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Hey y’all, here’s LMD’s rousing chat with WWE Wrestling Superstar Paul “Triple H” Levesque. Triple H talked about his starring role in the action drama, Inside Out, the latest release from WWE Studios. Dig it!
Inside Out Paul “Triple H” Levesque
The Lady Miz Diva: How did Inside Out come to you? Paul Levesque: This is one of those odd stories. WWE wrote and created this script for one of our other performers and it started out with him, and as it came closer to finalising, that performer was having a contract dispute and we weren’t sure they were going to be here. Basically, Vince {McMahon – WWE owner} came to me and said, “I need you to bail me out and do this movie.” I hadn’t even read the script yet. So, I quickly read the script and enjoyed what I read and helped them make a few tweaks to it and ended up leaving four days later to go shoot in New Orleans. It was that quick. It was literally a fast turnaround.
LMD: We had The Chaperone before this, you also appeared in Blade: Trinity and some other projects. How serious is the acting bug with you? Have you taken classes or studied acting at all? PL: No, no. Maybe I’m naïve to this, but I’m kind of a big believer -- for what it seems like in most part to me -- you can either pretend you’re something else, or not. It’s not rocket science. Maybe I don’t know much about it and I’m not an expert at it. I mean, I guess you can study it and learn how to do it, but it seems like one of those things you can either do or can’t do. You can get better at it, I guess, but for me, I guess I can just kind of go do it, not that I’m unbelievable at it or anything. And Hollywood has kind of always been for me … Especially when I did Blade, I was offered a three-picture deal with New Line after that and I turned it down because it’s not what I wanted to do. I wanted to be in the WWE, I wanted to be wrestling. And as my career kind of wound down, we started WWE Films and these film roles kind of came to me. I enjoy doing them; if I read the right script and it’s a good story, then I’m interested in doing them if it fits with the schedule and everything. They’re a lot of fun to do, it’s exciting, but I also have a job that I love. So, I’m not looking to pack up and move out to Hollywood and be an actor full time.
LMD: The character you play as Triple H is so much larger than life, but your role in Inside Out is a guy who’s pretty low-key and quiet. How did you modulate that from what you’re used to? PL: I think it’s something I read in the script and also when I met the director, Artie {Mandelberg} and talked about the role I asked him, “How do you see this guy’s persona? Do you see him as quiet and laid-back?" That’s what we determined that this guy would be; a little bit more quiet and laid back. When you push him, he gets to a certain point, but he’s the more reserved guy and that’s why he and Jack {Michael Rapaport’s character} work so well as friends growing up because he was always the quiet, reserved guy that always stood behind Jack. Jack was always brash, running his mouth, talking a lot of trash, but he’s a screw-up and my character always stood behind him to help fix his screw-ups and I was the more level-headed one. So, it was a conscious decision of that’s how we felt that character should be.
LMD: I was surprised that except for one set piece there’s not a whole lot of action. Was there a consideration to add more? PL: When this was first pitched to me, it wasn’t pitched as action film; it was pitched as a quirky, kind of Fargo-esque-type slice-of-life film. One of the things I hear from people that watched the movie is they found the first half of the movie frustrating because AJ keeps getting sucked into these things that you’re going, ‘Idiot, get away from him!’ And when I read the script I kind of felt like that, and originally it was one of the problems I had -- which we changed -- but I felt this guy was just kind of a moron in that he keeps going for all this stuff. So, we changed the characters so that there was much more of a bond between AJ and Jack, but everybody has that friend that does dumb stuff that you can’t help. You like that guy and you feel bad for him and you wanna help them, but he always gets you involved in dumb stuff, too. It’s like the friend that you shouldn’t be friends with anymore, yet you’ve always been friends with him, and no matter what dumb thing he does, you’re still gonna love him. And that’s kind of how we played the character out and I think it’s one of the quirky things that worked about the film. So, it wasn’t necessarily about the action per se, it was about the relationship between these characters.
