“French and Sue were both riddled with bullets the last time we saw them. So how can there be a sequel to “The Debt Collector”? That’s what most viewer’s inner monologues will probably tell them upon seeing the trailer for “Debt Collectors”, and the long and the short of it is that the buddy-movie chemistry of our two aforementioned anti-heroes is far too strong to keep them down. Scott Adkins, Louis Mandylor, and Jesse Johnson all bring the Midas Touch to the duo’s darkly comedic adventures on the daily grind.
Of course, KFK readers have seen Jesse and Scott here at regular intervals. Jesse’s part of a growing trend of professional stunt performers that’s made the exciting leap to directing action movies, while Scott simply doesn’t know how to not leave viewers’ jaws on the floor as one of the most impressively talented martial artists working in movies today.
Together, they’ve been behind some of the most out-and-out incredible action movies of the past few years, including “Accident Man”, “Triple Threat”, and “Avengement”. All of that, in a nutshell, explains French and Sue’s return from death’s door in “Debt Collectors”, and if there’s an E.R. surgeon who can make a convincing argument against that line of reasoning, we would certainly like to hear it!
Today, Scott and Jesse sit down with KFK for a look behind-the-scenes at the making of “Debt Collectors”; how the movie came out of the ending of its predecessor, along with hearing about what Scott and Jesse have been up to during the current COVID-19 pandemic leaving much of daily life around the world on pause…
Hi Scott and Jesse, good to speak to you guys again! Hope you’re both doing well?
Scott
Hi Brad, I’m doing great, thanks. Great to be speaking with Kung Fu Kingdom today!
Jesse
Hi, Brad, doing great, glad to be back!
Fantastic. Well, why don’t we start off with a quick rundown of how things have been for you both during the lockdowns the world is currently going through? Scott, you were actually working on a movie with Dolph Lundgren called “Castle Falls” right when it all started, weren’t you?
Scott Adkins: Working on “Castle Falls” with Dolph Lundgren
Scott
Yes, unfortunately we only made it half a day before the lockdown, so that’ll be the first thing for me once things open back up. Dolph’s in the movie; he’s directing and it’s a great script. We had a week of prep, but we only got halfway into the first day before the Alabama government shut it down. I don’t blame them, but we were just hoping to get as much done as possible. The big question is when America will open up to foreigners though…
Jesse
I was in active pre-production on some things, and the pictures were very, very big, so it sucks and it couldn’t have come at a worse time as far as that goes, but it’s given us some time to works on our scripts and polish them, and we’ll come back with a vengeance.
Scott
Well, I wish I could be that proactive on lockdown with writing scripts, but with two young kids, that’s not happening at all. (All laugh)
Scott’s Martial Arts YouTube Tutorials
Well, you’ve also recently been doing a lot of tutorials on YouTube, Scott. Was that something you had in the works for a while?
Scott
Well, people have been asking me about doing videos like that for ages, and so with the lockdown, I knew I had no excuse now. It’s been fun doing those in the garage and the response has been really good.
It’s been quite rewarding just to share some knowledge about martial arts with the general public and I’ve really enjoyed it.
Scott Adkins: A Man of Dedication & Discipline
Jesse
I think I should also chime in and say that Scott is a filmmaker, through and through. He’s a writer, he develops scripts, he produces, he shoots, he edits, and he has a hand in sound effects and music and everything. He plays that side of himself down, but maybe when he has his version of “Dances with Wolves” is when he’s going to unleash it on everybody. He’s had a huge hand in everything we’ve done together and I owe him a huge debt of gratitude.
He has a sense of dedication and discipline that I didn’t have before and I learned it from him. For movies we’ve done like “Accident Man, “The Debt Collector”, and even “Triple Threat”, he’s had a huge hand in the sound effects and the choreography. And my editor Matt sends the fights to Scott and he will re-cut them and it’s out of his creative drive that they’re as good as they are.
Scott
Thanks for saying that Jesse, I appreciate it. At the end of the day, the film’s that we’ve made have been really collaborative, and I think that’s why some of our best films are the ones that we’ve done together.
