An Interview With ‘Raze’ Star Zoe Bell

Hey guys, Aaron Peterson here with our one-on-one interview with Raze star, Zoe Bell. Raze is an action film centered around 50 women captured by a secret society and forced to fight to the death, or watch their loved ones perish. Zoe Bell stars as Sabrina, a woman forced to fight in order to save her daughter’s life. The movie also stars Rachel Nichols, Doug Jones, Tracie Toms, and Rebecca Marshall among others.

Raze is a ‘no holds barred’ action flick, and a throwback to when fights scenes carried that intense realism that is so missing from today’s overly-choreographed nonsense. The winners here are often unpredictable and that makes the film interesting all the way through the end. We reviewed Raze recently on Episode 123, as well as you can look for my written review shortly on the site. Raze hits theaters and Video OnDemand January 10th and you can find even more info at RazetheMovie.com

Most of you already know who Zoe Bell is. But for those that don’t, she is one of the most accomplished stunt people in her field. Her work dates back to Zena and it has continued to gain traction in the States through numerous films, yet where she truly caught the public’s eye was for her work in Kill Bill. She eventually made the transition to acting when she appeared in Tarantino’s Death Proof section of the Grindhouse film. Yep, she was the one doing that crazy stunt on the hood.

With Raze, Bell continues her trajectory into acting with the lead, Sabrina. The movie demands a lot more from her than just physicality and when you see the film, I believe you will agree . As much as she seems like quite the ass kicker in real life, she is also one of the most pleasant interviews I’ve ever had the pleasure to do. Just a great down to earth personality and I’m sure you guys are going to feel the same. Here is my interview with Zoe Bell:

Zoe Bell: Hi.

Aaron Peterson: Hi, how are you?

ZB: I’m good, thank you. How are you doing?

AP: I’m great. You are all over my internet today.

ZB: Am I? Uh-oh. Why is that?

AP: Some interview and you gave a quote. So, of course, they ran with it. It’s been…

ZB: Yeah, I know. That quote freaked me out, because it’s slightly out of context. So, yeah…

AP: It’s… it’s very out of context. I didn’t read anything more than that, then you were just, you were talking to them (ExpendeBelles). You were reading for it, whatever the case is.

ZB: Good. I was just a bit like, I mean, anyway, yes. I’m excited about that movie, whether I’m a part of it or not. That’s sort of what happened and I got chatty about it, you know?

AP: And I hope you are. I wish you the best. That’d be a great role for you.

ZB: It would be. It’d be a great role for any female, I think.

AP: Well, we’re talking about you. They can get their own job. I want to talk to you and I only have 15 minutes, and I know you have probably 40 other interviews to do. I’ve got to ask you, after watching Raze, I mean… that is an angry, angry movie. Do you… do you ever get stopped and people wonder if you’re that person?

ZB: I’ve yet to have anyone think that I am Sabrina, but even before Raze I think it’s easy for people to assume that if you spend your career beating people up for a living, that maybe you’re an aggressive type of person. But the irony that seems to be lost on people is that I fake it for a living. And I’m more of a perfomance junkie than an aggressive junkie. But I mean, I get a kick out of it. I think it’s cool that it’s sort of aggressive and angry and female driven.

AP: Oh, it is.

ZB: But, no. I’m by no means that person and I’m pretty comfortable being a female. I don’t have any sort of need to prove how tough we are. Ironically, since the movie sort of does, definitely does a bit of that.

AP: I’m sure you’ve been asked a thousand times, but originally you came to the States to pursue a career as a stunt person. And I want to know, why stunts?

ZB: Well, I was already a stunt girl in New Zealand. So I’d been a stunt woman for years before I came to the States, and I came to the States, actually, on my way to Canada. And ended up through a whole bunch of strange happenings at the auditions for Kill Bill. As far as the why, I don’t know if this sounds weird, but at the time I couldn’t imagine a cooler job. Like, I did gymnastics and I did martial arts by choice. I mean, my parents paid, god bless them, but I loved that stuff. And stunts just seemed like a combination of the two plus performance. Which was just… I just, honestly, when I discovered that that existed as a career I couldn’t think of anything else I would rather do.

AP: Do you think as a stunt person that stunt people are properly acknowledged in the industry? That’s one thing we kind of talk about on our show and it seems like they sort of get short changed.

