Sorcerous Apprentice

Ray Park renders darkly forceful menace as Darth Maul.

Darth Maul cuts a most sinister figure in Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace, but behind the Sith Lord's double-edged lightsaber and that fearsome makeup stands Ray Park, an easygoing, soft-spoken man who makes his acting debut in the prequel to the Star Wars saga. "People can't quite take it in that I played this character in the movie, or that I am who I am," Park marvels of his newfound fame. "They can't comprehend how this nice guy could have played this evil character. Some people don't believe me at all when I say, 'I played Darth Maul.'

"It's weird. People are starting to recognize me as me, though. It was a very anonymous thing at first, but because of the conventions I've done, the interviews I've been doing and the premieres I've been attending, people are starting to recognize me. I didn't know what to expect. I kept an open mind about what might happen. I knew that Darth Maul was the bad guy, the villain who fought the Jedi. I knew that once people saw the movie, they would realize that I wasn't an extra. But I didn't realize just how cool Darth Maul would look and how popular he would be."

This apprentice of evil is quite an enigma -- even Park is unclear at to the story behind Darth Maul.

"I don't know a lot about him because George Lucas didn't tell me too much," confesses Park, a 24-year-old Scotsman and second-degree black belt who has competed in a number of martial arts events around the world. "In my view, he's just a guy who doesn't talk much, who apprentices under Darth Sidious [Ian McDiarmid] and who is very confident and cool. He can become a bit over-confident, in an arrogant way. He shows that in his lightsaber skills, in his martial arts abilities. That's also what does him in. He became cocky and overconfident, and that's what got him."

Sith Ward

Despite the long hours in the makeup chair, and the sheer physicality of the role -- which called upon him to fight in full makeup and robes for long hours under the blazing hot sun in Tunisia -- Park can't find anything to complain about regarding his Phantom Menace experience. "I enjoyed it," he raves. "I didn't once think, 'Ah, I don't want to go to work. I don't want to do this.' I was like, 'Yeah, let's go. Up at 5 a.m.? Fine.' I didn't even think about it. I looked forward to going to bed for the next day.

"Probably the hardest days on the film were when we were shooting the big battles at the end, with me, Ewan McGregor and Liam Neeson. I had to know the battles inside and out and know Ewan and Liam's moves as well as they did. With my experience, I could improvise or help them if they got stuck. They were really up for it as well, and wanted to do it. I gave them some tips; it was a nice relationship. I think it worked out well on screen. It looks great. I got really excited when the double doors opened."

Contrary to some reports, Park did not officially serve on the film as a stuntman or stunt coordinator. Nick Gillard was the stunt coordinator and Andreas Petrides was the fight arranger. "I was just an actor on it, but I did my own stunts," explains Park, clarifying matters. Gillard brought him in, as a stuntman, while he was preparing fight sequences for Lucas to approve. So impressed with Park were Gillard, Lucas and producer Rick McCallum that McCallum soon informed Park that the role of Darth Maul was his.

"I was employed because I had done some martial arts on screen before in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. Nick wrote the fights on The Phantom Menace. Liam, Ewan, Nick, Andreas and I all worked together on the scenes," Park says. "We would all have our input, and I did make suggestions because I wanted to do things as Darth Maul, all the spins and jumps, that were comfortable for me. Obviously, we worked in George's ideas as well. He wrote the movie, and the fights had to fit into everything else he was doing."

Though nothing scares Darth Maul, Park couldn't help but be nervous around Lucas, at least in the beginning. "I was in awe of George," he notes, "and a bit intimidated, but when you meet him and talk to him, he's just such a nice, down-to-Earth guy. He's really creative. He's such a perfectionist. Everyone around him is like that as well. He made you feel good about what you had done. He would compliment you and tell you if he was happy with something. If he wasn't happy, he would tell you that, too, but that wasn't the case very often. I think he got the movie he had in mind. I doubt he would have released it if he didn't get what he wanted."

