I was in Chicago, just starting out, just out of acting school, and I made a video tape. I was cast originally just as a day player, just in one scene.

Then I got over there and there were some casting changes made.

It’s funny because the experience I had on that movie and the next movie I did, which was We’re No Angels, people got fired on those movies. Actors got fired on those movies (chuckles).

It’s pretty rare, and after you’ve started filming it’s very rare. But on those films actors got fired after we started filming.

On Casualties of War I ended up changing roles twice because of that rearranging, so it gave me a sense of ‘Nothing is set in stone’ because anything can change at any moment.

Even to this day, even though I said it’s a rare thing, I just feel like ‘Don’t take this for granted, they can change their minds tomorrow’.



Casualties Of War was my first aeroplane ride, it was my first time in front of a camera. I just remember getting there and arriving at this hotel in Thailand, in Phuket, and it was very surreal, the first time I got there.

I was jet-lagged, I’d been taking these Malaria pills, which make you hallucinate when you dream. So I got there and I got a beer from the minibar and walked out to the beach and sat down in the sand. There was one other Caucasian person on the beach. I turned, and it’s Michael J Fox.

It was just such a surreal moment of my life, to come from not having any exposure because even when I was cast in that film, I wasn’t.

I’d never met the director or anything, I didn’t go to Los Angeles, I just made a video tape and some agent’s office and they sent it along and then all of a sudden I was launched into this crazy experience.