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Ray Park was born in Glasgow, Scotland, UK. He moved with his parents, younger brother and sister to London, UK, at the age of seven. Ray always wanted to be in the movies, and be like their heroes. He also began to nurture a love for martial arts from the age of seven, when his father's fondness for Bruce Lee films sparked a fire in the youngster's mind that would never extinguish. Specializing in the traditional Chinese Northern Shaolin Kung-fu (in the Chin Woo style), Park moved on to master other styles, most notably Wushu. In 1991, at age 16, Ray became a member of the Great Britain Wushu team, competing in his first international in Beijing, China at the 1st World Wushu Championships. Ray was the first Wushu athlete from Great Britain and Europe to place in the top seven in the world, and went on to compete for Great Britain for another six years. He became a fixture at martial arts exhibitions and tournaments, Nationally, European and Internationally, attaining Gold Medal for the Great Britain Wushu and the Chin Woo Martial Arts team.

Ray began teaching himself gymnastics at a young age but felt he was missing the correct training to achieve a higher level. At fifteen, he found a school that was willing to allow him to practice and use the floor space. The gymnastic training helped to improve his martial arts training and began to sit in and take seminars in coaching gymnastics. It was when he was nineteen that he relocated to another gymnastic gym and became one of the boys' squad coaches. He further went on to be in charge of coaching recreational gymnastics throughout schools in London. Ray's boys squad won 1st in The London Youth Games for Hendon Gymnastics Club. During one of his frequent visits to Malaysia, he was approached to audition for Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997). Ray became martial arts advisor to one of the stunt coordinators and later landed playing one of the Reptiles, Baraka, and doubling for Rayden.

Conjuring memories of his youthful cinematic martial arts passion, Park attempted to learn as much as possible about the process of filmmaking. Soon being given more scenes and becoming more natural on set, he was contacted by stunt coordinator Nick Gillard to audition for George Lucas' prequel Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999). Offered the job by producer Rick McCallum, Park was given the creative freedom to develop his choreography by an impressed Lucas, and soon gained the confidence to develop his role to the best of his abilities.

Ray Park and Peter Serafinowicz in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)

Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace

[on having to shave his head for the role of Darth Maul] &quot;At first, I
lost my confidence a little. I&#39;m used to having my hair, but now you
have this bald thing on top. Then I got into it. It was easy and free;
I didn&#39;t have to wash my hair. I just took a hot towel and buffed it to
make it nice and shiny.&quot;

I&#39;m a big Batman fan; to be honest, to be a part of any superhero movie would really fulfill all of my childhood fantasies. If I could get beaten up by Batman, and just be part of the franchise, even getting kicked through a window would be great!

When I played Darth Maul, it sort of came from inside. I&#39;m not saying it was natural, but I really enjoyed it, and I think I was tapping into my childhood, growing up with &#39;Star Wars.&#39; And I grew up with G.I. Joe as well. Same as &#39;Thundercats&#39; and &#39;Transformers&#39; and &#39;He-Man.&#39; And so I think it was the inner kid in me just came out.

There&#39;s something mysterious about ninjas because they&#39;re deadly and they&#39;re scary.

Growing up as a kid, I wanted to be a ninja. In martial arts, even though I did Chinese kung fu, I always wanted to be this secret samurai or a ninja. There&#39;s something about ninjas that was very appealing to me as a kid. So of course, I was climbing a lot of trees and other things and getting up to mischief - good mischief.

The martial arts that I got into was because of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, because of all of the animal styles at the time. It was around about the time when Jackie was doing &#39;Drunken Master,&#39; and, like, Snake versus this and that.

My gun trainer on the first &#39;G.I. Joe&#39; gave me about a week of commando training, so I got to shoot every single machine gun and hand gun there was.

I&#39;ve said that I would play anything to do with &#39;Star Wars.&#39; But really, deep down, I would love to come back as Darth Maul - that&#39;s what I want to do. I would go crazy, go mental, lock myself in a cabin, you know. Do the whole &#39;method&#39; for two or three months, spear-fishing and stuff, just to play the character again.

Quotes

Ray Park

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