Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina of Gypsy-Sicilian-Spanish-Syrian descent, Ricardo Mamood, an actor trained on stage, has started to work in exciting projects in Hong Kong since 2000, such as Corey Yuen's So Close, Donny Yen choreographed The Twins Effect, Jackie Chan's vehicle Higbinders (aka The Medallion) and Infernal Affairs 2.

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Introduction

Ricardo Mamood. You don't know this name yet, but within the world of foreigners working in the Hong Kong film industry, the man has already gained a solid reputation. During a stay in HK where I was doing some interviews for HK Cinemagic, I contacted Ricardo thanks to Bey Logan. We then set up an appointment by phone to discuss about him and his life as an actor in the Eastern Hollywood.
We met at the Fringe Club, a famous pub down the Lan Kwai Fong area, in Central. Ricardo Mamood was sitting there, very relax. He warmly welcomed me and my microphone, and he was happy to share his feelings on his career and the work situation here, and his thoughts on cinema.

The interview has been divided into 6 parts:
1. Coming to work in Hong Kong
2. His work on screen and on stage
3. Action movies
4. How foreigners work in the HK film industry
5. Action with Corey Yuen, Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan
6. Upcoming career

Interview with Ricardo Mamood

1. Coming to work in Hong Kong

- I have a fighting and dialogue scene with Jackie Chan but I don't know if the whole thing will end up in the movie -

HK Cinemagic: Can you tell us what brought you to Hong Kong and how you got involved with Hong Kong cinema?
Ricardo Mamood: I didn't come to HK for acting reasons, but for a corporate job. It wasn't great for me in Argentina back then so I said great. HK was an unusual destination so I said yes, why not? It was a great opportunity.

What was this corporate job about and how did you end up getting acting work?
I was a director of the supply chain management for Paccess, a strategic partner of Nike, Inc. I didn't do much in HK for a while, except the corporate job, until I couldn't take it anymore. I needed to go back to what I always wanted to do, acting and being able to perform. I put my things together, went out to a photographer again, put my resume together and started going to agencies dropping my materials, reading for them and doing the circuit, stuff like that. The way HK goes about the business is very unusual, you don't work with one agent in particular. Nobody takes you "home" because you're a foreigner, not Chinese. You basically work on a freelance basis.

I learned that the hard way but they started calling me and I went to castings here and there. Then I booked plenty of commercials. Some of them were very well paid, some of them so so. There is no union here so basically how much you get paid is how much you fight for what you think you should get. Then I did some theatre and started to go to audition for movies. The first role I landed was a FBI agent, Quincy in Gen Y Cops. Then I did a couple of short films, as the lead in all of them: Ferry Man, Room To Let and Happy Birthday. Then the second role I got I think was So Close...

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2. His work on screen and on stage

HK Cinemagic: You were also in Let's Love Hong Kong before this one.
Ricardo Mamood: Yeah. My character was bigger in the original script. I had a long, long scene like an 8 or 10 minute monologue - too long - basically where I tell a story. But it was all cut out from the movie. There is like a blink of me in a bar scene and that was it. In the end the movie didn't really worked. And then I did So Close with Corey Yuen Kwai and after that The Medallion [aka Highbinders], the movie is not out yet, it will be in August. I have a fighting and dialogue scene with Jackie Chan but I don't know if the whole thing will end up in the movie. Columbia bought it and asked to cut a lot of scenes out and to re-shoot others, so we'll see.
And then the next part was Ethan, a vampire, the right hand of the Duke in The Twins Effect, out in June.

You worked in the 2002 Twins' vehicle Summer Breeze of Love if I'm correct. It seems to me that the Twins liked you…
I met them once actually at a make up session, I don't think they even knew I was in their movie though. My character in Summer Breeze of Love is an actor in a movie inside the movie. The protagonist, Dave Wong, is watching the movie with Gillian Chung. It's an old black and white old movie, a fictional suspense German film called "Der Lift" (The Elevator). And then the latest job I did, which that I produced, was the play Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet, which was a huge success in Hong Kong.

