Wesley Snipes

If an actor has versatility in his bag of tricks, he can expect to stay working for a long time. So don't worry, the extremely versatile Wesley Snipes is sticking around.

Wesley Snipes grew up in the Bronx, an area which provides its own training on street smarts. He studied drama for a while at the High School for the Performing Arts, the Fame school, but had to drop out when his family moved to Florida. A few years later he completed his acting education at S.U.N.Y.-Purchase.

Wesley's first role in a big movie was in Goldie Hawn's Wildcats, but he really got noticed when he played a street tough in the video for Michael Jackson's Bad. One of those people noticing him was Spike Lee who then cast him in Mo' Better Blues and Jungle Fever.

After that, Mr. Snipes was on a roll. He is a martial-arts expert who made a great action hero in Passenger 57 and Rising Sun. He was comedic in To Wong Foo: Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar and White Men Can't Jump. He's been a homicide detective in Murder at 1600, an adulterous husband in One Night Stand, and a comic-book hero in Blade. Again he glides easily from action figure to the more sedate drama of Maya Angelou's Down in the Delta.

Any resistance to showing the film Down In The Delta in Canada would be a racist act, the film's co-producer and co-star Wesley Snipes said yesterday.

"It's racist. Tell them. There you go," Snipes said in an interview about conflicting news that the Canadian commercial release of the family drama was in some doubt.

Down In The Delta made its Canadian debut last night as a Special Presentation in the Toronto film festival. In attendance were Snipes, co-star Alfre Woodard and the peerless Maya Angelou, the acclaimed poet, dancer, historian, educator, actress, playwright, screenwriter and civil rights activist who makes her directorial debut on Delta.

Alliance Releasing officials are apparently concerned about the box-office potential of Down In The Delta in this country. But, by late yesterday, after Snipes had expressed concern, there were plans to release it this fall at least in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.

Snipes, raising his melodious voice to a passion-filled roar over the issue, said his film has universal appeal and should be shown around the world, including in Canada.

"Damn right! Absolutely! That's one of the things that we (he and his partners at Amen-Ra Films) like about the film, that the film has the ability to transcend cultural boundaries as well as politics. Because it is fundamentally about compassion and family and respect."

Despite the cult of youth in America, the movie also pays homage to the elderly by showing them to be "one of our best resources," Snipes said.

Ironically, Down In The Delta was filmed in large part in the Toronto region as a stand-in both for urban Chicago and rural Mississippi, where the story is set. The movie is the emotional saga of a troubled Chicago mother (played by Oscar-nominee Woodard) who is forced to go back to her family's roots in Mississippi and rebuilt her life and her self-respect.

It took Amen-Ra Films four-and-a-half years to get the film made, a frustrated Snipes said. Miramax was finally involved. It did not help that he became a movie star in that period, he said. He still did not have clout in the corridors of power.

"Let me put it in this context," Snipes said about being a star in Hollywood and trying to convince studio executives to back a project such as Down In The Delta.

"As long as they are paying you, you should be happy. It's like the classic 'dumb blonde' syndrome. They don't think that you have brains or that you understand the business that you're in or that you have any interests outside of being glamourized.

"Then you throw in a little bit of coppertone, a little color into it," he said, touching his hand to his glistening black cheek, "and it really gets: 'Oh my God!' "

Being a Hollywood actor is not unlike being a Roman gladiator, at least in terms of the hierarchy, Snipes said.

"The gladiators were admired and revered but they were still living in the bowels of Rome. They still had to fight for their living, you know."

Sunday September 6th, 1998

Snipes gets a kick from karate

By NATASHA STOYNOFF -- Toronto Sun

The key to martial arts success, says actor Wesley Snipes, is to push through the pain towards the pleasure.

"You start out and you can't kick your leg higher than your waist," describes Snipes, a longtime karate student, while relaxing at New York's Essex House hotel recently.

"Just the stretching alone can be excruciatingly painful. But once you get through it and you see the results, the reward is worth the effort."

In his new box office hit, Blade, Snipes plays a half human-half vampire hero who makes lethal use of karate kicks and a really big sword to kiss off his enemies.

