okay, you know, because I grew
up in it. By that time, I had already graduated
high school, and independent movie making was like it was

(54:45):
like the Golden era Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez and you know,
all those things, and people are making movies just on
there by theirselves, you know.

Speaker 4 (54:53):
And so.

Speaker 5 (54:55):
Uh, I was like, this is going to be my opportunity.
And I had you know, when I went into New
Line to meet with them, I had a vision of
making family action martial arts movies. You know. That was
kind of my pitch to them. And I've been thinking
about this for quite quite some time, and so I
was like, man, if this thing hits, I'm going to

(55:15):
get to do what it is that I want to do,
which is more family action martial arts movies. And so
when that didn't happen, it was.

Speaker 6 (55:24):
Like a huge blow to the whole thing.

Speaker 5 (55:27):
I was like, oh my god. But you know, as
time moves forward, it was a huge hit at Blockbuster.

Speaker 6 (55:37):
Every weekend it was sold.

Speaker 5 (55:39):
Out at Blockbuster. And but you don't really know what
like what that really means, you know, because there was
no internet really, so you don't really get any of
that feedback other than, hey, I'm going to my Blockbuster
on sunset over here and it sold out every single weekend.

Speaker 6 (55:59):
Somebody's buying, somebody's renting this thing.

Speaker 5 (56:02):
Right. Only until I started doing the comic cons that
I realize how popular Because then now I'm like, they're
promoting me, you know, as you know, from the Ninja Turtles.
But then seventy percent of the people are like, hey, yeah,
of course Ninja Turtles, but dude, Surf, that's my movie.

(56:26):
Like and so only then have I realized like how
popular it is. I mean, I go to travel with
these comic cons like now almost every single weekend, and
Surf Ninja's is like a huge part of what people
are like talking to me about Ninja Turtles is is
what it is. It's like undeniable. But you know, I
was very surprised and continued to be to see how

(56:48):
many people like love that movie. And so those kids
that were all in those test screenings, you know that
we're cheering that. I thought, oh man, we did it.
Like that was what our goal was to do. What
we did, what I see the kids responding to. In
between that and the marketing and the opening of the movie,
something happened and there were no kids in the theaters, right,

(57:10):
But you know, all those kids ended up watching it
on you know, VHS and then DVD, and so it's
really cool to be it's kind of like a sweet
you know, sweet revenge to know that it's like, oh God, really,
actually what we set out to do, we actually accomplished it.
It just didn't in the way that traditional you know.

Speaker 1 (57:33):
So you say something happened, but have you been able
to figure out like was it a marketing problem? Did
New Line mess up? Did was it another film that
came out that weekend? Do you know, like you I
think that it was.

Speaker 5 (57:44):
A marketing thing. You know, it's a few years. You know,
all along the way we were kind of constant deliberation
of like who the audience was. You know, if you
watch the movie, there's a lot of like adult chokes
in there too, hidden amongst everything, right, so we were
trying to like lock in on the tone, and I

(58:06):
just you know, when I initially first saw the poster,
I was like, what, I didn't know if that was
really the poster that was gonna get the audience. It
just seemed a little too camping, a little too geny,
and a little bit like it's kind of trying to
ride on the back of Ninja Turtles. And I don't

(58:27):
know what exactly, but I feel like it's somewhere in
the marketing of it, you know, that it didn't happen because,
like I said, I saw the kids, like I saw
the test ten test screenings when marketing wasn't a thing,
and it was just about the kids being in the theater.
They were all there, they loved it. And then why

(58:47):
was weren't there any you know, why wasn't there an
audience inside the theater? That was week that week?

Speaker 1 (58:52):
And right so to me as you saw it on
the other side too, went the video rental. So yeah,
it clearly was working and for much and reaching itself
was very yeah, and.

Speaker 5 (59:02):
It's still like people come up to me still and now,
like the Ninja Turtles even with Surf Ninjaes, these kids
who grew up on these movies are introducing their kids
to these movies. And now I've got you know, eight,
nine and ten year olds that are going Quanta dude,
like they love happening, you know. So I think that

(59:24):
for what we set out to accomplish with the movie,
we accomplished that. And so it's nice to see that,
you know, with the advent of you know, the Internet
and social media that it's getting in Literally just last year,
uh you know, was it streaming for the first time.
It wasn't streaming anywhere either, and just last year, So

(59:44):
now we're getting a whole new audience, you know, and
a lot of them are kids, So that's cool.

Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
How did you avoid burnout? As you know, we talk
a lot about burnout as kids that you know, when
you're auditioning or you're on a series the way we were,
and then like for Will and Wright, they were doing
movies every summer in between those seasons when you're consistently working,
and none of us worked as hard as you did
when you're working seven days a week, three hundred and

(01:00:25):
sixty five days a year, almost competing movies TV. How
did you avoid just total burnout and wanting to give
up and walk away even though you were successful.

Speaker 5 (01:00:38):
Well that's kind of that's you know, so surfing Ninjas
wipes out at the box office, you know that was
my cue. Okay, all right, you know now it sounds fun. Yeah.
So I'd been working my whole life. Now I'm like
twenty one years old, and you know, it was time

(01:01:00):
to just put all that behind me, you know, in
a certain way. At that point though, also my dream
of independent filmmaking and all of that kind of stuff
was really fueling me, like artistically, but it wasn't about
like popularity and all the things like chasing Hollywood, and

(01:01:25):
it made me even kind of more like you know,
gravitate towards independent filmmaking, which is like hey, okay, peace
to Hollywood. Let me just go try to do my
own thing, or just I'm done with Hollywood. Basically like
I've done everything. I've admitted, I sacrificed it. It didn't
pan out the way that I wanted, and now I'm

(01:01:46):
just gonna go crazy, you know, live life and figure
it out. So like the burnout kind of like it
just the process alone stopped it for me okay. So
it's like, before I could get to that point, it
was like, well, okay, we kind of flopped at the
box office. No one's talking to you right now, So

(01:02:09):
I guess it's time to just, you know, leave all
of that behind. And so I just kind of went.

Speaker 7 (01:02:15):
Into life, and to be honest, like, you know, you're
in now in your early twenties, and you've had success,
and you know, you're dealing with all the stuff that
we deal with having a huge amount of.

Speaker 6 (01:02:26):
Success as a child, and now you're struggling and now you're.

Speaker 5 (01:02:29):
Trying to figure it out. And now you're like, I
can't even get a normal job, like you know what
I mean, You're just you go through the insanity, literal
insanity of trying to figure out life and all the
things that were kind of that weren't developed because you
didn't have the normal growing up period. You just have

(01:02:49):
to do it in your twenties now. And so you're
just I went through that whole process, which was you know,
just crazy basically Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:02:57):
So then I want to I so many questions. I
could literally talk to you forever, but I have to
get to the fact that you are in literally a
perfect movie you're in Rush Hour two and you're also
in the Great rock movie The Rundown. When you do
these movies and you are around stunt teams and martial
arts experts, they must be huge fans of you, like

(01:03:19):
you and your dad helped pave the way. So what
is that like when you're on the Are they all
big fans of yours?

Speaker 6 (01:03:27):
Yeah? I don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:03:28):
I'm not sure. Like definitely the stunt community, you know,
I'm not so sure about the stars themselves. Yeah, the
people that are surrounding that, people that are in the
production that are surrounding the stunt guys, the choreographers, and
they definitely have been tracking with me the whole time,
and you know, are fans of the stuff that we

(01:03:48):
did from you know, day one. The one thing that
I will say is is so after surfing Hinges, I
didn't really give up. I went a little crazy, just
like trying to figure out life and land yep, being
a child actor and all that stuff. But I kept training,
you know, in between in between Surf Ninjas and the

(01:04:11):
Rundown that was like fifteen years.

