Hey boys ‘n girls, we couldn’t be more thrilled to host an exclusive interview with the folks behind the excellent new documentary, I Am Bruce Lee.  Director Pete McCormack gave us his thoughts on discovering the martial arts majesty and philosophical wisdom of one of the greatest movie stars that ever lived, and Bruce Lee’s daughter, Shannon Lee Keasler talked about producing the film and protecting her father's legacy.

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I Am Bruce Lee

 Shannon Lee Keasler

The Lady Miz Diva:  What inspired you to produce this documentary on your father’s life?

Shannon Lee Keasler:  Actually, my producing partners at Network Entertainment came initially to me and said, “We did a documentary on Muhammad Ali called Facing Ali and it turned out really great and everyone really loves it. We’re really intrigued by your father and his legacy and we’d really like to do a documentary on him.” And of course I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, there are a lot of Bruce Lee documentaries. {Laughs} Do we need another Bruce Lee documentary?’  But I saw the work that they’d done on Facing Ali and it was really a well done film.  I talked to them about what their vision of this piece could be and after seeing their work and really talking it through and meeting the director, Pete McCormack, I really thought that actually this would be a beautiful and high-quality piece and that it would really tell the story in an intriguing way.

LMD:  How did you choose Pete McCormack to direct?

SLK:  He had done so much research, it was amazing to me.  He’s a really likeable guy and he really had done so much research; I mean every nook and cranny, read every article and read everything that he could find of my father’s writings he could get his hands on.  I felt that he had a great grasp for his subject matter, but also he was very good at coming up with thoughtful questions for the people he interviewed.  I think he had an interesting viewpoint a lot of times; he had his own ideas about things and he was very interested to hear what other people’s ideas were and to sort of weave all of those different varying viewpoints together in this story.

LMD:  I Am Bruce Lee has such a wonderful collection of home movies and family photos.  Did you provide all of that?

SLK:  Yes, that is correct.

LMD:  Were there any of those personal items you kept back from the production?  Where you said, ‘That’s just for the family’?

SLK:  You know, there are certain pictures that are more personal to me, but for the most part, because I really did believe in the project, I really did believe in the way the film was coming together and the way it was ultimately going to come out and I wanted to support that vision as much as I could and make the film feel very personal and special, which I really think that it does.  So, I didn’t give everything {Laughs}, but I wanted to put as much in there as we could.

LMD:  The film goes into subjects not often talked of, like how being a quarter Caucasian was a problem for Bruce Lee in Hong Kong and the contrast with the racial prejudice he faced here.  There is also great detail into stories I always wanted to hear about, like his time as a child actor, the challenge by the traditional martial artists to stop him from training non-Chinese and how far things had gone with the failed film project, The Magic Flute.  How do you keep finding things to surprise the audience?

SLK:  I think it was primarily Pete.  Because to me, obviously these are things that I knew, and so they’re not surprising to me, but I think that they will be surprising to an audience because a lot of people don’t know my father and his story that intimately.  They may have brushed up against it here and there, but never put it fully into context and have it expressed the way it’s expressed in this piece.  Pete is responsible for doing that in a very thoughtful way.

LMD:  I think it’s Richard Bustillo who says words to the effect of, anyone who claims there’s a Jeet Kune Do school is not telling the truth, might ruffle some feathers.  The same with the segment about who was the “Father of Mixed Martial Arts”?  Were you worried about any controversy?

SLK:  You know, the martial arts community has been ruffling its feathers for a long time now. {Laughs} So, I try on the one hand not to get too caught up in it, because it’s a no-win situation, but at the same time I don’t worry too much, either, because they’re always going to be people on either side of every argument who have their own opinion, and it seems that particularly in the martial arts community that’s the case. So, I don’t worry, cos you can’t please all the people all the time.  And I think that it’s a very worthwhile and interesting conversation and I wish one that could be had without people challenging each other to death matches. {Laughs}

LMD:  Your father passed when you were only four years old.  What has it been like for you to have to share him with the world?

SLK:  You know it’s an interesting thing, because the thing that I find and I wish that it were different, that I had known him longer, obviously, but the thing that I find is that people want is to know him in a way that he can’t be known through the public.  And unfortunately for me, I do have some very brief memories and glimpses of him as a young child, but they are really more like just moments in time rather than these long form memories.  I can’t tell you what he had for breakfast every morning or anything like that {Laughs}, and I found that people want that.  They want some tidbit that nobody else has and so that’s difficult at times because it’s kind of a strange thing because people are so attracted to my DNA. {Laughs} And it’s an interesting thing to be attached to something that is very amazing and at the same time to feel like, ‘That’s not me, that’s him.’  So, it’s an interesting path to walk, but most of the time, it’s a wonderful place to be.