"He's not a superhero, more like an enhanced human," says the actor, who says he's cautious about promoting violence among children.

"We live in a violent society, and I'm no more enhancing this whole issue of violence in the eyes of children than the cartoons on television."

Blade, in fact, is taken from a Marvel cartoon character from nearly two decades ago.

Snipes wasn't an avid reader of the genre, but he did admire the pictures.

"I'm an illustration guy," he says. "For me, comic books are about pictures. Sometimes I follow the story, but I really like the pictures."

Bringing a comic character to life, he adds, gives licence to anything.

"You can push the envelope of creativity and imagination because comic books are fantasy. You can do things that real life storylines don't afford you the opportunity to do."

Thursday, August 20, 1998

Martial law

By LOUIS B. HOBSON -- Calgary Sun

NEW YORK -- Wesley Snipes knows the healing power of martial arts.

"I practise many different martial arts disciplines, and have ever since I was a youngster. They are what taught me how to deal with adversity in my life," explains Snipes, whose latest film, a science-fiction/horror epic called Blade, opens tomorrow.

"You have to endure and overcome so much physical pain to learn these moves that you can apply the same principles to life experiences."

Snipes, 35, says he turned to martial arts as a matter of survival. He was born and raised in the South Bronx in New York.

"I was small as a child. I matured late. It made growing up in a tough world even tougher. I started out using my martial arts training to defend myself so my style is traditional martial arts mixed with Bronx street fighting."

Snipes' early street training has come in handy in recent years. He has had to defend himself against strangers who have been intimidated by Snipes' screen image and felt obliged to challenge him in public. Two years ago, Snipes tackled a London woman who had been stalking him for three years.

"This poor woman thinks she and I are a princess and prince who have five or six children together. She's been tracking me to reunite us.

"I was rollerblading along the beach (in Marina del Ray, California). She started following me on a bicycle. She got off her bike and grabbed me.

"I had visions of what happened to John Lennon. I honestly thought it was my time so I reacted physically."

Snipes was not charged but police reports indicated that the woman suffered a broken leg. She was deported back to England.

Snipes says his interest in martial arts has led him to study other Asian philosophies such as meditation, herbology, acupuncture and massage.

He is living with an Asian woman named Donna Wong.

They met on a blind date set up by one of his assistants. He says Wong has "brought out more of my yang side. I have found that Asian women are more compassionate than either African-American or white women.

"Asian women are also more comfortable with their beauty. They don't try to find ways to compensate for being beautiful or to compete with men."

Snipes was married when he was 22. The marriage lasted five years and produced a son, Jelanie, who is eight.

"I agonized over breaking up my son's home but my wife and I did not agree on where my life and career should go and how I should get it there."

Snipes has found so much inner peace in recent years that he wants to help others do the same.

"I am founding a martial arts and healing temple in New York. It will be like a school. People who complete the course will be recruits for my security company and for my film stunt team."

The current members of Snipes' elite fighting force are on view in Blade. Based on a popular 1980 comic book, it is the story of a modern vampire slayer.

"Blade came out of the Dracula comic book series. Because he was an African-American superhero, Blade became very popular. I loved that his comic books pushed the envelope of the imagination."

Snipes not only stars as Blade and produced the film for his Amen Ra Films, but helped choreograph all the dazzling fight sequences with his martial arts partner Jeff Ward.

"We rehearsed the fight sequences with our stunt team for a month before we brought in the cameras and then we rehearsed for a week with the cameramen so they could learn to track around our moves."

Snipes says he became a producer out of necessity.

"People would ask me when I was going to be in a really good film. The only way that can ever happen for an actor is when he is also the producer. That's the only way you get any real control over the final product."

Snipes says he has a five-year plan for his production company.

"I want us to have our fingers in every aspect of the entertainment industry.

"I'm a Leo and my Asian sign is the Tiger. Those are powerful, determined hunting signs. It means I should be able to achieve my goals if I really apply myself."

Monday August 17, 1998

Dr. Snipes takes charge

By LOUIS B. HOBSON -- Calgary Sun

HOLLYWOOD -- That's Doctor Snipes to you.

Last week, Wesley Snipes received an honorary doctorate in humanities and fine arts from his alma mater New York State University.