Jesse
We both come from stunts, so the greater part of our initial careers was spent on a set where someone else’s ego was driving the train. So Scott was getting beaten up by people who didn’t have his experience in martial arts but he laughed about it. So we brought that kind of experience when we started collaborating and I think the films we’ve done have benefited immensely from that.
The Origin of “Debt Collectors”
No doubt about it! Well, let’s get into “Debt Collectors”. What can you share about how the movie came about, especially with “The Debt Collector” making it look like French and Sue both died at the end?
Jesse
We fell in love with the characters. I was forgetting to yell cut at times because I was watching these characters that I had no idea had this kind of chemistry. You get that once in a while with material that’s been through other hands, so it was a real adventure make “The Debt Collector”.
Scott
I believe that if we had a load of money, we would’ve looked at the first edit, and said “You know what? I think we need to go back and re-shoot the ending, because there’s life in these characters.”
Jesse
And these pictures are made in less than the ideal amount of time, and you’re out there running and gunning. Scott and I are given an immense amount of artistic freedom, but you do have to color within the lines. The initial ending was part of a script that was very artsy and esoteric and a product of its time in the 90’s, and we made it today. A part of me wishes we killed them again in the second one and then we do it again the third one like a lot of the old Sergio Leone pictures where the bad guys kept dying and coming back. (All laugh)
Comparing both Movies
Well, going off of that, how did making the sequel compare to making the original?
Scott
Well, I’ve done a few sequels, and as an example on “Boyka: Undisputed IV”, I found it a little hard to find Boyka again, because you’re starting from him being in some new situations and a lighter side of him. With “Debt Collectors”, it was more about Louis and I finding our groove in terms of that organic, easy chemistry we had in the first one.
Jesse
On our first day, we did the scene in the café which was the first scene in the movie where they really spoke to each other. And it feels really organic because Scott and Louis were having to find where their characters were at this point since the last movie.
Highlights of Making “Debt Collectors”
So what would you say were some of the highlight moments of making “Debt Collectors”?
Jesse
When the guys are together, it’s just wonderful, it’s brilliant. So you really just want to give them an environment where their characters can exist and you don’t want to get in their way.
Scott
Jesse also knows my strengths and weaknesses – he knows my pitfalls to look out for and when to kind of pull it back.
Jesse
The action is also pretty hair-raising when you do these films. When we shot the alley fight, it was about 108 degrees. I was sitting in the shade drinking iced coffee and I felt fazed while these poor lads where fighting from 8 in the morning to 6 at night. And it was absolutely brutal.
Scott
It was a tough one, the whole film was tough. There were problems behind the scenes that weren’t anyone’s fault, but we just had a little bad luck in places. And that fight was two days in the baking hot sun, and I had a leather jacket on and a torn hamstring as well.
Jesse
The thing about it also is that it’s not stuntmen handling that fight. There’s acting going on, there’s a lot of dialogue, a lot of emotional content. And you’re focusing on the choreography, but you’re also focusing on where your head is supposed to be, because if your head isn’t in the right position as an actor, that’s something that’s going to be seen. So it’s an enormous investment.
Scott
Right before that fight, there’s this big dramatic scene which I really want to do my best job with. And you end up concentrating so hard to do your best job as an actor, then you have lunch and you go straight into the fight. So you’re already tired, and then you’ve got to physically drain yourself for the next day and half, so it’s not just the performance side of it, and it takes its toll.
Boxing Clever…
That really comes across in that scene. Looking at another main action scene in the film, what can you share about creating the fight in the boxing gym?
Scott
That was more of a fun fight scene. All of the fights are a little light-hearted, but that fight was easier because you’ve got your gloves on, you can get a bit closer, and if you hit each other it’s not a big deal because you’re gloved up.
Jesse
And the stunt guy Scott was fighting was really good. Scott also doesn’t like to repeat himself in fight scenes and we realized we hadn’t done a fight in a boxing ring in one of these pictures. And that fight is primarily boxing, although French is a bit naughty and does cheat a little bit. So that was a great new environment for us to do a fight scene in, and the same with the alley fight. The worst thing that can happen in these kinds of movies, especially martial-arts heavy ones, is when the story ends the moment a fight scene starts and the fight just sort of operates in its own world. You don’t want that happen, you want each of these fight scenes to be organic, but feel fresh as well.
