Chapo Trap House - Movie Mindset Bonus - Interview With Director Lexi Alexander

Episode Date: June 24, 2025

Will & Hesse sit down with director Lexi Alexander, whose works include Green Street Hooligans (2005), Punisher: War Zone (2008) & the new film Absolute Dominions (2025). We discuss how her experience in combat sports influences her filmmaking, creating comic book movies within the studio system, working as an outspoken Palestinian in Hollywood, and how to stay calm after being stabbed. Plus, an answer to “who she would fight, given the opportunity” that’s sure to entertain many listeners. Absolute Dominion now available for streaming on digital platforms.

Hello, movie heads. It's Movie Mindset coming back at you with a bonus episode. This is continuing our director's series, and on this episode, it is our privilege to be talking to the filmmaker Lexi Alexander, the director of such films as Green Street, Punisher Warzone, and the recently released Absolute Dominion. Lexi, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for inviting me. I wanna begin with your most recent film,

Absolute Dominion, which I just watched this morning. It's a movie about a sort of futuristic martial arts tournament that will determine the fate of the world. But I was thinking about just in terms of your own experience in martial arts, you're quite an accomplished martial artist yourself. I'm just curious how your experience in combat sports and fighting informs the way that you film and choreograph a fight scene in

a movie like this. Well, you know, I used to grow up going to these tournaments and always watching the top fighters. I had to watch out when my fight was and pay attention to when my weight class was being called. But I would always be eager to go to the other weight classes and the guys that were really famous at the time and watch their fights. And so I think I instinctively know what, you know, I know what I react to and what other fighters react to when a big hit happens. You know, the whole auditorium will go, ooh, you know?

And so in all the fight scenes, whether it was in Green Street or Punisher or even my first from Johnny Flint, like I try to frame it in a way that gives me that feeling. And what that usually is, is, you know, you can't make it like very cutty and go in deep, you have to be somewhat outside and see the whole movement. You know, it's important that you see the beginning of the movement, the end, and then what happens afterwards. And so, see the beginning of the movement, the end, and then what happens afterwards. And so if you make it too cutty and you go in too tight, you kind of mess that up.

So that's always been kind of the style. I try to do everything. Doesn't always work on TV because of time and also because you don't really get the actors to rehearse, so you have to use the stunt person. But on the movie, I tried definitely to do that. Yeah, I know. I definitely get that sense. Like you get the full range of the fluidity of motion and it reminds me of something Fred

Astaire said is that like he said to any DP who worked on his films that he didn't care how the film was shot. He didn't care how it was lit. As long as that in every frame, you could see him from his toes to the top of his head so that you could get that like full range of motion and there's a coherence of the action. Yeah. And sometimes people think, act as a, you know, who know how to dance or know how to fight a vein about like they don't want somebody to think it's the stunt person. But and maybe that's part of that, but they don't get to decide what the shot is.

Usually when I'm directing, it's me. And so we really do it from the, like, I mean, good martial arts directors do it because we want people to see the entire movement and not cut up. Because you're not getting to see actually what happens if it's cut up. You know, yeah. Yeah. And like in Absolute Dominion, there's a lot of there's a lot of striking, but there's a lot of really, really cool grappling as well, which is like sometimes like, I guess, like that can look less cinematic.

But like I think you did a really good job of showing, like, once again, the fluidity of movement when these fighters are grappling on the ground and sort of like trying to, you trying to gain control of another person's leg or back or something like that. Did you work with your actors and the fighters in the movie? Did you work on the choreographing of each of the fights in the movie? Yeah, I pretty much wrote the choreography in the script. Like for example, there's one fight in there that is just grappling on the ground and it's rather boring.

And the whole story part, it's later mentioned that it was mundane and boring. He did that on purpose because he, the last thing he wanted to do after the news comes out is that he wanted to look spectacular. And so there's purpose to it. And you know, there's certain martial arts that are not as cinematic. And it's unfortunate because they're usually the most effective.

So I tried to find kind of a medium here. You know, you have to grapple because the idea that fighters who want to win don't end up on the ground is ridiculous. You can see that if you watch UFC or MMA and you saw all those Brazilian Jiu Jitsu guys win for years. That's because they try to get you on the ground and when they're on something out there that looks more like it's Cirque du Soleil. Yeah. Is that a new philosophy for you? Because the fight scenes in Green Street hooligans are very, very real and feel very visceral. Did you also choreograph those in the same way? Yeah, I mean, I, you know, when I say choreographed that I write the script and I, you know, on absolute dominion, I was very specific what has to happen in each fight because it's a tournament movie. On Green Street, I would write, you know, the two firms go off. And

I had a very good fight choreographer who had long talks with me about exactly what I want to see. Now, the difference here is that in a street fight, you know, nothing is, you know, pretty. Nothing, you know, is a clear hit because there's no judge who has to see the clear hit. In a tournament, you know, you know that you have to hit a certain way to get the point or to get the knockout. Whereas in a street fight, you just, you know, you crap the outside of somebody's lip and pull, you know, like it's all ugly and it's not beautiful. So I feel like I achieved both, you know, like in absolute dominion, I wanted it to look like a sport and I wanted people to know there is a referee here who eventually if it goes

too far and too ugly, he will cut it off and you're disqualified. Whereas there's no referee in the street fight. Yes. One is for the camera and one is to harm the other combatant basically. Yeah. Well, Green Street is a movie about sort of sports fandom and soccer hooliganism. And Absolute Dominion is a movie that takes the concept of rooting for a sport and elevates it to a level of sort of futuristic global geopolitical stakes.