Speaker 2 (01:04:14):
Again, wow, Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:04:15):
And I didn't stop training, and I didn't really let
go of you know, I'd never really let go of
like my dream, you know, I just thought that I
would have to figure it out some other.

Speaker 6 (01:04:28):
Way, basically making it happen.

Speaker 5 (01:04:33):
So yeah, and mind you like no auditions, like fifteen years.
Like there are times where, like four or five years,
you know, I look a certain way on my whole thing.
There's not a lot of stuff that's going to be
that I'm perfect for or whatever. And so for fifteen
years between Surf Ninches and the Rundown, there was nothing.

(01:04:53):
You know, I entered into the theater company, so that's
where it kind of like actually started trying to work
on my like acting shops a little bit, because prior
to that point, I was like, well, I've just been
kind of resting on my Yeah, just my own ability
as an entertainer wasn't really like an actor per se,
even though I had been acting my whole life. So

(01:05:15):
I got into the theater and I and I did
stuff like that, but I was training the whole time,
you know, with the idea that you know, I'm going
to get another shot. So at some point, and so
even as an actor, and you know, sometimes you have
bad reputation, you know, you you end up having to
you know, all.

Speaker 6 (01:05:33):
The people that were working with you.

Speaker 5 (01:05:35):
Now nothing's going on, and now you get dropped, and
now this and that and next thing, you know, you
got some flaky agent trying to like yeah, well there's
times where it's like four years, there was a stretch
of four years there wasn't even an audition.

Speaker 6 (01:05:49):
H crazy, wow, right, and I'm still.

Speaker 5 (01:05:52):
Just training all day long and going and I got
to be prepared when the moment comes. So you know,
when you get to a movie like The Rundown, all
the people inside of the uh, inside of the you know,
the stunt team and the choreographer and the stunt coordinator,
they see you. You know, it's a pretty small community

(01:06:12):
to in La. You know, everyone goes to similar places
to train and so they see like, hey, I've been
I'm still on the top of my game right now,
and so you know that helps, you know, when you
get into a situation where like the Rundown, for instance,
where it's like, Okay, the stunt coordinator knows me. He
sees me training over at Valley College every Tuesday and

(01:06:34):
Friday night. He sees me over here, he sees me
over there. So you know that that plays its part,
you know, in the process. But you know, I don't know.

Speaker 6 (01:06:43):
It's uh, you know, with the Rush Hour thing, it
was that's a crazy story too.

Speaker 5 (01:06:49):
You know. I was supposed to have this whole fight
scene with Jackie Chan and and somehow it just didn't
happen for whatever reason. You know, I don't know what
the reason is, but I know that I was, you know,
at the peak of just my physical prowess, and I
was ready to go, like, oh.

Speaker 3 (01:07:07):
I got Junkie Chan. I mean, come on, that's crazy.

Speaker 5 (01:07:10):
Yeah, I mean so. And at Jackie at that point,
to be honest, like, you know, he was a little
older from I mean, you know from the time that
he was I've been watching Jackie Chan since the eighties
or whatever. Now you're talking about like a whole other
time period.

Speaker 6 (01:07:24):
I was still I was like probably in my somewhere
in my thirties or so when we did Rush Hour.

Speaker 5 (01:07:29):
But I was ready to go. I was super excited.
I was like, man, this is it fight teing with
me and Jackie Chan. This is gonna be amazing. And
it didn't happen for whatever reason, But you know, I
was happy. I'm happy to have had the moment.

Speaker 2 (01:07:46):
Well, now the family business continues. Your adorable daughter, Lotus Blossom,
who started her career in a very memorable T mobile
commercial where she was yelling out hidden costs at her
lemonade stand. Did she always want to be a performer
like you were as a child.

Speaker 8 (01:08:05):
I think so, Like she grew up like you know,
at that time, like she had seen all the movies
that I'd done, and like we had done like a
whole kind of tour at the Alamo Draft Houses.

Speaker 5 (01:08:18):
Where you know, they were playing The Last Dragon and
Surf Ninjas and Ninja Turtles and all that.

