UB: We are doing the biggest massacre in the movie right now, so we have five knights in this monastery in Romania right now and a huge battle with like one shot after another where people get killed or cut and half and stuff.
JW: Sounds hectic! Alien Vs. Predator has done well at the box office has this raised your expectations for how BloodRayne will be do?
UB: Yes, absolutely. Basically BloodRayne is a completely different movie to my previous ones. It is a video game based movie sure, but far more story orientated. I thought it would be good to move the story back and to tell the prequel really. To show how BloodRayne became BloodRayne in the 1700's. A franchise really, so maybe we can move a hundred years into the future for the next one, then later with the game story with the Nazi's and all that stuff, we can do it in part two or part three.
JW: Why did you cast Ben Kingsley as Kagan? Did you have him in mind or...?
UB: I think Ben Kingsley is a great choice. He is finished up already so he is gone, we have done all his scenes. I must say it was a great honour to work with Ben Kingsley he is a great actor. He makes the part very believable. He plays a real evil king basically. Not like Gary Oldman, though he could have made a great Kagan as well. But he was more a dirty vampire; Ben Kingsley is more like an aristocrat, like the Sir Ben Kingsley (laughs). He plays it very cool. Which makes it even more evil and its good to have to have the very emotional Kristanna Loken playing against the real ice cold Ben Kingsley.
So in the scenes we have done everything worked very very well, some really strong scenes between these two.
JW: Did Ben Kingsley have a physical role; I mean did he have action scenes as well?
UB: Yes he did sword fighting and some action scenes. Obviously we have stunt doubles too, with all the actors. I always try to get the best our of the actors with stunt scenes with people like Matt Davis, Will Saunders, Michelle Rodriguez and Kristanna they are very capable with these things. They are getting better and better with things like horse riding, shooting bows and crossbows and fighting with swords. But some stuff is too dangerous.
JW: What about Kristanna Loken is she really getting into her character? How is she finding playing Rayne?
UB: I am really happy to have her in the movie. She is tall and strong, very sporty. She grew up in a zoo basically...her father had like a pet zoo in New York State. So she has a very good relationship with nature and with horses. So she could do all the riding stuff on her own. Plus with the other work she did on Terminator 3 and more recently in South Africa with Kingdom in Twilight, she was already trained in using sword in a way as well as being used to action scenes. So a really good start.
JW: Now BloodRayne as a movie, do you see it as all out action or more rounded than that?
UB: Well...Oh wait Michael Masden just came and I have to shoot a shot with him, but we can finish this question and then continue afterwards.
The point is we would not have gotten all these great actors for the film with only an action movie. It's the best cast in a video game movie ever. Not only Michael Madsen, Michelle Rodriguez and Kristanna Loken, also Udo Keir newly cast, he comes in as a Regal Monk. Michael Paré will also be in the movie, we have Geraldine Chaplin in the movie, daughter of Charlie Chaplin.
Really tons of stars and I think this is because of Guinevere Turner she wrote great script and it’s more character driven than an action movie. I think this is what attracted the actors you will never see Ben Kingsley in a House of the Dead type movie, lets say. He would not play in that kind of movie, it must be a good part with a solid back-story.
Your first look at Kristanna Loken as Bloodrayne! Wednesday, September 1st, 2004 - "She is the daughter of the lead vampire, the lead bad guy Kagan, and her journey in the film is just becoming what she is..."
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