In Part 3 of my Quake Revisited Interview series, I jump over to id Software’s other classic, the amazing DOOM. Here I give you my 2005 interview with actor Razaaq Adoti. Shortly before the release of Universal Pictures’ movie DOOM, I got to chat with Mr. Adoti.
Despite all of the criticism about the movie, Mr. Adoti felt that the fans would be very happy and “there are defiantly parts that you will get scared during the movie.”
DOOM was Mr. Adoti’s second video game movie (Resident Evil: Apocalypse was his first) and when asked if he might look at the script for Halo or if he would be interested in the Quake movie that was rumored to be in the works, he laughed and said “who knows.” Mr. Adoti also said that even after playing Sgt Payton in Apocalypse, Duke in DOOM and his role of GSgt. Earl “Gunny” Darnell in the movie Second in Command he wasn’t worried about becoming type cast as an action star because he’s “acted in many more dramas than action movies.”
Here’s what else he had to say:
Jay Bishop: Had you played DOOM prior to the movie?
Razaaq Adoti: No, I didn’t, even though I was always kind of into video games, I didn’t actually play DOOM. My brother was a big fan of DOOM and told me how great of a game it was, but I never got around to playing it until I started the movie. One of the other actors in it, Ben Daniels, he actually purchased the game, so just before we started shooting, we had a night, where we were up in his room for about 4 hours or so, playing the game, just getting into groups with it. This is off the back of us doing military training, so it was fun, and I was surprised how scary it really is, like off camera noises and people dying in the background and the screaming and blood of course. A real suspense filled game.
Jay Bishop: Do you play games? Are you a gamer?
Razaaq Adoti: No, I am. I had a Nintendo from back in the day, I had an Atari, I had an Amstrad, which is way back, and I have a PlayStation 2, yeah I’m well into computer games. It’s just getting the time to play them and more so now, you know?
Jay Bishop: When you first got this script and saw that it was based on a video game, what were your first thoughts?
Razaaq Adoti: My thoughts were ‘hmmm, I wonder if they’re going to do it justice?’ Even though I hadn’t played the game DOOM, I knew of it. I mean, if you have anything to do with computers and games, then you know about certain games and I knew that game was legendary. That was defiantly, well I wouldn’t say concerns, I just needed to read it and see where they went with it. I was so glad they kept it real, especially toward the end of the movie where they go into the whole first person shooter thing, which made DOOM legendary, one of the first games to do that. And they kind of do that in the movie as well. So I think that will satisfy the purists out there. Other than that I’ve done Resident Evil like a year or two before, I did it two years before but it just came out the year before and that was based on a game as well, so that was my only concern thinking about an adaptation kind of “is two too much?.” But I played two very different characters first off.
Jay Bishop: What made you decide to play the part? You said that your brother played DOOM; did he have a lot of influence on your decision to take the part?
Razaaq Adoti: No, not really. I called him after I accepted actually. In fact he was in London and I was out here (Los Angeles). You know, it was just a really good script and then I heard that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was going to play Sarge and I thought that was great casting and yeah, it wasn’t a hard decision to make. I read it, I liked it, I loved the role, Duke was a real kind of funny guy and at the same time he had a little bit of a romantic interest with Dr. Grimm who is played by Rosamund Pike and at the same time he’s running around battling demons and monsters from god knows where.
Jay Bishop: The game and the movie obviously don’t go into the back-story of the characters; can you give us a little background about Duke?
Razaaq Adoti: Well Duke, he basically, in terms of where he’s from, we always had it figured he was like an orphan and he’s been in and out of different juvenile homes and whatever and he ended up in a situation with another character, called Destroyer (played by Deobia Oparei) living with him. He got in to the Marine Corp. because Destroyer joined the Marine Corp. That’s basically how he got into the RRTS, though his back-story isn’t actually in the movie. From there on in, kind of personality is what it is. He doesn’t actually have any family of his own, so the RRTS, the Marines are his family. So he takes it all seriously, they’re all his brothers, that’s how he sees it, Sarge is like a father figure to him and he’ll do anything he can to protect them. There’s still that other side of his personality where he can find the humor in pretty much any situation, albeit inappropriate as well, but that’s who he is and it’s what makes him so fun to play.