Scott
Yeah, that was Aaron Toney I was in the ring with, and having him help us out with the boxing fight was a godsend. When you have someone with his skill level, it just makes the whole thing a lot easier.
Jesse
Also, Luke LaFontaine did an amazing job with the choreography too. I was standing by the ring watching, and I hadn’t even seen a pre-viz of this particular fight, but he described it to me as best as possible, and either with reference to an actual boxing match or a movie, and it was really brilliant.
Scott
Yeah, he’d shout out different parts of the choreography, there was one we called the Mayweather and another we called the Roy Jones, and things like that.
Jesse
Yeah, it was like watching an actual fight with a coach shouting techniques to a fighter, except in this case it was both fighters. It was very cool to be sort of a fly on the wall for that.
We also got lucky with the supporting cast on “Debt Collectors”. It was nice to work with Vernon Wells of “The Road Warrior” and “Commando” again, and Marina Sirtis from “Star Trek”. Ski Carr is also a huge talent, and Vladimir Kulich stepped up to the plate again.
In the Heat of the Fight…
Totally. On that note, were there any injuries or mishaps in making “Debt Collectors” aside from your hamstring injury, Scott?
Scott
The toughest really was just the fight in the alleyway in the heat. I got very dehydrated, and that jacket just made it even hotter.
Jesse
And when everyone else was getting water in-between takes, you’re in there talking about choreography. And after about four hours, everyone else is replenished, but you took yourself to the very, very edge.
Scott
Yeah, I’ve been in some very hot situations in my time. When I made “Wolf Warrior”, I was in the hottest part of China in the hottest month with full Army gear on. That’s the only other time I can remember being that dehydrated.
Jesse
It was pretty crazy in Thailand on “Triple Threat” with the heat there, as well.
Scott
Well, that was nothing compared to “Wolf Warrior” (laughs) And “Debt Collectors”, I just don’t know how it got so hot for that scene.
Jesse
California can creep up on you, it can be 108 or 110 degrees before you realize it. When we did the first one, it was 108 for some of the car stuff. And I had to make a hospital visit myself during the shoot-out in this one for dehydration, it was crazy.
The thing I should also mention about “Debt Collectors” is that I didn’t originally want to make a sequel, but Scott pitched me on it, and before he’d finished, I realized that it was a fantastic concept, and at that point, it was all systems go. We came up with the script based upon Scott’s original synopsis. So it’s been an interesting ride, hasn’t it Scott?
Next Movie Projects…
Scott
Yes, and I’d love to do a third actually. I love working with Jesse and Louis.
The chemistry’s definitely there for French and Sue to go off on another adventure! Well, as we prepare to sign off, what other projects do you guys have in the works once the current lockdowns are lifted?
Jesse
Well, I’m very, very superstitious about talking about pictures before you start shooting. It frustrates the hell out of everyone, but I just don’t do it. But I will say that we have a phenomenal script for something based in England, and it’s the same sort of character that Scott played in “Avengement”. And we both really have a lot of luck when we shoot in the UK, and this will be our third go around after “Accident Man” and “Avengement”
Scott
Yeah, there’s loads in the works, but we just don’t know when we’ll be able to get started. We’re just waiting for the smoke to clear. There’s no social distancing on a martial arts or action movie, is there?
Well, we definitely look forward to seeing all of them. Scott, Jesse, thank you both so much for the pleasure of speaking again today. We wish you all the best with “Debt Collectors” and can’t wait to see your upcoming actioners once everything is underway again!
Scott
Fantastic to speak again today Brad, take care!
Jesse
Yes, always great to speak to Kung Fu Kingdom, Brad!
Debt Collectors – poster
“Debt Collectors” is now available to stream via Video on Demand platforms. Note: in the UK, the film is released under the title,“Payback” from Dazzler Films and is available on iTunes (DVD available on 6th July), and in the USA, you can WATCH IT NOW ON AMAZON!
Watch “Debt Collectors” now!