"I was a good student. I always got great comments about my acting but they'd always add that my attitude needed work," recalls Snipes.

He found the answer to his attitude problem in the numerous martial arts disciplines he has been studying for the past decade.

"The martial arts helped me put my inner life in order. I took them up for my own sanity, not because other people thought I should."

On Friday, Snipes gets his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It's the same day his sci-fi horror film Blade opens.

Snipes is more than the star of this dark, comic book inspired adventure. He also produced the film through his own production company.

"I did too many pictures in the past where I did my best but other people were so slack it affected the whole movie.

"Now on my films I'll have my fingers in every thing from the script to the music.

Wednesday, March 4, 1998

Chasing Wesley

By LOUIS B. HOBSON -- Calgary Sun

The chase is on again.

In 1993, Tommy Lee Jones won an Oscar for playing U.S. marshal Sam Gerard, the man who relentless tracked Harrison Ford's Dr. Richard Kimble believing him to be a murderer.

The Fugitive was one of the top-grossing films of 1993 and garnered six Oscar nods.

Originally, producer Arnold Kopelson had hoped to make a true sequel, but it became too difficult to work around his stars' schedules. The sequel plan was shelved and Kopelson and his writers began working on a spinoff vehicle instead.

On Friday, Jones is back in U.S. Marshals and he's on the trail of Mark Sheridan, a far more dangerous and crafty adversary than Kimble.

Jones is playing the character that won him his Oscar. He says the aim of U.S. Marshals "is to re-create the experience of the first movie yet create something new and different."

Stuart Baird, who directs U.S. Marshals, says he was not intimidated by Jones.

"Quite the contrary. It made it much easier for me. Tommy was all set. He knows Sam Gerard, so my job was to set the stage for his new story and let him go at it."

Gerard's new adversary is a C.I.A. operative named Sheridan, who is accused of killing two Secret Service attaches.

He's played by Wesley Snipes, who explains "it was a great challenge playing a man whose job it is to assassinate people. He's been trained to be a shadow warrior," explains Snipes.

"I wanted to know how people like Sheridan prepare for the inevitable. One day they'll have to kill and I wanted to know what kind of precautions a man like that takes to survive in his profession."

Snipes says Sheridan is "a spy who's called in to do all the dirty work. In this case, someone betrays him and so he's on the run."

The C.I.A. operatives Snipes spoke with for his research were "soft-spoken, easy-going, calming and smiling but, at the same time, you knew they were trained killers. That makes for a really deep dynamic."

During his research, Snipes visited an actual spy shop.

"There were dozens of books on everything from espionage to surveillance. I was so intrigued, I bought a whole bunch of gizmos and gadgets."

Baird made his directing debut two years ago with the Kurt Russell thriller Executive Decision, but he had worked as an editor on such Snipes films as Demolition Man and New Jack City.

"I wanted someone who has the same kind of screen charisma and sex appeal as Harrison Ford. It brings a certain ambiguity to the audience's response. They're not certain whether they want these guys to be guilty or not."

Baird adds it's also necessary "to have someone who can hold his own against Tommy Lee -- and Wesley certainly can."

Gerard's original team of marshals is back for this adventure, but they also have a new man in their midst.

Robert Downey Jr. plays John Royce, a Diplomatic Security Service operative.

Baird stresses it was "a delight to work with Robert. His personal problems didn't interfere with his or our work. Everyone was aware of his (drug and alcohol) problems, but no one brought it up because there was never a reason to. That made us all the more sorry when we learned he'd fallen off the wagon again."

Baird completed U.S. Marshals last October and has been fine-tuning it ever since.

"We make these kind of action movies for audiences, so it's essential that we take their reactions into consideration.

"We had four major test screens that helped us fine tune the humor, clarity and pacing in the movie. We observe reactions and then slowly tighten up the movie, so that it played faster and clearer."

Tuesday, November 11, 1997

Snipes a One Night Standout

By TYLER McLEOD -- Calgary Sun

BEVERLY HILLS -- Wesley Snipes, how are you today? Fine, thanks for asking. By the way, Mr. Snipes, how many one night stands have you had?

