Folks. It should people fake good money to see this movie when they go
out to a theater. They want cold sodascorn and no monsters. In a
projection booth, Everyone for ten podcasting isn't boring. Shut it off. Hey,
folks, welcome to a special episode of the Projection Booth. I'm your
host Mike White. On this episode, I'm talking with director Sheldon Lettich,
actor Brian Thompson, and author Corey Dana, who wrote Sheldon Lettich From Vietnam
to Van Dam. We talk a bit about the book and a lot about
mister Lettich's first film, Firefight, which is now available to watch on YouTube.
I started off by asking mister Lettich how he went from his career in
the military to filmmaking. Yeah, there was a long gap there between the
military and actually doing so motion picture work. I was a photographer for a
number of years and mostly doing archijecture, and I wanted to be a cinematographer
at first, and I went to the American Film Institute as a cinematography fellow.
I shot some some low student movies for the directing fellows, and then
I got well, I had the opportunity to make our own movie. While
we were there. It was on f Inch DHS. I made this little
science fiction epic based on an Arthur C. Park short story, and then
I kind of had a knack for it. I had a knack for directing
as well as cinematography, and for writing as well. That's where I first
tried my hand at writing, because we had screenwriting fellows cinematography, directing,
and producing. The screenwriting fellows a lot. They graduated from very prestigious universities.
They had like master's degree in Creative Writing MFA, all this kind of
stuff. So I was quite impressed with their resumes, and then I started
reading some of their screenplays that they're writing. There was just writing short screenplays
that we could actually shelve them there at the school. I was kind of
shocked by how poor some of this stuff was. Writing telling stories, it's
an innate talent that you're you're born with, and of course you can pick
up some stuff along the way reading books, watching movies, but when it
comes to writing or acting also it's another one. Either you got it or
you don't got it. I just felt, well, I'm gonna try writing
a little screen blay myself, because I think I could do at least as
good as these people are doing. So that's got me got me started on
my screenwriting bath and then as a cinematography fellow, I was shooting movies for
the directing fellows, and I found that I was getting them way too much
help because and a lot of them they also had you know, MFA and
master's degrees in all this, but they really didn't have a clue as to
where to put the camera. Some of them were really good with talking to
actors, but beyond that, they really didn't have it. It's not everybody.
So a few people who were in my class went on to have a
nice career in the business, but I just felt I had a knack for
directing also, And so then I co authored this play called Tracers about Vietnam,
and I wrote this one. One of the scenes that I wrote was
the story that became firefight. Most of the scenes were it was a dialogue
between you know, we had various characters. I think we had about about
six characters in it. It was mostly dialogue stuff. And this was kind
of a big epic scene that could not have been staged properly in a small
theater. So the director decided we're just we're going to dump this what we
can't use this, it's just too big. But I was in love with
the story and I wanted to do something with I felt it deserved the cinematic
treatment, and I just couldn't get that story out of my mind. So
then a few years later I had decided, we'll shoot, I'm gonna fill
this thing. I'm gonna make this little movie. And that I raised the
money but pulled a cast and crew together, and I have to admit Frank
Duke's helped me a lot. I asked Frank if he wanted to be involved,
I'm making this little movie, and he did. And he did see
himself as a potential movie star at the time. He won't admit it now,
but he really was. He saw himself as like the next Tom Seller,
okay, which was realistic at the time. I thought he could be
an actor, he could be some kind of a TV star or something.
So I said, okay, Frank, why don't you how if I give
you the lead role in this little movie and you helped me put it together?
And he did. He actually put a little bit of money into the
budget and he got a number of his spreads to be in the movie,
like the Ree brothers. I didn't know those guys. Frank knew them.
So Frank asked them if they wouldn't mind planning if you get cong in the
movie. And there are a few others. There were like some other stunt
people, as Frank knew, and he pulled them in and so they'd ended
up doing a lot of the stunt work in the movie. And the actual
casting we did by putting an ad. And there was a periodical called Drama
Blogue that came out I think once a week, and it would have ads
for you know, hey, we're looking for actors for this and for that,
and our articles about actors, and we put an ad in there,
and that's how we got Bryan. Bryan was reading Drama every week and he
saw the ad and answered it, and so he ended up having his first
on screen role, which I guess led to a lot of other things.
So basically that's why people were working on the movie. We weren't paying anybody
any salary, but we promised some a half inch VHS tape which everybody got,
so then they were use that put that on their acting reels, and
of course I was able to use the film as a directing sample. That
actually ended up working up pretty good for me because I'm at Van Dam and
we hit it off and I met him through less important of course, and
then he got this Lionheart project set up, which was originally called The Wrong
Bet, that was his original title, and so I was hired to write
the screenplay. Eric Carson was supposed to direct the movie at first, but
John Claude wanted me to direct the movie just because he'd worked with Eric,
and Eric was based on Eric's a decent director, but he didn't really have
passion for Jean Claude. He didn't really believe in John Claude the way that
I did, and I really believed in him at the time. So John
Claude wanted me to direct the movie and he saw a firefight, so he
thought that was enough to demonstrate to him that I could I could direct a
movie, and he showed it to Sainil Shaw. We showed this little movie
to a number of people, added on thirty five millimeter, so it's very
easy for them that went up in their screening rooms, their private screening rooms
to watch it on a big screen. And apparently we sold Sneil on it,
and that's how I ended up. We not sold him then he I
would not have directed the movie, or I would have been fired after a
few days, I if I was screwing up, But he had Eric as
a producer, so Eric was basically waiting in the wings just in case I
screwed up really bad, and then he could bring Eric and to finish up
the movie. So it ended up being a good thing for me and Brian.