Speaker 6 (01:08:24):
So she she was kind of prime for that.

Speaker 5 (01:08:26):
And she had done a few demos with me and
my dad up in northern California, so she had some experience.
And yeah, it just and yeah it at some point,
I mean, you know, she she wanted to do commercials,
and then we did a commercial. And I think that she,

(01:08:46):
more than my son, was like more influenced by like
following in my footsteps. You know.

Speaker 2 (01:08:52):
Yeah, is your son also in the business.

Speaker 6 (01:08:55):
Uh not yet.

Speaker 5 (01:08:57):
He's kind of like on the peripherree, you know what.
He will at some point very soon.

Speaker 2 (01:09:03):
So this will be three generations of Ray's projects. Yes, yes,
that's pretty exciting. Well, Ernie, what an incredible career you
continue to have. I know our listeners are huge fans,
and so are the three of us of just your
career and you as a person. Thank you so much
for joining us today. It has been a pleasure to

(01:09:25):
talk to you and learn from you and hear your experiences.
So we thank you well.

Speaker 6 (01:09:30):
Thank you very much for having me. I really appreciate you, guys.

Speaker 3 (01:09:33):
Thank you. I'm sure we'll see you a con Yes,
I'll see you soon.

Speaker 2 (01:09:37):
Bye bye. What a career.

Speaker 4 (01:09:40):
I also didn't realize how much how much he's done
that meant so much to me, especially yeah kidding, like
one after another of stuff, of projects that I used
to just watch over and over and over again.

Speaker 1 (01:09:51):
The ups and downs too, like you know, the fact
that he didn't work, like they're making TV shows and
movies around him, and then he goes through this whole
whole period of like, well doesn't mean anything. Yeah, you know. Also,
art only.

Speaker 2 (01:10:05):
Imagine any other world where you make the Last Dragon,
red Sonia, tun Ninja, Turtles movies and then and multiple
TV shows that are all successful, and then you do
one movie that isn't successful. And for fifteen.

Speaker 1 (01:10:22):
Years you're working just as hard the entire time, you
know what I mean, Like it doesn't change for you.

Speaker 3 (01:10:28):
Changed for you.

Speaker 1 (01:10:29):
The experience is still waking up every day, training, focusing
on your career, like having the same ambition and committing
to it with the same amount of intensity.

Speaker 2 (01:10:38):
And also you probably didn't do anything different in that
project that you had done in all the successful ones.
But somehow you're blamed the blame yeah for and no,
everyone's like, wow, he's not the vehicle maker anymore. It's
like what it's It's just crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:10:56):
It's a maddening industry, guys.

Speaker 3 (01:10:57):
It's also but it's also a trendy industry.

Speaker 4 (01:11:00):
And for the eighties and early nineties, young martial artists
was a big thing. So you have three Ninjas and
surf Ninjas and Revenge of the Ninja and Teenage Mutant
Ninja chur.

Speaker 3 (01:11:11):
I mean, it was like one after that and then
it goes away. It's like, oh, we don't do martial
arts anymore, and then.

Speaker 1 (01:11:15):
It comes back, and then.

Speaker 4 (01:11:17):
It does, so it's totally sick siclicur ciclicole. So you
just don't know when it's gonna come or what's gonna come?
I mean the nineties super hot right now? You just
you never know what's coming back.

Speaker 2 (01:11:28):
Wow. Well, thank you all for joining us for this
episode of Podmeets World. As always, you can follow us
on Instagram pod Meets World Show. You can send us
your emails pod Meets World Show at gmail dot com.
And we've got merch Go.

Speaker 4 (01:11:40):
Merchie go Merchie go go Merchie go Merchie go, go
go go.

Speaker 3 (01:11:45):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:11:46):
Wow, pretty good Podmeets Worldshow dot com writer send us out.

Speaker 1 (01:11:50):
We love you all, pod dismissed. Pod Meets World is
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(01:12:12):
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