 HKCinemagic: You’re the only Westerner in contract with TVB. Can you tell us what a typical day of work is while you are shooting TV series for the studio? |
| Gregory Rivers: If my role spends most of his time in an office, we will normally film most of my scenes in one or two nights, trying to film as much of the office as quickly as possible. In such a case, I might arrive at TVB at around 4pm, change into my costume, get my hair done and my makeup on and enter the studio at around 5pm. I rarely have parts in every scene of the night, so I would normally film one scene, take a break for one or two scenes, film another scene and continue in this way until the studio finishes for the night at around 3 or 4am. The average scene takes approximately 45 minutes to film.
Location filming takes much longer than studio filming. On location, we have just one camera while in studio, we have three and sometime four cameras. Last month, we filmed a grave scene for a series I just finished. We left TVB at around 11am and arrived at a restaurant near the location at around 12.30pm. After lunch, we drove to the location set in the hills of the New Territories and filmed for the next five hours under a very hot 35 °C sun with very little shade. We finally arrived back at the TVB studios at around 8pm. In this case, it took more than 9 hours of travel and filming time to film just one scene. This was not the usual day. Most scenes filmed on location take around 1 hour to film, and between 6 and 10 scenes can normally get filmed in one day of location shooting. Needless to say, most of us prefer to film in the air conditioned studios with coffee and food close by in the company’s cafeterias. |
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| HKCinemagic: Have you changed a bit the image of Westerners for the HK audience with your large amount of work for the channel and by giving a more realistic feel of Western people? |
| Gregory Rivers: Yes, I do, just as Kiu Po Po has changed the way Hong Kong thinks of Indian and Pakistani people living here. It’s one of the things I remind myself of when I’m having a bad day. |
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| HKCinemagic: Which parts are you the most proud of? |
| Gregory Rivers: I’m proud of several roles that I’ve filmed since studying in Los Angeles in 2003, roles that include the chef in The Gateau Affairs, the police officer in CIB and the pilot in Always Ready. I’ve also just finished filming a new series and enjoyed that role too. It was quite a challenge to portray it well without the typical stereotypes that people normally apply to that type of role but I think I handled it very well. |
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| HKCinemagic: You had small parts in a couple of films, from the gun dealer in A Punch to Revenge to a participation in Black Cat. What memories do you keep of those works? |
| Gregory Rivers: Actually, I don’t remember anything from those films! It was usually very short roles, less than one day of work. |
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| HKCinemagic: Forced Nightmare is a classical ghost comedy starring the specialist Lam Ching Ying. Rumours say that he didn’t like Westerners very much… Did you feel this whil working with him? |
| Gregory Rivers: I only filmed one night for this movie, and the filming went well. I didn’t get any vibes that the actors didn’t like me, none at all. |
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| HKCinemagic: Legendary Couple is one of your biggest parts as a ruthless police officer trying to catch Simon Yam’s character. Did you have good relations with Vincent Wan (your main co-star), Simon Yam and Chingmy Yau during the shooting? |
| Gregory Rivers: We worked well together. Simon is especially good to work with. I was fortunate to see him again just a few months ago when I filmed one day for a new movie [Ed.: Exodus] |
Exodus |
| HKCinemagic: Did you have any freedom in creating your character or were you clearly instructed by the director how to act, to fit the clichéd “Western bad guy” image? |
| Gregory Rivers: I pretty much had complete freedom although I can’t remember a lot of what happened when we filmed this movie. I do remember hiding behind the police car when Simon threw the apple at me but I don’t remember much of anything else. |
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| HKCinemagic: : What about the chase scene in Central? |
| Gregory Rivers: It was OK; we filmed it on Sunday, that’s why all the Filipinos were there. The only hard thing was the stairs, because you have to run fast without tripping over. |
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| HKCinemagic: Funny Business was an occasion for you to work with legendary comic genius Michael Hui. Did you enjoy this opportunity? |
| Gregory Rivers: Now this is one movie I remember well. It was one of the best movie experiences I’ve had. Michael was great. The role was fairly extensive rather than just one or two scenes, and the script was fun to do. On top of that, we filmed on location in China and I’ve rarely filmed anything in China, so I really enjoyed working on this movie. And the movie itself is quite good. It took them a long time to release it because the Chinese didn’t like it because of the village chief looking like an idiot. It’s not acceptable in China. They cut a lot before showing it. And at the time, when you did a movie in China you had to get their approval to get it out of China! |
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| HKCinemagic:
You had a small part in Banana Club shot in 96. Did you know about the cult radio program which inspired the movie? |
| Gregory Rivers: I didn’t know about the cult radio program. You obviously know much more about the movies than I do. People were very relaxed and friendly on the set. We filmed the club scene in a bomb shelter in China. It wasn’t a complicated script. |
Banana Club |
| HKCinemagic: Those Were the Days and Her Fatal Ways 4 gave you very realistic parts: A local Western man, living in HK, and engaged in romance with HK girls, based on real feelings. This is a reality rarely shown in HK movies as well as TV series. In your opinion, why this fact is rarely shown? Do you use your own personal life when acting this kind of situation/characters? |
| Gregory Rivers:
The basic problem is that most Caucasian roles are not everyday people roles. They’re never the guy next door and so situations where they fall in love or have a girlfriend almost never occur in Hong Kong TV and movies. Caucasians are normally only cast into a script because the role require that a Caucasian perform that role. Caucasians are almost never cast into a role which can be performed equally well by a Chinese actor.
I think the situation is changing though. Kiu Po Po and Bo Wai Kit (aka Brian Burrel) both had guy next door parts in their TVB series and people in Hong Kong are more and more willing to accept that Caucasians are ordinary people too. Of course, this wasn’t true 20 years ago when most of the Caucasians living here were high paid expats but times have changed and so have the views of Hong Kong people. Hopefully, we’ll see more Caucasian guy next door roles in the near future. |
Those Were the Days |
| HKCinemagic: Did you enjoy acting with popular actress Do Do Cheng? Did you have any input in the creative process of Her Fatal Ways 4 and in the making of your character? |
| Gregory Rivers: Do Do Cheng was very professional. It was her fourth Fatal Way movie and she knew exactly what she wanted to do. I was nervous; it was my first major part. Fortunately, Alfred Cheung, the director, was fantastic. He supported and encouraged me the entire time and I did have a good time making this movie. I don’t remember doing too much to develop the character. I just performed it the way I felt best at the time.
Thinking about the movies and TV series that I’ve filmed over the years, one thing has become very apparent to me. In the early years, I performed the roles very directly without too much thought for possible alternative personalities, actions and scenarios. I approach my roles very differently now, and spend a lot more time trying to make them more interesting and more human. I think the results speak for themselves. That said, there is still a lot to learn and hopefully, I’ll have many more opportunities with which to use what I learn. |
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