Julie Benz Interview, RAMBO

MoviesOnline sat down with Julie Benz (“Dexter,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) at the Los Angeles press day for her new film, “Rambo,” written/directed by and starring Sylvester Stallone based on characters created by David Morrell. Filmed on location in and around Chiang Mai, Thailand, “Rambo” also stars Paul Schulze ("The Sopranos"), Matthew Marsden (“Resident Evil: Extinction,” “Black Hawk Down”), Graham McTavish (HBO's "Rome"), Rey Gallegos (“American Wedding”), Tim Kang ("Third Watch"), Jake LaBotz (“Ghost World”), Maung Maung Khin and Ken Howard.

Twenty years after the last film in the series, John Rambo (Stallone) has retreated to northern Thailand, where he's running a longboat on the Salween River. On the nearby Thai-Burma (Myanmar) border, the world's longest-running civil war, the Burmese-Karen conflict, rages into its 60th year. Rambo lives a solitary, simple life in the mountains and jungles fishing and catching poisonous snakes to sell. He has long ago given up fighting, even as medics, mercenaries, rebels and peace workers pass by on their way to the war-torn region. All that changes when a group of human rights missionaries ask Rambo to guide them up the Salween so they can deliver food and medical supplies to the Karen tribe. Weeks after the journey, Rambo learns that the same missionaries are being held captive by the Burmese military, outside diplomatic reach. Accompanied by a group of Church-hired mercenaries, he agrees to go up the river again, feeling a responsibility to rescue the captives despite his reluctance for violence and conflict.

With chameleon like abilities to transform from a bubbly to a tortured and tough brunette, Julie Benz captivates any room she walks into with her radiant beauty and infectious energy. Star of cult classics such as “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Angel,” and “Roswell,” Benz has never been one to shy away from the challenging roles. Next she goes brunette to play the vengeful wife of a murdered cop in “The Punisher: War Zone.” When she’s not headlining films, she stars on Showtime’s two-time Golden Globe nominated hit series, “Dexter,” as Rita Bennett, the titular character’s (award-winning Michael C. Hall) tormented girlfriend, oblivious to her partner’s homicidal tendencies, a role for which she won a 2006 Golden Satellite Award for Best Supporting TV Actress.

In her latest film, Julie Benz plays an idealistic young missionary named Sarah who appeals to Rambo’s long-dormant sense of duty and changes his mind. Benz, who had never worked on an action film before, hired a trainer as soon as she got the role. “I started training twice a day, six days a week because I knew as the only woman in the film I was going to have to hold my own against all these very, very tough men, including Sylvester Stallone,” she explains.

Here’s what she had to tell us about her adventures shooting in the jungles of Thailand and what it was like working with the legendary Sylvester Stallone:

Q: When you read a script like this where you’re running, you’re filthy, you’re with pigs, why do you think ‘I really want to do this?’

JULIE BENZ: Actually what happens is you read the script and you forget that you’re actually going to have to do all of that stuff. [Laughs] And then you show up on set and you’re like, ‘Do what? I didn’t realize I was actually going to shoot this part.’ So yeah, you forget that aspect of it. But I was just so excited to be the girl in a Rambo movie that actually lives. Because there was one in Rambo 2, and I think as soon as she said, ‘Take me with you,’ she was (she fakes slitting her throat), so it was nice to actually survive.

Q: Did you know the franchise and all of the Rambo films before you got this?

JULIE BENZ: You know, who doesn’t know Rambo, right? But I had never seen any of the Rambo movies. I mean, I was a huge Rocky fan, I’ve seen every Rocky movie like seven times, but as far as the Rambo franchise, I’m a girl, I’m a girly-girl.

Q: Was there an audition process? How did you get the part?

JULIE BENZ: It turns out that Sly is actually a big fan of Dexter, and they called and said, ‘He’s interested in you for Rambo, and would you be interested in taking a meeting with him?’ I said, ‘Of course.’ Do you say no? No. So yeah, I came in and met with him and that was it. I really was very excited to be a part of the project. I loved the script. I thought the social message behind the movie, with it taking place in Burma, and bringing awareness of what was going on in Burma, was extremely important. For me to be the only girl in an action movie was kind of like, alright, I’ll rise to the challenge. And to work with him, to work with Stallone as a director and a filmmaker, I think he – I’ve been extremely impressed with the performances that he gets out of his actors, these really natural, nuanced performances, and I was, ‘That’s what I want to do, I want you to take me there, whatever it is, whatever you have to do to get me to that place where I can deliver that very natural nuanced performance, do it.’

Q: How did you prepare for the physical demands?

