Bobby Samuels
"Winners and Sinners" HKL Interview:
'Living with Sammo was unique in
itself, I'll just say that. He's a very warm and beautiful person, he's
genuine heart, he truly does to have let a person, not Chinese person,
an African-American person to come and live in his home with his
family, and you know, be a member of the family.'
'I was in charge of teaching him English, that's what my job was as far as the Immigration Department was concerned, which is another issue. Americans allowed to stay in the country 30 days, so that was a problem but when Sammo and Yuen Biao went to the Immigration Department with me to hand in my papers they didn't really care about me at that poit. They were like OK, Sammo and Yuen Biao are here to take care of this guy, let's leave him alone.'
'The phone rang. I answered the phone, it's Sammo. Sammo said: "I'm making a movie right now (Gambling Ghost). I'm stuck with the ending here. I'd like to use you for this particular ending, I think you have something unique and we can probably do something with you". So that was like a gift from God to me, you know, my first actual starring role, so the next day the film company sent a van to pick me up, and I will never forget it was raining, it was pouring. So they took me somewhere out in the new territory, that's the location they were filming. And so I get there and I'm like "Hey Sammo, how you're doing?" and he's like, he doesn't even respond to me, doesn't look at me or anything, he just keeps on going. I'm a bit nervous and everything, I mean he is a true legend in martial arts, and there's a tall order I had to stand up to. We changed the set to an interiour set because of the rain. It was just raining all the time. So the dresser said it takes about 4-5 hours and this particular scene is where I come in to play. So the camera starts rolling, I'm a bit nervous ... but Sammo continus to work with me. He makes me feel at ease. Later in the evening there was a series - this is funny - of punches that needed to be done for this one particular scene where Sammo and I were battling in the house. And the series of punches were like 16 or 17 punches straight, different manoevers and I couldn't get the combination right at all. So we just kept practicing and kept practicing and I thought that Sammo would somewhat modify for me because I couldn't grasp it, there's 16 or 17 moves, but he didn't. We continued to do it in that same order. And I started getting embarrassed, other people were looking at me and I felt self-conscious because, man, here I am, given the opportunity of a lifetime and I'm blowing it... But I managed to get it eventually. It was 5.30 a.m. The Sun was coming out over the new territory but I got it. And so after the night, after we wrapped up, you know, Sammo he never lost patience, everytime I messed up, he went and sat down, smoked a cigarette, looked at his papers and just let me practice. I asked Sammo before the end of the set: "Sammo why didn't you get mad, why didn't you yell at me when I couldn't deliver what I was supposed to deliver?" And he said: "Because you kept trying. That's why. And as long as you try, I can't be angry at you". And that was pretty unique, you know.'