American Tough Guyz

I'm on set today, (yay, work!), and was here yesterday as well. This particular short independent film "Vengeance", called for several groups of thug-looking individuals to all come together to watch an underground "bare-knuckles" fight. There's a group with black gangsters, white euro-trash street kids, a biker, and a Mexican gang. I'm obviously part of the Yakuza crew. Each group has at least three members. Let me tell you...when they put out a call for "gangsters" and "thugs", they don't joke around. Everyone here is a thug of some sort. Ex-gang members, ex-bikers, ex-criminals. I mean, c'mon... I'M here. We're all separated into our respective groups and in the scene, we're gambling on the fight and shouting for our fighter to win. We yell obscenities at each other, be racist towards each other, and basically be extremely aggressive to each other...just like we would on the street. But the most interesting thing is that in between takes, we all sit around and I think we've all become sort of friends.

It's funny. On the street, three black guys, three Mexicans, a biker and two Asians would never come together and sit down and talk to each other about how minorities are oppressed and how the "White Man" is conspiring to keep us segregated when what we all really should be doing is working together. It's even funnier when you figure we're all WORKING for a white guy, we all got CAST by a white guy, and we're getting PAID by a white guy. But we all sat around together, shared stories of how we're all "Gangsters" and "Thugs", and generally respected each other. In addition to this humor, there was a group of white boys labeled "street kids". They were dressed like Euro-trash punks. Sort of like "A Clockwork Orange". They stuck together and didn't talk to any of us. Interesting.

My Yakuza compatriot and I got along very well with the other groups of guys. A Mexican guy named "Deadlee", (no joke), hung with us a lot. The three black guys Omar, Tamer, and Kenyon were super cool and we had a lot of laughs hanging with them. The one we really bonded with in a way was the biker guy. He was huge, had tats all over his arms, a big bushy red biker beard, a bald head and he looked like he could chew glass, nails and wood and spit out a fully constructed house. Here's an example: Each crew had three guys. The "Street kids", the "Latino Gangbangers", the "Yakuza" and the "Hip Hop Gangsters". There was only ONE biker. And he's now our buddy. He was the coolest guy on set. That is not to say that he's not an ex-thug like we are. Just that, he found the path to reformation...like we all did. Now he's an actor/singer/performer. He still rides his bike, but he's married and has a family. Just like us all. It just goes to show you... Once you've lived on the street, you never lose the "thug", though you can surely reform.

Anyway, the point is that being an actor brings people together. Groups that would otherwise never interact on the street can sit around a lunch table eating fish and drinking cokes and talk about how it was in the good old days when we all were living like thugs...and how we're so happy to be out of it. Ever see an ex-biker, an ex-crip, a guy who used to run with the Triads and an assorted bunch of mexican, black and asian thugs all hanging out, telling stories and laughing?

Go to set. You'll see it.

I never thought being an actor was so cool until today.