Date of publishing: 8th
June 2012
Most recently, Victor Webster starred as the scorpion
king in the third installment to the film franchise;
The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption.
Victor began his acting career with a starring role
on the Emmy Award winning AMC Network series The
Lot and then the number one nationally syndicated
action series Mutant X. Webster then began
his theatrical film career in the box office smash
Bringing Down the House. During this time
he continued to alternate between television and theatrical
film roles. He has had guest appearances on shows
including Bones, CSI, NCIS, Criminal Minds, Necessary
Roughness and Single Ladies. He has also had recurring
roles on such shows as, Related, Charmed, Lincoln
Heights, Harper's Island, Melrose Place and Castle.
Currently, Victor can be seen in the television show
titled Continuum.
Gilles
Nuytens: Firstly
I would like to know what drives you in life? What
are the most important things in life to you?
Victor Webster: I have two most important
things, one is laughter, I wanna have a good time
and enjoy life as much as possible, you never know
when it's gonna end. The other is adventure, I wanna
try new things, I wanna go to new places wanna try
new cultures and people and food. Both of them kind
of fall under the same umbrella, making the time we
have here a positive thing.
Gilles Nuytens: You've
done many things before becoming an actor, from stock
broker to company owner, so what made you decide to
change and start acting?
Victor Webster: Well, I think I just
was confused with what I wanted to do in life you
know, I was all over the place, I was travelling all
over the world, doing some modeling, I was teaching
martial arts, I sold shoes, I just had no idea what
I wanted to do. So I got back from a trip to Italy,
I was there for about 8 months and said to myself:
you know I wanna take some acting classes to help
me out with commercial auditions, cause I wanna do
some commercials while I'm gonna figure out what I
wanna do with my life. And then I started doing some
commercials and I really was enjoying the acting classes
and I was thinking, wow this could be fun if I could
do this. This is not easy, so I really did not think
it was a possibility for me and then my commercial
agent sent me out on a couple soap opera auditions
and I ended up booking one of those and just started
acting from then on. It was kind of crazy.
Gilles Nuytens: For
how many time did you had acting classes?
Victor Webster: I had done some theatre
classes at school, I had taken theatre classes in
college but I never seriously entertained the idea
but when I was a kid I was always pretending I was
somebody different. Every day it seemed I'd be dressing
up as a superhero, a secret agent or a cowboy and
I would totally go into character, so it’s something
that I loved doing from a young age, I just never
thought I'd make a living of it. So once I started
taking the acting thing seriously, I had taken a lot
of classes and I was working with an acting coach
and I really jumped in with both feet and took it
very seriously because in this business you just can't
just hope for the best and think you're gonna become
successful, you actually have to work very hard.
Gilles
Nuytens: How would
you describe your first job as a full actor?
Victor Webster: Uhm really scary
[laughs], I got cast in "Days of our Lives"
and it was a contract role and I knew I was going
to be in that show a couple years at least. The first
day of my work Entertainment Tonight followed me to
work, on my very first day, so there was a ton of
added pressure, with the camera crew following me
and me never done this kind of work before besides
a few episodes of "Sunset Beach", 5 to 10
lines here and there but nothing serious, right. This
was the first time I actually was on a show as a character.
So I'd seen these people working and I watched the
show before, you know, it's been on for so many decades,
I was really nervous and when you watch my first couple
days work you can really tell, I was really stiff,
it was hard for me to get the dialog out.
Gilles Nuytens: It's
not easy to start acting, unless you have a natural
big talent or have a lot of good relations, so how
difficult or easy was it to get your first job?
Victor Webster: I went to a lot of
auditions before I got my first job and it was difficult,
you have to be able to take the word no and not have
it deeply effect you, you just let it roll of your
skin, because in this business they can say no for
so many different reasons and you have no idea what
they are and if you take it personally, it's gonna
destroy you as an actor; as a person, it will bring
your confidence down and you can't let that happen,
so no has to become a word that basically means "not
right now" to you.
Gilles Nuytens: How
do you work your character usually, do you have a
particular method?
