Pandorum's Cung Le Sheds Some Light On This Mind Job Movie

We're getting space madness waiting for details on the creepy "stranded in the big black" flick Pandorum. Thankfully, world champion fighter and Pandorum actor Cung Le explained how we should all be afraid, very afraid.

Cung Le, who just so happens to be a Strikeforce World Middleweight Champion with a no-nonsense scissor kick, plays Manh in Christian Alvart's new spooky space flick alongside Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster. We caught up with him exclusively while promoting Fighting and managed to find out a few juicy details about his character.

What can you tell me about your character in Pandorum?
Pandorum takes place in a spaceship. There are two crew members who wake up, and they think that they are all alone but they don't know what they're supposed to do, because they just came out of the [hyper-sleep] chamber. Basically, they wake up and Ben [Foster], who plays Bower, starts exploring the ship. They realize there's a lot of other people on the ship living there, some are good, some are not. And there's a lot of twists and turns that you will never believe.

Are you fighting aliens, or space madness?

There's space madness, there's high action suspense, from action to creepy scary. When you go to the theaters with your girlfriend or boyfriend, one or the other is going to jump into someone's lap screaming. Even I got scared and I'm a Strikeforce World Middleweight Champion. I was like, holy - excuse my Vietnamese - shit.

Ben Foster is a fantastic character actor and this seems like another super intense role for him. What was it like working with Ben?

Most of my scenes were with Ben. He gets into it. I knew I was going to work with Ben, so I trained three times a day to get in there with him. I thought, "he's my world title belt and I have to match his intensity." Wait until you see our intensity matched up.

So you guys end up fighting each other?

I can't say, I can't say. You'll have to see.

So did you have to really bulk up for this role with Ben, did he get big too?

You know when you're on a ship and you're starving, I actually had to lose 15 pounds for the movie. The toughest part of the movie besides the long hours, and doing all my own stunts, was every time they brought out the food and the chocolate, I had to pass. That's just wrong.

Can you elaborate more on your character, I know Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster wake up on the ship, what about you?

I've been awake for a while, I know what's up. I know how to survive. And you know what, I know how to kick some ass.

Does the movie ever get gory? I mean the posters are freaky.

There's not that much gore, but there is some. There's a little bit of everything. This is more similar to Aliens, that sort of tone from back in the day.

What's your favorite line that you got to deliver?

trời ơi tôi không thực hiện có bất cứ quan chức t tại tàu thuỷ . là bạn một phi công?
[Note: as I do not speak Vietnamese this is from an online translator, sorry if it's butchered]

Whoa, so your character doesn't speak English?

Course not.

Can you translate?

That means: "Oh my god, I didn't realize there were any officers left on the ship. Are you a pilot?"

So your entire dialogue is in Vietnamese?

And the great thing is you're not going to have any subtitles, the director wants you to feel what Ben Foster is going through when he's trying to communicate with me. And Ben does try to communicate with me and I try to communicate with him.

Are there any other characters who speak in different languages during the film?

A little bit of German, someone else speaks a little Vietnamese to Ben. Maybe I help, maybe I don't. Maybe I go crazy, or not at all.

So it sounds like Pandorum is going to be a complete mind job, especially if they're not going to translate one of the actors for the entire movie. Ugh, I'm stressed out just thinking about it, which I'm sure is exactly what Alvart wanted. Until the release date on September 4th, you can see Cung Le and his dazzling spinning double kick and tornado kick in Fighting, which comes out this Friday.

Send an email to Meredith, the author of this post, at meredith@io9.com.

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