Kellan Lutz talks fighting Mickey Rourke in Java Heat, the plot of Hercules 3D and walking around in a loincloth.
Kellan Lutz is a busy man racing to get his Hercules 3D filmed before The Rock’s Hercules: The Thracian Wars. He’s also got two movies opening in theaters and VOD. We put in interview requests for both Java Heat and Syrup and Java Heat happened to come through first, but we asked Lutz about both. Java Heat is an action movie where Lutz plays an American teaming up with an Indonesian detective (Ario Bayu) to find the perpetrator of an terrorist attack. It opens New York May 10, LA May 17 and VOD May 13. Syrup is now on VOD and opens theatrically June 7.
CraveOnline: You’ve gotten to do a few action hero roles. Was this a tough sell on producers or directors at first, and has it gotten easier since you did Arena and Immortals?
Kellan Lutz: Yes and no. Doing independent movies, they have the freedom and we had the freedom and some people aren’t available, some people really just think you’re the guy. When you meet on them, I know for Arena my management company was producing that one as well, so it was kind of easy to be like, “Hey, I want to do this one.” And they’re like, “Oh yeah, okay. Let’s see what your take on it is and let’s see if we can do it.” By no means did they feed it to me, but I was like, “I really like this.” It’s just all about selling yourself.
With Java Heat, it’s all about passion I guess. I want to do all the stunts but I just loved the character of Jake and what he represented and what his journey was. The whole throwback to the buddy cop movies of the ‘80s that I love, having that passion and having the directors and producers see that you have that passion. They want to work with someone, like you said there’s a whole list of actors that can probably do it, the physique and acting chops that go with it, but I would want to work with someone who’s very passionate about it, who wants to travel, who doesn’t mind leaving their home for two months to live in Asia. So there are a lot of factors that go into it but I think passion really played a big part in it.