Do you sometimes wish that sports could be a conduit for resolving political differences as we see in absolute dominion? Yeah, and you know, if you look at, for example, I want to say football, but I think in the US it's more known as soccer. So, you know, there's a lot of interesting games that have actually political relevance, especially in Latin America, that some of them even kicked off revolutions. And there was one famous game

in World War I for Germany. So this is not unusual. And then we have the famous fist up during the Olympics. I mean, it's not unusual for sports to actually become political. And I also think it should. And certainly, you know, if we could, you know, just resolve issues with, you know, a tournament, a sport, it would certainly cost less lives. Of course, you know, the idea was ridiculous. And I wanted to make sure that everybody who even you know, even the character Patton Oswald's character who brought up the idea was ridiculous. And I wanted to make sure that everybody who even, you know, even the character,

Patton Oswalt's character who brought up the idea thought it was ridiculous. But it's kind of like, you know, every day to day we look at the news and we look at our social media and we read what's happening. And I would say all of us kind of go like, wow, this is the stupidest timeline to live in, right? And so I kind of go like, wow, this is the stupid, stupidest time

timeline to live in. Right. And so I kind of want to make want to make that part of it that you can become the world can become so out of hand that the dumbest idea suddenly makes sense. Yeah. I mean, like in America, sports fandom is like, it's like where you were born. It's like, are you from New York or Boston? And then I talked to my like friends in Europe. And they're like, oh, like, how does it break down which soccer club you root for? And it basically is like, well, are you from New York or Boston? And then I talked to my friends in Europe and they're like, oh, like, how does it break down which soccer club you root for?

And it basically is like, well, are you a communist or a fascist? Yeah. There's a lot of like a lot of times in some places, but it's also very traditional, like usually families from certain neighborhoods, they are, you know, generations of, you know, like West Ham, Arsenal fans, blah, blah, blah. And then once in a while you have one person in the family who's like, well, I'm going to go the opposite, which is always, you know, a big deal for the families, but rare.

But you do kind of crow in like whoever takes you to your first game. That's usually, you know, who you follow for the rest of their life. And then you have in in Scotland, you have the Rangers and the Celtics, which that's now becoming a whole, I mean, not now, but it's always been like that. But that's for example, a, a type of religious conflict there. It's basically the Catholics against the Protestants and it's brutal. And you have in, in Latin America, you, there America, there's all over places where, you know, if you really listen to the people, you realize it's not about the club.

It is something deeper. You know, sometimes it's about class. Argentina, Venezuela. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Just going back to your career in martial arts, like you were a championship martial artist.

And like, I'm just interested, growing up, were sports or movies? Like, or was it both? Like, how did you divide your attention and passions growing up? Well, I was mostly, I would say, a competitive fighter. And that was a big part of my life as a kid and teenager. Because, you know, the tournaments happen every weekend.

And during the week, you train. And then sometimes you drive to other places to train with teams that are very good, but they don't necessarily are close by in your town. So it kind of had taken over my life. But of course, at the same time, we were all watching movies. And I grew up on basically Generation X movies.

And I hate sounding like an old person, I grew up on basically Generation X movies. I hate sounding like an old person, but it's really hard to convey to younger people today that we had these movies where you would walk in, you weren't really sure what you were going to get, and it was something you'd never seen before. I've seen The Goonies for the first time. I've seen the Gremlins for the first time.

I've seen ET. I've seen all the John Hughes movies, you know, Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club. Like, you know, everything you can imagine, you know, Ghostbusters, you know, you walk in, you don't know what you're getting because nobody had ever heard of such a thing and it was a brand new concept. And then you would walk outside the cinema and you would start, like, even if you were older, you know, you would start becoming that character.

And I remember walking out of martial arts movies and it was a time where in Europe, they still had cigarette machines on the street. And so for certain, if there were cigarette machines on the street and we walked out of a martial arts movie, everybody started kicking the cigarette machine with like bat kicks and hook kicks.

And I was telling that to a young teenager the other day that that's what we did. And I remember his look, he just stared at me. Like it was the most bizarre thing that we had these like, you know, martial arts movies. And then we started all sounding like them and acting like them. And now when I was going to say when I was growing up and I saw it, like I left the movie and there was a cigarette machine on the street. I would probably try to buy the cigarettes and smoke. I probably tried to put.

You know, and there were those kind of movies, you know, there were those kind of movies as well where you would walk outside and all of a sudden your voice was deeper and you started, you know, smoking. Yeah, breathless. Yeah, there was all kinds of stuff. But the point was that you went in the movie theater, you had an experience and you walked out and then it followed you for hours, you know. It's a bit early in the interview to get into this hack type question, but what are those

martial arts movies that you think had the biggest impact on you? Well, I would say to be honest, because I'm such an 80s kid, the original Karate Kid definitely made an impression on me. I remember seeing that like 10 times. And by the way, completely unaware of the fact that there was a lot of racism in there. And sexism, to be honest. There's racism in there? I mean, you know, but you see that stuff as a kid and you have no idea.

I mean, as I'm sure you know, I'm Palestinian and half of the movies I watched as a kid in the 80s, there was really bad anti-Arab racism in there. It only occurred to me later, like, oh, that was not good. It was completely unnecessary for the Libyans to show up and back to the future. Yeah. We're going to adopt these nuclear weapons program. But Lexi, like I'm sort of I'm a little bit younger than you. I guess I'm an elder millennial. Like all these movies you're talking about were staples of of my youth, too.

And when I think about like the action movies that I loved as the 80s, you're right. Like, you know, all those canon go on Globus movies. They did somehow manage to make Arabs the villain in every one of these. Yeah. Yeah. Sort of portraying them like as terrorists. And I guess like I'm wondering, like then like your experience doing a movie like Punisher War Zone, which is a movie I adore. But like you're obviously having fun with this kind of like fascist vigilante character. Like how do you how do you play with like the sort of like the evil action movie tropes?

And like how do you approach a character like Punisher? Well, you know, that was difficult for me because for the longest time I would pass on the offer to direct this movie, trying to convince people that to convince people that this is not for me. I would say things like, I'm not American enough for this. I did not grow up with this type of comic book. That's why it works so well. Yes, exactly. It's the only good one.

I'm still in shock that they really wanted me to do this movie. And I'm still kind of like, it's mysterious to me. And to this day, I believe, and I think my agent actually put it that plainly once that I was the cheapest direct that they could get, you know, because there was, I remember there were a couple of other ones in play, but they wanted like a million dollars or $750,000. And, you know, I was the kid who had one good indie movie. And everybody knew that the agents were saying, you need your next studio film, or you need your next film to be a studio movie. This is kind of how it played back then. I'm not sure if it's still the same,

but that's what you're being told. If you have one good indie film, you now need to get into the studio system so you get bigger budgets. And, you know, I was interviewing for a lot of things that I would have preferred to make and that I had real passion for and I could never book them. And this one, for some reason, like they were insistent. And so once I said yes, I had to, you know, really, I mean, obviously, I didn't want to fail. And so I really researched, I researched the fan base, what they didn't like about the previous movie, what the comic book movie fans really liked.

