A multi-faced contributor in the world of motion pictures, Roger Yuan is a man of many talents. Early on, before becoming a fight coordinator, Yuan had a steady gig doing stunt-work on the stellar martial arts program Vanishing Son, starring Russell Wong. Seguing into bigger and better projects, Yuan soon landed high-profile gigs that would have him coaching or coordinating stunts for the likes of Michelle Pfeiffer, Rene Russo, John Cusack, Henry Cavill, Jennifer Lawrence, Keanu Reeves, and most recently Daniel Craig on Skyfall, and Matt Damon on this year's Jason Bourne. In this interview, Yuan discusses his work as a fight coordinator and working closely with Damon on Jason Bourne. Jason Bourne is out on Blu-ray, DVD, 3D and 4K on December 6, 2016.
djm: Roger, would you talk a little bit about how you became involved with the martial arts?
RY: I've always been very in love with martial arts and the movement of being a martial artist. I'm very influenced by Bruce Lee. Between the ages of five and seventeen, I was self-taught. My parents were first generation immigrants in the US. English was not my first language. The bullying aspect was a drive to learn how to defend myself. Because my parents didn't have money, I went to the library and started checking out books on Judo and Karate. I would buy Kung Fu Magazine with my paper route money. Especially if Bruce Lee was on the cover. I would look at the photos and read about what they were saying, and kind of piecemeal figure out the moves for myself. Training for myself has always been very unorthodox. Maybe that's why I'm good at what I do in terms of conveying information to actors or other performers in how to interpret movement.
djm: Say something about working on the TV show Vanishing Son, which gave Asians a great opportunity to showcase their martial arts and talents as actors.
RY: That was a great show to do. It was my first full opportunity to express creatively what I had within me in terms of action. I had Russell Wong there, and it was fun to be completely creative. We did four movies of that for Universal for the "Action Pack" series. I had J.J. Perry as the stunt coordinator there. We moved it to San Diego when it went to regular series. I was both the fight coordinator and Russell Wong's stunt double. I utilized anything and everything, from Wing Chun, to Karate, to Tang Soo Do, even western boxing and kickboxing. I've been fortunate to be taken under the wing by Chuck Norris and Benny "The Jet" Urquidez. I've had involvement with many of the world's greatest martial artists.
djm: Over the years we've seen a shift in the action and martial arts market. We're seeing so few "B" martial arts films with stars like Gary Daniels and Jeff Speakman these days, but we're seeing plenty of action films with guys like Matt Damon, Keanu Reeves, and Daniel Craig. Why do you think that is?
RY: I think the film world has become more accepting and more intelligent in realizing that there's only so many haymakers and punches that you can throw. You can make it more visually exciting. Martial arts are part of the world. It always has been, but it's become more of a norm. You can see it in the Marvel films like Captain America as well. I've been very fortunate that I've been involved in both Skyfall with Daniel Craig and Jason Bourne with Matt Damon. Martial arts have come into the mainstream and it's accepted. Even the UFC and MMA has become part of the mainstream dialogue. It's a good thing in terms of movement and fight choreography. It's helping us to be inventive visually for big budget films.
djm: Talk a little bit about teaching martial arts and stunt moves to guys like Matt Damon, Daniel Craig, and Keanu Reeves, versus working with guys like Gary Daniels and Jeff Speakman. What are the challenges there?
RY: There is that challenge because it's not their norm in everyday activities. They don't train as martial artists, per se. The challenges for me – and it's part of the reason I do what I do – is trying to convey the information a quickly as possible, and make it so that they can ingest it and interpret the information with their bodies as normally as possible. It needs to be seamless on film. People need to believe that Matt Damon is Jason Bourne, or Daniel Craig as James Bond. They believe them in their movements, in the way they fight. They can carry through and take out their opponents viscerally. It's about communicating and using methods and training and getting them to move as quickly as possible like a martial artist, like a natural fighter. You've always got to use your bodies from the inside outwards, meaning where your qi center is. You move from that point. If you move from where your hips are, that's your center of power. Your legs are connected to your knees, and your elbows are interconnected. Your shoulders and your hips are interconnected. Your hands and your feet are interconnected. If I can get them to understand that concept, then any movement that they make – whether it be a fighting movement or a martial arts movement – to even just running and jumping or even just turning gracefully, then they can understand what I'm doing fairly quickly.
djm: With Jason Bourne specifically, what were your impressions of Matt Damon when it came time to work intensely with him. Talk about the fight between him and Vincent Cassel.
RY: I loved working with Matt. Very hard working and down to earth. He's giving and very astute. Very easy to collaborate with. He prepared himself very well before doing Jason Bourne. He trained with his own boxing coach and fitness trainer as well. By the time we came together, there was already a confluence there. I talked to his boxing coach and talked about the possibility of bringing footwork into the fights. In terms of that last fight scene, originally Paul Greengrass wanted that underground sequence in the tunnels of Vegas for the two combatants to move through a homeless camp and through their detritus so that they could pick things up and use them in combat. About two days prior to shooting it, Paul changed his mind, for the best of the film, I think. We moved it to a different place, though it was still in the tunnels, but now it was completely empty. It was like the bowels of a Roman coliseum, and there are two gladiators fighting to the death. There was very little to pick up or to fight through, just two people trying to take each other out. Vincent Cassel had a knife, and he later finds a worn out Wi-Fi cable. We had to retrain the actors in a two-day time span to build a completely new fight scene and to perform and shoot it. It was very, very challenging and pressure-filled. In retrospect, it's very entertaining, and I'm very proud of the way it turned out. Like anything else, you adapt to the environment and you live in the moment and you have no choice but to go in there and do what you have to do to survive. Bourne had to go through it, and so did we. It was a great experience.
