Betsy Brandt Quotes

I always loved stage combat at drama school so I can't wait to get on set and kick some evil monsters into the next dimension!

There's a huge difference between stage fighting and real sword fighting.

I've been an actor for 30 years, so I pretty much know how to do the basics of a fight without hurting anybody.

I couldn't pick up a sword and go fight anyone, let me put it that way. It's choreography and it's acting. The best sword fights you see look amazing, but it's the acting that sells it more than anything.

I got an M.F.A. in acting from NYU, and part of our training is to learn how to use swords in combat situations in a performance and Shakespeare plays where you have to fight.

I worked a lot in Chicago's theater scene as a fight choreographer. And so I do have a lot of experience in stage combat and also in Kabuki dance and Kabuki theater.

On 'Angel' I got to work a lot with Mike Massa, who was David Boreanaz' stunt double, and Mike would let me do most of my stuff by myself. I did almost all my fight scenes by myself.

For ages, in my lunch hours, I would just go round and choreograph fight scenes. For fun. So now I'm very good at being thrown around. I bounce, in the words of my friends.

Sword fighting in film is not about how good the fighter is, but how good the actor receiving the blows is.

I have stage combat training from college, which is drastically different than fighting for the screen, but I do enjoy that kind of stuff.

I love action. I love stage combat.

I went to acting school, and I polished my dancing, but I didn't really learn how to fight.

There's been a lot of stage combat over the years, and I've loved it. Started in college with William Shakespeare. I've always liked the active things.

While filming 'The Matrix,' we studied how a Chinese fight-choreography team trains actors before production starts so that they can participate in action sequences in a more dynamic way.

Because I do so many action-oriented films, I started working with stunt people doing fight training, then I found it to be just great exercise. Also I like to be fit, so I've continued on with fight training. Right before I got to do 'Conan,' I was fighting off four guys. Its great fun. And strange.

There were a number of people who helped me get there, and the one I always mention is Michael Byrne, the great master swordsman and brilliant stunt double.

My husband is a martial artist, and he thinks it's hilarious that I have a stage-fighting-proficiency certificate. He thinks that's ridiculous. Can't say I've used it much.

When you throw punches at actors, you stop, you pull it, and it looks like you pulled it. When you throw punches at cartoon characters, they are not there, so you can swing through. It looks like you really decked them.

I started doing karate at four, my parents were karatekas. I stopped when I was 17 and went to Julliard and had a lot of stage combat there.

Whenever you're fighting with weapons, there's a level of reality because people don't understand that these are still metal or hard rubber with sharp points - that if the timing's wrong, you could definitely get hurt. There's nothing like working with an actor who doesn't know what they're doing, because you're always in fear of losing an eye.

When I was young, I was trained in stage fighting and rapier and dagger for several years.

I had done a lot of running in 'Texas Chainsaw' and sword-fighting in 'Percy Jackson,' which taught me to fall properly.

There are actors that come in and do a fight sequence, but when they have to fall on the ground or take a tag to the belly a bit too hard, they're shocked at how real it is.

At drama school, I got a job choreographing and teaching the fights for Mark Rylance doing 'Hamlet' at the Globe in London when I was only 19. They made me fight captain.

I'm not going to say it's easy, but I do have an ease with picking up fight choreography because of my dance training.