Actor Nicholas Hammond Talks “Art of Eight Limbs”
This piece was originally published on Film Obsessive.
For decades, Nicholas Hammond has built a name for himself in Hollywood and beyond. He was fourteen when he made his Broadway debut alongside Michael Redgrave and later played the eldest von Trapp son in The Sound of Music. Hammond also made history as the first TV live-action Peter Parker/Spider-Man in The Amazing Spider-Man. Despite this storied career, one genre remained elusive: the martial arts flick. Finally, as a septuagenarian, Hammond will get the chance to play a part in a martial arts movie. Art of Eight Limbs, one of Tiger Style Media’s new slate of films, features Hammond as a spy who helps Ludi Lin track down a stolen cache of nerve gas.
Nicholas Hammond sat down with Film Obsessive’s Tina Kakadelis to talk about this new stage of his career and why he believes Art of Eight Limbs will speak to a new generation of martial arts lovers. The transcript has been edited for clarity and space.
Film Obsessive: Nicholas, how’s it going?
Nicholas Hammond: Oh, really well. How about yourself, Tina? Where are you, by the way?
I’m in Pittsburgh. Where are you?
I’m in Melbourne, Australia. Doing a movie down here!
Very nice! Speaking of movies, I talked to Shannon [McIntosh] and Dan [Gross] earlier today and they had quite the list of martial arts movies that they love and have inspired them. Do you remember your first martial arts movie? Or maybe one that really made a lasting impact on you?
Well, I’m embarrassed to say that probably the first martial arts movie that had a real impact on me was Kill Bill which probably doesn’t qualify as an official martial arts movie. Also, that Chinese film by Ang Lee. Something like Chasing Dragon or something?
Oh, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon?
That’s it! Yeah, I love that. I just absolutely love because I love the way that when they cross the line between reality and sort of fantasy and suddenly, somebody is flying through the air in a way that no human really could, but you just accept it. When Shannon asked me to do this, I was really, really excited to have a chance to be in a martial arts movie myself because I’ve done an awful lot of movies, but this is the one genre I’ve never done and probably thought I’d never would get a chance to do. Obviously, I’m not a martial artist myself, but I’m at least embedded in that world and interacting and serving the function of being somebody who was driving the plot. I loved working with Ludi [Lin] because it was a nice sort of father son relationship. His character’s father saved my life and I thought Dan Gross, the writer, had done a really a lovely job of putting in a layer under all the fighting, under all the fun, under all the spectacular stunts, putting in a human layer that worked. It was a joy to do it.
courtesy of Tiger Style Media
I read about when you were doing the Spider-Man series back in the day that it was really important to you that Peter Parker was this believable, real person. Martial arts can also, like you said, be kind of out of this world. What specifically about the Art of Eight Limbs do you really feel helped you ground your performance?
I think this is an example of one of those movies where they never did leave reality. The fact that every single fighter in the film, including Ludi, is a real fighter and they do real fights. There’s nothing CGI or fantastic about what they do. They all involve genuine skill of the genuine people. You’re right. I mean, going way back to when we were doing Spider-Man, that was the objective for us is we didn’t want to go into the world of like fantasy villains and fantasy this and fantasy that. It was all real. I mean, the villains were people who were polluting the planet or people who were stealing nuclear waste or stuff like that. They told me that the way this film starts is based on a real event where Bashar Assad poisoned his own people, in Syria. That’s the kick off and then the film is taking something that really happened and then saying, well, what if some of those canisters made it into bad actors hands? That’s a completely believable premise, you know? There’s really nothing about Art of Eight Limbs that is out of the realm of reality. I thought there’s nothing that they’re trying to do in this movie that kind of makes it absurd. It’s all genuine.
As you mentioned, you unfortunately don’t get to do any of the fight scenes, but you are there for one that happens and directly in front of you. What is something that was surprising about seeing a fight scene up close ?
The fascinating thing is watching the way they choreographed it. I just loved that. The fight choreography was done by an absolute Thai expert and to watch the way every single detail of every move, every turn, every kick, every punch is laid out ahead of time. Then, to see them execute it! I just found like Grace [Vorananth] coming flying through the door, kicking the door down and knocking the guard over all in the one move. Even though I’m supposed to be dead at the time or almost dead, I thought, this is so cool. I just can’t believe I’m actually getting a chance to witness this in person! Yeah, I loved it.
Courtesy of Tiger Style Media
The martial arts genre has been around since the 1920s. What about the genre has made it so enduring? What do you hope that this new wave that Tiger Style Media will bring to new generations of enthusiasts?
I think the fact that they are combining all of the excitement, the fun, and the physicality of it with real stories is a winning combination for them, particularly with a younger audience. I think that maybe they’re so used to seeing CGI, so used to seeing things that aren’t real or faked that I think to go back to movies where they will know that the people they’re seeing doing these fights, the men and women you seeing doing these fights, they’re really doing them. They’re not stunt doubles and it’s not computer generated. It’s real. There’s also a real story behind each one of these movies. I hope that provides something for the public that they’re looking for right now. As we get further and further in the Marvel universe of it being more fantasy-based, I think there’s room for films like this that actually are more reality based.
Thank you for your time and congrats on the film, Nicholas.
Thank you very much, Tina.
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