I'm sure you put it on your your reel, right or did you?
You know? Editing back then was very difficult, so Sheldon Firefight,
the clips that I had did not make it on the reel. I'm sorry,
I'm sorry. Oh yeah, because back mad we did have all these
digital tools, it was pretty difficult to do that kind of stuff. I
had a line here and a line there. It wasn't like I had like
a even a fifteen second continuity. Yeah, it's not like you had a
long passage of dialogue or something. So, yeah, where were you at
in your career, mister Thompson when Firefight came along for you? I had
just finished my second year of graduate school and the Master of Fine Arts acting
program at the Interest to California, Irvine in my search for material and then
my own interest. I had coincidentally been reading just about every non fiction book
written about Vietnam at the time, and I also was embarking upon auditions in
Hollywood as often as I could, just to get over this dragon of here
that I had. When I would audition, you know, you want it
so badly, this dragon of nerds would show up, and you know,
many times the you know, the best performance got left at home when during
rehearsal and I had been submitting to Drama Logue my picture resume in the hopes
to get an interview, and this was the very first picture and resume that
I had sent out that actually led to an interview for the film in Hollywood,
the very first one I was. It was Sheldon. Do you remember
what month of the year it was that you submitted to Drama Logue? I
doubt, but I know that we filmed in August nineteen eighty three. Yeah,
we felt at the end of August, so did we. Was it
in Drama Logue in July? Was it earlier later than that would have been
earlier? I think, yes, earlier than July. Yeah, yeah,
because I actually sent it a notice to Backstage Rest to see if they have
the archived Drama lologue. So if we get that, NERB, that would
be an interesting thing to have the little water ad that I responded to,
you know what, I think I have it in my files. Yes,
I think I have the original ad from drama argue. Well, I just
went digging through my folders and I found Sheldon. I found a folder that
was labeled Firefight. I did not find the picture of me with my birthday
cupcake because I turned twenty three years old on the side of Firefight. But
look, it did slick familiar. Yes, it does absolutely. Yeah.
Yeah, that's that's a contract. It's got your signature on it, so
maybe that's worth something. I've got Frank Dukes's contract with his signature, so
that's probably gonna be worth more. I would think you're right about that.
The editorious Frank Dukes. You know, you got to think about how you
know, naive we are at the time, and how we take people on
their word. And so you know, I met these two guys in Hollywood
who who both said they were Vietnam veterans making this short about Vietnam, which
I was fascinated with how narrowly by just a few years I missed out on
being drafted. How I could have been these guys you know from Dispatches.
I written them three or four other books, the titles of which I don't
remember right now. And so I was very committed and passionate about representing the
harrowing experience that these guys had been through. Well, I wish we could
have made something, something even bigger. The other day, somebody, when
I was doing this other interview, somebody was saying, hey, how about
you making in a Vietnam movie with Scott Atkins and Ryan Thompson And I forgot
what other names they said, but I said, yeah, I'm hey,
I'm all for that, okay, I'd love to make a big Vietnam movie
with Ryan Thompson. So Corey, as the biographer of Sheldon Lettige, curious,
what was your first experience with his filmography. I remember seeing blood Sport
the first time theater i've seen it, you know, the opening weekend,
you know, I remember seeing his name. Later on I would see his
name on you know, other things like Rambo three or you know, Lion
Heart and the name it it always always stuck with me, and I ended
up having all those posters hanging on my wall as a kid. So,
you know, his name was all around me growing up. You know,
so's somebody's whose career I followed, you know, most of my life.
And I've always gone back to those films too, you know, being a
film geek, and I've always you know, leaned more towards the action and
horror type films and stuff, especially, you know, action films, and
some of those films that he did back then were you know we're in still
are like seminal pieces. I mean, look at how many times blood Sport's
been you know, copied or imitated, and how often people still talk about
blood Sport, blood Sport, blood Fish, blood Match. There was so
many, so many ripoffs of it. I wouldn't call them ripoffs, maybe
more like they were homage. Okay. There to Mortal Kombat, you know,
morter Combat. Absolutely. In fact, I've read I've read some scholarly
articles about this within the last few years. People are talking about how blood
Sport led to mixed martial arts, Mortal Kombat led to a lot of stuff.