And I feel maybe there is where I made a slight mistake because I focused on that a lot and not realizing that that is actually not the biggest demographic. You know, comic book movies, you know, kind of branch out. You know, you want to not upset the comic book fans, but you have to realize that there's a lot of people going who have never heard of this character. Or at least that's the goal of some of those bigger movies.

Many of the big Marvel movies now introduce kids to these characters, not the other way around. And so I, but I focused, and this is like the Punisher fans, they're like hardcore, like this is a subculture, right? And this is, they know this character in and out. Becoming a more mainstream culture among police departments and departments. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And by the way, that wasn't like that back then either because- No, yeah, it really wasn't. Oh, police. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And by the way, that wasn't like that back then either because- No, yeah, it really wasn't. No, no, yeah. It was before that.

That just came out, which is kind of weird because I certainly didn't feel that my movie contributed to that. I don't know where they're picking us up because you see some of the older runs and there's not anything racist about him. He's all about vigilante justice. He just hates organized crime. He hates organized crime. He hates organization. There was a run, I think, that had to do with Afghanistan. I remember reading that and thinking, yeah, okay, they always, for him, it's about justice. I don't know where the cops get it, but I guess it's also the skull and

you know, it's kind of like they picked it up for themselves. But you know, I wanted to be as true to the comic book as possible. I, some of the action was literally taken over frame by frame, which to be honest, made me very happy because if I was a comic book fan and I have these great frames in my mind that I would like to see on screen, you know, that would really satisfy me. And I think that those comic book fans really loved the movie and really appreciated the whole look of it and everything. It was a little bit harder getting out of that. Like people who have never, I remember one critic famously writing that my fantasy should put me into prison or my violent fantasy should put me in the prison. Meantime, not only did

I not write the script, but I literally took the action from the comic book. I knew at that time, and again, this was before Marvel movies were really big. So at that time, it was, you know, you trying to get these straightforward, like New York type critics, and, you know, they've never heard of Punisher. And so, you know, you put them in this movie theater. I tried to convince the marketing department to put a flyer on their seat so they can see that this is a very like, you know, a very tight adaptation of something that already exists that has a fan base, but they were like, that's a silly idea.

And of course, all of these critics walked out and wrote, oh my God, this is the biggest trash on the planet. And then of course, later it turned all around and it found its following and it found the people that this movie was made for. And yeah, I was just telling somebody the other day that my accountant who is the accountant of a lot of film people, he says, you're the only person whose residual checks always get higher four or five years down

the road. And I said, I would like to break this streak once, but I don't think I'm doing it with this one either. Well, Lexi, I have a history with the Punisher Warzone. I'm even younger than Will. And when I was like 11 years old, I realized that my parents never checked the cable on demand bill. I realized that my parents never checked the cable on demand bill.

I realized I could just buy movies on there and watch them. One of the first movies I bought was Punisher Warzone when my friend was sleeping over. We watched it and I loved it so much to the point that on my 12th birthday, I had all of my friends over and I forced them to watch it. And it was this, Punisher Warzone silenced a room full of 12-year-olds. Yeah, I was going to say, do you have any friends left or no? Yes. No, they loved it. Especially the ecstaticstatic applause every single like especially the moment where the guy is doing a flip and just gets hit by a rocket.

I was just about to bring that up because like my experience I saw Punisher Warzone in theaters and Lexi similar to what you were saying it's like an experience like I went by myself because I had a couple hours to kill you, you know, not really knowing what to expect. And it was the scene where the parkour guys are jumping from roof to roof and then one of them gets hit with a rocket in midair. That like that's when I was sold. I was locked in from that point. That's funny.

You know, that's basically what Patton Oswald said in his review of the movie. He said, my God, that was the best thing I've ever seen. And that was the moment he was sold. And oddly enough, that is the only thing of violence that I came up with. And that had to do with the fact that, um, uh, it was a time where I, I don't know if you guys remember this, but all of a sudden there was parkour in every movie and it was just at the time where there was an anti-Pakua movement. Like if one more movie has Pakua in the movie. And I'm like, I'm going to show these urban gymnasts who's boss.

And I'm like, I'm going to actually let people believe I also put Pakua in the movie. And then I'm going to pay it off. And it sure enough worked. Like everybody who hates Pakua at that point, who said, why did she do that? Everybody went off their chair and screamed. Oh my God. I have distinct memories of watching it with my friends being like, oh, what the heck is this movie? We're going to make fun of it now. And then we watched it and we're like, there's nothing to make fun of here. This is amazing. Then I watched Green Street Hooligans. I was like, there's nothing to make fun of here. This is amazing. Then I watched

Green Street Hooligans. I was like, oh my God, this is the same director as Punisher Warzone. That one was recommended to me when I lived with an international student from Italy. He was basically like, this is my favorite movie. You know, Green City Hooligans, my favorite movie. And I am just wondering, like, do you think these movies, is there like a reason that these movies are so resonant with young men kind of, or do you think that, or do you resent that? No, that was always my goal. I think that, you know, I just hung out with a lot of young

men and that was kind of, you know, a coincidence of life, so to say. Like, our parents were working and my brother had to babysit me, my older brother, he's like eight years older than me. And so he took me to the football game and between me watching these firms go off all the time and they're saying, Lexi, you know, take the photos, take the focus. They always wanted to have photos of their fights. So between me experiencing that and then also growing up in dojos, which was not all guys, but predominantly guys. which was not all guys, but predominantly guys. I feel like I've had this weird documentary eye on young men

and this kind of testosterone kind of environment. And I have a good friend named Rodrigo Garcia who makes really beautiful movies about women. And I think he can make movies about women much better than I can. Is it the outsider's perspective? Is it your eye from an early age that they were like, we want you to take photos of the flight? Was that sort of a beginning of your filmmaking career and sort of a theme that developed

over your work? Was this sort of being sort of a part of it, but being slightly on the outside looking in because you're a woman. Yes, that's that's what I meant to say about Rodriguez. I think when you are fascinated with with women and and not in any kind of like perverted way, but just like, wow, I'm surrounded by these wonderful women. And, you know, I can tell stories about them. You know, I feel like then you are the right storyteller for that.

