Bruce Lee 'Lost' Interview

an unedited 25 minute interview with Bruce Lee (1940-1973) on the Pierre Berton Show. Recorded on 9th December 1971 in Hong Kong, Bruce Lee ... all » is seen being himself, speaking candidly and informally about his life, his martial art beliefs and philosophy. Through the programme Bruce's supreme confidence, charisma and focus provide a tremendous insight into the young Bruce Lee - the man behind the legend.

Well, I mean, definitely, in the beginning, I had no intention or whatsoever, that what I was practising and what I’m still practising now would lead to this, [Yeah, I know] to begin with. But martial art has a very, very deep meaning as far as my life is concerned because as an actor, as a martial artist, as a human being, all these I have learned from martial art.

Maybe for our audience who doesn’t know what it means, you might explain exactly (All right) what you mean by martial art.

Right. Martial art include all the combative arts like karate, judo, Chinese kung fu, or Chinese boxing whatever you call it , all those, you see like aikido. I can go on and on and on. But it’s a combative form of fighting, I mean it’s not, some of them became sport but some of them are still not, I mean, they are used, for instance, kicking to the groin, jabbing fingers in the eyes and things like that.

No wonder you are successful in it. Chinese movies are full of this kind of action anyway. They needed a guy like you could....
[Violence man]
So you didn’t have to use a double when you moved in the motion picture role here, you did it all yourself? Can you break five or six pieces of wood with your hand or your foot?

I’ll probably break my hand and foot.

But tell me a little bit, you set up a school in Hollywood, didn’t you? For people like James Gardner, Steve McQueen and the others.[Yes.] Why would they want to learn Chinese martial art, because of a movie role?

Not really, most of them, you see, to me, at least the way that when, I mean, when I teach it, all type of knowledge ultimately means self knowledge. So therefore they’re coming in to, I mean, for, and ask me to teach them not so much of how to defend themselves or how to do somebody in. Rather, they want to learn to express themselves through some movement, be it anger, be it determination or whatsoever. So in other words, what I'm saying therefore is that he’s paying me to show him in combative form the art of expressing the human body.

Which is acting in a sense,[Well..] or it would be a useful tool for an actor to have?

It’s, I mean, I might, it might sound too philosophical, but it’s unacting acting or acting unacting, if you...

You’ve lost me.

I have, so what I’m saying, actually you see, I mean, is a combination of both, I mean here is the natural instinct, and here is control. You are to combine the two in harmony, not, if you have one to the extreme, you’ll be very unscientific.