It’s been three years since we last caught up with Brit kicker Chris Jones. Since our last conversation, he has gone from strength to strength, appearing in numerous movies and television shows as well as becoming a regular contributor to Impact magazine.
We were lucky enough to grab a few words with one of our favourite rising stars to see how life has been treating him and what the future has in store…
FEF: So Chris, what have you been up to since we last spoke?
Chris Jones: Wow, there’s so much I could tell you about, but I guess some of the main features have been ‘Soul Searcher’, ‘Displaced’, and more recently ‘The Silencer’. I’ve branched out into TV work now too with appearances on FIVE TV’s ‘Combat Club’ and ‘No Girls Allowed’, both Saturday morning kids’ TV shows. Late last year I was lucky enough to be involved in the Motion Capture performances for the upcoming PSP game ‘Pursuit Force’. That was a great experience and it’s something I would really like to do more of in the future. I’ve also started providing actor martial arts training, with the current trend of actors wanting to perform their own action, this has proved to be quite a cool twist to my profession. Late last year I was fortunate to have the opportunity to work alongside Claudia Black (‘Farscape’, ‘Pitch Black’) on her Martial Arts skills for a role she was taking on. Around the same sort of time, I was working with the lead actress Amber Moelter prepping her for the fan film ‘Catwoman Copycat’. I now also regularly write for IMPACT magazine, I’ve had the chance to interview some really cool people, which is always fun. There’s probably some more, but I’m getting on a little, my memory isn’t what it used to be 😉
FEF: And what are you currently working on?
CJ: I’ve just recently finished work on ‘The Silencer’ with the guys at Phoenix-i who were behind my first ever film appearance in ‘Insiders’ back in 2002. ‘The Silencer’ is definitely a huge step forward on ‘Insiders’, the guys learnt a lot from that feature which shows in not only the action of ‘The Silencer’ but in the production as a whole. It was great to work alongside Glenn Salvage again after I worked with him on ‘Left For Dead‘ again back in 2002/03. I think he really suits his role in ‘The Silencer’, although I won’t spoil it, you will have to go check out the trailer on YouTube. I’m currently gearing up to work on yet another UK fan film, funnily enough again along the Batman/Catwoman theme.
FEF: What sort of training are you doing these days and do you have a different regime you use to prepare for a film?
CJ: My training hasn’t really changed much at all, if anything the only thing I’m doing now is training a little more on the weights. With regards to training for a film, it really depends on what the role requires. With ‘The Silencer’ my role was a very cocky kickboxer-type character so I spent a little time working on my arms ready for the punchbag scenes I had in the film. I’m naturally a kicker, preferring to kick when possible. It was an interesting challenge working on my arms more, in fact I’m glad I did as it’s improved my sparring, I don’t get beat all the time now haha!
FEF: There seems to have been an influx of stunt teams and acrobats invading the internet of late (mostly with short clips), do you think that these have had a positive impact on the industry?
CJ: It’s great! Anything that positively promotes Martial Arts in the media can only be a good thing! It’s true that from time to time you do come across ‘kids’ trying out stupidly dangerous stunts, with no prior training or (it seems) any regard for their own or anyone else’s safety. It’s fair to say these are a VERY small minority. Teams like The Stunt People have gone from strength to strength and are now putting out some top-quality short films! Zero Gravity has done really well for themselves with many of their team turning pro, Lateef Crowder has recently starred alongside Tony Jaa in ‘Tom Yum Goong‘! With teams like Z-Team also up and coming it’s great to see so much talent putting out good quality stuff.
FEF: A couple of your films (‘Insiders’ and ‘Left For Dead’ in particular) are finally appearing on DVD in the US, have you had much feedback on them or been involved with the releases?
CJ: Wow they all happened so long ago, back in 2002/3, so it’s strange to see people viewing them as ‘new releases’. I have to be honest in that I’ve not had any feedback directly, well apart for the nice person on Amazon that liked my scenes in ‘Insiders’.
FEF: Funnily enough, we’ve had quite a few people ask about your films from our coverage. Is there any news on possible UK releases?
CJ: The best thing to do is contact the filmmakers, although saying that with websites such as Amazon, it’s possible to order to your own home, just make sure you have a multi-region player!
FEF: Do you think that the state of British martial arts/action movies has improved thanks to independent productions in recent years?
CJ: Tenfold! Wait until you see ‘The Silencer’, Steve and Simon at Phoenix-i have done a cracking job on this follow-up feature to ‘Insiders’. Another film, ‘Love Struck’ I worked on last year has recently won best film at the Portabello film festival, so yes you could say that things are deffo on the up with regards to Indie features.
FEF: And what films – east or west – have offered up the most entertainment for you of late?
CJ: Wow that’s a tuffy! ‘Fighter in the Wind’ and ‘Arahan‘ are two of my most recent faves, ‘Ong Bak‘ and ‘New Police Story‘ are cool too. Most recently ‘Danny The Dog‘ (aka ‘Unleashed’) was (I thought) a fantastic feature, not only was the action top-notch (plenty of Brits in the mix!) but the acting and dramatic scenes were very well put together, one of the better general release ‘actioners’ of the last few years. I’m generally not a ‘Batman’ fan, but I have to say the recent Bat film was fantastic, I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed it!
FEF: If someone were looking to break into your line of work, what’s the best bit of advice you could offer?
CJ: Don’t! … No seriously, be prepared to put in a LOT of hard work and persistent contact-making. It’s not just about being good, you have to have good business sense and focus. Learn from as many people as you can.
FEF: With all of your experience now, if you could do anything and work with anyone, what would be your ideal project?
CJ: You’re really throwing some tough questions my way! There are so many people I would love to work with, but right now I would love the chance to work with Mike Leeder on something, anything lol! Mike has been a great source of advice and has helped me out so much, would be nice to work on a project with him as I feel we would work well together, although saying that we would probably spend more time talking about something random, that or be in the pub! haha. Seriously though, I just want to work with as many people as I can and learn from as many different people as I can.
FEF: Personally I feel that the UK is missing a really good action TV series, do you think that is something you could do (a kind of ‘Martial Law’ style show) and how would you handle it?
CJ: It’s tough to gauge how well the UK would receive such a TV show, and even more tough trying to do something that (as good as it was) doesn’t end up looking like ‘Martial Law’ from the point of view of keeping things fresh. It goes without saying though that I would be more than happy to be involved with such a project 😉
FEF: So what can we look out for from you in the future?
CJ: I’m currently planning a handful (i.e. we’re not sure how many yet ;-)) of short film shoots during the end of this year, early next year. It’s something I have been thinking about for some time now, this time of the year is usually a little quieter so it’s as good a time as any! I believe the ‘Combat Zone’ kids DVD series should be released soon, although I’m not overly sure when, probably best to check out my site for more news on that one. During castings for the current Jet Li production ‘Fearless‘ I shot an interview and gave a short demo of my skills for a Mike Leeder documentary called ‘The Passion Of Martial Arts’, keep an eye out for that one too!
FEF: Thanks very much for talking to us Chris, it’s been a pleasure as always. Good luck with all your upcoming projects!
CJ: Not a problem, it’s good to see this site going from strength to strength! I hope to speak to you again soon. Thanks 🙂
Far East Films would like to thank Chris Jones for taking the time to speak with us.
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