Is it still playing in HK?
No, it ended in mid March. I play Richard Roma, one of the salesmen, which is the character played by Al Pacino in the movie and Joe Mantegna in the play in 1984. It was great, a great success and a great accomplishment for me as a producer and as an actor. I produced only because I had a vision about the show and I wanted to make sure it was done according to that vision. So I had to basically take charge. It was very satisfying as an actor, very challenging. Mamet is not easy to play.

How many shows you had on?
Usually in HK you get to do 5 or 6 shows. We had 10 shows programmed and it was all sold out before opening night, which is very unusual so we had to add another show due to popular demand.

- Film is great, I love it and I'd like to do more
but I'd like to keep it balanced -

Do you think you will continue your work in the production area?
Actually I have few things planned right now. We want to produce a prison drama in HK, we're not sure what yet. We'll decide between another play and Short Eyes which is a play by Miguel Piñero. There was a movie about him made only a year ago with Benjamin Bratt. The other play is, So, I killed a few people. It's about this serial killer on death row and his last request before his execution is to have a one-man show. It's a very hard-hitting play but also very funny, very challenging. And I'm also writing right now, a play that I started writing a while ago about the Gulf war and I abandoned because I felt it was not relevant. Obviously wrong, so I went back to it.

You want to keep on working both on movies and on stage?
Yeah, my plan is to keep up working on films, which is something I like very, very much and at the same time not to stop my work on stage. I think as an actor it keeps you sharp, keeps you on edge. Film is great, I love it and I'd like to do more but I'd like to keep it balanced.

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3. Action movies

HK Cinemagic: You were mostly into big-budget action movies. Would you like to widen your horizons working in drama or comedy?
Ricardo Mamood: Yeah, I'd love to. The problem in HK is that most of the films being produced here are action driven...

At the moment, it's not really the trend in HK cinema...
Well at least those in which a foreign actor can get a part in. As foreign actor I don't get a chance to work on a dialogue driven drama or comedy, which is in Cantonese. I don't speak the language. And even if I spoke the language it wouldn't make any difference because I don't look Chinese. Perhaps that's something that is frustrating for an actor here, particularly for a foreign actor. This is a very cosmopolitan town I mean you have a lot of different cultures and what you see in films...

...doesn't reflect reality.
Right, exactly. And if that reality would be reflected, foreign actors would have more work. My background is drama, not so much comedy although as an actor you got to do a bit of everything and I love comedy as well. I'd love to do some drama, some deep drama, and a cop drama. Here what you see is cops, shooting and kicking, you know this type of film. And like you said it doesn't reflect the reality.

I don't have a martial art background. I did boxing for many years, which is a martial art, but nobody does boxing here, everybody does kung fu. I'm trying to do something different, in town everybody tries to be Bruce Lee. I'd like to develop my own projects and bring cultures together. Not only from the casting standpoint but also from an audience standpoint because there are many intersectionsand intercultural exchange and local storytelling doesn't reflect that.

- I'm trying to do something different,
in town everybody tries to be Bruce Lee -

It seems like there have been some improvements in this respect if you compare to the 70's or the 80's.
Yes, I agree with you, I think there has been progress but there is still much to be done. It's been 30 years and if you look at the progress, from a "bringing the cultures together" standpoint there isn't much. I think there is a great potential, we have great talent here, not only from an on-camera standpoint but also behind the camera.

You sound fitted to work with Wong Kar Wai!
I'd love that. Actually I auditioned for 2046. But I think the movie is being delayed for quite some time. It's being delayed for a couple of years actually. I don't know, we'll see what happens.

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4. How foreigners work in the HK film industry

- If you look foreign you're expected to speak in English, not Cantonese -

HK Cinemagic: Have you suffered from racism here?
Ricardo Mamood: I don't know if I could actually say I've suffered, to use your term…

Maybe the term wasn't well chosen.
No, it's a good term. I don't think I could say what I experienced was right-on-your-face discrimination, but perhaps a little bit of it. I'll give you an example. Me as a foreign actor. Now there are some people in the industry that know me, but at the beginning when I started nobody knew me. And you walk on the set and nobody greets you. You say good morning and everybody - cast and crews - look at you saying "who are you for us to greet you back?" Obviously this kind of things is annoying because it doesn't matter, you're a human being, and you deserve that basic respect. It's different in other countries. It's a different culture, a different way of doing things. However when they see you working and they see you're talented, you have the chops, that you respond and you get the job done, you save their time, you save their money then they start treating you differently. They look at you with different eyes.

