THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 15, 1994 TAG: 9409150052
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 130 lines
THE FIRST THING you notice is how short he is.
The second thing is how charismatic.
Jean-Claude Van Damme bounded into the room with the energy he might display in one of his kickboxing matches.
``You like the picture?'' he queried with a self-doubt that is immediately ingratiating. ``It is big picture. Right? I mean this is like no other picture I have done. I'm not just a karate guy anymore.''
The self-proclaimed ``karate guy'' is, indeed, stepping into the big time (or at least the bigger time) this weekend with ``Timecop,'' a $30 million science-fiction yarn released by Universal. No Van Damme movie has ever lost money, but until now, the most expensive budget was reportedly the $18 million shelled out for ``Hard Target.'' With ``Timecop,'' Van Damme bids to join Schwarzenegger and Stallone in the upper echelon of action.
``Why does everyone compare me with Arnold?'' Van Damme wondered. ``I guess it is because we both have accents; we both like to train and we both like to eat. But I know who I am and he knows who he is. Arnold was not my inspiration. When I came to America, to Hollywood, Arnold had not yet made it.''
At 32, he's the youngest of the action stars. Arnold is 47. Steven Segal is 42, and his longtime friend Chuck Norris is 52. He's friendly with his competitors, except for Segal. On a recent TV talk show, he announced that he ``could easily whip Segal's butt.''
Van Damme claims, though, that he's bowing out of the martial arts game altogether after two more movies. Next, he'll be involved in an international army with ``Street Fighter,'' based on the popular video game. Then he'll play ice hockey in ``Sudden Death,'' and then he'll make his directorial debut in an epic adventure called ``The Quest.''
``I want to be directed by Oliver Stone,'' he said. ``Why not? I want to do comedy, too.''
``Timecop,'' which opens Friday, is set in the year 2004 with Van Damme as a cop who has to police time. People have time machines that allow them to travel back, but to do so is punishable by death. Ron Silver plays a corrupt politician who wants to go back to 1994 so that he can alter events and ensure that he is elected president.
Silver, a Tony Award-winning actor, said he chose to co-star with Van Damme because ``I like his personality. He's funny and he's very self-deprecating. We complement each other. He works out before and after work. To complement that, I have Jack Daniels.
``Jean would say to me, `Hey, I'm good. You stand still. I will come within six inches of your face, but I won't hit you.' I didn't go for that. Let the stunt man do it. Besides, if he hit me, he'd have my mother to deal with, and she'd be a match for Van Damme.''
Veteran director Peter Hyams, who helmed ``Timecop,'' said: ``I didn't choose him. He chose me. I'd never seen a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie. But I met him for lunch and he talked about everything but karate. He's a cute guy. People like him. You pull for him. I wanted to make a movie that his fans wouldn't normally go to see. I wanted them to see it and say, `Hey, he's not a dumb guy after all.' ''
Van Damme complains that increasingly the insurance people won't let him do his own stunts. ``On `Double Image,' I was hurt,'' he said. ``Now they demand that the stunt guy does it. I have this guy who was a Navy SEAL. He looks just like me. He does most of the dangerous stuff, but I sometimes sneak in a scene. I'd like to do them all.''
Mia Sara, who co-starred with Tom Cruise in ``Legend,'' plays Van Damme's late wife - a woman who has been dead for a decade.
``It is important that the women want to see the film,'' Van Damme said. ``Without them, I will not be a hit.''
The past vs. present love story in ``Timecop'' is aimed directly at Van Damme's female fans. The new theory is that no action film can be a big hit unless women also want to see it. Both ``Speed'' and ``True Lies,'' the hit action films of the past summer, had notable romantic angles.
``I have an OK body, all right,'' Van Damme said, ``but I am not such a large guy. I limit weight lifting because I want to be streamlined - to look more natural. The man has it easier. With a man, to be sexy is mainly the body. With a woman, it is the face. The body can be controlled.''
``It is all right to be sensitive,'' he said. ``I came to this country with nothing and I made it because I was strong - but inside as much as outside. It is all right to show sensitivity. Spartacus was in love, wasn't he?''
Sometimes called ``the muscles from Brussels,'' Jean-Claude Van Verenberg grew up in Belgium, always wanting to be a movie star. ``Steve McQueen in `The Great Escape' was, and is, my favorite movie,'' he said, also naming ``Ben Hur'' and ``Spartacus.''
He studied both ballet and martial arts and was offered a major scholarship with the Maurice Bejart Ballet Company in Paris. ``I was just the right height for ballet dancer,'' he said ``and they wanted me bad. They called me `the balloon' because I could jump. But I decided to go more toward karate and weight training.''
That led to his winning the Mr. Belgium contest. He later gave up a successful gym in Paris to go to Hollywood and try to get into the movies. ``My father thought I was crazy,''' he said.
He changed his name to Frank Cujo but changed it again when he discovered that there was a movie about a mad dog called ``Cujo.''
For six years, he struggled in Hollywood. ``I was massage guy, karate trainer, delivered pizzas, taxi driver, laying carpets - everything.''
Then, in desperation, he went one night to a restaurant where Menahem Golan, the head of production for Canon Pictures, was having dinner with some South Korean investors. He did a high kick in the restaurant and announced, ``I am Van Damme, karate guy. I make you lots of money.'' Golan, perhaps in an effort to get rid of him, told him to come by the office the next day.
When Van Damme arrived, bright and early, Golan had him cool his heels until 7 that night. ``I told him I had to be in movies. I told him I could be handsome. I could be mean. I could be whatever the part required. I was almost in tears. I knew this was my last chance - my very last chance. Golan, after a wait, stood up and said `Van Damme, you will be a star. You are a salesman.' ''
The three films he made for Golan, ``Bloodsport,'' ``Cyborg'' and ``Death Warrant,'' cost a total of $5 million to make and took in $150 million.
Van Damme divorced his third wife, bodybuilder Gladys Portuguese, but he claims they remain good friends. His two children, ages 7 and 6, spend half of each year back in Belgium with his father.
``The Quest,'' which he will direct next year, will have him traveling from France to China in 1902. He is captured and sold into slavery by pirates before he crosses the Thai jungle and the Chinese desert. ``It will be the `Ben Hur' of martial arts films,'' he said, ``and it will be my last martial arts film. If it's successful, I will stay more and more with directing.''
No matter what ``Timecop'' does at the box office, his career is set for three more films.
``I once had to live in my car,'' he said, ``but now I have enough money. I have been well paid and I now feel that I can afford to risk going for a broader career. To be karate guy is OK, but I must find more. I love movies so much that if they told me they wouldn't pay me, I'd show up for work anyway.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by UNIVERSAL PICTURES
``Hard Target'' included some of the high-kicking Jean-Claude Van
Damme's best action sequences.
by CNB