LMD:  You have taken a very big role in Bruce Lee Enterprises.  Did you always know even when you were younger that you would eventually assume the role of keeper of your dad’s legacy?

SLK:  You know, yes, and no.  I mean, obviously, I knew that in some way I would be the keeper of his legacy in the sense that at some point it would be me and I assumed my brother, although unfortunately that’s not the case, but I don’t know if I ever really thought like, ‘Oh, someday I’m going to run this as a business.’  I imagine if I had thought that, I wouldn’t have majored in music in college. {Laughs} But at the same time, it’s one of these things where for many years we worked with somebody else who was handling it.  You know, my mom did a wonderful job of maintaining his legacy, but never really looked at it in terms of what more could she do.  I think that at some point my mom was looking to sort of step back and retire and do her own thing and travel and all that, so I said, “I would love to start working at this and I really feel like there’s more that can be done and I wish that we, the family had a little bit more control over what was going on.”  I feel like the people hardly know anything about Bruce Lee and there’s such a wealth of inspiration and motivation and wonderful, dynamic quality that I think could be elevated out in the public.  So, I feel so much continued inspiration and so much value from his life and from his legacy that I just feel like it should be cherished.

LMD:  How did you choose who to ask to speak with for this project?  The Dan Inosanto interview toward the end was heartbreaking.  Is it difficult to ask him to speak on film, knowing you might get that reaction?

SLK:  You know, the interesting thing with “The Guys,” as I call them; friends of my dad’s, in particular the ones who were longtime students and friends like Dan and like Taky Kimura and like Ted Wong, who passed away at the end of last year.  A number of them have actually passed away recently, so it’s very sad because we’re definitely coming to end of a generation who knew my father.  But I do find that those people who really knew my father and spent time with him were so very affected by their relationship with him.  You know, when we go to the gravesite and Taky will be there and he always has a tear in his eye just standing there.  It’s really touching and really quite amazing this impact that he had on a very personal level with a lot of people.  You know, that’s something that a lot of people may not know about my father is that being this super alpha male that he was and an aggressive and action-oriented person, he also was a very caring person and he liked to help people and take care of people.  He was very affectionate and as helpful as he could be with all of his friends and students, and I think, that, coupled with his charisma and his love of discourse and breaking everything down and telling jokes and what have you, this really made people feel very close to him and very affected by him.

LMD:  It was wonderful to watch, but nobody told me I’d need Kleenex!

SLK:  {Laughs} That’s the thing!  I was really moved myself watching, because I was not present when Dan was filmed.  In part because I didn’t want him to feel a certain way, knowing that I was sitting there watching and to let him just be in himself with the crew.  The film was very touching, I was very moved by it.

LMD:  There is a lot of focus on the MMA/UFC connection and your father. Why did you feel that was important to include?

SLK:  Well, it’s an ongoing discussion. {UFC President} Dana White has gone on record a number of times and in the film, of course, as saying that my father is the father of mixed martial arts.  And it was a huge part of my father’s life -- not mixed martial arts -- because he didn’t call it that or practise that, necessarily, but my father was first and foremost a martial artist, and I still believe that in this sport of mixed martial arts and the UFC and all of this that’s happening today, there can be lines drawn back to my father from that.  My father was really a person who came to the realisation that in order to be a real fighter -- a complete fighter -- you can’t just pick one style and do that style and nothing else, because invariably you will encounter somebody who does a style completely different from yours and you won’t know how to defend or attack with that type of style.  So, you really need to be a complete fighter from top to bottom and he threw away his traditional training and really started looking at just movement as a whole, and how do I utilise my body in the most effective and efficient way to be able defend against anything whether I’m standing up or on the ground.  And that’s basically where we’ve gone with mixed martial arts, where you’ve seen that sport go.  UFC initially started as a Pan-Asian style person facing off against a Muay Thai person and who would win.  But we started to understand that when people started borrowing from each other’s styles, well, in order to really know who that fighter is, you really have to be the complete fighter from top to bottom and that’s where we are today with mixed martial arts, and I think a very clear line -- or, a very clear inspirational line, anyway -- can be drawn from my father to that.

LMD:  You mentioned being a complete fighter and I Am Bruce Lee demonstrates how your father was a very complete fighter by showing the balance of his martial arts skills with his study of philosophy and mental attitude.  You quote him often on Twitter and Facebook.  What do you feel is relevant about his lessons or thoughts today?