Just as Lucas helped Park, so too did McGregor, Neeson and McDiarmid. "On my first day of shooting, I worked with Ian, and he was very nice to me. I asked him for a few tips because I was very nervous," Park recalls. "I asked, 'Do you think I'm doing this right?' It was my first time acting, and I didn't want to look stupid. Once I started speaking, acting out the part and doing the moves, I felt really comfortable. It was just that I had put a lot of pressure on myself because I wanted to do well. Ewan and Liam were very nice as well. I was in awe of everyone. I thought, 'Here I am working with all these big, experienced actors in this big movie.' I just had to have confidence in myself and in my abilities. All three of them -- Ian, Ewan and Liam -- really helped me get comfortable, which helped me be more confident."

Park knew going into the film that Darth Maul would die, but he didn't know for certain that another actor would provide the character's voice. On the set, Park was miked for sound, but Lucas ultimately hired Peter Serafinowicz to utter Darth Maul's dialogue. "I think the voice is excellent," Park says, evincing no displeasure. "Peter did a great job. His voice really suits the part. My voice may not have been right. I'm not bothered about it. It's not a big speaking part anyway. It would have felt really good to do everything, but I acted the role and I did the physical action, so it's me."

Knight Moves

Born in Scotland and raised in England, Park always planned to pursue a career as a thespian. He insists that he was just three years old when the interest in acting overcame him. But it wasn't until Park was a teenager that he figured he could parlay his impressive physical presence into performing opportunities. "My wanting to act was one of the reasons I started with martial arts," he notes. "Also, my dad was a big fan of movies. We watched a lot of martial arts and SF movies. I saw Star Wars when I was about seven years old. It was one of the first movies I saw after we moved to London. I got all the action figures. I was a big fan. My dad cried when he saw the trailer for The Phantom Menace. He hasn't seen the movie yet and I'm dying for him to see it.

"Anyway, I was into movies and martial arts. My heroes were Jackie Chan, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jet Li. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation was my break. It was where I learned about the industry. Before I got that, I was going to set up a gym and teach full-time. I met people on the film. I got to perform stunts. It was a good experience, but it made me feel even more that I wanted to be an actor, out there in front of the camera, doing stuff for myself and not for someone else. Thanks to The Phantom Menace, I'm getting closer and closer to that."

Next up for Park is next month's Sleepy Hollow, Tim Burton's Gothic horror story, which stars Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Christopher Walken, Casper Van Dien and McDiarmid. Park handles the swordplay for the Headless Horseman sequences, but does not act in the film. "Nick Gillard, the stunt coordinator on that, just asked me to come down," Park says. "It was just a bit of fun for me. I was teaching and helping and doing other things. I wasn't acting in anything else yet and I love that kind of work, so I wasn't going to turn it down, even though acting is what I would prefer to do."

Currently, Park is in Canada shooting the eagerly awaited X-Men. The Marvel mutant heroes are led by Patrick Stewart. Park, of course, is on the dark side of that force. He plays the Toad, hench-mutant to X-Men arch-nemesis Magneto (Sir Ian McKellan).

At the end of The Phantom Menace, Darth Maul winds up sliced in two by Obi-Wan (McGregor), which would seem to preclude Park from appearing in Episode II or III. And indeed Lucas has said that Maul is dead and gone, a situation that spurs Sidious on the search for a new apprentice. Chances are, though, that Gillard will return as stunt coordinator on the prequels, and there's no reason why he couldn't turn to Park for help with the stunts. "Nick and I have spoken about that," Park acknowledges, "but I'm not too sure it'll happen. Actually, I'm not too sure myself because, as I say, I would like to do more acting. I want to carry on with my acting career, but it's a possibility."

Besides, that's all so far, far away. For now, Park just wants to bask in the glow of life as the latest villain in the Star Wars Universe. "It's just mind-blowing. Now and again, I get a little crunch inside. I get really excited, but I try not to lose my head about it," Ray Park concludes. "It really, really is overwhelming, though. The response I get is amazing. 'You're Ray Park You play Darth Maul. Wow...' And some people treat me like some kind of icon. I'm like 'Hey, it's just me. I'm just Ray.'"

Starlog article by Ian Spelling