Wes Studi Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters

I was happy to meet Daniel

because I said, if I do anything on this picture,

I'm going to get Daniel's autograph.

We talked for a while, and kind of, well, you know,

hit it off okay.

I was comfortable enough to ask him

if I could have his autograph.

And he said, Sure.

And I said, No, no, no, no, no, no.

With your left foot.

I got it.

[upbeat music]

Dances With Wolves. [upbeat music]

The buzz was put out there that this was going to be,

wow, just a whole new look at the American West,

and what happened back then.

Kevin and his production team had ideas of making first

in terms of like, language,

the kinds of scenes and story was going to be all about.

There was a lot of buzz about it to begin with.

Amongst the Indians, Native Americans, if you will,

they said, Hey man, this thing is set to be good for us

as Native Americans in film,

and there's going to be a lot of parts.

[Toughest Pawnee wailing in pain]

[intense music]

[gunshots firing]

[Toughest Pawnee screaming]

[Interviewer] Let's talk a little bit

about your character,

known as Toughest Pawnee. Right.

I had no name, right?

Just the Toughest Pawnee. [grunts]

Yeah.

I had a number of people who were actually Pawnee

told me afterwards, [chuckles] they either laughed,

laughed at me or really appreciated some parts

of the dialogue that I delivered.

And so if I got a small part of it correct,

then I figured I was floating on clouds,

as far as I'm concerned, you know. [chuckles]

I've done a lot of work in terms of

different native languages over the years,

and being bilingual has made this something

that I can be a little more comfortable

within that physical makeup,

in terms of tongue, mouth, all of that,

that is involved in speaking,

is more willing to take chances with making sounds.

And then my mind is at the point

that I'm not going to feel embarrassed

if somebody laughs at the mistakes I make.

[upbeat music]

Avatar. [upbeat music]

Avatar was demanding of some adjustment for the actor.

Absolutely nothing changes

other than the fact that you actually have no props

or immediate environment

other than the other actors in the scene.

One other physical thing that was at that time,

a bit of an impediment,

was the fact that we also wore helmets

with an arm that came around right in front of our face,

and had an led light

because we had dots all over our faces

as well as dots all over the rest of our body.

But that was something you had to be kind of careful of,

whenever you came in kind of close to another actor.

I had the dying scene with Neytiri

wherein she's grieving over the fact that I'm dying.

And I think we may have like,

clicked those arms that come out of the helmet that we wore.

Other than that, absolutely nothing changed

in terms of what kind of job we had to do as actors.

[ominous music]

[Eytukan speaking in Na'vi]

[Neytiri speaking in Na'vi]

[Eytukan speaking in Na'vi]

Building the Na'vi language,

I was happy to have been included.

We had both a linguist and a voice coach

to teach everyone the language

and the meanings of the words

that really make a difference in terms of your performance.

What word do you use the most,

where do you punch the dialogue?

[Wes speaking in Na'vi]

They asked me to come in in terms of any ideas

that I would have about the development of a sound.

Is there a sound like whoosh

for something that goes by?

Or, you know, how does a language develop

in terms of making up sounds

that can be shared between people, and they convey meaning?

I'm amazed at the fact that there are so many languages

on the face of the earth right now,

but I also feel very unfortunate and sad

for the fact that many of the languages are dying

or slowly passing from use.

It was amazing that afterwards,

so many fans of the film itself wanted to learn the language

and many did at that point in time.

Mystery Man. [upbeat music]

He's a very serious man, The Sphinx.

He gave out advice like,

You must fight like the wolf pack,

not like the six pack.

And other things that we pulled

from the fortune cookie bowl

that I got as a script,

beginning with those. [laughs]

But no, Mystery Man was a great thing to work on.

It was actually my first, if you will, comedic part.

And I really enjoyed that part of the whole thing is that,

oh my God, these people are just absolutely berserk,

you know, in their ways of thinking.

Plus, it was also like,

one of the first wanna-be super movies,

that superhero movies.

Maybe we're just, we were just a little ahead of our time

or something like that.

[ominous music]

Crimeny!

You're The Sphinx!

And you are fools.

And I got to meet a lot of comic actors.

They are very serious people, you know,

about their comedy.

I would sit around on set.

A lot of these guys, they would get together

and start trading jokes with one another.

Myself, I'd be sitting at the table away or something,

just kind of eavesdropping and listening

and just bust out laughing

at some of the things that they said,

and look over at them.

And they were...

They don't laugh at each other's jokes,

but the best compliment they can give each other is,

That's funny.

You know?

[chuckles] I know, my God.

I'm so glad you're dedicated to that

because you really make me laugh.

Last Of The Mohicans. [upbeat music]

I think a lot of the credit, of course,

goes to Michael and his producers

in terms of developing the character of Magua

into a person that the audience could empathize with,

sympathize with.

He definitely served a purpose in terms of

the overall story of Last Of The Mohicans.

Were it not for him, you know,

who else is the danger lurking in the woods, you know?

It's a matter of developing Magua into someone believable.

The idea was to just play the man,

like he was in the straights that he was in.

Magua took the hatchet to color it with blood.

It is still bright.

Only when it is red,

then it will be buried.

But so many suns have set

since Magua struck the war post.

And where is that sun?

Magua is the son of his people,

and he has come to lead many of them.

We went to the Appalachia area beforehand

and trained with a survivalist group,

as well as weapons training,

old weapons in terms of knives, tomahawks.

We learned how to use all of those,

as well as hand-to-hand fighting kind of things.

