Interview with Adrian Paul (Highlander) by Metal Life Magazine

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MetalLife.com Interview With Adrian Paul (Highlander)
By: Terry Bunch
Date: July, 2011

1. Metal Life Magazine: What was your favorite moment portraying Duncan Macleod?

Adrian Paul: "That's a tough one. I mean there's a lot of great moments. I feel that the most devastating was when he took Richard's head. It was personal because he was losing a friend on the show. Stan is a good friend of mine so I lost him as a well, so it was a two-in-one with that scene. I think as a character, the best moment for him was when he went back to the past and was shown his first love. That was really a great moment. For four seasons, it was 'where do I come from?', so we had to four seasons to figure that out (laughs) and finally we did. I got to direct that one too so that part was fun as well. "

Photo by Eva Jarkiewicz, Metal Life Magazine

2. Metal Life Magazine: What do you think was the main appeal of the show? Why do think so many people loved Highlander?

Adrian Paul: "I think it had a variety of things. I liken it to when I sign autographs. The women liked the romantic stuff and guys liked all the sword stuff. Other people liked the period stuff. So it had a variety of things that people got into. The interesting thing about Highlander when they released it to different countries and it got known more around the world, in each of those countries, there was a different thing that they liked. In Russia, for instance, I was so suprised how popular it was in Russia when I went there. They liked it because Duncan was fighting the oppression. There was a certain cultural thing that people identified with in the show. Same thing in Hungary. In America, its the sword, the fantasy, but there it was a slightly different reason why people liked it. Being immortal, you know everyone wants that. Looks at the products we have, all the face creams and all that stuff, people like that type of thing. People think that would be cool.

That's actually how Highlander got started. One of the producers was touring England and he was going around from castle to castle and he said 'it would cool if you could actually be in all these different time zones' and that's how the original story started. "

3. Metal Life Magazine: Did you have to learn all the swordplay or did you already get into that before?

Adrian Paul: "I started doing swordwork about a year before. Not really that seriously. I worked with a katana funnily enough. I don't know why, maybe it was because I was doing martial arts. After that Bob Anderson was very instrumental in teaching me all the positions for fencing and then I had my martial arts teacher Vernon Rieta. He came in an taught me a lot of the Chinese style and I had other people teaching me the Korean style so I had a real mix and as you watch Duncan's progression as a sword guy, you'll see that his style is very mixed. There's Chinese style, Korean, Japanese, the fencing, its all in there. ".

Photo by Eva Jarkiewicz, Metal Life Magazine

4. Metal Life Magazine: What are you currently working on?

Adrian Paul: "I have a film I am working on later year called 'At 2:15.' Its sort of a drama and stars Nick Nolte, Melanie Griffith and Angela Molina. That is going to be later this year. I've got all the other stuff my company is doing. One is a movie I am directing next summer called 'Basile's Legacy' which is about a small Italian town that is dying and the mayor saves it. I've got another called called '5', which is similar to 'Deliverance' with a young cast. Its got a trip to Alaska and they get in trouble and they start getting hunted one by one. We've got another piece called 'Battleground Zero' which is an action thriller. And I am also working with a company to build the first green studio in Los Angeles. That's in the early process right now, but as you can see I have a lot of things that I am involved in. "

5. Metal Life Magazine: Any chance of another Highlander adventure?

Adrian Paul: "(laughs). I am not sure for me. I know that there is one coming. I understand that Summit are remaking the first film. But for myself, I am not sure what I would do with the character or where it would take me. "

6. Metal Life Magazine: We had heard rumors that you would play Duncan and then lose a battle and have the new Highlander take over from there.

Adrian Paul: "You know what? (laughs) Some of these rumors could be true, but I have no idea. Sometimes rumor come from something someone said in their writings or its mentioned in a script someone blogs it and then it gets out to somebody else and I haven't heard it yet. I have no idea what the scripts contain or what their plans are. "

7. Metal Life Magazine: Our magazine focuses on the hobbies and interests of fans of heavy metal music. What kind of music do you like to listen to?

Adrian Paul: "I am more of an R&B, not quite hip hop, more reggae. That's what I get into. I listen to a variety of stuff though, I really like to listen to music. It also depends on what I am working on. When I was working on 'Basile's Legacy', I also did a re-write, so while I was doing that, I was listening to Italian folk music. Music inspires me to get into the right mindset, so I listen to a wide variety of things. "

8. Metal Life Magazine: What is your favorite movie?

Adrian Paul: "My favorite movie... depends on what genre. (laughs) 'Chocolat' is one of my favorite drama movies, another favorite is 'what was the one with... Benicio Del Toro' its one of my favorites of all time... Kevin Spacey.... Keyser Söze..... its on the tip of my tongue... I am going to have to look this up now.... otherwise its going to bug me while we are doing this. Later on today, I will be like 'Oh my God, that's what is was, I should have told him that.' "

As an action piece, I have always loved Star Wars, Terminator type style. They are fun movies for me to just mindlessly enjoy.