Victor Webster: I like to read the
script over and over again, many times, every time
I do I pick up something differently. So obviously
there is a lot of yourself in the character, how you
would react in that situation, or how the character
reacts when he gets angry, how you manifest anger,
would the character do it the same way. There is a
lot analysis and breaking down, it's a time consuming
process. Once you initially break down a character
and you know what he's like and how he's going to
react, then you not really need to do that anymore,
like in a tv series a lot of that analysis is done
in the first few episodes and then from there you
have the character and now you just need to implement
all that work that you've done into the rest of the
series.
Gilles
Nuytens: After 14
years of acting, looking back at all you've done so
far, what would you say about what you've accomplished?
Victor Webster: I say it's a good
beginning [laughs], sometimes I'm amazed and look
back and I feel like, it's been 14 years, that's crazy
because it seems like it's been nothing and I think
that with everything when you look back, and that's
why it's so important to enjoy the process, enjoy.
Every time I'm on the set I try to make the most of
it and have as much fun as I can. Because when I look
back it seems like yesterday and I realize how time
flies. I feel like I've done a lot of things that
I wanted to do, I worked on some great movies, some
great tv shows, and now just to continue doing the
same, just to be involved in bigger, wider reaching
projects.
Gilles Nuytens: Any
future goals, challenges you want to do?
Victor Webster: Yeah I definitely
want to work on really great project I want to challenge
myself, working on characters that people would not
normally see me in. And I wanna step behind the camera
and working towards finding something to direct or
writing a small project to direct myself. Yeah I will
start very slow, I'll do like a short movie or something
small at first and just work my way up, you know,
directing is a completely different ballgame as well
and I can't just expect to jump in and direct something,
you first need to prove yourself.
Gilles Nuytens: What
are the most difficult parts for you in acting?
Victor Webster: Some of the things
that are really difficult are also one of my favorite
things. Travelling and going away for 4 months to
a foreign country and having to have somebody take
care of your dogs, run your life and pay your bills
and do all that stuff when you're gone. But that's
also one of the things that I love about this business,
going away and travelling for 4 months to a foreign
country, trying out new food, riding an elephant or
experiencing those different cultures. It's also,
somebody has spent countless of hours developing a
character and they are putting their fate in you to
bring the character alive, so there is a lot of pressure
to make sure that you, yourself, the project, the
writer and the director and everybody are doing a
great job. So I try not to think about it that much,
just to go out there and do what I confidently know
that I can do and I don't let anything get in my head,
but in the very beginning, you have those thoughts
and then once you work on the character that all goes
away.
One of the hardest parts about acting is not acting,
it's the in between acting, the downtime, trying to
figure out what the next project is gonna be or when
it's gonna be. The business side of it, a lot of times,
is really political and really screwed up, so dealing
with that.
Gilles
Nuytens: And then
what are your favorite parts?
Victor Webster: The things I really
like the most, let's see, definitely, like I said,
travelling the world, going to exotic locations and
having the ability to become any character. You know
as a kid, you make believe and you play that you are
a secret agent or a cowboy or any of those and in
my job I can be all of those and can do it on a grand
scale. I can play a barbarian, and fight with swords
and ride horses and have those big banquets with food
and all that comes to life for real. So all those
things that you, if you have a big kid inside of you,
can really bring those fantasies to fruition and that's
always one of the best things about it. There are
always those benefits and perks about it, all the
things that come along with it too, a lot of things
are more accessible, depending at what level you're
at, sometimes life gets easier with the things that
you wanna do, like you get invited to go on trips
in your personal life. Some of the fun stuff, hanging
out with really interesting people, being able to
make a difference, get involved in charities. Some
of the perks of being an actor you get public attention
and awareness and that can help bring focus to charities
and organizations.
Gilles Nuytens: How
do you prepare for you part, how do you learn your
lines?
Victor Webster: I just sit there
and I memorize line by line, and then I go to the
next line and the next line and then I go back to
the beginning and do it over again. I just read it
over and over again. When I'm practicing I don't act,
when I'm memorizing, all I do is memorize. I don't
wanna get trapped in a certain way of doing something.
So I just literally memorize it, it's like memorizing
history as a kid, no special skill or anything, it's
like doing push-ups, for your brain, once you do 10,
you can do 20 then you can do 30 it just becomes easier,
if the writing is good, the words stick in your head
much better, if the writing is odd or stylistic, it
requires a lot more work to memorize.