ZB: Yeah. It’s a tough… it’s a tough topic, that one. Because… no, technically we don’t. You know, you’re sort of like the drummer of a band… you know? And the actors might be sort of like the lead singers and the lead guitar is maybe the director? It’s sort of… I don’t know if that analogy works, but you know what I mean? The hard part is back in the day your job was to not exist to the general public. The point was to not really know that it was being faked, so to speak, you know? It’s a love-hate relationship with not getting enough credit because, I don’t know, I kinda feel like as a stunt girl as long as my collegues and my work peers knew what my work was, I kind of liked being the behind the scenes person. Which is maybe saying something because I’m such a loudmouth and so not quiet behind the scenes by nature that maybe there was some release in that for me. But at the same time, when I’m talking about my other stunt peers, I would love for them to be getting the credit and acknowledgement that they deserve, you know? It becomes an interesting topic around awards and stuff like that, where sort of the department in general deserves more acknowledgement. It’s a really interesting topic, actually. I could talk about it for hours.

AP: I completely agree with that, because especially you guys are… you know, you put a lot on the line. There’s a lot of chance for injury for you.

ZB: Yeah, absolutely. Injury, and we all know someone who’s either out for life or is out of life, you know…I mean, it’s… There’s a lot of times when you’re like tripping over vacuum cleaners and it’s, you know, it’s not that big of deal. And then there’s other days where you’re, you know, literally putting your life on the line. Those days are big deals.

AP: With Grindhouse, or some people call it Death Proof now as they forget it was one whole movie, but you made the transition to actress. Do you think, even though you still do stunt work, is that kind of where you have your sights set right now?

ZB: Yeah, definitely. It has become, it’s sort of… I’m doing less and less stunt work. It’s sort of one of those things like it’s sad to say, sort of technically, goodbye to my stunt career, but I kind of just look at it as an actual trejectory that is this is where my career has lead me to. And the conscience decision to, sort of, remove myself from stunt doubling in particular has been almost more so for me psychologically, as much as jumping off buildings is out of most people’s comfort zone, being a stunt girl is my comfort zone. That’s what I’m used to. That’s my safe place, ironically. Being an actor has been fun and new. It’s hard and it’s scary and it’s challenging, and so I think I have to, sort of commit 100% to this new endeavor so as to not, like,  skulk back to where I was comfortable, you know?

AP: Yeah. And do you find it hard? I mean, especially since you’ve been in Grindhouse and Kill Bill, a lot of these movies that are know, a lot of people look at you and say ‘uhhhh… she could probably kick my ass.’ Do you find it hard to be seen as anything more than just tough when you’re auditioning for parts?

ZB: Yeah, yeah definitely. That’s definitely an ongoing challenge and it’s one that, you know, I fully understand it and I can fully appreciate it. And it’s by no means an insult. So it’s a challenge I’m happy to spend the time stepping up to.

AP: Let’s talk about Raze, because that’s why you’re here…

ZB: Let’s talk about Raze.

AP: The movie itself is really, really good. And I’m not saying that just because you’re here.

ZB: Oh good!

AP: The movie, it took me by suprise. I’d heard about it, and then I watched it… This is a brutal movie. And the title is spot on. I mean, women are getting completely demolished. I mean, literally.

ZB: Is it wrong that it makes me giggle a bit when you say that?

AP: No! Because it means that you had fun doing it! What about Raze caught your eye, or how did the film come to you?

ZB: It’s not as direct of a story as journalists might want it to be, because it makes it a little harder to report, but basically… Kenny (Gage) gave Andy Pagana and Josh Waller… Kenny and Andy had come up, well Kenny had basically come up with a concept. Kenny and Andy had been talking about it, they met Josh and sort of Josh came into the fold. And they were talking about females that they could use or cast and it started off as short. Josh dropped my name, as in it’d be kinda cool to get someone like Zoe and Kenny was like, that’d be amazing, and Josh was like actually she’s a friend of mine. I’ve know Josh for years. So it all started off in the very early stages. I mean, the concept of Raze had been around for ages with those guys, with Kenny, but it just sort of grew.

We started off as it being short, I would make sort of a bit of a cameo. And Rachel Nichols was the leader of the short,brought me on as a producer. Which was really exciting for me. And sort of, in the middle of doing this short it just, sort of, started to pick up. I can’t even remember what exactly was the catalyst, but it all started to pick up a bit of pace and people were starting to wonder about the feature. And we started wondering why we weren’t making a feature and so we thought that we would. We had Robert turn it into a feature script and we scrambled around and found money, an amazing crew and managed to pull in an incredible cast and, you know, got this movie made.

I don’t know, I always feel a little like, had we had gone exactly though the normal channels, maybe a little movie like this would never have got made. Maybe it took a little bit of just doing one stick at a time until a whole bunch of planning… yeah, it took a lot of hard work from a lot of amazing people. It’s a very grateful little movie that could, you know?