So the big impact on our culture all over the world. So us
I was very curious as far as how you shot firefight. Was that thirty
five or sixteen? We shot sixteen millimeter. This would have been so much
easier nowadays, but back then it was no digital. Nobody had nobody had
smartphones, okay, and basically I had the rent equipment. They had to
go to these equipment houses and rent sixteen millimeter cameras, and then you got
to buy the Shulton stock. You got to get the Shulton stock developed,
then you got to get it printed, and then you edit. You have
to have to have if you can't just do it on There were no such
thing as those computers back then. He didn't have a computers. Basically,
you had to get movie oilers and cams and all this stuff. So it
was a long, long process, and that's why it took so long for
me to have a completed shell. We was shot in eighty three and an
eight and eighty six. It was finally completed and I was able to show
it to people. Yes, I was sixteen millimeter and then I blew it
up to thirty five. It would have been impossible to shoot this thing at
thirty five because the cameras were huge and as it was we had to schlep
all the stuff up on top of the hill and Camp Pendleton. And when
he says, Charlette, I'm going with an elevation from the road to where
this convenient location that the director chose, I would say elevation change of a
couple hundred feet and probably a minimum a quarter mile. And it wasn't really
it wasn't really a trail. It was just this incline up this brush here
worth the trail. Yeah, we made our own trail. Somebody had a
truck and drove the pickup truck up there, and then once there they handed
you a shovel and you started digging. I had no art department, I
had no assistant directors, I had no costume people. So basically I just
had a big box and boxes of boots, sending up uniforms and all this
stuff. And I told all the actors, okay, pick out some pickouts,
some uniforms that fit you, all right, and then okay, now
we got to dig some foxholes and we used entrenching tools. So you guys
were kind of getting into it. You're kind of cheeling, like this is
what it feels like to be off grunt in Vietnam. You know, I
got I got my entrenching tool here and this little shovel and digging a hole
to make a foxhole for myself. So yeah, we had to do We
did all that stuff, and nobody really complained. I think they were kind
of having fun playing playing soldier and you know, firing fake m sixteens and
having battles. It was an interesting experience for everybody. One thing I learned
also, don't mix actors and stuntmen unless you rehearsed everything. Let the stuntmen
do the stunt stuff. Let the actors do their dialogue. He him separated
because there was this one little fight scene we had where Brian and Philip Free
or tangling in a foxhole and Brian had a held it on and we had
had the film we saw it on Chilm and Brian jerked his head back and
hit Philip right in the mouth the brim of the helmet, the sharp brim
in the back, right his tooth cause too, and basically snapped his tooth
in two. It was it was kind of kind of random, and you
could see him be check up for like both. And Philip Free is a
pretty tough guy, but he was in pain, and actually we were at
Camp Paddleton and we drove him down to them. They had doctors and dentists
there on duty, so we were able to get This was worked on.
But that wasn't your fault. Ryan. Basically, I could have rehearsed that
bite with you guys, but I didn't do it because I was I was
an amateur myself, and I haven't made mistakes like that since not you.
Actually, no, I haven't really made mistakes like that, and you've worked
on Ryan's worked on. I think for movies wish me not including Firefight.
I think it's for including firefight, Winhart, perfect Target and the Order.
I guess that's it. That's for including Firefight. And Sheldon still regrets not
getting me the lead and risk kies he would have been really good at that.
And Jean Claude when he saw the movie. I got him into a
screening before the movie opened and he saw it and he said, you know
what, I would have been much better in that lead role than the guy
you had, and I agreed with him. He didn't send that home.
You just did not get any Russian out of that guy. No, No,
but imagine imagine if that guy was Dolph Lundgren. You know the Bruski.
You know that there's this there's this formidable terror and foreign quality to this
thing that the kids encounter, but it was kind of like they were meeting
their neighbor. That kind of gave off of that neighbor lead vibe. That
was Joaquin Phoenix's first leading role. He went by the name Leith Phoenix at
the time, but he was pretty much the lead kid. We had like
three kids who capture this Russian sailor, and Joaquin Phoenix was like the main
guy with the most He had the most dialogue in the film with anybody.
Yeah, you could have been the Russian Ryan, or you could have been
the bad guy too. We had I think Patrick Kilpatrick played this spillinous character.
We'll fight a way to insert you digitbal Me one of these days.
Ruski is too. We'll get eage Joaquin Phoenix so we can have him reprise
his role as a teenager once again. Or you talked about how you grew
up with all of these posts stairs and all the movies that you're seeing that
Sheldon directed and wrote, and I'm so curious what made you decide I want
to write a book about this guy and what was that process like for you.
That was actually Sheldon's idea. He'd come to me and I had written
I get an interview with him, and we did like a retrospective on Lionheart
and he actually really really liked how it turned out, and really terrific article
about Lion Heart, which he interviewed me for. But right around that time,
I was thinking about doing this biography. So I thought, this guy
did a great job with a lion art, so let me ask him if
he wants him to a whole book about me. And basically that's how it
came about. He and I, you know, had a pretty good rapport
going back and forth and things, you know, kind of kind of worked
itself out to me. I don't think we came across anything too difficult.
Everything just kind of, you know, kind of fell into place. It
was all pretty smoothly because I wasn't just relying on my memory. I have
I have files here, I say, I say shit, I say paperwork.
I have all my contracts from every one of these movies. So I
was able to look up dates and places and things like that. But also
I was able to using IMDb. That was a real handy tool because I
could not remember everybody's the names of all the actors and producers and all of
that. So I was able to use that, and uh, I hadn't.