JULIE BENZ: I started training as soon as they said, ‘He wants to take a meeting with you,’ I just assumed I was going to get the job. No. I was like, ‘Well, I’d better start training now.‘ I started doing twice a day workouts, working with a trainer, running a lot, I realized that for me what was going to be demanding was the cardio aspect, and also working in extreme heat in Thailand. So I really wanted to make sure that my cardio was up, that I could handle all the running, and I also wanted to have a moment where on set we’d be running and I would blow everyone else away. I wanted to surprise everyone. So I really upped my cardio a lot.

Q: Did you find that your training as an ice-skater helped you with your training for this?

JULIE BENZ: I think it’s one of the reasons why they were interested in me for the movie. I do know that Sly did his research, and when he found that I’d been a professional athlete growing up as a child he knew that I could handle the rigors of what was going to be required of me in the jungle of Thailand. It’s not Beverly Hills, you know. It’s a pretty tough condition. So he knew that I had that competitive spirit and that nature about me and that I would definitely rise to the challenge. And it helps me a lot as well, a lot of my stunts obviously were falling down, which is something I do very well. And that comes from my ice-skating training. I know how to fall without getting hurt. I can’t explain it, and I don’t know how I do it but I can take a tumble and not get hurt, and that comes from that.

Q: You said you were a girly-girl, I’m wondering what you think of the violence in this film?

JULIE BENZ: I think first of all a lot of the violence that you see in the movie is taken from what is actually going on in Burma, so a lot of it is important to see. I will be watching half the movie like this (hides her eyes), even though I know it’s fake. I was there when we were shooting it. It’s hard to watch, but it’s also a genre movie, it’s an action movie and the people that are going to go see it are going to see it for that purpose. They are going to go see the action. Let’s face it, that’s the appeal. But there’s also a social message behind it which hopefully raises more awareness over the situation in Burma.

Q: It’s a cause that you’ve taken up since making this movie. What have you been up to with that?

JULIE BENZ: I’ve just been doing work with the U.S. Campaign for Burma and just raising awareness. I’m going to shoot some PSAs for them and I hopefully would like to go to Thailand and tour the refugee camps with a camera crew. I’m hoping that happens. I’m raising money, raising awareness for them.

Q: What was the worst day for you?

JULIE BENZ: You know, Matthew Marsden actually reminded me. I went through the day, it was moment, he reminded me of one moment that became the big joke on set, but I don’t really think it was funny, I haven’t recovered. It was a scene in which we were running, Matthew and I were running and I of course fall, and he had to stop, turn around and come back and pick me up. And Matthew’s got these giant feet, and we were in the jungle and I fall and he turns around and his foot comes this close to my mouth and all this jungle dirt, and my mouth is open and it goes right into my mouth, right down my throat. I ate jungle dirt. And they happened to have the close-up camera running at that time, and I continued with the scene, I continued and played it like whatever – and as soon as they yelled ‘Cut,’ everyone was laughing. They had it on playback for the rest of the movie. I would come to set and everyone would be just watching it laughing, because they would run it in slow-motion, and you’d see the foot come into frame, and the dirt fly up, and it was a lot of dirt in my mouth, and you’d see me (she chokes) eating this dirt, and Sly and everyone just thought it was the funniest thing. (Laughs)

Q: How far were you from a hotel and a hot shower?

JULIE BENZ: About an hour. Yeah.

Q: What was your favorite part?

JULIE BENZ: My favorite part? You know, working with Mr. Stallone. I mean just watching him work as a filmmaker. I can’t really recall any other actor-director except maybe Mel Gibson with Braveheart who has directed themselves in an action movie. Action movies are really tough to direct and to direct yourself in it and to be running the show and all of that and we had 7 cameras going at a time, it was just unbelievable. I remember there was one moment when we were on the boat and we were shooting and the sun was going down. It was the magic hour and they were just shooting some establishing shots and I had that moment where I remember turning to Paul and just going, ‘Oh my God! Wow! We’re in a movie!’ [Laughs] You just have that moment because you have the camera crew filming you and there’s Sly and all of us and the sun is going down and it just was like, oh! It reminds you that it’s just a really cool job.

Q: What is the current status of Dexter? Is it on hold or have you heard anything about Season 3?

JULIE BENZ: As far as I know it was unofficially announced that we will be having a Season 3. The show has been so great. It’s been doing so well. But right now almost everything is on hold.

Q: It’s a great show.

JULIE BENZ: Thank you.

Q: How do you think Dexter will fare on its move to CBS?

