Exclusive: Why Donnie Yen Passed on Expendables 2

Donnie Yen is one of Hong Kong’s hottest action stars and has been for over 20 years, but unlike some of his peers, he’s mostly stayed away from Hollywood with one of his few Western movies being Guilermo del Toro’s Blade 2.

This week, Yen made a rare visit to New York City to attend the New York Asian Film Festival as a special guest, to receive a Star Asia award and answer questions after his movies The Lost Bladesman and Dragon (Wu xia).

This morning, ComingSoon.net sat down with Yen to talk about some of upcoming movies and when we asked him about possibly returning to Hollywood any time soon, he told us about his decision not to be in the upcoming The Expendables 2, which he had been approached to appear in last year:

“They wanted me to be in ‘Expendables 2’ but I just didn’t feel the role clicked. I was flattered that I was approached by the producers but I just didn’t see the role they asked me to do being that intriguing. I didn’t really want to do it but I’m open for anything. Doing a movie is a stressful thing. You spend months of you life focusing into that one project and I want to make sure I do something I really like or I’m really passionate about.”

Look for the rest of our interview with the actor before Dragon (Wu xia) is released by the Weinstein Company’s Radius imprint either later this year or early next.

If you want to see Yen in action before then, Dragon (Wu xia) is premiering on Monday, July 9 at the New York Asian Film Festival. Ticket are sold out but you can get on the standby line while his other recent movie, The Lost Bladesman, has its New York premiere tonight (July 7) at the Walter Reade at 6:30 PM with tickets still available.

Movie News

Marvel and DC

X