Interview by Craig Byrne
Diamond Dallas Page has is a well-known champion of the wrestling world and now he’s playing the Big Cheese, Kryder, the scariest villain that Pizza Man (Frankie Muniz) will face. Dallas Page spoke with KSiteTV about this very big role and what we can expect from it. He also talks a bit about his YRG fitness program which has kept him in peak shape for so many years. The interview follows after the cut.
KSITETV: How did you become involved with the “Pizza Man” movie?
DIAMOND DALLAS PAGE: I met with Joey [Eckardt] through Danny Trejo. Danny Trejo and I did Devil’s Rejects together. We did Vengeance; we did Snoop Dogg’s Hood of Horror, and there’s another film in there that I’m not thinking about. He asked me to do Nice Guys, which was something that he was producing with Joe directing. I came by and did a scene, just a day cameo, and Joey and I hit it off. Then Joey had seen me do a movie named Driftwood, which I had a big lead in. In it, it was a corrections institute where bad boys go, and I was a correctional officer who ran this whole place who was a really f-cked up guy. He saw that role, and he was like, “hey, he can handle a really serious role,” and when this came up, he called me up and invited me to dinner to talk about something. I said sure, we went to dinner, he took out the script called “Pizza Man,” and asked me what I think, and if it was something I’d be interested in. I came back with the detective. They already had somebody in mind for Kryder, who is also the Big Cheese. It’s a huge role. But he said he thought I’d be great as the detective, and asked if I’d come in and audition. I came in and I nailed that, got the part pretty much right there, and then two weeks went by.
I was preparing for the role [of the detective]; I put a lot of thought into it… backstory, bio, why this person does what he does. And six days out from shooting, I called Joey up, and he said “We’ve got a change of plans.” I was like “what’s up,” and he told me “we have a new EP in [Foz McDermott], and nobody’s job is safe right now except for Frankie Muniz. He’s reviewing everybody’s auditions right now.” I called him back, and said to tell me if I got the part or not, because I didn’t want to put any more work into it. It’s Hollywood; you get used to disappointments, so f-ck it, I won’t get disappointed.
I call him back ten minutes later, and he goes “The EP wants you to play Kryder.” And I go, “Now you’re telling me this? Joey, that’s a huge part!” And he’s like “You can do it. I’ve seen you do that before. I’ve seen you in Driftwood.” I said, “I had three months to prepare for that part! You’re giving me six days. Are we really going to start in six days? Because in this town when you say you’re going to start shooting, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to start shooting.”
Marco [Mannone], who is the writer, worked with me six to ten hours a day, because there’s so much dialogue. Some of the earliest days had the biggest, longest scenes. It wasn’t like I say this, and then you say that; it’s like I say this and this and this and that, and then I say this and this and this and that, and then you go with this, and then I say this and this and this and that. It’s all sh-t I’d never f-cking said before. There were a lot of words in there that I would never use as Dallas Page, and so I had to really learn a lot backstory, a lot of research into what I was going to do, and then it just came.
KSITETV: Is it true your character starts out as kind of a decent guy and then things get to him?
DDP: So many things. And that’s the sh-t that — when you’re going to play a heel, especially an aggressive heel like this guy can be at guys, how do you justify that? When I did Driftwood and I played the captain, I never judged the character. I justified everything. And that’s what you have to do in this. If you don’t have backstory, then you’re bullsh-t justifying stuff. You’re saying I shot him because I shot him? No, I shot this prick, in my head, because Corbin Bernsen who’s the f-ckin’ sweetest guy on the planet, but this guy Criswell degraded me. Belittled me at times. Even though I was right up under him and I could take his job, he would also f-ck with me, in my head, to keep me from getting his spot. There was that guy, and also I had a divorce I was getting over. And it just really started, and when you’re doing it – I’ve been in a divorce, and it f-cks your life up. The lady’s taking everything from you, or doing everything she can to take everything from you, and you’ve overextended yourself and you know you can’t afford to lose that job… you might get a little crazy. And now to know that there’s a tomato, this serum that literally can make you come back to life, and you burn your face…
In the beginning, he’s trying to do the right thing. In one scene, he comes to Matt’s mother, played by Shelley Long, and we say we’re looking for this kid, and then she hits me with a bat and I go down. My guys pull guns on her and are grabbing her. These guys are gonna go “We’ll make her talk. We’ll stick her head in the pizza oven!” And I’m like “guys, come on! She’s an innocent women!” And then here comes Pizza Man, and the next thing you know he’s kicking everybody’s ass, and I bounce off of something and go right into the pizza oven. I burn myself. Now I’m screaming and taking off, thinking this can’t be fixed. But I know this guy with the tomato serum, bullets bounce off of him.
KSITETV: So he can help you?
DDP: Or I could take his serum and use it on myself. So there are these twists. When the guy burns his face, and now he’s bipolar times ten.
