It’s not unusual to encounter Vancouver-based actors at indie film mixers like the Celluloid Social Club or more recently, MiTribe. What I didn’t expect to encounter was a familiar face from an oft-played Hong Kong action flick of my youth, that face being Jerry Trimble from Tsui Hark’s 1992 film The Master starring a young Jet Li. Although it was hard to conflate the cheerful grin of the actor with the eternal scowling grimace of the character he portrayed, there was no mistaking that bad-guy Jonny had come to Vancouver.
Unfortunately, my aversion to coming across as a fanboy meant I didn’t approach him that night, but fate threw us together again several years later on a yacht of all places where we briefly chatted about his time on the film and took the obligatory instagram picture. With the 30th anniversary of The Master’s release this year, I finally took the opportunity to have an extended sit down with the veteran actor, martial artist and stuntman to discuss not only his time as Jet Li’s sworn enemy, but his ensuing screen career which includes such highlights as Michael Mann’s Heat, Charlie’s Angels and his subsequent relocation to Vancouver where he has lit up TV screens on such fare as The Flash, Supernatural, Chesapeake Shores and appropriately, Kung Fu.
Before appearing in The Master, you were a Kickboxing champion. How did you first get into martial arts?
As a preteen, I was bullied on a regular basis to the point of contemplating suicide (by) jumping off the bridge that connected Kentucky and Ohio where I’d walk through the neighbourhood. My dad had told me to get into sports to fit in and get some friends, gain some confidence. So I tried every sport and I quit every sport due to bullying and contemplated going to the bridge and I said “This time I’m going to do it!”.
So as I’m walking through the neighbourhood, I found myself standing in front of the Cinema One and Two movie theatre which is a place I went to constantly. Planet of the Apes and Chinese Connection with Bruce Lee were playing and I said “Fuck it” and went in. Chinese Connection with Bruce Lee changed my life.
After that I went home and asked my dad if I could join Karate. He said no, I went to the magazine store, bought every martial arts magazine I could buy. I went up to my room and just started practicing via the magazine master.
For my 14th birthday, my parents enrolled me in Taekwondo. I trained 6 days a week, got my black belt in 18 months and moved to Atlanta Georgia and started fighting.
You won the championship at one point, correct?
(In) 1986 I won the Professional Karate Association and the Professional Karate Commission World Title.
As far as I can tell, you hadn’t done any film work prior to The Master. How did you come to be cast?
I had some issues in Atlanta (so) I sold everything I owned, moved to California. I needed to get a job so I began teaching at one of Chuck Norris’ studios. On that day that I went in to show my skills, there just happened to be an agent or a manager, Peter Aguilar. He says “Hey, so I understand you’re an actor looking for representation.” I say “Yes sir, I am.” He asked if I’d done anything and I said no, so he signed with me, sent me on my first two auditions in the same week. It was Jet Li’s The Master and Breathing Fire with Bolo Yeung and Jonathan Ke Quan.
Strangely enough, I had never been (to) an audition before, never been in an acting class and booked both roles! It kinda took off after that.
Was that beginners luck?
No. My acting pretty much sucked and you can tell, although a lot of it’s dubbed. But they said “Let’s see your martial arts skills.” That’s what probably got me my first five or six films was my martial arts ability.
Although released in 1992, I understand The Master was shot in 1989. How long did filming go for?
It was actually shot in 1990. That’s really weird, it says 1989 on iMDB doesn’t it? Because I moved to Los Angeles in 1990.
I think it was maybe five to six weeks (of shooting). We took some time off because we were filming in a warehouse area where they had to have asbestos checked out, so that delayed us a couple weeks. Then everyone was worried about being careful about breathing in there, so it was pretty crazy.
It was a lot of work, but as I was working on both films, I’d work 12 hours on The Master then 12 hours on Breathing Fire because they were both shooting simultaneously. I went 12-12 and 12 and I did it three times. I told my manager that this was killing me, 12 hours on one set, 12 on another and then back to The Master. It was pretty freaky!