But you can't blame them completely because, you know there are a lot of agencies here going around Chungking Mansion, recruiting people on the street. And they are not actors, but backpackers or travellers or whatever else. They do this as a "gig" for a few bucks or as a way of killing time. They are not trained. So the few good foreign actors have to pay the price for the image that the "foreign actor" has. People like me have been training all their life and it's obviously different when you have experience, you are trained. You need another actor in your film, and you bring someone that doesn't have the training and this is what you got. You got what you paid for. But on the other hand you can't really blame them to be a little apprehensive when a foreign face shows up in the production because they are worried about "oh, another one from Chungking mansion, this is gonna be a nightmare, we'll have to do this take 20 times".
But I can't call it discrimination. I think it comes with the trade here. It's a big-small industry here so the people you've seen on this production, you see half of them on the next one.

Was the fact that you didn't speak Cantonese a problem?
I'm sure it has limited my work. I guess it would have just opened my scope of work a little further but not a lot. Because even if I spoke the language those parts are written for the local Chinese. If you look foreign you're expected to speak in English, not Cantonese.

Is there a movie you've worked on that you're really happy with or you're still not satisfied by any?
I think for me it has been a great learning process to work on films, and to work on big productions, and to work in HK where things are done differently than in the US. As an actor I'm never satisfied. I want more, I want it all, and I want it now! I wished I would have done more and earlier but that's the past. I need to look forward to see how I can reinvent myself to be marketable, on chart, and to get work. I'd love to do more, I wish sometimes we get better scripts and like I said before the scripts that actually contemplate the idea of this cosmopolitan environment where we have characters of all ethnicities. Supporting characters for foreign actors here should be more developed in order to do more quality work. Because usually supporting roles here are very brief. You just get on screen, have a few lines and that's basically it.

What was your longest scene?
I had a lot of dialogue on So Close but a good chunk of it was cut out. It was a long movie so they cut the weakest link as they said, the foreign face. And then in the Twins Effect my first scene is like... It's a long scene and I have a lot of dialogue. These are 2000-year vampires and they speak with a certain flair, almost Shakespearean and it's really cool so I'm looking forward to see that. I think there is a need to find a balance between substance, story and action when you have these movies that are action driven. The Matrix is a good example, you have substance, a great story, and precious dialogue. There is a need to have dialogue and drama and the action scenes.

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5. Action with Corey Yuen, Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan

HK Cinemagic: Did you feel any difference between the directors you've worked with? Corey Yuen is known for working often with foreigners for instance.
Ricardo Mamood: Corey Yuen was great [he worked with Ricardo on So Close]. We didn't speak a lot, I don't speak Cantonese nor Mandarin and he doesn't speak a lot of English but there are some things you just understand. He's a very gentle guy. I felt very comfortable. We waited for the last hour to do all my scenes, all my close ups and lines. And I had 3 scenes, which were going to take place in the same location. And he said: "look, we're gonna shoot your 3 scenes back to back. These 2 cameras will shoot the 3 scenes and we'll just cut them in the movie the way they should be".

So I had to memorise all the response right there as you usually had the script on the set. That's another story. And I would do the 3 scenes back to back, just giving a few seconds between each scene to give some room for editing. And we were rehearsing and it went so so and he said "you know what? Let's just do it" and the cameras started rolling and I just did it, on the first take. And it was great, it was really good and he came to me and shook my hand.