Gilles
Nuytens: Do you
like it, do you like to memorize the lines?
Victor Webster: Anything that challenges
me I like, I like to be put in a situation and, thinking,
this is gonna be really though, memorize this 2 pages
monologue and then half hour or 45 minutes later,
or whatever it is, you have it done, you have it memorized
then you feel like you've accomplished something,
you feel good.
Gilles Nuytens: Do
the characters you play, do they sometimes bring something
to you? Do you have some examples?
Victor Webster: Well I think anytime
you flush out a character you have to ask yourself
how would I deal with this situation, and you ask
yourself a lot of questions you normally would not
ask yourself. Especially in acting you deal with such
extreme circumstances which most of us never have
to deal with in our lives, so you have a chance to
vicariously live through those circumstances and think
of how you would react and what you would do? So when
you ask yourself those kind of questions, you learn
a lot about yourself so I think that character analysis
always brings something to you as well as the experience
of making these films, the travelling and being with
those people always leaves you a little bit changed
in who you are as a person.
Gilles Nuytens: We
learn from good experiences, but we also learn from
bad ones, we can get benefits from failures, do you
have such example in your career?
Victor Webster: I think I have done
some things in my career that, I look back on now
and me being the person I'm now, would not have done.
But without those experiences I wouldn't be who I
am. Like you said, you learn from everything, the
good and the bad experiences, I find that I tend to
learn more from the bad experiences in my life so...
that being said, if you look at it that way, if you
look at them as valuable experiences then those situations
aren't necessarily bad, they're actually good.
Gilles
Nuytens: So, you
took the role left by The Rock in Scorpion King 3,
how did you land playing this mythic character?
Victor Webster: I met with the director,
with the casting director, we talked a lot about the
character and then I just auditioned for it. It was
pretty simple, we went back and forth about 4 or 5
times, 4 or 5 meetings and working the character,
they wanted to see what I could do physically as far
as martial arts and they wanted me to get some weapons,
some punching and kicking and some movement, so the
combination of working out the character and seeing
the physicality of the role, they offered me the part.
Gilles Nuytens: Replacing
the role left by someone else isn't easy, so how did
you prepare to become Mathayus?
Victor Webster: Well the first thing
is, I don't know if you have noticed, The Rock is
huge [laughs]! First thing I had to do, I was about
225 pounds at the time and I wanted to get as big
as possible and I had about 4 or 5 months to do that.
So the first thing I did was hitting the gym, eating
and taking all those supplements and trying to put
on as much size as I could because he's supposed to
be a big, intimidating, imposing man. The next thing
I did is I watched the other movies and then I had
to go breaking down the character, this character
is completely different from the other movies, so
it required me to really analyze everything, everything
that he's been through.
Gilles
Nuytens: All the
3 episodes of The Scorpion King are very different
from each other, very different tones. How would you
describe Scorpion King 3 compared to the other ones?
Victor Webster: Scorpion King 3 is
a little darker, it feels a little heavier in the
sense that he has so much to deal with himself, personally,
in the place that he's in and he now has to go through
that all over again, dealing with those obstacles.
It looks different, René the director uses
a lot of hand held, a lot of frenetic camera movements,
it's very fast paced when you watch a lot of the action,
very quick cuts, fast paced and very interesting stylish
way of shooting. The first 2 are more like a typical
Hollywood movie the way they are shot. I love the
first one, really funny and I love The Rock, I think
he did a great job and still stands up as an excellent
movie. So it was different in the way it was shot,
the tone of the movie.
Gilles Nuytens: What
did you bring to Mathayus? Which part of your personality
did you give to him?
Victor Webster: Well there is a lot
of intenseness to this particular Mathayus, he's dealing
with the loss of everything he's ever known and loved,
he's travelling around basically looking for someone
to kill him because he cannot commit suicide. He's
looking for a warriors death, he's a mercenary for
hire, so that being said, I brought lot more intensity,
a little darkness, still trying to find those moments
of humor and levity in midst of all of it, but definitely
that feeling of loss.
Gilles Nuytens: What
have you learned from your experience on that movie?
Victor Webster: That I can get the
crap kicked out of me every single day and still get
up and be able to move [laughs]. Very physically strenuous,
everything in my body hurts for about 6 weeks afterwards.
