JASON SCOTT LEE - DOING THAT BRUCE THING: HOW A LAID-BACK KID FROM OAHU CAME TO PLAY THE FLINTY BRUCE

by Kent Black

Jason Scott Lee has just flown in from Easter Island, and he's brought a little of Polynesia with him. Barefoot and dressed in a traditional island sarong, the young Chinese-Hawaiian actor demonstrates with a few deft movements of his arms, shoulders and hips variations on the hula that he has learned while filming Kevin Costner's Rapa Nui.

"The Hawaiian movement and beat are slower," he says. "On Easter Island, it's faster, like Tahiti, but more fluid. " And as he dances across the meticulous Nikko hotel suite with a hand-carved idol hanging from his neck, it is not difficult to see him in the role of a Polynesian Prince.

What is difficult is to imagine how this gentle, laid-back kid from Oahu could possibly re-create the greatest legend in martial arts, Bruce Lee, in Dragon! The Bruce Lee Story. According to many martial arts experts, Lee's own brand of kung fu, called Jeet Kune Do, has never been successfully emulated; so how could this hula dancer with so little training hope to portray a man who was himself an actor, a student of philosophy and a filmmaker still revered internationally 20 years after his death.

Sitting back on the couch, he pulls back his long black hair. "This is a difficult situation," he says, deliberately. "Trying to show people who you are, what you can do. The camera crews come in here and they say, 'Hey, man, do that Bruce thing.' "

Suddenly, he does it. It is in a flash of hands, wrists and elbows, a snap of his head. There is something quite remarkable in his eyes. They are the alert, mocking, intelligent and dangerous eyes of Bruce Lee.

Dave Cater, the editor of Inside Kung-Fu magazine, says, "Like many in the martial arts community, I was extremely tentative when I heard Hollywood was making a film based on [Bruce Lee's widow] Linda Emery's biography." After all, since Lee's death, more than 50 Lee film biographies have come out of Hong Kong and Asia - and this doesn't count exploitation films such as The Black Dragon Revenges the Death of Bruce Lee. And Hollywood's last fling with martial arts, Big Trouble in Little China, was roundly dismissed by the martial arts community as "hokey."

"I went down to Loyola Marymount University to interview Jason," recalls Cater. "And after talking to him awhile I just couldn't see it. He's too tall, he doesn't look like Bruce. I just didn't know how they could pull it off. Then they called him to the set for a scene. He went instantly into character. Suddenly there was Bruce Lee's power and charisma. It gave me chills."

Dragon director Rob Cohen remembers also being initially skeptical about the casting director's choice. "But then you see the eyes. You have no idea what's going on back there. You know he's holding back something, waiting for just the moment when it's needed. It's something all great actors possess. I knew within a few minutes of meeting him. We had our Bruce Lee."

Jason Scott Lee grew up in different small towns on the island of Oahu in Hawaii, the third of five children whose parents are a mix of Hawaiian and Chinese. "I suppose my bloodline runs more to Chinese," he says, "but I consider myself culturally Hawaiian." Neither of his working-class parents encouraged him to pursue an artistic career and he, in fact, spent most of his youth finding ways of ditching school whenever the surf was up.

"I never thought about education when I was younger," he says, "but, luckily, I learned from nature. I spent a lot of time watching the waves and the birds and the fish and saw how they interacted with the world. In surfing, your whole objective in catching a wave is to find the pocket, that groove where you encounter the least resistance. This is something I've applied to everything I've ever done, whether it is acting, art or martial arts. When you're in the pocket, everything flows."

Lee realized that he couldn't stay out on the waves forever and decided he would have to look elsewhere for his education. "I started junior college in Hawaii, but I would always let my friends drag me off to go surfing." He visited some family friends in Orange County, Calif., and began attending a local community college. Though the only stage experience he'd had was dancing the hula at a high school talent show, he decided on a whim to check on acting class.

Here he met acting coach Sal Romeo, who introduced Lee to the theories of Strasberg and Stanislavsky. "It is rare to see someone as natural as he is," says Romeo. "Out of two hundred students, you might see one like Jason, who has the vulnerability, the intelligence, the concern, the magnetism and the discipline."

Lee followed Romeo to Los Angeles, where they and other actors built a 45-seat theater called Friends and Artists. While taking class from Romeo and getting occasional bit parts in plays, the 20-year-old Lee took jobs ranging from busboy, house cleaner, gardener, delivery boy, waiter ... "You name it," he laughs. "I was pulling everything out of the hat just to get by while I studied. I wasn't even sure I wanted a career as an actor. I was just so totally enraptured by thinking about the process of acting, capturing moments and connecting the dots."