DVD Features

M&C Interview: A Quickie with Highlander: The Source’s Adrian Paul

By April MacIntyre Mar 3, 2008, 14:16 GMT

Adrian Paul - © Scott Alan / Photorazzi

Handsome actor Adrian Paul has revisited his immortal Highlander character Duncan McLeod after an eight years span between "Highlander: Endgame" in 2000, with the new DVD release "Highlander: The Source."

The multi-lingual actor has numerous skill sets and talents that enabled him to provide expert stunt work and sword technique on camera.

His various expertise in the Martial Arts and rigorous physical training in dance has served him well in the action packed role of Duncan, who is on a grail-like quest with his immortal peers to save the world. 

Monsters and Critics had a quickie chat with Adrian calling in from Budapest, where he is working on the new film, "Nine Miles Down."

M&C: What is it about the character Duncan McLeod and the Highlander franchise that you related to, and love?

Adrian Paul: His character is complex, and over time he has become a lot darker. McLeod just organically became part of me, and the actors that I worked with on this film, "Highlander: The Source" all turned in great performances.  

That was a great experience for me - to be working with a group of actors whose work was honest.  And really - that is all you want as an actor, to work with people who give the roles and the project their all.

And also, it's the stuff I get to do. I love to do my own stunts and I really did that sword work, the visual FX supervisor sped up the film so it looks like I may have not done it on my own, but I did!  It was frustrating to not have a visual FX person on set telling us what they intended to do in each scene, yeah, so post didn't do us actors any great favors with that,  but trust me that was all me with twirling the swords, And Highland's McLeod is a fun role to play. I'm very lucky.

M&C: The cast of this film looked very cold throughout the entire movie, was it freezing? Where were you - and was it primarily night shoots?

Adrian Paul: Yeah it was cold, freezing actually.  We did a lot of night shooting, this was a tough shoot.  We worked with a crew that wasn't as experienced as a western crew yet they were very willing to put up with the elements. 

We shot in Lithuania, and because of the night shooting we all had this vampire existence, this schedule of awakening at 5 in the afternoon, and wrapping and falling to be around 6 or 7 in the morning. 

M&C: Your cast that worked with you did an excellent job in their roles, did you enjoy re-teaming with Peter Wingfield and some others?

Adrian Paul: The cast was really superb, and I enjoyed working again with Peter (Wingfield) and Thekla (Reuten) did a really good turn too, she turned it on and was terrific to work with.   I always liked working with those guys. Te performance that really was outstanding to me was Steven Wight (Reggie) and The Guardian was also well done by Cristian Solimeno, he was a bit creepy wasn't he?  

Adrian Paul: Well there was a lot of brutal sword work and choreographed fights, but yeah, I always get injured on my movies!  My hand got whacked badly a couple of times, and one scene where the camera was in a metal grid – the guy on the dolly was holding it above me in a scene and I whacked my hand hard on that grid. On physical films usually something gets injured.

M&C: What are you up to know?

Adrian Paul: I'm in Hungary right now on "Nine Miles Down" it's a psychological thriller. And the script is tight, and there are interesting twists in it.  

But I am also enjoying producing, and I am looking for some good scripts, interesting projects to put together really talented people. I've done a lot of different things in my career, but producing, versus acting affords me a lot more control. 

Highlander: The Source is now available at Amazon and AmazonUK. Visit the DVD database for more information.