INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL NORRIS TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES MOVIE - FOOTSOLDIER


July 21, 2011


RUTGER
Hello TMNT fans, today I’m here with Michael Norris. He was one of the leading Foot soldiers and thugs on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles I and II. So nice to have you Michael.

MICHAEL NORRIS
Thanks, it’s great to see that TMNT is still alive and that I was a part of it.

RUTGER
I can imagine. So do you still have your outfit or any props from the movie?

MICHAEL NORRIS
I still have the mask and arm guards; I should upload some pictures soon!

RUTGER
You’ve been on TMNT and in the Mortal Kombat games. Are you still doing any acting or stunt work nowadays?

MICHAEL NORRIS
I did a lot of Dawson's Creek extra work and a lot extra work in movies, but nothing like TMNT yet.

RUTGER
That’s nice and you were in both Turtles I and II right?

MICHAEL NORRIS
Yes! We foot soldiers finally got in the credits on the 2nd movie. Nice to see you name roll after the movie!

RUTGER
You still have good contact with the other "Foot soldiers"?

MICHAEL NORRIS
Some of the local guys I see sometimes, I worked with a lot of talented guys.

RUTGER
And all of you were already trained in martial art right?

MCHAEL NORRIS
We were like 20 main action foot soldiers that were paid for martial arts talent and there were some foot soldiers that were just extras. Pat Johnson always called us his veterans.

RUTGER
That is really cool, so what was it like working with Pat Johnson?

MICHAEL NORRIS
He used to tell us stories about hanging out with Chuck Norris, Bruce Lee and Steve McQueen… crazy times. He also made us work out on the Grabar (his invention) every morning. It was a construction for doing push ups, pull ups etc. He even had them for sale!

RUTGER
I was wondering, how did you came to be on the TMNT movies, how did it all started?

MICHAEL NORRIS
Some casting people came by our DOJO asking people to audition. We thought they were crazy talking about a teenage mutant ninja turtle! We had never even heard of Ninja Turtles!

RUTGER
But you thought, I'll give it a shot?

MICHAEL NORRIS
No. I actually took my son down to audition and they said he was too young, but they said I should. So I had to do a kata in front of Pat Johnson and do some blocks and kicks. I got picked out of like 300 people, pretty cool.

RUTGER
Ah, to bad for your son, but how great that you got to do it. He must be proud of you.

MICHAEL NORRIS
Yeah, he was always on the set with me, when we got to see Daily's, Pat Johnson would always get my son in as well.

RUTGER
You remember any specific scenes you were in?

MICHAEL NORRIS
Wow I was in so many scenes! I know I was hit with the yo-yo in Turtles 2 and had a big tennis scene with Raphael that got cut. And I was on the bottom of the piled up thugs.
Steven Ho Kicks me in the lab and when I get back up he kicks me in the stomach and jumps over me. When Keno was fighting in the gym I was holding the punching bag for the other kids.

RUTGER
Oh some great scenes!

MICHAEL NORRIS
Yes and I did lot of scenes with the monsters. I did a lot in Turtles 1 as well, I need to watch it again LOL!

RUTGER
It's still a great movie in my opinion. Do you remember any special moments? Like bloopers or any great memory from your time on TMNT?

MICHAEL NORRIS
I remember how we would make Kung Fu Videos while waiting to go to the set and at the end of each day Pat, the director and producer, would come over to watch what we shot. That was so funny. I have to post some of those videos soon.
I remember how Casey (Elias Koteas) and April (Judith Hoag) had to kiss but could not stop laughing, they had to shoot that scene over and over, and the director was not happy, funny stuff!

RUTGER
That’s always cool stuff to hear. Judith is great. So how was it to work with Ernie Reyes Jr., Elias Koteas, James Saito and Toshiro Obata?

MICHAEL NORRIS
Ernie is so talented! In rehearsals he would hardly try and the director would always get on to him, but when we were putting it on film for real, he came to life and was always awesome!
Sensei Obata was the real deal. He is pretty much what you see is what you get. He is supposedly from a family line of samurai. He is awesome too. His son was the same age as my son and they always played on the set together.
I remember in Turtles 1 Elias was telling me how he was in court disputing a speeding ticket and had to try and explain his long hair and ragged look was for a movie called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles… funny stuff.

As far as James Saito, he was a good actor but Billy a stunt guy from China did his action scenes. Billy was amazing. I remember he told me stories of seeing Ghost in China, Crazy. He also talked about how dangerous it was to work with Jackie Chan!
In Turtles 1 the Chinese stunt guys would always play cards, a game they taught us called Jo da dee or something like that. They would also try to sing “Take me home country road” So funny!

RUTGER
Great! Well I have one last question, something I wanted to ask when you told me about the scenes you were in. Can you describe anything from that deleted tennis scene you did with Raphael? I would love to hear about that.

MICHAEL NORRIS
Yeah. I'm a thug in the Mall and I run up to Raphael with a tennis racket, to hit him. So he reaches over and grabs another racket and says "You’re Serve". I try to hit him in the head and he spins out of the way and says "Love 15”. Then I try to hit him again, and again he moves out of the way and he says “Love 30". Then I try to swing the racket at his feet and he does an aerial over the racket and says "Love 40". I then try once more to hit him over the head and he side steps and holds out his hand like to shake hands and says "That's game, but you gave it your best shot".

At this I swing the racket again which he blocks and then breaks his racket over my head and I slowly fall to the floor. We shot all day! I was one of the stars that day! They had two special rackets made to break over my head. Cool stuff!

RUTGER
Wow great indeed, you remember so much of it! Well Michael that was it. Thank you so much for your time. Hope you liked it and 'till next time.

MICHAEL NORRIS
It was great chatting. I’ll talk to you later and take care!