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| SALA BAKER Panel, RingCon 2003, Bonn/Germany |
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| Ladies: the first thing you will ask yourself if you should cross Sala Baker's path will be: why the heck are all the handsome guys hidden under tons of make-up and prosthetics?
It's a conspiracy, I tell you. They don't want us girls to have any fun. Spoil sports. We had the pleasure of seeing Sala Baker "out of uniform", and the man is not only very mild on the eyes, but also a charmer and an entertainer. And he loves to be the big bad meanie "it's the best thing ever! Darth Vader who?" So how did he come to work on Lord of the Rings in the first place? "I remember this very well I started out on October 19 as a stuntman, and after a while, I got close-up scenes with Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas and the Uruk'hai." Was the transgression from being a stuntman to being "on camera" difficult? "There was not really much of a difference. I feel confident on stage, I have always been a performer you know, 'make them laugh'!" Sala states as the main difference the recognition an actor gets ffor his work, rather than a stuntman. This is the reason why the stuntmen call themselves "Mexicans" ?[this relates to the situation of the illegal Mexican immigrants in the USA - The Ed.], but Sala also mentions that Viggo Mortensen gave them credit on the extended DVD. Fair enough Aragorn, Legolas et al. would look only half as heroic as they do now without the hard work of the stuntmen. Talking about DVD's: just like Mark Ferguson, Sala really hopes that one fine day the ultra giant extra special edition of LOTR will be out, with all the cut scenes, for the one where Gil-galad is killed by Sauron was "great stuff". Another bit that was cut out a fact Sala is very unhappy about is the forging of The One Ring. You can see Sauron holding a gold nugget in his hand; when the gold melts, he grabs for a dagger, stabs his hand, and the liquid gold mixes with his blood. The fluid runs down his arms and forms a ring around his finger. Wooooh. Sala happily admits that he was the Uruk'hai who killed Haldir or, as he put it: "HA! HA! Another Elf done!" Originally, Aragorn was supposed to run towards him, dive over Haldir and put a dagger in the Uruk's gut, but alas... looks like we have been deprived of yet another dramatic scene. Killing Elves is tough business Sala can't even remember all his injuries, but there was an ugly wound on his head which had to get fixed with 8 staples, a broken leg, a popped knee-cap, broken finger, and uncounted bruises and scratches. Did this slow him down? Nawww he's an Uruk on a mission: "Kill Gil-galad! Kill Haldir! Mwuahahaha!" And does he still feel safe among all these girls who love Haldir, being the evil Elf-killer? But of course "you are all mesmerized by my beauty." He can't be too wrong with this attitude, for he states that the "good guys get the women, but the bad ones have all the fun. I kill Elves, Hobbits, Mortals - they are all the same to me." Somebody points out that Sala hasn't killed any Dwarves so far. Sala promised to try harder. Run, Gimli, run! Once all ways of killing Elves are discussed, he admits that his favourite movie character was John Coffey in "The Green Mile" (a stellar performance by Michael Clarke Duncan!) "I cried like a baby". So did we. His most recent work, as a stuntman if I remember correctly, was "Samurai" with Tom Cruise and he confirms what we always suspected: "Penelope Cruz is not that beautiful. Liv Tyler is better!" Hear, hear even Sauron fell for Elven charms! |
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