Jay Bishop: I’m kind of curious; as a child did you have dreams as a kid of going into space?
Razaaq Adoti: It’s funny that you say that, that’s the first thing I ever wanted to be was an astronaut, yeah, that’s the first thing I ever wanted to be, and then the second was a zoo keeper.
Jay Bishop: A zoo keeper? That’s a first for me.
Razaaq Adoti: Yeah, a zoo keeper. I was young at the time, but I love animals, then I graduated to a soccer player. I wanted to be a pro soccer player and then an actor.
Jay Bishop: Interesting. There’s been a lot of criticism about the DOOM movie not following the game’s story line that it is closer to being a Resident Evil in space movie, having stared in Resident Evil, and now DOOM what are your thoughts on this?
Razaaq Adoti: Well, the game DOOM is a long game, I played it for about four hours that first night and then we hit it a couple of times while we were shooting, so I didn’t get on the game as much as I would like. I know that we didn’t get a quarter into the game, so it’s hard for me to say because I don’t know where the game was taking me. When you get into the game, you’re in for a ride; you’re giving up a portion of your life, so it’s hard for me to answer that. I know where our story line goes. It could coincide with where the game goes, I’m not 100% sure, but I do know that you’re in for a ride and it will keep a lot of people happy, in that it ends up where the game begins where you have the first person shooter happening and someone’s fighting for their life. That’s all you need to know in a game like that, I think the more mystery that surrounds it the better. In a sense it kind of gives you the back-story of where these guys come from.
Jay Bishop: So do you agree or disagree with the criticism?
Razaaq Adoti: I defiantly disagree, having been in Resident Evil, I defiantly disagree.
Jay Bishop: Watching the trailers that have been released and the panel at Comic-Con, we know that instead of the demons being from Hell, they are genetic mutations. Is this accurate or do Portals from Hell appear and bring the movie’s story closer to the game?
Razaaq Adoti: I’m not sure how much into the storyline I can go with that whole thing, but we defiantly have worm holes in it, because this is our means to get from Point A on earth to Point B on Olduvai. There are defiantly worm holes and defiantly demons traveling between these worm holes. Basically, you’ll have to wait and see.
Jay Bishop: Overall how does this movie rank on your list of accomplishments?
Razaaq Adoti: Quite high, cause we had a lot of fun making it. We had a two week military training boot camp thing that we went through; we had a lightweight training we went through. They really wanted to get us as physically as well as mentally ready for this movie. We went through a lot of preparation for it and it was a real fun character for me to play, I’m 6 foot 3 and I’m often cast as the big guy, kind of serious guy, you know the dramatic brooding, so for me to get involved in a little bit of comedy, not that this is a comedy by far, but my character, to be involved in that was just great fun. I really, really enjoyed it and I want to do more of it.
Jay Bishop: How was it acting with the various creatures in the movie rather than acting against a blue screen and having the creatures put in later?
Razaaq Adoti: It was great, Once again, to draw comparison to Resident Evil, we had a scene where we were being attacked by this called the licker in a church and, you know we’re acting all terrified, hiding from it and shooting at it, but in reality when we were shooting it, there was a dude holding a stick with a tennis ball at the end, and that was our focal point. But with this, Stan Winston they really pulled it out of the bag. They were in these costumes and the heads were animatronics, they had 3 guys operating the facial features, you’ve got blood and slime dripping off it. I tried to stay away from looking at the creatures before I shot with them so I’d get the full impact of seeing them for the first time. Even during filming, you start noticing things pulsating on the body or things dripping off, that nasty little detail they’d do like stuff under the nails and stuff like that. It was very, very effective and it was easy to work with when you kind of have them actually there.
That’s pretty much it. Though I was nervous the whole time and I know there’s so much more I could have asked, overall I think the interview went great and I want to thank Mr. Adoti for taking the time to let me interview him and I’d like to thank Rogers & Cowan for setting up this interview for me and all of you.
Leave a Reply