AP: Oh yeah, and you know what my favorite part of the entire movie is? You hear that it’s 50 women in a cagematch, fight to the death… I think some people would immediately get the impression ‘oh really?’, because men are predictable in that respect. When you watch the movie, I was impressed how brutal the fights are. There are no holds-barred, it’s completely intense. How was it for you to film it? Did anyone get hurt?

ZB: Um, no, no one. I always wished we’d done that actually, at the end of the credits, I kind of wish we’d have put ‘no women were harmed in the filming of this movie’, but we didn’t get it done in time. Which always bums me out. Um, we got a bunch of bruises and scrapes like you’re going to, but no, it was all pretty good really. I mean, the girls all put in so much time pre-shoot into working on the choreography and they all did the individual training and, even I was just really into it. And I think, I don’t know, it all went really well. Having the fights be brutal and realistic, and I say this intentionally even though it was women fighting, was really, really important to all of us as film makers. And I had a particularly personal passion for it, because it was the the kind of action that, and I’ve done loads of different female fight styles and genres, and it was just, this was something that I’d not really done before. And I was excited at the concept of having it be that kind of brutal.  That shit’s exhausting, you know, emoting and fighting like that. We were all, all the girls, were just shattered by the end of the film.

AP: Speaking of emoting, Sabrina’s a mother in the film and she’s basically fighting for her daughter’s life. And you are the movie. I mean, there are other characters in it, but it’s really about you. And because of your isolation, your character kinda has to convey a lot more through her actions, her facial expressions, a lot more than just words. So was that a challenge for you? Because you’re a very physical person.

ZB: Yeah, I am a very physical person. Um, Sabrina and her story were definitely a challenge for me. I mean, by the time we started shooting it was a challenge I was ready for, but I was aware it was a massive challenge for me and so I just was dedicated to putting in loads of hours. I mean, I worked with an acting coach friend of mine, one on one, for hours. My little check book, it was like, that was part of the investment in the movie I think.

So, by the time I got there, I just knew who Sabrina was. Thank God, when you’re jumping around a script and you’re sort of jumping around a character’s storyline like that, it was, it was experience. And I said to Josh before we started shooting ‘I don’t know if this is unprofessional of me to say this or not, but this is the work I’ve done and just so you know this is sort of how I’ve thought of her arc and her journey and I would love for you to know that I’m going to rely on you heavily of these things, because I might get lost.’ And he was really good about that, it was very, sort of, hands on.

And the other thing that was amazing for me was being surround by the cast that I was. The skill and the experience of Tracy and Rachel, you know, the first fight I did with Rachel was, I feel like, where I really found Sabrina and I found what it was to be in this underground hell. And having Tracie Thoms there and having Doug Jones, who I’ve worked with before. And just these woman… Rebecca Marshall bring the evil and Cody bring the innocent. And it was a really… not easy, but it was a really stupid supportive place to be for me, being Sabrina.

AP: Last question… Okay…

ZB: Make it a good one.

AP: Alright well, this is one I haven’t seen a lot of people ask. We’ve seen you in a lot of tough roles, I mean, obviously. I want to know when are we going to see you in a comedy or a drama?

ZB: Yeah! I want to know the same thing! I love the idea of comedy at the moment. I mean, I’m down for a bit of drama too, but I tell you what at the end of Raze we all just kept joking that my next role should be a romantic comedy. Just so that I don’t sink into the depths of despair that Sabrina was in. You know, I’m starting to explore the roles of comedy a little bit, a couple of ideas that I’m sort of developing that are a little bit more around the making people laugh sort of thing rather than making people cry and want to throw up. [laughs]

AP: You should. You’re very charismatic.

ZB: Awwwww… thank you.

AP: Oh, I’m not just saying it because you’re here, either. The movie was great, I know you have to go. I just want to say thanks for coming and talking to us. I really appreciate it.

ZB: You’re very welcome. I’m really glad you enjoyed it.

AP: Hopefully we’ll see, maybe we’ll see another Raze-type film or a romantic comedy. I look forward to that.

ZB: Yeah! Maybe both. Not the same film, though. [Laughs]

AP: [Laughs] Have a fun junket. Alright, take care.

 

There you have it, Zoe Bell. Not at all your typical Hollywood personality, she really has a sense of confidence and charisma that is refreshing in this business. Again, her film Raze hits theaters and Video OnDemand January 10th. More information can be found at RazetheMovie.com.

Aaron Peterson
The Hollywood Outsider
Aaron@TheHollywoodOutsider.com