Dec-3-2008

Former Kickboxing Champ Alexander Brings The Punisher Back

By Thomas Gerbasi

In the days before a film is released to the public, you would imagine that the emotions experienced by the director would be similar to those a prizefighter goes through just before the walk into battle – nervousness, excitement, fear of the unknown.

Lexi Alexander, director of The Punisher: War Zone, has admittedly had some nerves in anticipation of Friday’s opening of the film, but as far as the rest of the comparisons to fighting are concerned, this second degree karate black belt and former world kickboxing champ disagrees.

“I just thought about that the other day, and I said to a friend of mine that when I used to step into the ring, you had the butterflies and you felt like you were throwing up, but the one thing you always had – it was you in the ring and you were in control,” Alexander told UFC.com. “This has so many other circumstances that you can’t control that for a fighter, and it’s really hard. I’m like ‘wait a minute, I want to know where the TV spots are, how is it marketed,’ and I want to be in the ring myself, but you just can’t. You’ve got to let it go and let it do its journey.”

Luckily, early reports from press screenings this week have calmed Alexander’s nerves and made letting that journey run its course a little easier.

“We had two big screenings for the press Monday in New York and two in LA, and it’s the first time Lionsgate took a film like that and showed it to the press,” she said. “It was a big leap of faith and I was nervous Monday and the day before. Today (Tuesday), the first reviews came in and I’m not that nervous anymore. I think we achieved what I wanted to achieve, and it might turn out better than I even think it is now, or it might turn out a little worse, but I think I’m all cool now.”

That positive reaction to pressure is not surprising, considering the Mannheim, Germany native’s past career in combat sports. But after winning the Long Beach International Karate Championship at 19, she decided to stick around in California and pursue a career in filmmaking, one that has seen her deliver the 2003 Academy Award-nominated short film Johnny Flynton and the well-received Green Street Hooligans. She hasn’t forgotten her roots though, and she still boxes when time allows.

“But what I really want to do again, which I did for a while after I watched the first UFC is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu,” she said. “I trained with the Machados for a while, and I wish I had more time to do it. It’s hard when you’re already a black belt to walk in somewhere and they say, ‘you’re a white belt here’, so we all have a little bit of our ego about that.”

Alexander left ego at the door for The Punisher: War Zone though, opting to deliver a film that isn’t as glossy as either of the two previous Punisher films, one that is hard-hitting and relentless from start to finish, and definitely catered to fans of the Marvel MAX comic run written by Garth Ennis. Needless to say, Alexander is curious to see how mainstream moviegoers react to the film.

“I can just imagine what (noted film critic) Roger Ebert will say, but that’s not my concern,” she said. “This company (Lionsgate) has given me 35 million dollars to make a proper Punisher film, and my first step was to learn what a proper Punisher fan would like in a movie. And I read all the stuff that they criticized about the previous ones, and what I put on the screen is exactly like what you would buy in one of those Garth Ennis / Tim Bradstreet illustrated (Marvel) Max series Punisher books. Granted, I would love if mainstream people would go ‘I never heard about The Punisher, but I really enjoyed this film.’ If that’s gonna happen, we’ll see. But I think the comic book world will really appreciate the authenticity of it.”

The authenticity is evident the first time you see Ray Stevenson as The Punisher himself, Frank Castle, load up his guns.

“He looks like he jumped out of the book,” said Alexander of Stevenson, who follows Dolph Lundgren and Thomas Jane as silver screen versions of Castle and the first one to truly get the character right. “He’s a real guy’s guy, and this is where my fighter’s heart comes in. I’ve been the girl who grew up around proper fighters and when I see actors 5 foot 6 and a hundred pounds, it’s very hard for me to cast them as action people. And I always go into these things saying ‘you know what, I need this to be a proper man, a guy’s guy.’ Then they showed me (HBO’s series) ‘Rome’ and I was like ‘okay, he’s it.’ Ray is not a pretty boy actor; he’s a proper guy. But he’s also a classically trained actor who trained with Daniel Day-Lewis, so sometimes we would be on set and the grip would start crying because of the moment, and he would say ‘I can’t believe we’re shooting a Punisher film.’”

It is a Punisher film though, and one highly-anticipated by fans of the comic and of action movies in general. But this is not your typical super hero movie and Castle is not your typical super hero. Maybe that’s why he’s revered by hardcore fans.

“With Batman, Iron Man, Spiderman and all those guys, it’s so clear that they’re the good guys – we get it,” said Alexander. “You don’t do anything bad, you only do good. Castle is not like that – he’s much more like real people are. Being familiar with fighting, I think we can all relate to that – I’ve done a few kicks and a few elbows that I shouldn’t have done. I think we are all so much more complex than these one-dimensional heroes. Castle does not always kill people that a hero would kill. He’s not black and white, but a gray anti-hero.”

Punisher: War Zone opens in theaters on Friday, December 5th.