SLK:  Gosh, I feel like so much of what he was saying is relevant and probably always will be, because so much of it is about the art of self-actualisation and about how to grow and evolve as a person.  A lot of what he talked about, he was applying it to martial arts, but he was also applying it to himself as a human being.  In fact, what he used to say is all of these things that I’ve learned about being an actor, about being a martial artist, about being  a man, I’ve learned through my study of martial arts because I’ve taken everything that I’ve needed to learn to grow in that field and started to apply it to my own life.  And I think that the reason actually that we remember my father today is because he really took all of his thoughts and beliefs and was continually peeling back the layers and looking deeper, going deeper, and putting all of that self-evolution and self-actualisation into self-expression out into the world, and that’s really the message of his legacy, if you ask me.  I think a lot of what he’s talking about is very motivational and very inspirational for us because it’s just looking at how we live our lives.  If there’s one component that mixed martial arts can maybe continue to work on it is that mental attitude and philosophical aspect.

LMD:  Your mother, Linda Lee Cadwell, is such an example of grace and strength, dealing with all she had to following your father’s sudden passing. As a mother to a little girl yourself, what was there that your mother practiced in raising you that you value now, with regard to how to deal with being the child of not only the greatest Asian star that ever lived, but one of the greatest movie stars, period?

SLK:  You know, I think that one of the things that I was very grateful for was that I had a very normal and away from the limelight upbringing; but more than that a very personable upbringing.  My mom was there and she was very affectionate and very kind and loving, did her best to be there for us and be supportive of us, whatever we wanted to do, and I appreciated that very much.  I think it helped me to be a little bit more grounded of a person.  She always told us to let people get to know us for who we are before telling them, “Oh, I’m Bruce Lee’s kid.”  So, we didn’t go around telling people that and I felt that my friendships were very genuine and that I had very genuine relationships with people, which is a really nice thing to feel.  I think I always try to be as authentic as possible with my daughter and be there as much as possible.  I’m very, very hands-on with her and affectionate with her and I think that she has a really lovely kindness about her.

LMD:  If it’s okay, I would like to ask about your brother, Brandon Lee.  His birthday just passed and it was heartbreaking and beautiful to see those home movies of him as a toddler doing the stances and kicking before he could really even walk, with your father there, beaming at his son.  What would you like people to remember about Brandon? 

SLK:  Well, gosh, Brandon was an extremely fun-loving, energetic person with a big laugh.  And I think the thing about Brandon was he was really, truly an artist.  He was really active in his pursuit of his own direction.  He knew what he wanted to do from the time he was very little and sometimes that was kind of headache for my mom because getting him to do math and science was a little bit difficult.  He was such a free spirit and he was really given the room by my mom to explore that and be his own person. And he really was his own person, and he wanted to step into his own being very much apart from our father.  And he was also a very inspired person.

LMD:  Can you please give our readers about what to expect from Bruce Lee Enterprises in the future?

SLK:  We have a lot of projects that we’re working on.  Bruce Lee Enterprises is the licensing, Lee Way Media is the production end and the Bruce Lee Foundation is a public charity, and all of these things are doing a lot of things.  So, we are developing a couple of film projects and live stage show projects, as well as an animated TV series.  All of those are in the development stages right now, but we’re very excited about them.  A couple of projects will be coming close to fruition by the end of this year.  And then the Bruce Lee Foundation has launched a project to build the Bruce Lee Action Museum.  We’re looking to build that in Seattle, Washington, and it’s a Bruce Lee museum, but it’s not just a memorabilia museum.  Obviously, there will be memorabilia, but it’s much greater than that to me.  The vision of the museum is to look at the notion of action through the lens of my father and all the different types of action that he encountered and pursued and performed in his life: So, martial action and filmed action and socially cultural action and philosophical action, too, like self-actualisation and things like that.  And it’s really that anyone coming there would be able to grasp those different forms of action and what it means to take action, and hopefully educate themselves a little bit about Bruce Lee and who he was, but also be able to apply that lens of action to themselves and their own plans and their own lives. It’ll be a place that has his entire research library and all of his writings all in one place.

LMD:  What would you like for viewers to take away from I Am Bruce Lee?

SLK:  What I would hope that people would take away from the film is a better understanding of my father and who he was and what he was all about.  And hopefully, maybe even they would realise that they have felt his influence in their life, whether they knew it or not; just through his influence on films and popular culture and martial arts and things.  And that they would come to see him as the philosopher and innovator that he was and hopefully continue to be inspired by him.