The book is just be damn accurate. Actually, in fact, the
only one who questions its accuracy is Strength Dukes, So that's that's not surprising
or unusual. Sheldon mentioned some of the films that you were working out for
other people and some of the things that you had also directed. Were all
these available for you, Corey to to see and to kind of put together
Sheldon's career was like Sheldon had gotten me a copy of Firefight to see before
you know, I got started on everything. So that was actually, you
know, really helpful, and I was kind of blown away. I gave
Alora the crappy VHS version that I'd had it out to people. I made
him swear that he was never in the show it, and so I made
a better copy because the VHS I think it looks really bad. It's the
same movie, but it just it just feels cheap seeing in them VHS.
And with this the two K transfer that I've made that I think it looks
it looks pretty damn good. It looks like a real movie. It looks
epic. It really does. I'll just watch it again last night, and
you know, it did. It really felt like it felt like a big
you know, war set, a warm movie, didn't. It's pretty impressive,
and I'm happy to see that it's finally out because I mean historic,
you know, the historical significance of that, you know, and everyone that
it's in it. I mean, it's it's got to be like a dream
for some people to see things, y'all. Bryan Thompson's first acting role,
or you know, Philip and Simon read the first time, you know they
actually had, you know, a significant role, because that's right, Philip
and Simon had not been in anything prior to that. And actually Frank Dookes
is the guy who introduced me then I think I mentioned that already, so
he was actually quite helpful. He was a pretty good partner on that.
He comes off pretty well in the movie too. It's nothing embarrassing, but
I think one thing that you can see people have asked me, well,
why didn't you use Frank Dukes and some of your other Moupi's outcome. He
didn't have like small roles or supporting roles and some of your other shelves,
and basically he's not an actor. He does okay in Firefight, but there
really wasn't all that much to do. But you know, he doesn't that.
He does actually have more dialogue than anybody else in the town, but
he comes off okay, but he's just not He was just not a movie
star. Now with Brian, for example, and I'm not saying this to
pump up your ego, but you could just see like, okay, you're
good. This guy's a real actor, all right. He had a presence.
You know, eventually other people realize that, you know, James Cameron
and Stallone and and all of that. So so Brian, that's why Brian
has had a successful career as an actor, which is a tough career to
have actually, So I've known so many people who've tried and failed. Brian's
pretty much maintained almost like forty years now since we did Firefight, and you're
still getting acting roles. Okay, knock on wood. But it's not just
luck. It's it's just you've got the goods, You've got the ability,
you're a good actor, but you've also got an interesting quality about you have
a presence. I think that's why you've endured all these years. Well,
Sheldon, I just put together a forty characters in forty minutes that I put
on YouTube. Very few of those characters are the same. You're talking about
forty characters that you played in forty different movies in forty minutes. Yeah.
Yeah. You think about what sustained a career. You know, I sustained
a career by being able to play a wide variety of parts to a certain
degree that that's a detriment because these people know, Brian is this you know
za Budu, Sheriff of Key West, Florida. That was the biggest job
I've ever had, playing Sheriff Cody and Qust. So over at Viacom I
was a comedic actor, but then over over here, you know, I
played these villainous parts, and at Paramount I played a lot of you know,
aliens, and so being known as like when you hire you know Sam
Elliott, you got Sam Elliott. You know he's a fantastic actor and he's
known for you to get him for that part. So one casting director said,
Brian, you know you're a chameleon. But I don't I don't.
I don't really have a way an ingredient to describe you. I think with
the group that we have here, we pretty much remember you for your villainous
roles in the Cobra especially, but you've played You've played a lot of scary
characters, a lot of villains. So I think when people mentioned Brian Thompson,
that's generally what what comes to line is what was the character in Cobra?
Was the night stalker or something? Yeah, when I was in college,
people, you know, they told me that I was going to make
my money in comedy. You think about it, you know, when you're
doing plays in college, there isn't these strictly villainous parts that are sort of
in film. Maybe you're gonna help me describe that a bit bit, you
know, a film like well, I can't think of a playoff hand that
has like Shao Khan in Mortal Kombat or the Knights Slasher from Cobra. Are
there plays that have this of the villainous part. Films are more simplistic.
You've got your good guy with the white hat, You've got your bad guy
with the black hat. You were usually the guy with the black hat,
and that is the movies that succeeded. There's not a lot of nuance,
especially in action movies, especially in saloon movies and the Van Damme movies and
Chois Dagger movies. There's not much in the way of nuance there. It's
either you're either you're one of the one of the good guys, or are
you one of the villains, you're one of the bad guys. Are you're
one of the henchmen with the bad guys? The guy that has to meet
his end, that has to be torn apart and the audience feels satisfaction in
seeing him destroyed. The guy that has to be impaled on a meat hook
by Sylvester Stallone. Actually, so you know, pretty amazing. Ryan has
been killed by some of the biggest action stars in the business. So he's
been killed by Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Van Damn and am I missing anybody there?