And I felt I had the same kind of reaction to being in these, you know, environments of just, you know, young men. And it wasn't always like that I was admiring what they did. There was many times where, you know, some of these hooligan fights, they saw that I thought that that was very wrong and they shouldn't have done that. And I also understood why a lot of them joined a gang like that.

So it's really kind of, you're a fiction maker, but you also, this is a subculture you understand very well. And this happened to be mine. I think if I had grown you know, grown up, uh, let's say with like, uh, with carneys, I don't know if you guys use that word, like, you know, that word. Yeah, we do. We do. Yeah.

Then maybe my movies would have been about that, you know? And so there's certain subcultures. If my father was in a motorcycle gang or something like that, and that's what I know best and maybe I would have done it about that. But you have to know about the subject and you also have to be somewhat fascinated about it because I could have grown up in something and hate it and never want to see it again. But that wasn't the case. You know, I to this day, when I'm back in Europe, I try to go see a football game.

You know, I still to this day try to do martial arts and I've done it all my life and always switch different martial arts and I feel like I was more in dojos and boxing filthy stinky boxing gyms than in houses in my life. So yeah, that's kind of my life. Do you think you started doing martial arts because of like your Brothers and your family and like this milieu of this hooligan type scene Like why did you start doing? Martial arts do you think I think actually it was the other way around I saw these fights and You know it to be honest it bothered me that guys were so much stronger.

I had this weird, and I still have this to this day, I have this kind of analyzing mind about true crime. I watch a lot of true crime because I've also always taught women in hand-to-hand combat and self-defense. And I always try to figure out, well, if there's an entire group that is physically stronger than you. And by the way, we're making this about gender now, but it really isn't about gender. Like, it sucks for the super flight-weight guy

to meet somebody the size of Mike Tyson the same way it sucks for me to meet a guy of that size. So I don't want to say this necessarily about gender, but since I've grown up around these guys, what I did realize is that usually when there's a violent crime, it is committed by more men than women, right? And I ran around with these guys and I thought, fuck me, almost all of them can beat me. And I said, if something ever goes off, obviously not among my friends,

but I could be anywhere, you know? I really should learn how to defend myself. And so I went on this little mission of like, how good can I become at this? Then you get sucked into the sport and the sport itself, like kickboxing and the point fighting that I did, is not really that much about self-defense. It's really about winning trophies and becoming the best person in the circuit so you go to the national

team. So I got sucked into that and I don't think with, you know, you really can't defend yourself in a street fight with a spinning hook kick, but I loved spinning hook kicks. Another thing movies have lied to me. Yeah, yeah, for sure. For sure. I mean, that's really a thing. I became really one of those fighters who loved really showy stuff. I loved jump kicking people to their head or doing a flying back fist or something like

that. You do that on a guy who's trying to rape or assault you. That guy's just going to think a fly touched him. This is not a way to defend yourself. Later on in life, when I retired from competing and I still wanted to do martial arts, I really started to get into martial arts that were effective. Like, okay, what actually if somebody attacks me and I can can't who kick him? You know, what can I do? What what do you think is the most effective martial art in your?

opinion sister for street fighting Systema for sure. It's I've done the system. I've never heard of that. Yeah I'm a Russian martial art and I really wanted to use it and name it in absolute dominion. Unfortunately, when we started shooting or I think when I just delivered the script to the studio, it was a really bad time because not only were we in the middle of a pandemic. So the reason, you know, I'm just seeing all these reviews come in. I never understand why, you know, you know, you should never get upset about critics, except I do. Because when they judge things that, you know, the filmmaker doesn't have control over,

it's kind of silly because you're not doing anything good for filmmaking. Like, you know, I know there were no extras in there. We were in the pandemic and everybody told me I'm not allowed to have any extras. That's it. You know, I had to come up with a concept, you know, that kind of sold that.

Did I know that after the whole film is shot, they would also tell me, oh, we're also not shooting any extra footage anymore of people watching it in other pups and stuff? No, but that's the risk you take as a filmmaker, you know, but no filmmaker goes into a big arena like this and says, yeah, this is going to be great without any spectators, you know. Yeah. So the difficulties of the creative process and like working with, you know, the movie production, it's like a million different moving parts. And I'm thinking about

your experience as you were talking about, like in combat sports, like I don't have any familiar already with myself, but my good friend and co- Felix has, you know, he's he's trained, you know, Brazilian jiu jitsu and kickboxing, like he's done combat sports. And one of the things he says is that when you train as a fighter, really what you're training in is how to mean like how to maintain, like a clarity of thought in the middle of a fight, because like most people, your adrenaline gets jacked up, you're gassed. So like, how do you maintain a presence of mind? And I'm wondering if like, you're training in fighting, like, is that applicable? Or does it allow you to, I don't know, like deal with some of the stresses of film production

when like you're in the middle of it? Yes. Well, that's back to the point I wanted to make. And then I got sidetracked about the extras that I'm missing. You asked me why I think Systema is the best. So we were at this weird time where lots of weird things happening. And the other thing that happened was that the Russians started this war with Ukraine. And so all of a sudden we were in this very typical US moment where you couldn't even order a white Russian. It was renamed into something, right?

It was a replay, if you're old enough like me, I remember of the freedom. Freedom fries. Freedom fries, exactly. And I was very specifically told, you know, not to actually name Sistema, so I didn't. And, but aside from the fact that there's always stupid rules you have to follow, Sistema is actually

the most efficient martial art I have ever done and I've done them all. I've tried everything that you can imagine, the most exotic, the most unheard of, the most famous ones. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu also effective, but again you have to actually get somebody to the ground first, right? Whereas Sistema was literally made like, I mean, it's thousands of years old and it was still used by the KGP. It's all about, you know, people are trying to kill you. What are you going to do and how can you kill someone faster? I mean, that's it, you know, and the entire training is about you breathing

and keeping a clear mind through being attacked. And there's literally, we had exercises where there was like, you know, eight knives attacking you and stabbing you. And the entire thing is like, you have to breathe through it and stay clear and not panic. And I always thought that was the most effective martial art.

