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Always a fighter

IN BETWEEN REHEARSING for the two sequels to Pirates of the Caribbean, gathering financing for a couple of self-produced projects and polishing rewrites on an action-packed thriller he's overseeing, Philip Tan seldom has time for interviews.

'I'm working non-stop these days,' says Singapore-born Tan, whose many job descriptions include actor, stuntman, stunt choreographer and trainer and second unit director. And, if all goes well, Tan will soon be able to add writer/director/producer to that list.

Tan is one of a tiny number of minority actors who work regularly. 'Asians here get just 1 per cent of the available work,' says Tan, citing better odds for Hispanics (8 per cent) and African-Americans (15 per cent). 'The only reason I'm working all the time is because I do five different jobs. Otherwise, I don't think I'd be nearly this busy.'

Tan, 44, is speaking near his home in Reseda, just outside Los Angeles, in between jaunts to and from Barbados and the Virgin Islands, where both Pirates sequels are being filmed back-to-back. He is cast as one of a band of Asian pirates out to kill the characters played by Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom, and has just filmed a spectacular opening scene with Chow Yun-fat, who plays the baddie. With a couple of other independent projects on the table, and a new high-profile Bud Light beer commercial, Tan says he's come a long way since he first got into acting, in 1980, when he had a small role and was a fight choreographer for The Fiendish Plot of Dr Fu Manchu, starring Peter Sellers. But even his foray into films was unexpected.

Tan, whose father started the Marco Polo hotel chain in Singapore and whose uncle owns the CK Tang department store there, moved to London with his family when he was eight, where his father started the Singapore Garden chain of restaurants (there are now five).

He was a natural athlete and martial artist, a British Youth Tumbling Champion and the men's British taekwando champion. 'I was always competing,' he says. 'It was just really fun.' Ultimately, it led him to movies.

In 1979, Tan saw a newspaper advertisement calling for a 'short Chinese guy who could do martial arts'. He went along to a casting call with his brother, and they both got picked to go to Paris to meet Sellers.

'I didn't even know who he was,' says Tan, who landed the role of Sellers' character's right-hand man, and spent a year working with him. 'We hung out together all the time, always went out to dinner after filming, and became really good friends. When it was done, I was able to buy my first house. I was only 18. I thought, 'Wow, this is great'.'

Tan decided to give show business more serious consideration. He made inquiries about getting his Equity card - membership of the actors' union - and was told he had to do 22 weeks of performing work. So he started a disco dancing/acrobatic/martial-arts troupe and landed gigs in clubs, eventually performing in two Royal Variety shows in front of Queen Elizabeth II. As soon as he got his Equity status, he was surprised at how much work he got.

'I did one movie after another,' Tan says. He worked on Willow with Val Kilmer, and the two became friends, Kilmer staying at Tan's London house. He taught martial arts to Christopher Lambert for his role in Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes. While working on that, he was contacted by Steven Spielberg who asked him to train actors for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Through word of mouth, Tan ended up in Los Angeles. He'd been approached by producer Jon Peters (now involved in the new Superman movie), who asked him to work on Tango and Cash with Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell, playing what's credited as Gunman/Chinese guy.

'He told me he wouldn't take no for an answer,' Tan says of Peters' approach. The film was being shot in Los Angeles, so Tan made the trip over with his wife, Joanne, and their young son (they now have four boys, aged from five to 18). 'I remember sitting in my jacuzzi at four in the morning, thinking how much I loved it. That's when I decided to move here.'

It proved to be the right decision. Tan has had roles of varying importance in films ranging from the Tomb Raider franchise with Angelina Jolie to television shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He's also worked on music videos for Pink, Sisqo and Missy Elliott.

Tan's CV lists special skills such as 'stair falls', 'fire burns', 'Russian swing' and, his particular favourite, 'high falls 85 feet'. He has a more prominent part in the forthcoming Pamela Anderson movie No Rules, in which he plays what he calls an ultimate street fighter, and has just finished stunt co-ordinating Mini's First Time, a Kevin Spacey-produced movie starring Alec Baldwin, Carrie-Anne Moss and Jeff Goldblum.

But although Tan knows that there will probably always be enough work for him, he's decided to take his career to the next level. He founded Phil Tan Productions, under whose auspices he's working on three movies. Among them is The Geezer, which he describes as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels set on Santa Monica Boulevard - about a British gangster arriving in LA to reclaim loot from some American thugs. Another project is based on the true story of an Englishman who becomes a member of a triad in London. The one that seems closest to Tan is Heart of the Champ, another true story about a man who helps keep children out of gangs, and encourages them to express their frustration through kickboxing.

For an actor and stuntman who makes his living in what would be widely considered a violent genre, Tan says there's a 'big difference between violence and action' - and that some films wouldn't work without the violence in them. 'If you take something like The Passion of the Christ, it's the most violent movie, but also the most passionate. Some stories have to be told that way. But I agree that sometimes violence in a movie serves no purpose, that they just kill people for the sake of killing them.'

Tan says he tries to make his roles - and the tone of the film, in general - more entertaining. 'Instead of looking for more ways to kill people, it's more fun to trip them up, to have them flying and being hit on the head. We have to think more in terms of the entertainment value and sometimes people forget that.'

He says the international success of films such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero and The House of Flying Daggers proves that the Hong Kong and mainland film industries have discovered the power of a good story. 'Years ago, I don't think those filmmakers cared about the story,' Tan says. 'It was just about the martial arts. But I take my hat off to the Chinese, because now they know how to develop great stories, as well. And because of the rise of China in the world, the US is looking more to Asia for great material.'

But in Hollywood the stereotypes remain, Tan says. 'In the UK, as a Chinese actor, you can be anything - a doctor, a lawyer,' he says. 'Here, we always have to play at killing people, at being a gang member or a gangster. It's pretty sad.'

This explains why Tan wants to develop his own projects, in which he can star. Among them is Contract Killer, which he's planning to shoot in London and South Africa, about a hitman with a conscience. 'I play someone who has an experience with God and wants to get out of the business,' he says. 'It's a US$5 million movie. The backers wanted to give me US$10 million, but I said I'd rather do a tight job and do it well.'

Tan hopes that and his other projects will have a happier ending than his last conversation with Peter Sellers. 'He called me up and told me he'd written a screenplay called The Romance of the Pink Panther, and he wanted me to play his servant. He offered me a huge deal, said I'd make more money than I could imagine. Two hours later, he died.'

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