Did you ever find time to nap?
A little bit here and there, but we were working on fight scenes and the guys were going “let’s try this!”. I didn’t know anything about kung fu and Tsui Hark got to the point where he was like “make it up!” after I told him I was mainly Taekwondo. So when I’m twirling my hands, I didn’t know what the hell I was doing!
Jerry and Jet Li show off each other’s footwear in this high octane fight from THE MASTER
Photo courtesy of Jerry Trimble
How challenging was it to adapt your martial arts for screen fighting?
When I got my black belt at 15, me and my buddies would go down to the sand dunes and we would videotape movies. We’d practice fight scenes for hours and shot all kinds of shit. I wish I still had the footage now.
So it wasn’t hard. I did a lot of point control karate fighting so I had the control, until Jet would hit me and I’d be like” Ok motherfucker, my turn” and we’d go back and forth just banging each other to the body.
It wasn’t really that hard to adapt, just because of all that make believe stuff that I did with my pals and the point karate and we did fight scenes all the time, me and the guys.
Working with a Hong Kong crew and some cast, did you have any language barrier challenges on the set?
With Jet, yeah. I think he knew some English, he just wouldn’t talk to anybody but his guys. Trying to explain all the fight scenes, at times it got a little difficult to understand, there was a little language barrier (but) it wasn’t that bad.
Did Tsui Hark ever give you any motivation as to why Johnny suddenly betrayed his former teacher?
Nope. He just said “You wanna be the best. You’re gonna do what you have to do to be your best.” It was all ego. The whole movie was just ego.
It’s funny because working with the director on that and working with the director on Breathing Fire at the same time, there wasn’t a whole lot of direction. It was just, you do it and then it was just like “good job, good job, yay, good!” and I’m like “C’mon man, give me some fucking direction!”
Given that, what was the first acting job where you felt like you were getting the direction you needed?
Rick Jacobson, Full Contact. I loved working with Rick, there was a lot of collaboration there. That was probably the first film I got where I started getting some direction. That was the first Roger Corman movie I did, first of many (laughs).
Jerry (second from right) backs up Al Pacino in Michael Mann’s HEAT.
Photo courtesy of Jerry Trimble
So you didn’t have to wait until Heat then?
Micheal Mann, ya kidding me? I asked Micheal to tell me a little bit about the character and he goes “He has blonde hair and blue eyes” (laughs). So I’m like “Shit, thanks man…”
But no, that was fun. That was when everything started changing and going in a whole different direction. I kept pinching myself going “Is this real?”. I kept calling my agent going “Are we signing contracts, are we doing this??” It was great, that was a blessing.
Yeah, you started doing bigger stuff after that like Charlie’s Angels.
Charlie’s Angels was, everything had kinda died down for me. I was working on 2-3 films every year, then 9-11 hit and it suddenly slowed down. Then a buddy of mine, Jesse Johnson, action film director said “You know what, my uncles Vic and Andy Armstrong are stunt coordinators and they’re doing Charlie’s Angels. Give me your DVD (demo reel) and I’ll give it to them”.
So he gave it to Vic Armstrong and he’s like “Boom, I want him in the film”. It was like six weeks on Charlie’s Angels, yeah, and that’s when the stunts started. I did all my fight stuff in the films (prior), but not the stunts.
Jerry gets ready to take on CHARLIE’S ANGELS
Photo courtesy of Jerry Trimble
Circling back to The Master, there’s a huge stunt at the end where (SPOILERS!) your character Jonny falls off a building and the camera tracks with him most of the way down.
Yeah, he falls off the WTE building in Los Angeles. That was fun. We were probably 20-30 feet up. We were tied up and just hanging from the building. We’d go do that scene over and over again because we had to make it look like we were way up in the air and yeah, it was interesting.
Earlier in the fight, both your characters get cut up a bit from broken glass. Any real cuts by accident?
