Thanks to MissJedi for letting me borrow the html code, and many many thanks to Becki for her permission to share this with all sithsters!

The Channel 5 interview:

Started off by explaining about Darth Maul, then goes on about Ray, saying that he is a really nice chap. Now for some bits I picked up on.

i) His voice. He has a strong London accent, but he has none of the deepness that you hear in Maul's voice. The best way of describing it is try and imagine Bill Mumy (Mr Lennier from Babylon 5) doing a Dick Van Dyke impression and you have an approximation of his accent - that or Keith Flint from The Prodigy! Very nice!

ii) His looks. Oh wow! Oh my word! Phew!! We are talking nicely toned! I shan't be vulgar unless you want me to be :) One nice touch was the shirt he was wearing, it was one of the Ralph Lauren 'Polo' shirts, in blue. It matches his eyes perfectly. Like Liam he has 'Irish' colouring (dark hair, light coloured eyes - wow!) So what? I have this thing about Celtic men! (Remember Ray is Scottish born!)

Points from the interview

~ Came on as Assistant Stunt Director (along with Nick Gillard)

~ Took up the get up for Maul for one fight scene. The rest is history!

~ He could explain the appeal of Maul if he was female (The DMEB are becoming infamous!) He seemed a little shy about it all (how cute! LOL!)

~ Would love to work on the next movie - but isn't holding his breath.

~ Lots of clips from the movie - especially the fight scene at the end of the movie (I wanna see this movie and I wanna see it NOW!!!)

~ He taught Ewan and Liam how to fight, they had a lovely clip of Ray (shaved head) taking the other two through the moves for the last battle scene (Liam was using a bandana, in a colour that matched his eyes, to keep the hair out of his eyes LOL!)

~ Told practically nothing about Maul.

~ Noted his martial arts training. Made note of the similarity between the philosophy between the Jedi and the eastern arts.

Found another bit for you. This is from a magazine called 'Heat'. They are also the source for the scans attached!

Starts off by mentioning what Ray did before Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. He was stacking shelves at Sainsburys (a supermarket chain in GB)on the night shift, have two hours sleep, go training, teach some martial arts classes and then go back to Sainsburys.

So you can't blame him for stating that MK:A was '.. a lot f*cking better than what I had been doing'.

It then mentions that it was this that led to the fateful call from Nick Gillard who was looking for someone to train the stars and who ever played Maul. Then Nick and Rick McCallum put together a video of Ray doing the necessary moves and... the rest we know! Ray got the part!

(Note - this is where the reporter gets their facts hopelessly muddled, unfortunately they cannot tell the difference between Glasgow and London!)

Notes that he was good at football/soccer, and trialled for the local team, but inspired by Jet Li, he specialised in Wu Shu (or Wei Shu). To quote RP:

'It's the most flamboyant martial art. You use a broadsword, a three sided Shaolin pole, and the kicks are more theatrical. I figured if I followed Wu Shu/Wei Shu, it'd be easier to break into films, because it looks so spectacular.'

It also mentions another reason why RP did not voice Maul. As he explains.. 'My voice has never properly broken, which doesn't help if you are trying to do a deep, evil voice from the Dark Side'

(Note, the voice may not have made it fully into maturity - but the rest of him did! I shall not go any further as I would end up getting rather.. depraved!)

He notes it to be a small price to pay as he was hardly going to turn it down and go back to stacking shelves!

Right, I shall leave it there, as I need to go lie down (literally and metaphorically - my back is killing me! Anyone know any good Jedi masseurs?) -- Becky