Editor's note: At this point Adrian asks us to move on as the title will come to him

9. Metal Life Magazine: What was the most difficult scene you had to film from the perspective of the location or the stunts that were involved or even a really complex storyline?

Adrian Paul: "Film or TV?"

Metal Life Magazine: Let's go with film.

Adrian Paul: "The last movie was problematic because we had a four or five page action sequence with fights, guns, horses and 20 characters in it to shoot in one day. Its impossible to do, so we had to revamp the script while we were working on it. It was really hard. The other Highlander movie before that, in the last fight scene, we were actually shooting in Romania, well. let me correct that. We shot it in Romania, England and Luxembourg. The reason why was because... we were shooting in Romania, but unfortunately, we didn't finish the fight. We had choreographed the scenes for locations in Romania, so when we shifted to England, we had to re-choreograph them for England. But then we didn't finish it in England either, so we had another rewrite to do in Luxembourg. So I had no idea what was going on, so that was really hard physically. I hurt my back while I was doing it because I was doing a lot of different stunts at the time. The shooting got spread out by five or six months. We started in November and didn't finish until May so mentally and physically it was challenging. "

Metal Life Magazine: You can't tell from watching the movie that all that trouble happened. You guys pulled it off in the end.

Adrian Paul: "Yeah, I think that movie holds its own. As an action flick, it holds its own and most of the fans actually liked it.

Editor's Note: Adrian Paul is still searching on the net for the title of his favorite movie. Google, IMDB, etc are being scoured as he searches

10. Metal Life Magazine: During the TV series, what was the most challenging part of having to shrink stories down to fit the time slot?

Adrian Paul: "The most challenging thing was to make sure the viewers understood what the character's point view was. That really was it in a nutshell. Because every week I would be working with David Abramowitz (creative consultant on Highlander series) on the following week's script saying 'OK, what are we trying to say this week, I know you have your structure but how about this for the characters or how about this.' That's what I think kept the series alive because I had done other series before where its all about 'let's catch the bad guy.' People are not interested in that, they want to see the characters evolve through something, they want to see their problems and their relationships. So that's really what I was so intent on with David. It got to the point where David would say 'What do you want this week' (laughs) And I would say 'Well how about this...? (laughs)"

11. Metal Life Magazine: Did you get to keep any of the props from the TV series or movies?

Adrian Paul: "Yeah, I kept a couple of small things. I donated a lot of it charity. It's been a long time since we did that stuff. I have my Highlander jacket which I wore through five seasons. Nobody has something like it. It is unique, a one of a kind jacket. All the badges are there. Everybody that has seen pictures of me has seen me wearing that jacket. I have that and its staying with me, probably forever or unless I ever need the money (laughs). I have a couple of swords. One of the crew members made me a sword which nobody else has got. The handle is white, it is supposed to be ivory, but obviously it is not... and the blade is a grey metal. I got that at the end of season of 3 or 4. That's something I will always treasure. "

12. Metal Life Magazine: Who was your favorite co-star?

Adrian Paul: "As the regulars or the people who came in?"

Metal Life Magazine: Let's go with the celebrity guests

Adrian Paul: "Roger Daltrey. He was fabulous to work with. Nia Peeples was fun to. Roger and I were like two guys just having fun. That's kind of how we viewed it.

Metal Life Magazine: Yeah, Roger does seem to be bit of a joker and a laugh.

Adrian Paul: "Totally, totally he is."

13. Metal Life Magazine: Did you have any common practical jokes that you played on the cast or crew?

Adrian Paul: "(laughs) Yeah, always. One time, we were in the middle of the whole 'Jerky Boys' thing. Don't know if you remember the 'Jerky Boys', but we mimicked that. When we did the shows in Vancouver, Canada, they were four minutes shorter than the ones we did in Europe because of changeover in the the system between PAL and NTSC. So we actually had to film an extra scene when we were in Paris. Since we knew is was all going to get translated anyway, we just did our own 'Jerky Boys' bit. So were just saying 'Hey jerky head' ... 'Hey tough guy' .. 'whadda you want.' We were just repeating those lines. It had nothing to do with what our characters were doing, but we were having fun doing it. (laughs) "

Editor's Note: Adrian is STILL searching for the elusive title of his favorite movie...

Adrian's publicist reminds us that we 20 seconds left...

Adrian Paul: "20 Seconds!!!! ...hang on, I have to find this. My minder is here and she telling me to get going... (laughs). Its going to come to me BEFORE I actually find it on the net (laughs) That's usually what happens with these things."

Adrian's publicist offers to help search for the title....

Adrian Paul: "'Usual Suspects'!! thank you... (laughs) I also liked 'Traffic' as well. Benicio del Toro is such a great actor."