"You got right to it, didn't you?" he laughs.

Yes sir. So how many?

"I can't remember. There just hasn't been enough to form a memory of yet."

Direct? Yes. Rude? No. It's a natural question considering Snipes is starring a movie titled One Night Stand, opening Friday.

"The first night is always a one night stand," Snipes states. "After you like it, it goes on. If you don't like it, you don't go back -- usually."

In One Night Stand, Snipes plays a married commercial director with two children. He has a presumably happy life until he happens upon Nastassja Kinski while on a business trip.

One Night Stand is the first film for director Mike Figgis since his Academy-Award-winning Leaving Las Vegas.

Though actors were falling over themselves to work with Figgis after Vegas, Snipes wasn't entirely sold on the love-at-first-sight story.

"That was a big conversation between Mike and I," Snipes recalls.

"I think you can fall in lust. But to be so sure you're in love would mean you have such a crystallized idea of yourself that you know exactly what it is you love about the person.

"I don't think too many people have that clear an idea of who they are. I think you can fall in lust and it can develop into love. But love at first sight? Mmm ..."

Perhaps Snipes is a cynic when it comes to love due to a rocky romantic track record.

"Fourth grade, P132 in the Bronx," Snipes says. "I remember her name was Anita and we were really cool, until she pushed me down the stairs."

Heartbroken? Maybe just broken.

"I was hurt," Snipes smiles, adding: "She left an indelible impression on my life."

It was an experience Snipes carried until adulthood.

"I don't talk to women around stairs."

There are some women, to be sure, who would like to push Snipes down some stairs -- after Jungle Fever, this is now his second role as a no-good, lyin', cheatin', dog of a husband.

"I'm not married, so I don't have to worry about it just yet. There's been a number of roles like that. I don't know, man -- maybe somebody's trying to tell me something. Even in Mo' Better Blues it's kind of like that: another wife-stealer," Snipes ponders.

Needless to say, Snipes will not be playing another adulterer in his next film. He has just finished shooting The Fugitive 2 in Chicago.

"It'll be real good. They're putting a lot behind us. A lot of money, a lot of energy," he says.

Aside from that, Snipes is less open about sequel to the Harrison Ford smash than his one night stands.

"I'm the fugitive," he allows, but answers a plot question with: "$8.50, baby, you've gotta check it out yourself."

If it seems like Snipes alternates flashy action flicks like Murder at 1600 and Money Train with more cerebral films such as Too Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar and One Night Stand ... you're right.

"I'm practical. That's why I try to do films that are action-orientated, and then I come back and do something a little more dramatic," Snipes says.

"Other people look for the dollar -- what's quick, what's gonna make the money, what `opens a weekend.' I've found the greatest difficulty is maintaining my skill level. I continue to work with people who can help improve my skill level."

Director Figgis challenged Snipes, he says. One Night Stand is the complete anti-Money Train.

"I think the film has a very European flair to it. My character has a very European sensibility, the way he walks, talks and thinks is very European," he says.

"Maybe in Europe (this story) is possible. Not in the Bronx, not where I come from."

Although, perhaps Snipes shouldn't rule out the possibility of a one night stand. To hear him tell it, he doesn't have time for anything but.

"It's always a balance between the business side of things and the personal side of things. The business side of my life is growing very, very rapidly these days and it is putting the pinch on my personal life," Snipes says.

Could it be true? One of Hollywood's hottest hunks, with no time to date?

"My lifestyle is: If I'm working, sometimes I get home at 6 a.m., and the next week it completely switches. Who else has that lifestyle? Models, actors, musicians. Everybody else is nine to five."

Gee Wesley, we know quite a few women who would be willing to accommodate your hours ...

"Every man needs a companion," he acknowledges. "I hope at some point it's in the stars that I'm blessed with that as well."

Sunday, September 14, 1997

More than just a pretty face

By LIZ BRAUN -- Toronto Sun

Okay, Wesley Snipes: Tall, dark, handsome. Might as well start with the obvious stuff.

If your Snipes movie experiences run to such fare as Money Train, Passenger 57 or White Men Can't Jump, expect a pleasant surprise when you see him in One Night Stand.