To this day, I swear by it. I think that, you know that if somebody would do that and get a good handle of it, you could probably really get out of almost any situation. It's like Krav Maga, but real. Like, yeah. Yeah, it's also, again, because it was done by Orthodox Russian soldiers thousands of years ago, then it kind of disappeared

again and went into the shadows. It was really big among the KGB again. Famously, I mean, you don't fuck with the Russians for a reason. You don't. Once you realize that they have developed this system that is so efficient, it blows your mind. I always said that I could never follow any kind of cult. I could never fall into a cult. But I swear to God, if there was a system of cult, I would have probably fallen into it because I was obsessed with this, you know. You know, thank God this wasn't actually a cut, but just training. You go to two, three times a week.

That also, you know, costs a lot of money and, you know, and well, yeah. Lexi, when you say when you talk about its efficiency and how efficient it is, like to a lay person who's done it just works like what do you mean by efficiency? Is it just like it's so practical and and like and it's not based on the kind of showy striking martial arts that like yeah it's actually it's it's the most anti cinematic martial arts you'll ever see as a matter of fact if you see videos of it on YouTube you see all these comments of people laughing about it and making fun of it and they're not wrong because it

looks like shit like it looks like a joke. But when you actually try it with one of the masters at it, with one of the instructors, it'll blow your mind, but it can almost not be explained again, because you look at the YouTube videos, and there's many of them with some of the best, like the really higher ups, one of them is a famous KGB, ex KGB general. And you see him do it and you're like, oh, come on, this can't be real. But no, really, he can disarm anybody in like 10 seconds. But the way it looks, if I would, as a filmmaker, put that on camera, like people would laugh about it, you know, you can't do it because it's not a pretty martial art. It is pure logic. If you attack me with a knife, what do I have to

do? What can I do? Well, for one, I can give you the smallest target. So that means I'm not standing in front of you straight-shouldered. I'm immediately moving to the side. But you might hit me. Well, what do you do if you stab me? And the whole thing is like, now you get stabbed. Now what do you do? You know, now you this, what do you do then? And so it's all about breathing and the shortest way of a fist, which often like looks, it looks not again, cinematic. So it's like, not like a big wind up like a haymaker. It's like very short striking. Yeah. It's like meditation kind of. Yeah, it's like meditation kind of. Yeah, and it very straightforward. And it almost

looks like, you know, in in kindergarten, when you saw somebody, a kid who's a we go, like with the fist forward, like this really fast, you know, and you kind of laugh about them, because they're having a breakdown. But when you see systemic, it's that weird movement where the fist goes forward. And when I first did it, I was like, I don't think I could do it. And then the instructor showed me the difference between my hit. How does my hit feel on the target mats that we use and how does his feel?

And I sank into my knees when he hit me. Like it's that it's like a hammer. It's like a hammer. And so everything is about efficiency. What is the shortest way for your face? What is the other person's body doing? What is the anatomy? You know, how could you get them to lose their balance? And, you know, in the end, you look like some weird kind of octopus, you know,

doing weird shit. And it is effective. And to be honest, it's really just about surviving the hardest stuff, or killing in the shortest amount of time. But I think they probably wouldn't say that anymore today. But that's what the art was about. The art was about, it was the art was about literally, you know, killing somebody in the shortest amount of time or when attacked, getting out of it and not getting hurt. You know? Let's see if I can just return briefly to Punisher Warzone, because I just watched this movie again yesterday to prepare for this interview. And to me, like one of the biggest things about the movie is the great Ray Stevenson as Frank Castle, the Punisher, who just passed away not too recently.

I'm not sorry, not too long ago. And you know, he was he was a guy who I became a huge fan of through the HBO series Rome. He was fantastic on that show and he was fantastic as the Punisher. And rewatching it yesterday, I think really what makes the performance work is I clock this. I don't think Frank Castle says a word until like the first, until like a half an hour into the movie. So I'm wondering like, if you share like any, any memories or thoughts about working with Ray Stevenson and like creating that character with him.

You know, yeah, great, great guy. You know, he wasn't my idea. I didn't suggest him. It was Kevin of Marvel who suggested him. And this is like a big deal. Like you have a studio head suggest an actor to you. And there's an instinct to immediately go, why are they telling me who to cast and stuff? But he was always very nice about it. And I immediately went home and watched Rome and I said, Oh my God, he's perfect. I mean, I thought it was the perfect suggestion because I think he was, he looked like the Punisher and you know, he had also this stillness about him. And you know, I was glad they let me not have him speak for this long for the first half

now because I think that's, you know, the Punisher is not a man of many words You know, he's not a chatty cat Yeah, I also loved his little his little belly that he has Yeah, and you know, it's funny because we actually Tried to get him. Well, you know, we had a trainer from him We tried to get him in in shape and lose the belly and get into a different type of, from a different comic book run in a punisher shape that is more muscular and more lean. But he kind of like said no. And I'm like, yeah, you know what? He's probably

right. You know, like he didn't want to do it. And, you know, he worked out he had to work with the Marines and, you know, do the shooting and he was always there to do the fighting, but he didn't want to go on a diet and lose his belly and become this like lean dude. And he, he felt to me like an MK ultra agent who someone said the code word that activated him kind of. He was like a suburban dad right before that. And then he became like instantly like this one moment just changed him into the Punisher. Murder machine. Yeah. Although I kind of like thought like he's more the guy like, you know, his family

get killed, which is why he became the punisher. And so, you know, he, he's so big and that's the thing about the punisher. I mean, you know, Ray is six foot four and you know, I think weighs 280 pounds or something like that. He is a big guy. And you know, the thing about big guys is that people go out of their way. They don't fuck with them. Usually very few people try to start fights. I've never seen it. way. They don't fuck with them usually. Very few people try

to start fights. I've never seen it. You don't run with it with a guy who's six four to yeah. And so he was like, you know, he had this attitude and he had this attitude anywhere that I don't have to have a six pack. And I also think he had a slight disgust for dudes who did look like that. You know, like, right, the gym bodies, not the fighting bodies. Yeah. And I think in his opinion, it's like, you know, I'm still the widower who's craving, I'm still going to have a glass of whiskey every night, even though I'm running around and killing people. And you know what? He's right. He's right. He's not Batman. You know, he's not any of those, you know,

he's a different guy. And in many of the Punisher runs, he is exactly like that. He he is a guy with a belly, you know? Yes. So like Punisher Wars, I'm like, this is a movie that came out, like before the like dominance and hegemony of both the Marvel movies and like the comic book genre in our culture. What like as someone who made like one of the like the earlier runs of Marvel movies, what do you think makes a successful comic book movie like Rich is like, you know, like when I watch the newer ones, they they don't seem like comic books to me, like they seem like they're having trying to have it both ways

and being a little too like winky and naughty at the audience instead of sort of fully giving them over to giving themselves over to like a comic book logic and look. Did you find that you find that as well or like what do you think makes like a successful comic book movie or like why do you think Punisher became such a cult hit? Well, you know, I mean, people would probably argue with you that Punisher is the successful one, you know, like it's considered a box office bomb.