Your character in Gen-Y Cops was primarily supposed to be killed in the middle of the movie? I thought it was really a shame.
Actually I was supposed to get killed earlier in the movie. I made it into about an hour in the movie. But they saw me and gave me more to do, they wrote more stuff and more dialogue, more things for me to do. I liked what I did there so I wish my character was better developed, not only better developed but also better established because I don't think the character was established enough for people to get what he was up to. But I liked what I did there, particularly my scene with Edison when he has the flashback and we duel to the death…

- I'm very fond of HK, it has allow me to achieve what not even my own country has given me, so I'm very grateful for that -

In The Twins Effect the director is...
...Dante Lam. He's very good, very kind and soft-spoken. He gives you an idea at the beginning of what he wants but it's very brief and he lets you work. If he likes it it's alright, it's in the can, and you move on to the next stage. He doesn't waste his time, he doesn't need to be on top of you.

In The Medallion (Highbinders) you have a fight scene with Jackie Chan so you have worked with Sammo Hung. Tell us talk about him.
He was fun to work with.

Really? I always heard he was very serious on the set.
He's very focused. He likes things to be done right. You gonna pay attention at what he says on the set otherwise he shouts at you. But he's great.

Did you know HK movies when you were in Argentina?
Yeah but not a lot. Obviously the major import was Bruce Lee. Then Jackie Chan came, we started to see Jackie Chan films much before he got known in the USA. The early movies they are watching now in the US we watched them earlier in Argentina. But I never thought I would be in HK back in these days. I always wanted to be an actor but I would have never guessed the first movie I'd be in would be in HK. I'm very fond of HK, it has allow me to achieve what not even my own country has given me, so I'm very grateful for that.

Unlike many foreigners who came to work in the HK cinema and idolise Jackie Chan, you had less pressure working with him, hadn't you?
Don't get me wrong it was a great privilege, a great opportunity to work with Mr Chan himself. No doubt. Perhaps I didn't have the chance to idolise him when I was in Argentina but I watched his way of working before I ever dreamed of working with him or in a scene with him. But I'm also an actor and for the sake of the work I can let that interfere. So you put that aside and just do your work.
I try to say: "I'm having a scene with another actor". Because if I think too much about it I won't be able to do the scene, I will be so sucked into the fact that I am sharing screen time with such a giant and being unable to speak. When "action" is shouted, you're an actor, he's an actor and there is a job to be done and there are no idols, just characters.

Did you have any problem to catch up with the pace of the action scene in The Medallion?
No, it was short but it wasn't easy. We rehearsed it a few times with Reuben Langdon, he was the one suggesting me for this scene, so thank you Reuben. Because they needed an actor, they could not use a stuntman, it was a funny dialogue-driven scene. It's a funny moment where we're facing us with our guns, a la John Woo, and he says he's a cop and I don't believe him and I say "you're a cop? I'm Ricky Martin". It was very funny.

I was indeed about to ask you about this Ricky Martin joke…
Bey Logan came up with it, and it was fun. And then you know, I tried to shoot him and Mr Chan took the gun and knocked me down. But it took some physical work, I did a lot of work because I had to propel myself being aware of the trajectory. I propelled myself and landed on the floor ready for the kicking on the head. I had a hat, I was an undercover Interpol agent pretending to be a Russian sailor, and when he kicked me in the head my hat flew away. They loved that take so I had to make sure my hat would flow away on any subsequent take.

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6. Upcoming career

HK Cinemagic: Do you see your career in HK as a first step for something more international?
Ricardo Mamood: Yeah, that's an extension of it. Like I said HK is great and I hope I can come here and keep on doing films, working on films and keep on producing. HK is great as a launch pad but it doesn't hold the key to my future if I want a long-lasting career. Now with a few serious credentials, a decent body of work and good built-up resume I can go to the US.

Is the USA your goal? Isn't it Argentina?
My goal is in the US or Australia, and I'll go to the US first. Los Angeles or New York. If I go overseas and do more then I can come back to HK again and do bigger things. But to do that I need to move on, go somewhere else and go to places to see if they can use my type and my skills perhaps a little more.