The new drama about personal change and fidelity was shown at the Toronto film fest, and it's the project that brought Snipes here yesterday on a promotional visit. His role has already won him the Best Actor nod at the Venice film fest.

In One Night Stand, a Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas) film, Snipes plays a man at a turning point in his life. He's married, he's a father of two, his business is going well. On the surface, everything is just fine.

Then, by chance, he meets a woman (Nastassja Kinski) to whom he is attracted. Things change.

Snipes' character is gentle, funny, intellectual and vaguely vulnerable, and that's not unlike the actor in real life. He says he shares his One Night Stand character's capacity for friendship and his esthetic sense and artistic integrity. And he says that modestly.

"And I identify with his feeling that, `I've done this, I've done that -- now what am I going to do in my life?'

"You get caught between what's best for everybody else, or for society or for the public, and what's best for you."

The movie is about, among other things, marriage. Snipes, who is divorced, says, "I don't understand the mandate of being together forever. The idea that you should do that is wrong. It makes us slaves to a societal mandate.

"You can still love, but it doesn't mean you have to be tethered to the flesh." Wow.

So would he get married again?

"Sure!" enthuses Snipes, and he laughs.

The actor has a son, aged eight -- "He just came to see me in Chicago and I fell in love with him all over again" -- and having more children tops his wish list for the future.

Also on that list are success for his company and a slower work schedule.

"And I want to build a school. That would be my crowning achievement." The school would be an arts oriented establishment where kids might be tutored in certain life skills, too.

He offers an example. Let's say, begins Snipes, that all your formative years people urge you to do your best. "Moms always say that," he points out. " `Do your best! Even if you're a garbageman! Always do the best job you can!'

"So -- what if you do become successful? Then what? Who is going to advise you? What if there's no one in your family or your background you can turn to?" he asks. "How do you handle that?"

In his case, with grace, apparently.

Sunday, April 13, 1997

Snipes hype ripe

By COLIN MACLEAN -- Edmonton Sun

``There are some people who have that `thing' that happens on screen.''

That's Diane Lane's take on co-star Wesley Snipes' performance in the new political thriller, Murder at 1600.

"The camera captures something. And he has that. In Clara Bow's day they called it `It.' Cary Grant had it. So has Wesley Snipes.''

In film after film, no matter its quality, Wesley Snipes has proven to be the kind of screen presence you can't take your eyes off. Dramas, comedies, action-adventure films, from White Men Can't Jump to Passenger 57 to Too Wong Foo, Snipes invests them all with a cat-like grace and intense acting style that added distinction to the most mundane of movies and made him the top African-American action star in the movies.

"I don't know how it happened,'' Snipes observes. "I try to do good work no matter what I'm doing. It just kind of blossomed into this.''

With the release of Murder at 1600 this Friday, Snipes is back in action mode in a tense thriller. He is quoted on the Internet as saying, ``In the beginning, all I wanted to do was to be a singer and dancer. That was my real groove. My real interest.''

When I asked him if he actively pursued action movies, he paused for a moment and reflected, "Yeah. Yeah, I do. I mean it's really a way of being the dancer I never was. I've always wanted to dance and these kinds of film are about the closest I'm ever gonna to get.''

Part of his on-screen grace comes from his lifelong study of capoeria, an African-Brazilian martial arts fighting technique. Even in repose sitting in his posh Los Angeles hotel room, there is an aura of caged physicality about him. This feeling of barely controlled danger, which transmits so well from the screen, has also found outlet in two wild motorcycle chases - one in L.A. which saw him booked for carrying a concealed weapon and a year later in 1994, when he led Florida police on a 190-kmh chase down a stretch of highway, culminating in an off-ramp crack-up.

One of an actor's problems in playing in action films is that often he is called upon to emote in scenes designed to keep car chases apart. Snipes, however, lets no moment go by without squeezing something out of it.

"That comes from the theatre training, actually,'' he suggests. "It helps you focus - to play the reality of that moment.''

Snipes attended Manhattan's High School for the Performing Arts - the school featured in the film Fame. After graduation, he installed telephones before appearing in a small role in a Goldie Hawn film, Wildcats.