And so what happened is, I mean, there's often times where I regret that I was one of the first ones, because I think had I just stayed an indie person and kept my head down and told my agents, no, I'll do I'll do the studio from when a good one comes. And I would have waited for that wave when Marvel decided, when Marvel was really big and making five, ten movies a year, and then also decided, oh, maybe we should hire some directors who are not white and male. If I would have gotten in with that wave, I probably would have had a much more lucrative career, you know. But I was, would have had a much more lucrative career, you know, but I was in the very beginning,

getting in this co-production with Marvel and Lionsgate, you know, originally they said the budget would be, I think 45, then it's, you know, I get hired, it becomes 35, but then it's really 25. This always happens to me. And so I had to make this film that was, you know, not what they're making now. I definitely wasn't part of that.

And, you know, it bombed in the movie theater. It took me years to recover from that. I mean, career-wise, it took me, I thought I would never work again, you know? I went into TV for a while because I couldn't even take, like, going to interview for movies. It was rough on me. And you know, does it like, it's very flattering that it became such a huge cult movie.

It's also flattering when people like used to tell me on Twitter, oh, look, this Marvel TV show looks exactly like your movie. And I think somebody once did a breakdown of how, I think there's one specific Marvel TV show where they did a breakdown where every shot looked like the cinematography of my movie. Daredevil, maybe? Yes, that's what it was. But they did the whole breakdown because I don't watch the shows. I'm like, Oh, that's fucking, you know, ballsy, you know, but it you know, and this there's many others, there's a lot of like, I think at some point, Pat Nosswood tweeted something about Deadpool. And, you know, like,

he said, Deadpool is great. But remember, Lexi did exactly this first. And I think he meant about the NC 17 kind of comic book film and like really going there with the humor and stuff. And so it's never good to be ahead of your time career wise. It's shit to be honest. Yeah. And it's haunting me all the time because you know, Green Street, you talk about your Italian roommate, I'm going to a film festival in Rome next month and we're playing Absolute Dominion,

but they really invited me for Green Street because it's still so huge there. It's huge pretty much everywhere. I could go on a college tour for that movie for the rest of my life basically. I, Lexi, I actually had another roommate who was Turkish. Yeah. And he also told me that Green Street was his favorite movie of all time. You should see the mail I get. I mean, it's wild.

And then people who don't even pirate it, they keep buying it. I keep looking at these residuals, like foreign residuals. I'm like, really? Green Street in Russia, in Poland, in Turkey? And do people not know how to pirate? But they're buying it. They're buying the DVDs and stuff. And also, I think they made four other green streets that had nothing to do with my film,

but clearly the title did something that was worth putting on other films. And so, I look at those Marvel movies now and a lot of people complain about them and stuff. What I think that Kevin Feige has done with the company is that it's much more like a tv show now. They get these directors and the director makes a deal that they stay within the world. You know like you get hired to do an episode on a tv show you can't make it different than the other episodes and I think that's the deal with Marvel. And they have a certain way. And I think, let's be fair,

Kevin really took that company and made it very successful. So it would be ludicrous for him to not go with the recipe. Do people think it's kind of getting boring, the recipe? Maybe, but as long as they're still going, I don't think they'll be changing the recipe. I mean, that's always the thing, right? People are going and these are the movies that still make money. But yeah, they're not very original, but they're kind of reliable, you know, in what you expect. I think it was Kevin Smith, I think it was Kevin Smith who once said on his podcast that he doesn't get why they can't also give three filmmakers 20 million each and have them make these really original Batman

movies or something like that. Like anything in the DC or Marvel world that is lower budget but super original. And I think that that should kind of exist, you know? The world where that's allowed, you know? And that idea of like Marvel being like a TV show, does that come, you thinking that, does that come from like your experience directing TV and the constraints placed upon you in that milieu. Is there anything freeing about working in TV or do you think it's all entirely producer

based? I don't think that's an opinion. That's just straight up what everybody knows is in the business. You don't come on as a director on TV and make your own episode that stands out. That's not what you are hired to do. There's a show runner and a creator. And I think if they wouldn't be too busy, they would refer to direct it themselves. They just don't have the time, but they want what's in their head on the screen. And look, that's the deal you make. That's the deal you make. Everybody knows this in TV.

You are not being hired to come in with originality. I mean, I think there's a few TV shows that actually, you know, but this is like when the cable shows were new and stuff, there was the few shows, well, like, no, no, we want you to come in with your own take, but your own take means, like, come up with some original shots, but don't change the story. Like, you have no say. And I think that's okay, because if I would create a show with my characters,

and I have this whole arc in my head from beginning to end, I don't want somebody coming in and making episode eight completely differently. You know, that's the deal you do in TV. And that doesn't mean you can't do great work. You can still do great work. It's just very differently. Now, when it comes to Marvel, this

is actually what other Marvel directors told me, that it's more like a TV show now, where you have a showrunner who says, this is the kind of movie we're making. And they basically kind of also give you the secret to success. And I have to be honest with you, you know, if I could have been part of the later Marvel directors, you know, who's basically has the head of Marvel

overlooking the whole script development and everything and the casting to the point where, you know, he knows and you know that the movie is making $100 million, you don't have to worry. I would have said yes to that in a second because I was unhireable for years after Punisher, even though it turned out to be just the right movie for Punisher fans. But my career was still destroyed. So I would have done what these guys did. And you know, people coming out saying, hey, it's mediocre. It's just like Marvel. It's like what it always

is. Yeah, I would have faked that to be honest. It's a huge paycheck. Yeah, it's a huge paycheck. More importantly, though, it's probably not for some of the first ones, to be honest. But what happens afterwards, you know, you make a movie that afterwards, everybody blames you that it's a box office bomb. Yeah, nobody blames the fact that they didn't market it to the Punisher fans at all. Like, they barely knew it was out. They found out it's out. After Patton Oswald tracked me on the podcast. How did this get made? And then he put the film in this festival that he was running, the film festival,

and I came out and looked with him and there was a line around the block. And that was all him telling the right people, you know? But when it came out the year before on Christmas, not only did the people not know it was coming out, it was competing with Oscar movies, you know? And it was completely ridiculous of how that was placed. So, you know, and it was completely ridiculous of how that was placed.

