An Interview with Timon Singh

CTB: How does one go from being a guy who watches a ton of action movies, to a guy interviewing some of the greatest villains in action cinema?

TS: Very slowly! So like many of your readers, I grew up watching films like the James Bond movies, Bloodsport, Mad Max and the back-catalogues of Schwarzenegger, Stallone and co. Not just that, but my parents had a diverse taste in films, so I grew watching everything from black and white Ray Harryhausen monster movies to Rogers and Hammerstein musicals, so if you want to discuss ninja movies from the 1980s AND Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, I’m your guy! I wrote film reviews for the university newspaper and for a while tried to get into film journalism, writing for websites like Den of Geek and outlets like Cineworld. However, I found constantly writing about film took a lot of the joy away from watching them as I was constantly thinking about how I would review this film later. Instead, I found I loved introducing films – especially cult and genre films that people never knew existed (or couldn’t believe they exist!)

So, over five years ago, in my home city of Bristol, I set up the Bristol Bad Film Club which is dedicated to screening the most notorious and unique films ever made. This covers everything from films that are “so bad, they’re good” like Samurai Cop, The Room, Birdemic: Shock and Terror and Troll 2 to movies where you can’t believe the stories behind them, such as Roar (where 70 cast and crew were maimed by lions and tigers) and Pulgasari (North Korea’s Godzilla film that was made by a South Korean director that Kim Jong-Il kidnapped and held for 7 years and forced to make movies for him).

Inevitably, when screening these films I often tried to track down the stars and film-makers to get an idea of how these films ever got made and that was a process I loved doing as I often found I asked questions that no-one had ever asked them before. It’s something I really enjoyed, but didn’t think it could lead to anything until I was re-watching Robocop at a special 35mm screening and I was just struck by how much fun Kurtwood Smith, Paul McCrane and the rest of Clarence Boddicker’s gang appeared to be having. It got me thinking about how these actors got cast as the film’s villains, whether they had more fun than Peter Weller and whether it changed the direction of their careers forever. Within 24 hours, I decided to expand that to ALL of my favourite villains growing up and started writing a list of actors I wanted to track down! Lucky for me, Bear Manor Media also thought it was a great idea and agreed to publish my book if I finished it in 9 months!

CTB: Born To Be Bad has been out for a few months now, what kind of feedback are you getting about your labor of love?

It’s all been really positive. We’ve got some great reviews on Amazon, but feedback from the actors that I interviewed for it has been wonderful. Also, getting five star reviews from sites like The Action Elite has been overwhelming as has staff members from the Arnold Schwarzenegger Museum in Austria sending me photos of them posing with my book in front of Arnold’s statue! It’s been wonderful to receive messages from people on social media saying how much they’ve enjoyed it. It really makes the whole thing worthwhile… especially as so many action film fans are already really knowledgeable and hearing that they learn new things from my book that they never knew before is exactly what I wanted to do!

CTB: Was there anyone you really wanted to interview for Born To Be Bad, but just couldn’t make happen?

So many! Top of my list of perfect candidates was Vernon Wells, Ronny Cox, Kurtwood Smith, Michael Ironside and Clancy Brown. I got the first two, but the other three are always working and it was impossible to nail them down. Hopefully for Part 2 (if I ever write it!). I was very close to interviewing Powers Boothe for the book – his agent had told me he was up for doing it, but tragically he suddenly passed away. There were other actors I wanted to interview, but some, who won’t be named, wanted eye-watering sums of money!

CTB: You are a part of another exciting project, a documentary entitled In Search of the Last Action Heroes. For those who aren’t familiar with the project can you shed some light on it and tell us how you got involved?

I got involved literally as my book came out! I saw that Oliver Harper was putting together his first feature that would aim to be a retrospective on the 80s action genre, looking at how it was born out of the social and political turmoil of the 1970s, the rise of figures like Arnie and Sly and how action changed going into the 90s thanks to the Hong Kong influence and newer stars like Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze. I offered my services and they bought me on as a writer/producer and sent me out to LA to do all the interviews as I had a large number of contacts from writing my book! The project is now in post production, but you can still support it and get rewards by backing it on Indiegogo.

CTB: The documentary will feature interviews with actors, directors, writers and you even to to sit down with musician Stan Bush! Can you you give us your Top 3 Stan Bush songs?

TS: 3. “Dare”, 2. “Fight to Survive” (Theme to Bloodsport), 1. “The Touch”

Obviously, he has loads of other great songs like “Never Surrender” and “Thunder In Your Heart”, but how could “The Touch” not be No.1?

CTB: Do you have a favorite interview?

There are loads, but one of the stand-outs was Sven-Ole Thorsen, Arnold Schwarzengger’s long-time friend and who holds the distinction of being killed on-screen more times by The Austrian Oak than any other actor. You may not know the name, but you know the face and he has so many great stories from working on Conan The Barbarian, Gladiator (where he played the retired gladiator Tigris) and clashing with other action stars like JCVD and Steven Seagal. He’s such a wonderful story-teller.

CTB: Finally, I have to ask you about your trip to Amoeba Music when you were in Los Angeles… what was that experience like and were you able to get out of there with any money left in your bank account?

TS: In a time where most video and record shops are a thing of the past, it was amazing to just spend an hour or so browsing racks of movies and music! Luckily for me (and my wallet), a lot of what I wanted was Region Locked and wouldn’t play on my multi-regional Blu Ray player (damn you Kino Lorber!), so I only ended up buying one Blu Ray – Raiders! The Story Of The Greatest Fan Film Ever Made.