~ The Lady Miz Diva

February 8^th, 2012

Director Pete McCormack

The Lady Miz Diva:  How did you come to direct this story of Bruce Lee’s life?

Pete McCormack:  I directed a film with Network Entertainment called Facing Ali, about Muhammad Ali, that actually got short-listed for an Academy Award and it got some really good praise and I loved making it.  It was this real sports icon who transcended so may aspects of culture, both of the sport; he’s more poetic than any boxer had been.  He was so flamboyant and he was coming through the time of the civil rights movement, Vietnam, and so on.  Bruce Lee is the next {icon} -- those two guys are the guys, in a way.  Bruce Lee and Muhammad Ali are those two icons, at least to me and to the guys at Network Entertainment, as well, and we teamed up again to make this film.

LMD:  How hands-on was Shannon Lee in the filmmaking process?

PM:  Well, the beauty of the Bruce Lee and the Muhammad Ali films is that nobody had creative fingers in there.  That’s what I have to have; otherwise I end up crying in a corner.  She was fantastically helpful; gave tons of archives.  She’s such a lovely person, and Linda, Bruce’s wife, they’re such emotionally wonderful people and giving.  On one aspect it was great, because I can see that Bruce must’ve been a really good guy cos they love him and they’re good people, and that’s generally a hint toward something.  The worst part of it was I gotta go, ‘Wow, these two are great.  How do I make this film and make it honest, as well, at the same time, and how do I dig into what I want to dig into; the essence of his limitations and some of his troubles that he had and some of his nature.  Which, of course, is almost all positive anyway, it wasn’t like he was a cad or anything else.  So, that was an interesting balance.  Shannon just gave a lot of great archives, two interviews and a lot of love along the way.  And also I think she helped a lot to get people involved for interviews, cos she knew people and people love Bruce Lee, and so there’s a certain sort of nostalgia for people, they say, ‘Oh, I love Bruce Lee. I wanna talk about him,’ and Shannon’s a great go-between to get them involved.  It’s never easy getting people for interviews.  She was a huge help. ’

LMD:  Were you a Bruce Lee fan?

PM:  That’s a fantastic question!  I just turned 47 -- I’m actually 4 days younger than Brandon would be -- I’m 47, and I was a huge Ali fan, in fact all the 10 guys I got for that film, I knew them all.  I actually didn’t follow Bruce Lee as a kid, so I had to explore Bruce Lee with new eyes and really, really research like crazy.  I had to decide when I went into this film if I wanted to start getting into the research and I said, ‘Yes I do,’ because he made statements; he was different society-wise, culturally he made statements, martial arts-wise, he made statements, racially, he made statements that were more subtle than say, Ali, but they were actually spoken anyway.  And he was such a great spirit that it was exciting to do.  There’s a really fun place in the film with respect to the changes that Bruce Lee made for Asian actors; I would say then, “Well, who’s your favourite Asian-American romantic lead actor?”

LMD:  And no one has an answer!  Asking for Americans to name Asian lead actors is hard enough, but then you made it Asian-American actors and no one had a clue.

PM:  That was intentional, cos even when you say Asian-American, ironically, people say “Jackie Chan,” and though he’s not a romantic lead, they say, “Jackie Chan.”  Yeah, that’s interesting, he’s Asian, but I wanted Asian-American.  But really, there really isn’t a sex symbol.  Now, that can be two things, I don’t want to sound too obviously liberal there.  That can be a product of pure numbers in a certain way; the total population, but then on the flip side, it can be that North American society is just not as open as it appears to be.  It’s hard to replace Bruce Lee, but it is an ironic thing that we don’t have in the Asian sense, there’s Denzel Washington and Sidney Poitier before that; fantastic black actors who are sex symbols and white actors who are sex symbols.  It was an interesting omission, let’s say.

But back to the question that you asked, I actually was a fan in the sense of, well, he’s something else to watch, but I always thought, ‘Well, these are movies. This isn’t the real thing.’  Ali’s the real thing, right?  But to get to dive in as an adult was to become both a fan and a student.  It was a great experience to have that kind of journey.  I love to research, so discovering the depth and the width of this guy was great.

LMD:  Bruce Lee’s student, Richard Bustillo says something to the effect of anyone who says there’s a Jeet Kune Do school is not telling the truth is a statement that might ruffle some feathers in the martial arts community. The same with the segment on who was the actual “Father” of mixed martial arts?  Were you aware of that controversy?