JULIE BENZ: The first season premieres on CBS on February 17^th at 10pm. It’ll be interesting to see what they have to take out and what they can keep. If you really watch the show closely, there’s not a lot of violence in it actually. There’s a lot of insinuated violence which is almost scarier. I mean definitely the language. Good luck Jennifer Carpenter being on screen. [Laughs] You know what I mean? I don’t think she has one moment where there’s not one bad word coming out of her mouth. [Laughs]

Q: How would you describe Sly’s directing style?

JULIE BENZ: He doesn’t coddle you. [Laughs] He’s brutally honest. First of all, I don’t think there was one day he came to set where you could tell…and he must have been completely exhausted, we all were exhausted, because this was a huge…but he came to set every day completely energized, great attitude, ‘Good morning’ for everyone, like ‘C’mon,’ and just so passionate about what he was doing. He’s very demanding as well. He expects you to deliver 150% every single moment but he also delivers that himself. You understand why he is who he is, why everyone in the world knows his name, why he’s a film icon. He just has this intensity and this energy and he’s also not above calling you out when you suck. [Laughs] And I love that. I love knowing that a director’s going to be brutally honest. If I feel a director is going to lie to me, I don’t trust him and I told him that in the very beginning. I said, ‘You can do whatever it takes, but just don’t lie to me. As soon as you lie to me, I lose my faith in you.’ And we had moments where we’d be in the middle of a scene and he would just look at me and he’d be like, ‘You call that acting?’ [Laughs] And he’d be right. I mean I would know that I wasn’t in the moment at that moment and I was pulling something out a bag and trying just to slide it through and he doesn’t let you get away with that stuff. He’s very demanding. He definitely raised the bar on my level of work and my commitment to my work. I think he’s just amazing. It was an amazing experience.

Q: Were there a lot of takes and did you do much rehearsal?

JULIE BENZ: We had two weeks rehearsal in Thailand. It was a huge movie shot in 48 days. It was a movie that really should have had 82 days being shot in 48. We didn’t have the luxury of having a lot of … One of the reasons why he was so demanding was we didn’t have a lot of time to mess up so you had to be on. And with 7 cameras running, you’re shooting wide, tight, close-up so you just gotta do it. But at the same time he’s a perfectionist and if he felt he wasn’t getting it he would stay until he got it.

Q: You must know all the secrets to Rambo by now, so what’s the secret in stopping him if you’re the enemy?

JULIE BENZ: [Laughs] I don’t know. I don’t think anything. I mean seriously. Maybe a screaming baby…I don’t know…with a stinky diaper. Maybe that would slow him down. I don’t know. I mean something completely out of the realm of … You know I have no idea. [Laughs]

Q: Were you comfortable enough on set to tell him when he wasn’t up to snuff?

JULIE BENZ: [Laughs] Yeah. I had moments where I yelled back. Yeah. There comes a point, you know. At first I had to get over the fact that I was working with him. All of us did. I went through not knowing what to call him in the beginning. And he’s so jovial. He’s like, ‘Call me Sly.’ And I’m like, [Giggling] ‘Okay. Sure I will.’ So I went through that ‘Hey you.’ [Laughs] I mean he’s Sylvester Stallone. He’s ‘Wow!’ So the fact I could call him Sly, we would all joke about it. But there does come that point where sometimes he’d yell at me and I’d yell right back. [Laughs] That happens.

Q: Did you do a lot of special fight sequences with your work as the vampire Darla on Buffy and Angel?

JULIE BENZ: There were a lot of fight sequences. In television, unfortunately, you don’t have the luxury of time to shoot action sequences. I had an amazing stunt double on the show who was a complete twin. Especially with the vampire face on, no one could tell us apart. So they would actually shoot the Buffy/Angel stuff on a second unit day while we were filming other scenes.

Q: If they ever did an Angel or Buffy film, would you want to go back to that role or do you consider that really the past?

JULIE BENZ: I would go back in a heart beat. Darla was an amazing character. She was 400 years old. [Laughs] There’s a lot to explore there, so yes.

Q: She looked damned good for her age.

JULIE BENZ: Thank you, Botox. [Laughs] She discovered Botox years ago.

Q: You said you were kind of a girly-girl, I was wondering as a young girl, did you have Barbies? What did you collect when you were little?

JULIE BENZ: I was a figure skater growing up so I don’t think it gets any more feminine than that. I had all the girly stuff -- Barbies, the Marie Osmond head that you could style the hair on. I gave her a haircut. I thought she looked great with a mullet but she doesn’t.

Q: What do you have coming up next?

JULIE BENZ: The Punisher II: War Zone and that’ll be out in September. [Pointing to her brunette hair] That’s the brown hair.

“Rambo” opens in theaters on January 25^th.