No, but that’s when we started (really) hitting each other. He’s hit me to the body and I’d be like “Okay” then I’d hit him. That was the scene where we started really hitting each other, full contact. That’s when Tsu just said “Just do your own thing, make it up”. I said “Okay, I hope it looks real”.
Mouse 1 (Derek Anunciation) and Mouse 2 (Henry Penzi)
One curious thing about The Master is that the actor portraying one of the Latino gang members, Mouse, changes from one actor to another and then back again. Any idea why this re-casting happened?
I have no idea. (Author’s note: I have since tracked down one of Mouse’s actors Henry Penzi, who clarified that the original actor Derek Anunciation had quit and that he was asked to step into the role for about a week of shooting. Derek himself confirmed this reason for leaving had to do with production running over-schedule and issues involving compensation)
Any other interesting stories from the set?
It’s funny because the scene in Yuen Wah’s shop, the scene between him and I, we shot that for two weeks (while) Tsui was out of town, I forgot who coordinated it.
When Tsui came back, he looked at it and went “Nope, we gotta re-do it.” We re-did that whole fight scene! It was a lot, but we were all going “Cha-ching!”, we’re just gonna make some more money!
Yuen Wah is one of the toughest sons of bitches I’ve ever worked with! I did a scene where he was standing up against a wall, I did a front kick and he moved out of the way as I smashed the paneling, I jumped in the air and did a backfist (which) smacked him so hard in the face and he just took it. Looked at me and went “Hmm”. We were all like “You alright?”. One of the most amazing stunt guys I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. One of the best in the world and the nicest guy when he’s off camera. Just the sweetest man.
Were you ever privy to the reason why the film’s release was delayed for two years?
No, I have no idea.
Jerry and Yuen Wah pose between takes
Photo courtesy of Jerry Trimble
When did you first see the movie?
Probably about 4-5 years later. I’ve watched bits and pieces of (the English dubbed version) on YouTube. Oof.
Hong Kong films at the time mostly shot without recording sound on set.
Sometimes, yeah. They’d be like “We’ll get it in post”. I’m like “Really??” and everybody’s like “You’re gonna have a different voice, my man!”. That was crazy and it was my first film. I was green to this whole business.
It was so cool seeing the stunt guys having such camaraderie amongst them. It was like they were just one big happy family. It was like they were all brothers. It was really cool to see. And at times they kinda included me in the jokes and all that.
You did a couple more Hong Kong films before focusing on Hollywood.
King of the Kickboxers with Loren Avedon and Invincible with Billy Blanks. Yeah, they were interesting (laughs). Loren and I were doing a fight scene and I hit him and he was like “Hey can you lighten up on the hits?” and it wasn’t even that hard! So we had a bit of a beef over control of the contact.
Invincible was shot in the desert. I got dehydrated and had to go to the hospital in Africa. Then a few days later I had to go back to the hospital in the dunes messing around with the stunt guys. Went up a dune, landed and busted my chin.
Why did you decide to relocate to Vancouver?
For the film business. I got married in 2002 to Ami Dolenz who’s an actress who’s done a lot of horror movies. My mother-in-law, may she rest in peace, said that “You guys gotta go to Vancouver because the film business up here is booming!”. So we applied for our permanent residency card, came up here and I had never done TV before and that’s most of the stuff I’ve been doing.
So there’s been more opportunity up here?
Yes. Runaway productions, at the time in Louisiana (there were) a lot of productions, a lot of action movies. Everything was going out of state because of tax credits. So we came up here for the film business.
Do you have any advice for aspiring martial artists or actors?
Take acting classes, first and foremost, get around people associating with the things you want, in this case film and TV. They say your network is your net worth.
Sharpen your craft and be kind, man, there’s a lot of assholes in this business. There’s a lot of cutthroat people. It’s a tough business (so) be ready for a lot of rejection.
THE MASTER is currently available in a deluxe Blu-Ray from 88 Films