Q: Does Tokyo have any fashion brands that you would recommend?
In case you haven’t heard of it, the number one reason that you should come to Tokyo
(aside from the wide variety of flavored kit-kats), is the sneaker culture. The sheer
variety and breadth of sneaker culture here is staggering. So much in fact that a lot
of American hip-hop artists and rappers fly out here to get the most cutting edge
stuff. As aforementioned, I also love the look of Nike Air Force Ones, and selection of
stuff like that, high end Pumas, and Adidias Originals stuff is just incredible. The only
downside is that as most people here are a bit smaller than westerners, in general,
they just have the same size variety, and it is harder to find all those awesome shoes
in sizes larger than American 11s. (I myself am a 12 or 12.5).
Unfortunately same goes for a lot of clothing. A lot of things are made for narrowshouldered ectomorphs, and I am a broad-shouldered, taller-and-thicker-than-average mesomorph. Aside from having issues with the shoulders, I also usually have
issues with sleeves or pants length begin too short for my limbs. As such, usually I
shop during return trips to the states more than anything else.
If you can find it in your size however, one Japanese brand that is particularly cool is
BAPE (Bathing Ape). Lil Wayne loves it, and in addition to the Tokyo sneakers, he rocks
that brand a lot from what I have seen.
Q: What are your future career plans?
At present, I work as an actor, action actor and stuntman mainly here in Japan, and fly
back to the states a few times a year to work and teach stunt work and fight choreography. This winter I will also be headed out to Thailand to work out there for a little
while. After Japanese, Korean is my 2nd strongest foreign language however, and I am
also working on Mandarin Chinese. As such, in the next year, I hope to start working in
China and in Korea as well.
Basically, what I am setting out to do is become Asia (and not just Japan’s) premiere
foreign action actor. Additionally, I have also been executive producer on a few film
projects, (the first of which is called Eastbound Traffic, and was a collaborative effort
between the Japanese and Dutch film communities), and I work as a line producer as
well. In short, while the focus is still on honing my skills in front of the camera, eventually I would like to work behind the camera too.
Q: If someone was to buy you an item of clothing and a present, what would you like
it to be?
If it could be anything, I would love to get a really nice high-end watch. At present,
because I train so much, I would constantly be taking it off, putting it back on, and taking it off again, so I have never committed myself to owning one. Always just sports
watches. At the same time though, at least here in Tokyo, one of the biggest male status symbols has always been high-end watches, and it’s common to see men wearing