Though the first live action G.I. Joe movie never won any awards, it’s arguable that it should have just because the guy playing Snake Eyes displayed what can only be described as Daniel Day-Lewis levels of dedication to the role by never speaking to anyone while he was in costume.
For those of you who didn’t bother to sit through the credits or try reading the image above, the guy inside of the Snake Eyes costume was Raymond “Ray” Park (Hint: the guy who played Toad in the X-men movies).
Ray was the perfect choice to play Snake Eyes due to a combination of his stuntman background and the fact he was a huge fan of the original G.I. Joe series and comics. The problem was, Park was such a fan of the series that he’d refuse to speak to someone while in costume, because his character, Snake Eyes doesn’t speak either. This was a huge pain in the ass for his co-stars because according to them, he practically never took it off.
Park’s steadfast refusal to remove his costume on set even led to a rumor amongst the other actors that he slept in his helmet, presumably in the belief that doing so would either give him awesome ninja powers or at the very least, freak the ever loving shit out of his wife when she woke up at 3 in the morning and saw the third member of Daft Punk trying to spoon her.
The other problem with Park’s commitment to the character though was that he was supposed to be the resident G.I. Joe expert on set, in other words, he was the guy other members of the cast were told to go speak to if they had any questions about G.I. Joe lore, which proved to be next to impossible since Park was pretty much always in costume and hence, would always remain silent when spoken to. In interviews, Park’s co-stars claim that whenever anyone tried to ask him a question when he was in costume, his usual response was to either stare at the person until they walked away or slowly shake his head and then go back to whatever it was he was doing.
At this point we’re starting to think that Park decided not to speak whenever he was in costume because he didn’t want stupid questions to cut into the time he got to spend running around on set pretending to be Snake Eyes.