Chuck Marvis, Oh, okay, wow. Steve Martin shot me in
Three Amigos. James Kahn got you pretty good in Alien Nation. James Kahn
kicked me in the balls in the Alien Nation. But you didn't know that
aliens didn't have balls. He kicked me in the balls and I said,
doesn't they teach anything about us in cup school? Slow go. I'm so
happy you still remember the line from all these years later. Well, how
many scenes if I got to do James Kahn? Oh? Two? You
even came back for the TV show. It's a different character though. I
think that's a researcher share. This guy's a flan Ryan. Okay, going
back to Firefight. How long was the shoot? It was two weekends,
two weekends at Camp Pendleton, so four days total. Very rugged and also
at the same time very exciting. Uh. On my birthday, Sheldon let
me go. He gave me a ride in the Huey helicopter. Remember that,
Sheldon let me go up in the helicopter. Did you go in the
Huey or did you go on the actual helicopter we were using it? We
went up in the Huey. Okause the helicopter we were using it was not
of Huey. That was a PG forty six d Knight. Well there was
the big double bladed Yeah that was now that's Oh, what's the what's the
difference, Well, you always got one blade, but it's doing yeah hue
Oh. I always thought that here he was the big double bladed one.
No, no, that's that's what the army was used in Vietnam. They
were using Huey's and they have a single blade and the much smaller helicopter,
the c Age forty six. It's a big, big helic could carry an
entire squad of marines, whereas with the Huey you could depending on which Hue
it was, you could maybe fit like seven or eight guys, I mean
Hue in addition to the pilot in code. Okay, So I got to
go in a c Age forty six P forty six absolutely, And it doesn't
have like a It doesn't have a nice name like a Hue. I don't
like the name. It's the name is A C. Knight doesn't really describe
well, does didn't know? I don't like sayah no here he has much
more character. Yeah. I was amazed when that showed up in the movie
because I was just like, is this from another film? Does he like
lift this footage? And then when I realized that you shot out just like
my god, the production values for this are amazing. I'm a former marine
myself, so basically I went to the marine board base so I got I
got some good cooperation from these guys, and they gave me that helicopter to
use. I felt I only needed for about an hour or two. If
you had to pay for that as a Hollywood production, it would have been
more money than you to spend making the entire movie. Oh for sure.
No, it would have been more money per hour than the entire movie.
It's basically movie productions are on the hook for the fuel costs, and those
things use a lot of fuel. I was supposed to be on the hook
for the fuel costs and keep it quiet, but I never paid that it
will cost. Okay, it was a few thousand dollars. Did they send
you a bill? I think they did. Yeah. I think that they
just said us, a he's a vet, let's let's take care of him.
That's pretty much the way they felt. So they took care of me.
Yeah. I want to ask you a question here, because there's been
some controversy over this. Did Frank Dukes ever tell you that he was awarded
the Medal of Honor? Of course, he showed it to me, right
right, Okay, he showed He took it to his house and he broke
out these this you know boxes that here, these cases that were buying the
line. I don't know if they were. I think they were dark blue
and dark red. You know, he showed me medal after metal. Yeah,
absolutely, none of which he actually earned because he was never in Vietnam.
He was never in combat. But he used to tell these stories everybody.
We had a producer on Firefight named Peter the Bear. We had these
marine advisors that were there keeping an eye at us the whole time, and
he said, oh yeah, and other producer Frank, he's the Medal of
Honor recipient. And marines looked at one another and next day you really,
so this was b Internet? Okay, this is Google. He couldn't look
this ship up easily. And so we kind of took Frank's We kind of
took his word for when he actually showed me the medal. That made me
think, well, maybe he did win a Medal of Honor because he actually
had at his house. He showed it to me, and he showed it
to you too. So these marines they come back the next day and they
say, well, you know what, We've got a book this saw the
Medal of Honor recipients, and Frank's name it not in it. How do
you explain that, Well, Frank, how do you explain that? And
he basically he's gonna doing like a little tap dance, and you know,
you know, thinking of a way out of this, and he came up
with a novel solution. He said, well, the mission I was on
was so secret that they couldn't reveal any details about it, so it was
a secret medal of honor that was secretly awarded Chippy all right, And people
who really know about this stuff said, that's absolutely impossible. There's no such
thing as a secret medal of honor. It's going to be in the record
book somewhere, and it wasn't. But he's telling people lasting it all over
the internet that I'm the one who's lying that he never showed me the medal.
So I just wanted to set the story straight here, Brian, I'm
not the only one he showed it. Show it to you too. And
you remember he used to tell people he was a war hero that he had
always medals. And I remember the meeting really distinctly in his house. It
was night, it was nighttime, and I remember just the uncomfortableness of him
having to promote his own story because people that have done these things often don't
want to talk about it. People that have had this giant success or had
been in these harrowing experiences. Those are things that you know that they acknowledge
in a shrug of the shoulders and want to move the subject on to something
else. Another phrase that Drake did that caused me to kind of wins.
But he also brought out a bunch of weapons and knives and things, and
he kept saying, and you see how professional I am at this, You
see how fessional this is. He used that word professional in every other paragraph
to tell you that he's a professional, rather than just let the action speak
for themselves. In his book, he wrote this book called The Secret Man
about himself, and he's got a photo in there which it's him in a
camouflage outfit and he's holding up a three fifty seven magnum and he labels the
photo as down in the trenches in nineteen eighty three, basically making it seem
like he was on a real mission. But it's a photo that he took
while we were shooting firefight. He's got the same uniform on that he Warren
firefight, and he's holding up a three fifty seven magnum and he's saying,
yeah, yeah, there's the three fifty seven magnum and this is what distinguished
Special Forces personnel. And basically, there's no way that Spinisial Forces is going
to use the three fifty seven magnum. First of all, it's heavy,
it's noisy, and you basically, if you're special Forces, if you're doing
stuff poindestinely, you want to keep the noise down. All right, A
three fifty seven would have would have woke up o che men and hannoi.