PM:  I wasn’t aware of it in the sense of that, but I’m aware of any men that continue to fight that late in their lives are gonna keep arguing about that kind of thing.  There’s always that sense of youthfulness; men talking about these things.  There is a little bit of a contest between you-know-what.  That’s just natural, so it didn’t bother me.  I was having fun with it, even though I was serious about it.  Gene LeBell, when he says, “I’ll choke ya! {If you insist that Bruce Lee is the father of MMA}” I’m not softening the argument, I’m just saying ‘You are guys talking about something that is absolutely unanswerable.’  Yet, I think it’s a worthy conversation just to learn like, no matter how good you are, if you’re 150 pounds, you can’t beat the guy whose 260 pounds if he’s trained the same way.  You just can’t do it.  So, that was good to delve into the realities of martial arts, there.  I think the JKD thing is interesting because basically once you standardize it … JKD was really Bruce’s way of expressing himself and martial arts and that’s how it has to be for everybody.  So you discover your own path using a lot of skill through Jeet Kune Do.  If you’re repeating was Bruce was doing in 1967, exactly as he said it, you’re not doing Jeet Kune Do in principle, because it’s an evolving idea and it’s an individually-based idea, too.  It’s not like all the kids go to kung fu school; it’s like you go to what’s best for your body.  You do what’s good for you.  If you’re built a certain way, you can still do Jeet Kune Do, but really maybe you should be a grappler or a wrestler and expand on that?  I think that’s really a fun thing, the JKD argument, but I think that’s a serious thing because it really upsets some people.  It’s the difference in what they call “JKD concepts” and “Jeet Kune Do;” so the concept idea is that these are the concepts and now you evolve with those concepts.  The other is like a more structured Jeet Kune Do thing which is sort of anathema to what Bruce Lee believed in. As to debating what kind of martial artist Bruce Lee was, I think it’s a funny debate because he never really fought in that sense.  Imagine being so charismatic that you never were in any kind of filmed fight, ever, and they still think you’re the toughest person in the world? {Laughs} Wouldn’t it be great if you had that kind of power!  I think it’s amazing, just the fact that some people who can really fight well and fight smarter in the martial arts area think he’s one of the greatest fighters of all time says a lot about his charisma.  That was the comment by Gene LeBell when he said they didn’t know if it was the real McCoy or it was Hollywood.  I really appreciated that.  I fought for those comments a lot; that was what I really wanted.  I needed to get those guys speaking the truth.  The same clichés are just really boring and I wanted to avoid hagiography - when you make them into a god, you know?  The limitations of being a human being; there’s limitations at 135 pounds, let’s just say it.

LMD:  Since Shannon Lee provided so much of the archival media, I wondered was there much footage didn’t we see?  Could there be a lot of DVD-extras?  And since you’re working with the daughter of the man you’re profiling, were there any no-go areas?

PM:  I had no no-go areas, I had none of that.  I think they didn’t want me to delve into the death thing again, but that didn’t interest me, because it’s a stupid argument about was he really killed by the “death grip,” the dim-mak.  There’s just no evidence for that, so to dive into something that unattainable was pointless to me.  Was he drugged by secret Tong members in Hong Kong; there’s no evidence for that stuff to speculate.  I think that was a non for them in spirit, but if I thought it was important enough, I would have gone back and said, ‘Here’s why.’  But I didn’t have any limitations on me that way.  It’s really the film, story-wise, that I really felt like I wanted to tell, which was, what was the essence of this man, what was his greatness, what were his limitations, what was he like and let’s explore and have emotion with Bruce Lee.  That was really what I wanted to do.  As for archive, we really picked the best that we could find anywhere, everywhere.  There was nothing that I left that I wished I had used.  That’s the other Bruce Lee mythology that’s great; there’s the death, but there’s also the mystery, ‘But you know, the stuff when he was actually leaping tall buildings?’  ‘The rest of Game of Death, I know it’s out there somewhere complete!’  That’s actually the great mystery to this guy, he’s got such great charisma that we all fall for that.  ‘But there must be more!’  ‘Is there a secret film where he showed how to do the one-inch punch and he pulled the guy’s heart out and he puts it back in again?’  I love that level of enthusiasm that there must be more.  Maybe one day I’ll be wrong, but all those things don’t show up or haven’t shown up and people just talk about them.  There’s always the person in life that says, ‘One day I’ll write a book about it, but I can’t talk about it now,’ but, you know what, it’s becoming a headache in this day and age.  If you’ve got something to say, say it!

~ The Lady Miz Diva

February 8^th, 2012

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