You're not afraid of being typecast due to ethnicity?
You know what? Some actors complain about typecasting and I say if you have a 20-year career or so as an actor and you've done a lot of things and you find yourself being typecast, I can understand. But to get typecast first you need to work. So basically I wouldn't mind to be typecast at this point. I want to work and perhaps the only way to work consistently, and to get yourself out there, is to play about the same types in the first few projects.

And that's a way of coming across. Fortunately I have a mixed background, I think I could play anything from Hispanic, Latino - I speak Spanish and Italian - Middle East parts, Italian, Gypsy, etc. I have all this background so I can play all that range. So I can be typecast within this range but I don't mind. I wish I was typecast, it would mean I have work.

- Action is a lot of fun but I'd like to do
something more drama driven here -

Spanish cinema is getting better and better these days.
Aren't you interested to try there?
Yes, and Mexican films also. In Los Angeles you can try both, you can work the LA circuit and then also the Mexican one. I'd love to go to Spain and see what's going on over there. I think what Pedro Almodovar has done for the Spanish film industry is invaluable. He has really put Spain on the map. Other directors and people obviously are doing a very good job. Amenabar, a Chilean, he's in Spain and doing fantastic work like The Others.

And El Espinazo Del Diablo? (The Devil's Backbone)
Yes, I liked it. That was directed by Guillermo Del Toro, he did Blade 2.

At the moment, Spanish-speaking people are doing well in the international scene.
Yes, you see a lot of that lately in all these films, in El Espinazo Del Diablo they used Mexican and Argentinean actors. So yes, there are possibilities.

Is there any actor or director you would like to work with?
Oh no doubt, a long list. I'd like to be involved in an Al Pacino project, it would be great. I just saw him live on Broadway playing Herod in Salome along with Marisa Tomei. Amazing. I'd love working also with John Turturo, Luis Guzman! Such a great actor, amazing what this man does! I love him in every movie. I'd love to work with Steven Soderbergh... I'm sure I'd have to get in the line, a lot of people want to work with him. I'd love to cast Luis Guzman and do a new version of Don Quixote and have him play Sancho Pancha along with James Cromwell… that's my producer's head working now...

In HK, I'd love to be in a Wong Kar Wai film. He's different, he's got a lot of subtext. I'd love to work with him. Something more artistic and less action driven. Action is a lot of fun but I'd like to do something more drama driven here.

And what about some other art-house directors such as Fruit Chan or Ann Hui ?
Fruit Chan is great too. Made in Hong Kong! He's one of the few directors out here with depth and I think their work would also be more exposed and better known if it had more cosmopolitan elements in it. It would carry across other latitudes, other places where their film can't reach, because of a very specific context and language as well.

To conclude, do you have anything to say to your French fans?
Me, French fans?

Yeah, you were quite shining in Gen Y Cops…
I'm pleasantly surprised, my screen time in Gen Y Cops was so brief. I saw the movie and I said: "God, it's so brief, no one is going to notice me, no one is going to realise I was in the movie". I'm glad that there are people like you and the work you put into this online initiative.
I went to your site and I said: "Wow someone is actually paying attention to a bunch of foreign actors in HK." [see the Gweilo folder in HK Cinemagic 2 - The Encyclopaedia of the Hong Kong Cinema, in French]
Great initiative, you make possible for a lot of people to have placed an eye on us. It's very comforting to get noticed so thank you.

Many thanks to Ricardo Mamood for his patience and kindness.
Special thanks to Bey Logan for his help.

Interview By Arnaud Lanuque, Fringe Club (Central, Hong Kong), 14 April 2003.
Unless otherwise stated, pictures have been kindly provided by Ricardo Mamood
or come from his website http://www.ricmamood.com (all rights reserved).

No part of this page content can be used without prior permission from the webmaster

 

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Filmography

Long Feature films:
2003 Hit Team 2
2003 Star Runner
2003 Infernal Affairs 2
2003 The Medallion / Highbinders
2003 The Twins Effect
2002 So Close
2002 Summer Breeze of Love
2002 Let's Love Hong Kong (independent production)
2000 Gen-Y Cops

Short films:
Ferry Man
Happy Birthday
Room To Let

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