Okay, because it's so damned loud, so hope it's just weird. But
that he put it in his book and he said, here, I am
down on the trenches and I had to expose that a few times. And
then he says, I've exposed it enough time. Then he said, well,
that was me. I didn't say that I wanted to label it that
way. It was the editors of the book. The editors are trying to
pump me up. So let's get off the subject of him, because we
end up talking about this guy too much. But I just wanted to get
now that we got you here on camera, all right, Okay, here's
Brian Thompson Brian doesn't have a reputation of being a bullshitter, and neither do
I, and Brian is flat out telling you, yes, Frank showed me
a medal of honor and said that he a recipient. So there we go.
That's that's done with. Yeah, it was interesting how they know you
don't want to talk about him. But it's the odd ball, you know,
on the graph of our memories that stands out, you know, it's
the peak on the graph. And and without exception, his character and what
he's done and the spinning of tales, that is the peak on a graph.
There we know. I don't know that anybody else knows anybody that has
tried to spin so much fiction as reality. He's the champion when it comes
to that kind of stuff. And the only reason we end up talking about
him because he keeps publicizing the stuff he keeps telling. He can't let he
can't let the story go because it would be you know, he would lose
face. So he can't admit that there was no Kuma Tay, he didn't
win this trophy in the Kua. He wasn't not the first NOD agent to
win the Kuma to him in and then he always spends these stories further and
said that, well, he was awarded a sword, a special sword because
he was the winner of the Kumata. So people have asked him, but
where's that sword? Can we see the sword? No, I don't have
it anymore because I traded it. Uh. There were some pirates that had
some orphans that they had taken hostage. Have you guys heard the story before?
Now a boatload of orphans orphans, okay, that we're being held hostage
by pirates, and he traded them his sword for the freedom of these orphans.
All right, I'm not making this up. He's the one who's making
it up. I'm just he came up with crazy shit. Wanted that because
when when pirates want to hold people hostage, the number one thing they want
in return for the hostages is a sword. A sword. Yeah, yeah,
well they want they want money, but the sword it is to Pluma
Tay sword. So wow, that's worth a lot of money. So okay,
we'll do a sword here. You can take all the orphans. And
then he says all some of the subsidies he said on the internet, and
he says, well, I'm still in touch with those orphans. Today,
they're you know, they're all growing up, and they would kindle for me
if I asked him to. Let's interviewed those or friends, Frank right right
there, in touch with them, give us their names. So you shot
Firefight in eighty three, it comes out in eighty six, you said,
I think, rec Yes, So in the meantime, are you still keeping
in touch with everybody? Or Brian, are you just going like, yeah,
shut this in a couple of years ago. I don't know what's going
on. Basically, Brian and I became really good friends on the bed of
Firefight and we stayed in touch. We've been We've been friends ever since then,
you know. So I've ended up using him in other movies. I
even created roles for him, like the role in Lion Art that the character
Russell did not exist, but I wanted to put Brian Thompson in the movie,
so I came up with that character and that worked out pretty dark good,
And it was kind of an impromptu thing for Jean Claude to kick you
in the face at the end and the fight. Yeah, we just came
up with that just on the spot, like hey, Brian, what Jean
Claude, what if he kicked Brian in the face and he gets locked back
in the stand. Very good idea, Brian. What do you think?
Yeah, okay, I love it and Shell I don't know if I told
you. A lot of people comment about that. That is a memorable moment
of the movie. They go, Jean, thought kicked you in the face?
They come up. I've had people come up and say that to me.
I have read about it online also where people talk about that being one
of their One of the highlights of the movie is the fact that Brian's character
gets his come up and at the end for being such a jerk, he
gets his come up and said, Van damn kicks on the face. And
you know, I saw the movie a number of times with audiences and that
did get applause. That was a fun movie to make. And by the
way, I'm doing a autograph show next weekend. Actually I'm leading Saturday of
going to New Jersey. Debrah Renard is one of those one of the guests
there. The name of that that one, Sheldon. It's just like super
Megafest or something. It's not Dot Chiller, No, it's it's in New
Jersey. You've been to a number of these, right, I yeah,
I do. I do a couple every year. I haven't done one yet,
so so well, we'll see how that goes. Yeah, do you
have it? Do you have a nice pick proved yourself to autograph? What
are you autographing? I have enough few of them. They asked me to
make a make a few eight by tens. Yeah, I've got a little
stack ofver' here. I've got mostly mostly one photos of me with some other
major celebrity. So I've got one with me and John Claude and Charlton Hesson.
I've got one with me and Dolph Flunggern, and I do have one
from Linlard with Debora Roynard and Harrison Page and John Claude. So we've taken
those with me and autographing them. So when did you decide to restore Firefight
and did the whole two k restoration? I'm at I'd been wanting to do
it for a long time and this is not an inexpensive process. And my
friend Luis Esteban, who co wrote Only, was strong with me. He
was working on a film. They were having work done at a lab called
Photocam in Los Angeles, so he was in he was in pretty tight with
some of the people that were doing that. We're doing work there at Photocam,
and I asked him, Hey, Louke, can you look me up
with some of these whoever it is that you're working with and let me see
if I can get Firefight transferred for you without paying an exorbitant price. Yes,
so he looked me up with somebody who was doing that kind of stuff.
