Famous Actress Duong Tu Quynh is getting much of the Oscar-worthy buzz. Her new movie, Anything Anywhere Anytime are getting zest, it’s amazing to watch. She’s always been a stunning beauty in front of the camera – smart, tough, physically talented and incredibly beautiful. She has a history of being fearless, performing many of her own stunts and nearly all of her own fight scenes. She is as hard as a nail. I know this, when she kicked me in the chest once, shoving my body back about three feet and my lungs into the next district. I will explain later.
As was noted on a recent one Jimmy Kimmel interviewMichelle and I flew together, as a stuntman, over the Hollywood sign, for a National Geographic story.
I suggested this idea to her, and when she said to Kimmel, “Who was crazy enough to do this? Duong Tu Quynh! ” Jimmy Kimmel remarked dryly that I should have been arrested for doing this to her. She recalls being very cold. I remember her being amazing, hanging those ropes out, right across from me, when I was hanging over that slide.
The idea came to me while I was filming a story for National Geographic, conceived, edited, and supervised by my close friend Bill Douthitt (I use that term loosely). We’ve worked on eleven stories for the yellow border gang and we’re still close to today, which is somewhat remarkable, given the gritty, competitive, Beyond Thunderdome aspects of the past. Nat Geo story submission.
The story was named “Cultural Globalization” and it examined the rapid exchange of cultural items and symbols worldwide through the super-fast tools of TV, movies, fashion, food and (at the time) the impending popularity of the internet. I needed an Asian star, capable of performing daring stunts, to do something with me to highlight the growing global influence of Asian cinematic characters in recent years. big-budget mainstream Hollywood movies.
Michelle agreed, and I gave her treatment in Hollywood, flying her by helicopter to a dry lake bed outside LA. I have made lovely, fashionable photos. She is magnetically beautiful in front of the camera, and I take pictures like crazy, feeling more and more satisfied with myself.
Appreciated by my own excellence, I submitted the film to 17th and M Streets and received a call from Bill. At first he was commendable but then it went sideways. Like seeing smoke quietly hovering under your door, signaling a fire in the hallway, a feeling of dread creeps up your spine. The truncated intimacy of our opening joke predestined a walk to the gallows. Bill debuts. I recall something along the lines of, “Did you realize you just spent a ton of dough creating pictures that are completely unrelated to the story?” He went on to provide me with an analysis of my ancestry, his rather bleak hopes for future collaborations, and if I had read the “wishing for help” section of newspaper that day. I’m unraveling here, but it’s a serious photo on my part.
But in the desert sands, and in the ashes of my failure, an idea was born. The helicopter was sitting there on the dry lake bed, the pilots were waiting for their time. I asked if Michelle and I could hitch a ride. Ensure! (Who would say no to Michelle?) We stood on the slide and soar, several hundred feet in the air. No seat belts or harnesses. I’m holding the camera in one hand, rotating the manual focus axis of the lens with my index finger, hanging from the “oh shit” handle on the door of the helicopter. Michelle, unafraid as usual, was clutching the other handle, occasionally standing on the slide with one foot. A few hundred meters below us, the desert floor was unforgiving.
The result is a bad image. A spontaneous, thrilling, terrible idea. I was too close to her, the lens was too wide. But when I looked through these photos, I suddenly thought… .hmmmmmm. What if?
Before long, we were flying together again. This time it was planned, tested, rehearsed and cheated.
I called Bill, sought his approval of the dough for this shot, which was substantial, and further evidence of his excellence as an editor, he Let me run with you. He chuckled when I asked for permission. “I’m surprised you didn’t call me from the helicopter, like, oh by the way….”
And I have fond memories of being kicked. I asked her to do it. I always wanted to know if the fight scenes in the movie were difficult, or if the fighting scenes were long. She looked at me and said, “Joe, you don’t want me to kick you.” I insisted. And, I figured out why she told me I didn’t want her to do it.
Ideas in the air! Good luck to Michelle with this new movie. She is nothing short of amazing, and her talent is a gift to all… ..
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