So, you know, does it flatter me that this has now become such a cult hit and everybody talks about it and everybody copies it? Yes, but I would have preferred to have a career that didn't almost kill me. Yeah. It reminds me, I think it was Guillermo del Toro talking about having dinner with John Carpenter and asking him like gushing, how does it feel to have created a masterpiece like the thing? And Carpenter's response was masterpiece? Why the fuck can you even see it when it first came out? That's exactly it. That's exactly it. Like, and this again, this is, you know, this is

not the first time this happened to me. It happened with Green Street where people said, well, you know, we love this. And yeah, you won, you know, the is not the first time this happened to me. It happened with Green Street where people said, well, you know, we love this. And yeah, you won, you know, the you the first or second movie who won the South by Southwest. You know, I think we won the there's two awards that they give and very few movies have won both. And we won both of them, the narrative and the other one. And it was a big splash that got the greatest reviews and nobody picked it up.

No US distributor picked it up. They said, we love this movie and we want you to come make a movie for us, but we don't know what to do with this movie, right? So it was kind of self-distributed in the US by the people who made it. By international students who told their roommates. Basically, well, no, internationally,

it was distributed well because they weren't as afraid of soccer. It always was slightly more successful there. In the US, it found its audience too. It happened then. It happened with Punish. It oddly happened with this little movie called Lift that was the biggest hit on Amazon for a while. And I never realized where all these letters are coming from until I realized it's actually on Amazon.

And then before I could even get a single residual check, that company who put it out there, filed for bankruptcy, it was very funny. And now we're in the same thing again, I don't know if people know this, but Absolute Dominion was originally pitched as a big sci-fi three-picture movie with a much higher budget and then it gradually just became less and less and less and less. And you probably, I should have at some point said, I can't make it for this money.

And they would have said, okay, great, goodbye. And I wouldn't have made a movie and nobody would have had hard feelings about it. So I promised that I could make this great high-cut sub-film also for under $10 million in the middle of a pandemic. Yeah, the pandemic, I'm sure, did not help. And so you kind of look at this. It's all, I mean, we're talking two different things. Am I happy these movies were made and that they found their audience later?

Absolutely. Would I have made different decisions? Probably yes, because each time, and I mean, I'm so tired of this at this point, because it's beating you up because you always try to put your best foot forward and then it just kind of haunts you, you know, the decisions you make. You're put through the wringer. You're kind of, you're strung through it basically. Yeah, but you know what? Lexi knows how to stay calm after getting stabbed. Absolutely. Exactly.

I am now at the point where I'm sick of getting stabbed. I've had it with Hollywood. Just remember, keep breathing. Keep breathing. I have kept breathing through it. Although I have to say, I was never as good with Hollywood fights and executive fights as I was on the mat. I was a much better fighter on the mat. For some reason, the kind of Machiavellian type of character

you have to have to fight well with words in the world of Hollywood, that was never my strong side, I have to say. If you could fight anyone on the mat, who would it be, do you think? If you could pick anyone from the world today? Probably this guy named Will Stansel. Oh, we want to talk about absolute dominion.

Oh my god. Yeah, well you fighting Will Stansel. That would be some absolute dominion right there. You would kill him. I'm so impressed that you guys even know him because I don't actually think he's that famous, right? But I see him on my feed and I've seen him for years, for years. And I've blocked him on every app I can think of.

Still the fucking screenshots are there, right? And every time I read anything, I just have this friend say like, please just let me punch this fucker out. Please. anything. I just have this friend like, please just let me punch this fucker out. And now apparently he's getting people fired. And he's also like saying to people, oh, you wouldn't say that to me in real life. And I'm like, yes, I would, motherfucker. He's gonna he's gonna meet the system if he keeps talking shit. I know I'm well familiar with Stancil's oover. And actually,

this this segues nicely into like an issue outside of the entertainment and movies. But like, you know, I have said I do this movie podcast, but my other show is like we mostly talk about politics. And one of the things we've probably most talked about over the last year and a half for obvious reasons is Palestine. You mentioned at the beginning of the show, you are Palestinian. Your father, I believe, is from Ramallah. And I'm really interested in your perspective

as someone who has been vocal about Palestine throughout your entire career. What do you make of, like, what do you make of the last year and a half where it seems like, you know, like the crackdown on expressing any solidarity with the Palestinian people has obviously never been worse. But at the same time, I think you're seeing more people aware of it and willing and actually willing to speak out about it. And like what is your perspective as someone who's been a long time, you know, someone who's spoken out about Palestine when it was like completely just a wall of silence. Do you think it's like, is it never been worse than it before or has it been like sort of impressive to see the way that people have come to life on this issue

well, I think that the best thing that could have happened to us is that a lot of people have learned a lot of things and to be fair, you know Israel made it very easy to teach the world of who they are and how they conduct themselves and so we are now faced with a situation where before the House of Bauer always worked and people weren't quite sure who were the bad guys. And now it's like, wow, you see like super conservative, you know, scientists, American scientists say, okay, I actually can't do this anymore. I have to admit this is genocide. I think there was a few like just last week. Financial Times. Yeah.

Not exactly a left wing newspaper. There was one person who was like, really holding on to being of the scientists, like we are in the right and they attacked us and he's finally broken down and said, okay, I can't do this anymore. And this is worldwide. Like I speak a couple of languages. And so I make sure that I read the news, you know, not only in English, but you can sense it. It's everywhere. The truth is out, you know, everybody knows exactly who the bad guys are, you know.