I brought over the thirty five millimeter print. They made the two K
version from the print, and I think it looks gorgeous. There was also
the option to go four K with it. Four K was going to be
at least twice as much money. Plus I wasn't planning on screening to some
movie shooters. Yeah, two K is good enough. You know you've got
your seventy inch TV at home. Two k's a little bit pretty damn good
on that. Four K is that you're going to be projecting it on a
big screen in the movies theither and I wasn't going to do that, so
so we went with two K. And what was it like for you when
you got to actually hold that book in your hands and see, you know,
your life all spread out in those pages. It was kind of thrilling,
but kind of anti claimactic also because you know, we've spent months working
on it. I had the galley proofs and all of that, so I
spent enough time looking through it to where it wasn't It wasn't that much of
a thrill, Just like watching my movies. By the time you brew making
these movies, you've watched the damn movie a hundred times, You've watched every
shot one hundred times. You're you're a little tired of it. The only
way to get a thrill out of watching one of my old movies with an
audience. I can see what an audience you kind of, you can kind
of I can feel their reaction, and that's that's pretty cool to watch it
on a big screen with an audience in a theater. But otherwise I can't
put I can't put Lion Art up on the I can't put DVD on and
and watch it again. I've just seen it too many times. Yeah,
and then you know, then you know we did. We did the DVDs
and Blu rays with the commentary. So it's just no kind of a thrill
for me to see it anymore unless I'm watching it with an audience, and
with the book, of course, you can't watch that with an audience.
But with the book, it's just great hearing people talk about it. To
see the reviews. We've got all these reviews on Amazon and basically, yeah,
people give it if it's five stars, so it's done well. People
have liked it. Here we are talking about it on a zoom section,
so that's um, I get it. I get a real kick out of
that. I love talking about the book, I love talking about my career.
All of that is great, but actually holding it in my hands well
kind of does nothing for him. Because I've I've always read every one of
these pages, in the fact, but worked on every one of these pages.
The big thrill is just saying that it's out there, it's in bookstores,
and that's the rage, the real satisfaction. I do want to ask.
I know you said that you've got the autograph show coming up. What
else are you working on these days? Well, I'm working on a few
different projects. Actually, we'll see if any of them comes to fruition.
But there's one that I've been involved with for about a year called Fight Pride.
You can see that on It's all IMDb, and it's who he's starring.
This guy named Daniel Stison who's from Norway's Norwegian, and he's in a
new movie that's just out. Hey, Jim just came out this week.
But the parents getting great reviewed and needs to getting great review you so,
and he's sort of a he's sort of like an eighties and nineties action star.
So Daniel's gonna star in it. And it's the script itself is quite
good. I did not write the script. It's in the vein of lion
Art. It's that kind of a movie. It's basically illegal underground fights and
this guy gets involved with these fights. I's got a fight for, you
know, a family member, So it's like a lion Art anyway, that's
why they went after me to direct this show. Then I've got another one
called Lioness, and it's for a female action star that's been perfulating for a
while. My friend Luis es Saban has optioned it. He's got some he's
got some money people that he's working with. And we've got Michael Ji White's
wife is related to star in it lay the lead character. And Michael Ji
White's going to be in it as well, and those are not two active
we have so far. Bryan's name has been mentioned many times the lead roles.
We'll see how that goes. Okay, Bryan, But Ryan's part of
my repertory company here, you know, John, Bob bad Dam and Brian
Thompson got to use some with every to Damn movie. We'll see how that
goes. And I'm working on another project called Warrior Island, which is based
on a comic book. Brian, how about yourself? What are you working
on these days? I am doing what I normally do in my acting career,
which is looking for the next big job. I unfortunately got a bit
spoiled working on Macbeth with mister Denzel. That's it's getting to work on a
large budget art project. We actually get rehearsal spoils you a bit, and
and luckily we're at that stage of our career where we don't have to take
a job. We're we're covered. So I'm looking for the next part.
That is, you know, something that I haven't done before, or even
if it's something you've done before, but it's uh, it's got a good
budget, it's got good cast, you'd probably or if I get to work
with my friends. That's the next thing there, you go, okay,
right, because some of the low budget movies that I've worked on were the
most satisfying because they allowed you to have more input. Perfect target was mentioned
earlier. I think it looked like Corey had to leave us. But that
was one of the more low budget projects that I've made, and we had
the tightest shooting schedule ever. It was like twenty days or twenty one days.
But we had a lot of fun making it. I must say,
one of my more more enjoyable experiences. We were in We're in for Torta,
Mexico. Okay, so we're in this resort town. We're all staying
in this resort hotel. We had robertert England was Brian is a co conspirator.