Gilles
Nuytens: Let's speak
about Continuum. Now that you finished shooting the
first season, how would you describe the whole show?
Victor Webster: It's a really good
show. It has a little bit of something for everybody.
At first it's a character piece, cause you're getting
into the minds of these characters, you're dealing
with, for example, Kiera [Rachel Nichols' character],
who's a fish out of the water, she's got to a place
she's never seen before, that she could not imagine
it was even possible, she's lost her son, her husband,
her life. You’re dealing with these Liber8,
who are either terrorists or freedom fighters, depending
on which side of the situation you are on. And why
they are going through doing everything they are doing,
trying to change the world, they are not doing it
the right way but they are doing it for the right
reasons. And then there is tons of action, car chases,
gun fights, regular fights, all kinds of action all
the time, action packed. That very intelligent smart
sci-fi aspect where you're asking those theoretical
questions about time travel and really makes you think
about your life, makes you think about the things
that are important to you, it's also a thinking person
show.
Gilles Nuytens: What
makes this show unique and different from what has
been done before?
Victor Webster: I think because all
these things that are in the show have been done one
way or another before, but the fact we've combined
them all together and the fact that the show looks
the way it does, it's beautifully shot and directed,
Vancouver is an amazing city to shoot in, all the
actors we have on the show are really good at it,
they're really talented. And the writing from our
writers, they just come with these very interesting
and unique characters. It's a combination of all of
these things together that makes this show so great.
Gilles
Nuytens: Can we
say it's a futuristic cop show or is it much more
than that?
Victor Webster: The thing is, everything
takes place in 2012 as far as all the cop stuff is
concerned. We do flash to the future quite a bit,
to explain characters and stories and things like
that but everything takes place in 2012 and it's a
character driven cop show with sci-fi elements and
it's action packed, that would be a great way to describe
it.
Gilles Nuytens: How
would you describe Carlos?
Victor Webster: Carlos is a pretty
intense guy, he's a guy’s guy, he likes to watch
sports and drink a beer and everything. But he takes
his job very seriously, he follows the rules strictly,
but he also got a sense of humor and is lighthearted
about things, in the midst of everything that's serious.
So he likes to find a little levity in his job and
in his life. So while is job is very intense, he is
a person who is a little bit more lighthearted.
Gilles Nuytens: The
characters written on paper on the script and how
a real person play it may be very different depending
on the actor, so in the case of Carlos what do you
think you brought to him that wasn't described in
the script?
Victor Webster: Well in the original
script, definitely like I said, he's very intense,
he's by the book and is all about getting the job
done, the thing that I thought was very important
was bringing him, with the ability to be a little
self-deprecating and define those moments where you
kind of take a step back and be a little bit lighter.
Gilles Nuytens: From
what I've seen so far, Continuum tells the story of
people fighting for a good cause but with very bad
methods, that's the least we can say... killing thousands
of people for a cause, as good it may be, is quite
horrible... What would you do if you were living there?
Victor Webster: I guess that depends
on what side of the tracks I was on, if I was of the
corporation that was running everything obviously
I was trying to keep everything in check and control
everything so that nothing got out of hand, I mean
if you think about the reasons why that all happened
was because everything got out of control, you'd wanna
run it like a tight ship to be able to control everything.
Now as a person living there, well your freedom has
been taken away and you are being told what to do,
when to do it, there isn't anybody that wants that
to happen. Especially in your own life, I mean it's
one thing to have that at work where we have to do
that, but you have a sense of freedom in your normal
everyday life, to be able to do the things you want
to do and when you wanna do it; to have that taken
away, of course you are gonna rebel against that,
that is no kind of life for everybody.
Gilles
Nuytens: The show
is also showing what could happen to us if all our
governments failed. What do you think of this subject?
Victor Webster: Well I think that
everything that's going on right now, dictatorships
and governments being re-arranged and occupy movement
is going on, I think that's definitely something that's
feasible, I don't know if it's ever going to be as
extreme as that but that's something that we can all
see happening in the political landscape of what's
going on right now and what's happening in the world.
I think Simon did a really good job in taking all
of the current events and everything that's going
on in our world and then taking it to the next level
of what could be conceivable and I think it makes
us think about what's going on.
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