Taz Skylar plays the role of Sanji in the new live-action series adaptation of One Piece. In an interview, he talked about his character and how intensively he prepared for his role.
In an interview with Gamesradar, actor Taz Skylar spoke about the upcoming live-action adaptation of the manga and anime One Piece by Netflix.
He plays Sanji in the remake, the cook of the Straw Hat Pirates, who can also dish out some serious kicks. As the actor had no martial arts experience prior to filming, he prepared for his role with intense training, as he mentioned.
Here you can see a trailer for the live-action adaptation of One Piece:
“I performed every single one of my kicks myself in the series”
The interviewer asked Taz Skylar if he, like his character, was a strong fighter and inquired to what extent CGI and a stunt team were involved in the series to film Sanji’s kicks. He also wanted to know if the actor underwent specific training to play the role.
Taz Skylar responded:
[…] I performed every single one of my kicks myself in the series. There is no CGI on my leg, and my stunt double was my trainer, who cheered me on excitedly from the sidelines. He came with me every step of the way, and I had various other trainers.
Taz Skylar via Gamesradar
He further explained that at the beginning of filming One Piece, he decided that he wanted to do everything himself, including the fight scenes. So he started with a two-hour training session each day when he arrived in South Africa.
In advance, he had already practiced with a friend who holds a black belt in taekwondo. However, it quickly became clear that two hours of daily training was not enough, as the actor had a sporting background but no experience in martial arts.
So the training increased from two to four and then to five hours daily. But there was a problem: there were too few trainers available who could train the actor for such long periods every day. So someone was flown in from London to help:
The stunt trainers, including my double, trained as many hours as they could dedicate to me, and then Donnie, that was my other trainer, trained with me literally until closing time, and that went on every single day.
However, the five hours of training per day were not the maximum he did in martial arts, as Taz Skylar further explained:
And when I look back on this journey and tell people about it, sometimes they think when I talk about eight hours that it’s figurative, or they think I’m exaggerating or – No, when I talk about eight hours, I mean one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. And that every single day.
I really want that to come across because it hurts. (laughs) And it’s not rounding up. Eight hours is, if anything, rounding down because sometimes it’s 10. And that every single day, seven days a week […].
Taz Skylar via Gamesradar
The actor also gave everything while learning the culinary arts, as you can read here with our colleagues from Moviepilot.
However, the hard training paid off in the end, and the actor said, “But I did every single kick, and I’m proud of that.”
Main actor Iñaki Godoy has also given an interview about the live-action adaptation of the manga and shares what he hopes for the Netflix series:
