I put so much pressure on myself to raise the bar with each and every project. I treat it like every film is my last, and I make sure I pour everything I have into every film I make because if I'm not trying to improve, someone else will.

When I was ten years old, my dad and brother did JUDO so I went along because I felt like I was missing out. They eventually gave up and I continued, then moved into Tae Kwon Do, kickboxing and various other martial arts. I did lots of different things, but mostly things like Wushu, Jeet Kune Do, Krav Maga and stuff like that.

Im always trying to improve my skills as an actor. I think it shows in El Gringo; it shows in the new Universal Soldier. You cant rest on your laurels; youve got to keep improving.

Best fight ever in a movie: 'They Live.' I want to do a martial arts version of that, where you think it's ended, and it just keeps on going. I love that fight. It was funny as well. Unexpected.

I've been typecast. People don't want to take a risk or a chance. Quite a few times they've come up to me and say "We want you to do that Russian accent." And I'll be like, "How about if I do an Irish accent or a South African accent," and they don't trust that you can properly pull them off.

They don't mind getting punched in the face and, more importantly, they don't mind punching other people in the face. I'm just about the movies; I enjoy the dexterity of actors in action movies and the choreography side of things. You've just got to be a different person to be a professional fighter. I train with professional fighters so I know what it takes. It's a very difficult profession, probably harder then the acting profession.

It was weird working with all of them - Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Chuck Norris. There's a sequence in the movie where myself and Jean-Claude Van Damme are running through this airport and there's this silhouette behind this big screen - it smashes, and there you see Schwarzenegger, Stallone, and Bruce Willis all firing their weapons at me and Jean-Claude. It's kind of surreal when you think about it, the three '80s icons of action movies, unloading as many bullets as they could at us. It's pretty crazy.