Some of his smouldering passion showed in the Martin Scorsese-directed Michael Jackson video Bad. He pushed Jackson up against a wall - the singer didn't have to act much to be very, very frightened. Snipes' brief appearance was enough to get him noticed by Spike Lee, who cast the actor as the jazz saxophonist Shadow Henderson in his Mo Better Blues.

In fact, Lee was so impressed that he wrote the role of Flipper Justify in his interracial love story Jungle Fever specifically for Snipes. By now the actor was beginning to be noticed by critics and audiences. The success of Passenger 57 established him as a bankable action hero.

Since then he's proved his box office and acting skills in a bewildering assortment of roles, ranging from his wheelchair-bound patient in The Waterdance to his stint in neon green hair as the diabolical Simon Phoenix, opposite Sylvester Stallone in Demolition Man.

Snipes is quick to point out that he doesn't consider his new film Murder at 1600 a simple action movie. He plays Harlan Regis, a Washington, D.C., homicide detective who is called in to investigate a murder in the White House. There he finds a warren of interconnected agencies each out to protect their own turf any way they can.

"This is more of a thriller than just your basic action film,'' he suggests. "These kinds of roles are few and far between for an actor as young as myself. This is a smart, cerebral movie not so much motivated by the punch and the kick. The thrill is more intellectual.''

Lane sums up Snipes' appeal pretty well when she observes, "This kind of actor is few and far between. When he's playing a character, he's completely into it. He's so earnest he could pass a lie-detector test.''

Thursday, August 15, 1996

Snipes aspires to psychosis

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) -- Wesley Snipes is tired of playing muscular supercops and athletes. What he really wants is to play a psycho.

But Robert De Niro gets the good psycho roles.

In The Fan, opening Friday, De Niro plays a fan obsessed with Snipes' character, a baseball star.

"Maybe I haven't been presented with these kinds of straight-up psycho roles because of my age," said Snipes, 34.

"I know I am perceived as being young, so maybe I need to get a little older so audiences will believe that I can play a man who has been through the trials and tribulations of life," he said.

One of Hollywood's top action stars for movies such as Passenger 57 and Money Train, Snipes wants to return to his dramatic roots.

"People still don't understand that I'm a dramatically trained actor first and an action guy second," he said. "I wanted the De Niro part in this movie. I know it's going to be a few years before I get the De Niro part in this movie. But I'm a patient man and I can wait."

Thursday, June 20, 1996

Snipes coming to shoot thriller

By BRUCE KIRKLAND
Toronto Sun

HOLLYWOOD -- Superstar Wesley Snipes will shoot his next big movie, a dramatic thriller, in Toronto in August.

"We're going to shoot Executive Privilege in Toronto with Wesley," says Oscar-winning producer Arnold Kopelson. "I'm excited about that. Toronto's a real nice city. I've never shot in Toronto before but I've spent time there."

Kopelson, who joined the ranks of major Hollywood players when his production of Oliver Stone's Platoon won the best picture Oscar for 1986, has made a string of huge hits that have generated a total of more than $1 billion at the boxoffice. The titles include Seven, Outbreak and Falling Down.

His latest effort, the Arnold Schwarzenegger action thriller Eraser, opens across North America tomorrow and is touted as one of the year's guaranteed blockbusters.

The New York-born Kopelson said in an interview he is happy to be going back to Toronto as an established producer because, although he began his film career in Canada, it was as a U.S. lawyer helping out on tax shelter movies in the 1970s.

"I did two movies in Montreal and I was not happy with the results. I figured if I was going to continue like this, I was going to go out of business. They weren't the good old days.

"Now I have all the money I could ever want because it's just made available, if I have the projects, and I always have the projects because we work on them for years."

November 29, 1995

New role is $10M blast for Snipes

HOLLYWOOD - Wesley Snipes may have been second choice, but he's getting paid first class.

According to Variety, Snipes is getting $10 million to star in Sandblast, playing a land mine clearance specialist working for U.S. commandos after the Gulf War.

The Warner Brothers flick goes before the cameras in March and will be shot in the Middle East.

Eddie Murphy was the first choice for the role, but he was forced to pull out because of a scheduling conflict.

He's doing the action/comedy film, Metro.