LMD: Blade: Trinity was a lot of fantasy action, The Chaperone was a family comedy and Inside Out is more of a drama. Which genre is most comfortable for you? PL: I had fun doing all of them. Blade was this fantasy world of vampires and the costumes and all this stuff. Doing The Chaperone was fun; it was like playing with my kids - having kids around all the time. It was light-hearted and fun and my kids love it. This one I put a little bit more thought into what this character’s thinking, what his thought process was going into each scene. People ask me what would be my ultimate role? I dunno, I like doing the action stuff, I like doing the drama stuff, doing the kids movie was fun, I would love to do a comedy. If I think the story’s good and I read the script and ten pages out I can’t wait to get to the end of it, I think, ‘This would be a good project to do.’
LMD: I’m curious about the WWE films and who they are trying to reach? I ask because I was a longtime fan of the TV shows and went to the live matches, but I stopped watching sometime in the mid-2000’s because it just got too sleazy and uncomfortable for me as a woman. I understand things have changed a lot since then, and I wonder if WWE films like Inside Out and The Chaperone are part of a bigger image change or outreach? PL: I don’t know if it’s an image outreach. I think we as a company, the reason we are the longest-running episodic television show in television history is because we change with the times. And we can listen to what fans want -- sometimes it might take us a little bit of time to get there -- but we can listen to what fans want. If you think about the genres of wrestling; in the 80’s, it was very campy and cartoony, then the 90’s came along with the Attitude Era and things changed, we pushed the envelope, but then maybe it went too far, I dunno. It got to a point where, okay, we’ve done all we can do with that and we kind of peaked with it and we changed it around and we rebranded ourselves again. I think we’re at a good place now where we’ve kind of crossed that PG line, but we’re still keeping the adults and young adults interested, yet not losing the kids and making it a good product for everybody. The movies for us, I think, is more of a business outreach; it’s just an extension. Our superstars are already larger-than-life characters and taking them and putting them into other roles is just a natural extension. I think from a business standpoint as far as a company, we’re one of the most successful television production companies out there. It makes sense for us to branch from television to movies to network. People often confuse our business of the company with our business of the WWE as wrestling. The WWE, the company, is a marketing juggernaut, is a television production juggernaut, is all those things internationally, globally. WWE, the wrestling brand, is the wrestling product and there’s a confusion of what the two things are, but to make the WWE wrestling brand successful, we have to have the WWE business, which is this marketing, licensing, television production juggernaut.
LMD: It’s just a natural progression. PL: Exactly! On both sides, though. That’s why some of our movies have our stars in them. Some of our movies like That’s What I Am from last year, which Randy Orton was in a tiny role for like a minute, but the stars were Ed Harris and Amy Madigan. That was a movie that we made that had nothing to do with promoting the WWE wrestling product, but it had a lot to do with promoting the WWE film model.
LMD: Currently in the WWE wrestling storyline you are the COO, running things behind the scenes. But in reality you have moved most of your duties behind the camera and are developing new talent for the company. Do you enjoy that role more? PL: I do. I guess it’s no different than when you have a guy like a Clint Eastwood or something, who for years makes movies because that’s what he does. He’s the star of these movies and now he branches into directing movies, and I would guess gets just as much thrill out of directing and producing these other actors in these films and making great product that way. While I love being in the ring and there’s no greater rush than walking out in front of seventy thousand of the WWE’s most loyal fans -- our fans are rabid -- but while that’s a thrill, also being backstage and helping a new guy become a star and helping him be the next big thing, or putting out the Pay-Per-View that’s successful, or helping to helm all those things is just as satisfying. It’s just as big of a deal from a success standpoint for me as being in the ring.
LMD: Still, I understand that you will be getting back in the ring very soon. Will you tell us about that? PL: At Night of Champions in a week and a half, I’ll face CM Punk in my new role as COO. We have CM Punk, who is kind of the loudmouth, anti-establishment, anti-authority figure right now, which is ironic because partly that used to be me and now here it comes full circle and I’m the authority figure and I’ve got this loudmouthed guy, but he’s crossed the line and said some things he shouldn’t have said. And at the end of the day, I’m still Triple H under the suit, so the suit’s gonna come off for the night and CM Punk’s gonna get his ass kicked.
LMD: Are you excited? PL: Yes, very!
~ The Lady Miz Diva Sept 7th, 2011
Special thanks to Messrs. Armando Fuentes & Steve Flack for their invaluable help with this interview.
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