And, you know, so you have this situation where if you now take the side of actually speaking against Palestinians, that rarely happens anymore, even publicly. I think people are really holding back on that, even the people who are getting paid to do that. Because it has gotten that far. I mean, sadly, too many of us had to die for that to happen. But there's a moment right now where you you know, you really see that everybody's

going to hit rock bottom now with all kinds of things. And I also think it's with this whole for, for bidding people to, you know, speak on it, you know, and arresting people who do and firing people who do. I think people were sick of it for a long time. And now it's getting to the point, it's a little bit like, you know, I was alive and I was a teenager when the East Germans basically tore down the wall, you know, it wasn't the West who did it. It wasn't anybody who did it, but they did it themselves, you know, they had meetings in churches, they, you know, went out there knowing that they could

get out there every Monday to these demonstrations. It was the power of the people. And it came to that because they were sick of it. They were sick of not being able to visit other countries, to have the freedom to do what the West does, to listen to the radio channels they want to do. And so I think we're now getting to this point where people don't like being told what to do. And you can even see it among the right wingers now, you know, who were always so staunchly like evangelicals, scientists, like even they are breaking on this issue. And so I do believe there is a change. Sadly, I think, and I just addressed this in an essay I wrote for TalkHouse,

that it is sad how we don't talk about that Hollywood is an absolute Zionist stronghold that continues to fire outspoken pro-Palestine people, continues to blacklist them, while all the other unions in this country, I mean, we're talking auto unions, teacher unions, postal workers, all the unions have demanded a shut-off of all arms to Israel, like an arms embargo. Neither one of our union has joined them. And we can't even get Zach, the writer's guild or the director's guild to make a ceasefire statement. And the people are not surprised or bothered by this so-called progressive industry taking such a hard right stance on this.

It's wild to me that this is not being discussed. Meantime, I have friends who have tried this in Hollywood, who have built these little groups and who have written letters and really tried to make this happen. And they've just gotten themselves more blacklisted. I don't think any of them will ever work again. It's like a second Red Scare. It is. And it's a very strange thing though that, and I guess it's just because the public is overwhelmed, because I find it very odd that nobody's talking about this. Like you would think people would be upset that if the postal union and the other union

are coming out for an arms embargo and none of the Hollywood unions are, can't even say ceasefire, we're not allowed. And by the way, there's been many infights that I have been part of within secret like WhatsApp chat groups, which if I ever talk about them in a book, it will be hilarious. Because I mean, things have gone off, you know, but you know, what I've quickly realized is, wow, this is like this is like being at the GOP, like in terms of the level of Zionism, right.

And it's wild, because they get away with that because the public does not say anything. And this is like young, lefty, or at least somewhat left-leaning movie audiences don't seem to be bothered by it. And I'm not sure if, say, with this essay, I tried to make them aware, and barely anybody even mentioned that part. So I'm not sure what else to do other than to say, look, this is fucked up because essentially

you are, if you consider movies and TV shows, the food for the soul, you're getting junk. You're getting McDonald's genetically modified junk put into your head if you're not going to change this industry and say stop. We don't want people who are absolutely pro-genocide and who blacklist anti-war people. We don't want the food they make. But I can't get anybody moving on this. Yes. Well, hopefully your appearance on this show will help to spread the word a little bit. I hope so, too. It's a situation where like, obviously, like the you know, the threats to people's careers and livelihoods, like you're talking about, like the blacklist for even just coming out for a ceasefire is, you know, it's terrifying and it's nauseating. But at the same time the situation has gotten so

Nightmarish that like the efforts which with which they will go to like, you know The Zionists or supporters of you know, Israeli occupation the efforts that they will have to go to keep a lid on this Is getting more and more extreme and at the same time I think that's kind of they're digging their own grave in a certain way. Because if you have to exercise this power so openly, people, as you mentioned, like people are going to take notice and people are going to take notice, especially when the clear message is you can say whatever you want about any issue. Oh, we'll be you know, we're progressive or liberal. We hate war and racism. But in this area, it is strictly verboten. Yeah. Yeah.

But it is one of those things that unfortunately things have to get worse until they get better. By the way, I say this with great pain because these are my people. I don't like seeing them get killed like this in masses. See, I can barely now talk about it without crying. It's super emotional for me, but I do see that they have gone too far. They've put their own videos out of how they behave. I mean, they couldn't have done us a bigger favor because they revealed all of it. And now so many people, like there were so many people ignorant about the past and all of them, like, I mean, I constantly see on my feed now it's like,

oh, I didn't know this happened. I didn't know this happened. And nothing is confusing anymore. And they can hire as many troll army, Hasbara army, bot armies, or whatever they all do all the time as they want. It can't be hidden anymore. And when they tried to shut down TikTok, people went on that other Redbook thing and it was actually really kind of nice for me to see because these were all these kids I follow on TikTok because they're very pro-Palestine. And they said, Lexi, you have to come and go on this other Chinese app. And I went and here they were getting an education about China and what China is really like and you know what is the propaganda they've been taught about them and so I thought you know maybe it's not a bad thing that you know kids are being pushed to learn about WhatsApp because I think in

especially in the US it's very very hard to because you, because you're not being taught certain things in school. So it's up to everybody. It's either your parents teach you, or you have to discover it. And I don't know what teenager is going out there and trying to discover geopolitical matters and stuff, but they are now. And a lot of that is because their feet

was suddenly full of shredded babies. And they said, well, you know, look, I have to like figure this out. So in the end, yeah, they shot themselves in the foot. Unfortunately, many of us had to die for that, you know. Like this is, you know, another example of the, the cold comfort of being right ahead of ahead of schedule. Yeah. Yeah, so true. Lexi Alexander, I'm sorry, I think we should leave it there for today. I really want to thank you for your time and your movies and just sharing a bit of your

life experience with us on today's show. Well, thank you. Thank you so much. And please tell all your 11-year-old or 12-year-old friends, I'm very sorry. Well, they're older now. However old they are, I'm still sorry if they had nightmares. You guys were not supposed to watch that movie at that age. No, we weren't allowed. We will do everything possible to start promoting a Lexi Alexander

Will Stancil bout. Yes. Title fight. Yeah, we're going to make this happen for charity. The rumble in the jungle. It's got to happen. Sounds good. Thank you guys so much. Lexi, thank you so much for your time. Take care. you