Okay, So we had our two batties were Bryan Thompson and Robert dah
And we had a really good Mexical cast, a beautiful soap operas star Julietta
Julietta Rosen. Right, we had this strange serbian woman playing a Mexican,
remember Dara Tomanovich. A cool thing about that movie, It's got great action
sequences because the fight choreographer was Chad Stahlski. Well, Chad has gone on,
he's directed all the John Wick movies. Yeah, and David Leach was
there too. Was David Leach's first movie and Bride. You remember David Leach
from The Order absolutely and David. David doubled the Van dam and David's got
on to direct some big movies. He's been doing huge movies. Those guys
would become like the two action kings of Hollywood. So yeah, we had
both of them on the shelf. Interesting little anecdote. David Leach was John
Claude stunt double on The Order, which Ryan was also in. Ryan of
course playing playing a villain of this character as usual, Yeah, I was.
We're just going with typecasting of that one. But although he played this
religious meter so that was a bit different, so you didn't realize he was
a villain at first. Although I must say, people when people see Brian
Thompson here, Brian Thompson, some people we know, we know he's gonna
be the villain, all right, we know there's something there's something not straight
about this character. Well untrue. You know. This year's project, I
played the older, wiser pickle ball player for uh, you know, a
series for Roku. I'm the older, wiser pickle ball player with advice for
the young and well, it's a far cry from the the night Stalker and
what was your character's name in Mortal Kombat show con We're supposed to have this
big final fight at the end, Van Damn versus Bryan Thompson, and I
wanted him to be a sword fight. We had all this medieval stuff in
there, this medieval order, and we were shooting in Israel. And so
Brian had done on the Conan Show Universal for a number of years, so
he was quite adept with stores, and David Leach was also a real expert
when it came to edged weapons. So I had a perfect combination for an
awesome sword fight. So Brian and David spent days working on the choreography for
the sword fight, and then on the day we get to the set,
Jean Claude, who is not was not adept with weapons at all, just
decided I'm not going to learn how to do this shit. Let's just forget
about the sword fight. Let's do some other stuff. And David was very
very disappointed because he had worked that a great sequence and Ryan, of course,
I know you. We had rehearsed hours right right. And it wasn't
that it wasn't that John Claude couldn't do it. It just he couldn't remember
it right right, Yeah, And it was it was extremely dangerous because you
didn't know where the sword swing was going to come from. And we had
we had faked swords. We had real swords also, and they weren't real
sharp. But even so it was a dangerous. It was a dangerous sequence
to shoot. And I think John clod just realized that I'm probably gonna get
hurt or I'm going to hurt somebody because I don't know if the hell I'm
doing. And then remember he was saying he wanted he wanted to fly like
like Matrix had been out at that time, and he wanted to like float
through the air and something. It was like, yeah, so we set
that up, we set up the cabling system, and that didn't work out
too well, suffly because he wasn't cooperating with us. And you know,
it was you couldn't community and you couldn't communicate with him right right. And
David is the one that was sending up this this this cable system. So
basically, John Claude just pissed off the guy who is basically one of the
kings of action movies nowadays. So if you go to David Leach and chats
to hell Ski and you say, hey, what if we get John Claude
Vandam to do a cameo in the next John Wick, They're gonna say storry
But no, no, let's we've got some other choices and we'll go with
them instead. But yeah, basically, you know those those he didn't realize
it at the time, but David was the wrong guy to piss off.
He was the wrong guy to pull the rug out from under and I think
he's been If you mentioned John Claude, he will not have positive things to
say. I'm sorry to say that here on this Zoom session, but it's
true that happened. Ryan was there. We would have had an awesome Stord
fight, but he just didn't want to do it. So so there,
it's just very, very disappointing. And I think, yeah, and you
know, you're scared. If an actor is scared and has to work in
front of a camera, it's not gonna work. And I was. I
was scared. I was scared because I didn't know what John Thodd was going
to do with that sort. It was one hundred percent unpredictable, right right,
He's got a lot of control with his legs, with his hands,
holding a weapon in his hands. Uh yeah, you can't. You really
can't predict how that's going to go. I don't think he's ever done any
kind of a weapon's fight. It lasted more than a few seconds. I
certainly never did what it was. This is gonna be the first time,
and he just didn't want to do it. Now Mark the Coscos was completely
a different story when it came to weapons. Mark was really good with weapons
and he'd been trading with weapons good post of his adult life. So with
Mark I had, we did, we did. We did a lot of
weapons stuff in and only was strong. And there's never any worries about Mark
hurting anybody or about Mark getting hurt. So different actor, different kind of
scenes. As long as you're doing the kicks in the punches, Joan,
that's great, but don't use knives and swords and you know guns, of
course, anybody can do guns, all right. All you gotta do is
hold it up, pull the trigger and it goes boom boom bool, but
swords that's uh, that's a completely different wall game. Once again. The
name of the book is Sheldon Letitch from Vietnam to Van Damn. The name
of the short film that is now restored and available for you to watch on
YouTube is Firefight. Thank you so much, mister Lettich. Thank you so
much, mister Thompson. This has been fantastic. You're very welcome. Thank
you. I am a friend, my fire. I'm gonna push it all
of the wild time time, the drunk final battles already, Moore, I'll
takeful coverymol get strange by the breast. I'm gonna string my friend. I
fight your soup. I don't till day to friend by a body. I'm
a puffect cheaper. That's my chance to it. I'm taking hold. However,
Moore says, I won't stay my bad I fight you too,