And it was a lot of training,

but we had already started

training in gyms before that, you know,

where we had trainers that came in

even before we went to the survivalist camp.

We had started working out in gyms for a couple of weeks,

and really bulking up and eating different diets.

And it was a, it's quite a process.

[dramatic music]

[gun firing]

[dramatic music]

I was happy to meet Daniel because I said,

if I do anything on this picture is,

I'm going to get Daniel's autograph.

When I met him, we talked for a while

and kind of, well, you know, hit it off okay.

I was comfortable enough to ask him

if I could have his autograph.

And he said, Sure.

And I said, No, no, no, no, no, no.

With your left foot.

I got it.

[upbeat music]

Geronimo: An American Legend.

The experience of playing Geronimo was daunting.

There were relatives of Geronimo's on set,

and a lot of them were working background

and/or as consultants to certain parts

of either the language and/or customs.

They all had varying opinions of him.

He was either loved at one end and hated at the other end,

but always seen as a very controversial figure.

He never actually was a war chief

or a fighter of that degree.

That's not what he was known as,

'cause he was actually known as a seer,

as a wise man,

a guy who knew how to fix things in terms of the mind,

as well as the body.

He was kind of a, you know, a medicine man.

He wasn't the designated warrior

that he has been mythologized as over the years.

When their soldiers burnt our villages,

we moved to the mountains.

When they took our food, we ate thorns.

When they killed our children, we had more.

And like I say, he had relatives there

who were down to eight years old.

So a person had to be kind of careful.

At least I felt like I had to be somewhat careful

in terms of how I portrayed the man.

I think over the years,

I'm still kind of wondering, [chuckles] you know,

exactly how well I did.

Hopefully I served the purpose of telling his story

is all I can really ask for, you know?

[upbeat music] Street Fighter.

I had never played a video game in my life,

and I've only tried once or twice since then.

The real interest in the whole thing

was that I got to work with Raul Julia,

as well as kickboxer trainer Benny The Jet.

That's one of the things

that really attracted me to the whole thing.

Plus, there was travel. [chuckles]

To Thailand,

but to Australia.

It was quite the adventure.

I learned a lot about other aspects of filmmaking

in terms of where games and movies meet.

[intense music] [men grunting]

[Victor laughing maniacally]

[Victor grunting]

[ball bursting]

You know, that was probably one of the first instances

that I had to work with motion capture.

We not only shot the film.

We also some scenes

for the next video game

that was to be put together, and do the motions.

As I understood it, at the time,

it was called motion capture,

but it was done in reverse.

So our characters had to do everything from point of impact,

back to the beginning of impact.

If you're gonna hit something,

then you had to start from the point of impact

back to where you started to throw the punch.

And then my character had the,

one of his skills or powers

was the fact that he threw a box. [laughs]

I don't know games, all right?

But anyway, he threw a box.

I started from the point of release of the box

back to getting ready to throw it, right?

Like that. [chuckles]

And we did that as well as a bunch of other moves

like kicks and whatever that the character is known for.

But yeah, that was my first experience

with some kind of a motion capture.

[upbeat music]

Heat. [upbeat music]

I and the family had just moved

to Santa Fe at that point in time,

when I heard through the grapevine

that Michael was doing a film with De Niro and Pacino.

Wasn't too long after Mohicans, you know?

So I still had the office number and I called Michael up,

talked with his desk there,

and amazingly enough, Michael hopped on the phone.

So, I was kind of surprised.

But anyway, he hopped on the phone and said,

What's going on?

And I said, well, Michael,

I heard you were making a film

with Pacino, De Niro, and me.

Is that right?

There was a long silence.

And then... [chuckles]

He kind of chuckles,

and he doesn't do that very much, you know, very often.

But in any case, about a week later,

I got the call that we want to make a deal here.

So that's how that all came about.

That's right, motherfucker.

Where did we get him?

He's a CI for a burglary cop.

Called in the tip on the bank on Neil McCauley.

How much time we got?

Eight hours for him to set up a new out.

After that he's gone.

Bye bye, bang!

[intense music] [gun cocking]

[Interviewer] What was your experience

working with Pacino?

I enjoyed working with him,

and I stole everything I could from him.

He is a very gracious man in terms of,

how do I say it,

he's very Italian in his hospitality.

Anytime you want anything, just ask him, you know,

and he would ask us over to his home for dinners

and just hang out like,

in the afternoons or something at times.

And like I say, he always had these guys.

If you ever need anything,

just get him to do this or do that.

But he's very hospitable.

I enjoyed working with him.

Hostiles. [upbeat music]

I think it was a meeting of the minds.

These people had fought each other before,

they had been in physical confrontation.

It's something that is inherently strange and wonderful

as well as devastating

in terms of how human beings get along.

You know, soldiers tend to elevate their enemy

to a certain extent

because they know that they do

exactly what they themselves do, you know?

They confer upon the enemy camaraderie

as well as a great respect for the fact that

we all do this combat together.

We are involved in a life or death situation here.

There's just something bonding about that.

[Yellow Hawk speaking in foreign language]

[Captain Blocker speaking in foreign language]

I think many soldiers

develop great respect for their enemies,

perhaps more so than the people they actually fight for.

I was involved in Vietnam,

and I have a great respect for the Viet Cong.

Not only because of their prowess,

their ability to fight their guerillas to the max.

And they actually defeated the United States.

And I was a part of the US army that was defeated, right?

But I have a great respect for them

not only for the fact that they are great warriors.

They're probably more like me

than the people I was fighting for, you know?

I think that's was sort of what fed the kind of feelings

that existed between Yellow Hawk and Bale's character.