BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., Aug. 11, 2000 — Wesley Snipes won’t lie to you: The money ain’t bad.
Such is the life of the stage actor-turned-action star, who saw his last feature film, “Blade,” become a surprise late-summer hit in 1998 and spawn a sequel, which is set to start filming in February.
“I’m just fortunate that I can do action things,” says the 38-year-old Snipes. “[Although] I didn’t go into this business to do action films. I’m a classically trained actor and I love the more dramatic pieces … But I mean, I can tell you doing action films has afforded me a lot of opportunity to make and fund these other projects. And do the more heartfelt, the more sensitive and dramatic pieces. So I’m not knocking the action star. It pays a lot of money.”
In fact, Snipes’ first “action” appearance was as a rival gang leader in Michael Jackson’s “Bad” video in 1987, bringing him his first roles in “Major League,” “Mo’ Better Blues” and “New Jack City.”
But Snipes has continued to dabble in comedy (“White Men Can’t Jump”) and romance (“Jungle Fever”), satisfying his creative thirsts as well as bringing commercial appeal. So for every “U.S. Marshals” and “Money Train,” there’s Mike Figgis’ “One Night Stand” and Maya Angelou’s “Down in the Delta,” which Snipes executive-produced. For every “Passenger 57,” there’s a “To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar,” in which Snipes dressed in drag.
This time around, Snipes suits back up in action mode for “The Art of War,” a thriller that showcases his love for martial arts, which the actor has been practicing since he was “12 years young.”
Snipes plays Neil Shaw, a secret agent for the United Nations who is accused of murdering the Chinese U.N. ambassador. On the run to clear his name, Neil finds the manipulations go much deeper than he expected, and every friend potentially becomes an enemy. The film co-stars Marie Matiko, Michael Biehn, Anne Archer and Donald Sutherland.
“Suspense thrillers are timeless, really good ones,” says Snipes. “Hitchcock you can watch now, you can watch 10 years from now, you can watch 10 years before. Some of the stuff Harrison Ford does, in terms of political thrillers, you still like them, you still watch them. Then you add the extra element of action on top of it, and you got a whole new genre of movie.”
The film should please Snipes’ legions of overseas fans, who he thanks profusely for helping his career.
“If I never work in America again, I can still work as an actor. They can accept me like that (snaps fingers),” laughs Snipes. “Thank God. It’s strange; it goes from Germany to Sweden to all the African continents … and then the Asian community’s like, ‘Wes, you’re our man. You’re getting us jobs; we like you.'”
But don’t think the money’s gone to his head. Snipes continues to hold creative investment in many of his projects, wearing an executive producer’s hat for “Art of War” as well as working with his production company, Amen Ra Films.
The key, says Snipes, “is to think, ‘Look, if we were to pay to go see this movie, what would we want to see? Let’s make a movie we would be comfortable and satisfied paying to go see.'”
And that goes for Snipes’ own films as well.
“You’re not going to see ‘Blade XV,’ I’m gonna tell you now,” he says. “You’re not going to see that.”
“The Art of War” opens Aug. 25.