KSITETV: Can you talk about the makeup they used to make you “The Big Cheese?”
DDP:Whatever the makeup girl does to make it look like that, it’s a process of probably about two hours of make-up, and then you have to take it off. It’s all over your hair so your hair looks burned, and the side of your face… and there’s a lens that appears like a piece of plastic in your eye. It’s really complicated. I’m imagining what it’s like to be a Klingon. This is nothing compared to that. But it’s all on top of your skin.
“Pizza Man” (Frankie Muniz) vs. Kryder (“Diamond” Dallas Page)
KSITETV: You have several websites where you keep in touch with your fans. Can you tell me more about those?
DDP: DiamondDallasPage.com is the centralized location, but on that is DaRealDDP.com. There I put video blogs up. I put them up every couple of days, and anybody who’s reading this can go back there and check out what the makeup looks like. I also put up Wrestling Wednesdays, and I’m been doing a retrospective point of view of what happened back when my career took off; and I start with Macho Man. That’s what made me a top guy.
It’s mainly communicating with the fans. [Page also maintains a Facebook profile and has a Twitter feed at @TheRealDDP. Tell him @KryptonSite sent you!] I also have the YRG Fitness System, which is the other thing I’m doing. Acting is a hobby to me. It’s not what is paying my bills. Neither is YRG right now, but it [provides] a lot of self-gratification.
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At this point Dallas Page showed me a video showing “Arthur,” a man who had been so out of shape he was unable to walk without the use of crutches. Arthur tried Dallas Page’s YRG program, which you can see below in the video, and it brought him fantastic results.
KSITETV: How did YRG come about?
DDP: How it came about was, I was a guy who wouldn’t be caught dead doing yoga, the first 42 years of my life. And then I ruptured my L4 and L5 so badly that I had three doctors telling me my career was over. That was 1999, right in the beginning, and I my career didn’t take off until I was 40. I started wrestling when I was 35, and my career didn’t take off ’til I was… it started really at 39, and at 40 it blew through the roof in 1996. And so did wrestling. I was lucky enough to be in the middle of it all. ’97, ’98, I think I headlined, out of 24 pay-per-views that they had over those years, I think I headlined 13 or 14 of them. 272 days a year average over those three years. Actually hitting the mat – and then at one point, it wasn’t one bump, it was just the last straw that broke the the camel’s back, finally blew my back out. Some people do it bending over to pick up a pencil. I did it falling from a power bomb from Kevin Nash who is 6’10”. I just signed a multi-million dollar deal, so I was pretty devastated. Now, my wife at the time was Kimberly, and she was telling me I should try yoga to heal my body. And I was like “f-ck that. That’s not going to work out.” But I couldn’t do anything else. So I tried this videotape with her, and I was amazed how much I sweated my ass off, and within three weeks of doing it, I started to gain some flexibility back, and some strength in my whole body. But it wasn’t intense enough for me. So I started other things like pilates, mixed martial arts, and old school calisthenics, and whatever I could do, I modified it to the next level. And before you know it, I developed this dynamic resistance which engages your muscles as you move from one position to another. That jacks your heart rate up and gets you in fat burning zones. So I developed this workout of my version of yoga, and I called it “Yoga for Regular Guys” originally. It was mainly for guys who wouldn’t be caught dead doing yoga, but wanted all of the results and more. There were so many other ingredients in it, and then at some point, I found that though I developed it for guys originally, women loved it. So I just went right to the letters YRG. It’s also not really fair to call it yoga to a yoga purist. They’d go “that’s not yoga.” They’re right. It’s YRG. I got so many regular guys to do it, that we should share it with people. I did it just out of a giving spot, and then I started to write a book about it. Then I did a DVD series about it. Then I did the whole YRG Fitness System.
I never did YRG for weight loss; I did it to hold back the hands of time on my body. Three doctors said my career was over when I was 42 years old. Three months later I was back in the ring. At 43, I was heavyweight champion of the world. Once I realized that dynamic results had such results on people who were losing weight, that sort of blew my mind. I never thought about it like that. So all of a sudden I’ve got this great workout that gives you increased cardiovascular conditioning, flexibility, and core strength training… and you lose weight? Oh that’s a sweet side effect.
The bottom line is, is helps you hold back the hands of time while sculpting your body. The proof in the pudding is that I’ve gotpeople who are hurt or beat up… and I show them Arthur. I didn’t develop this workout to gain muscle or for weight muscle. I developed it to fix my body, or heal my body. So anybody that’s hurt? I show them my complete workout. It works for your body.
KSITETV: Didn’t I read on your website that you are in the same shape as someone 30 years younger than your actual age?
DDP: I would say there are plenty of guys who are in their teens that can’t do the sh*t that I can do. My flexibility’s insane, my core strength is great. 20 or 30 years ago, I couldn’t do the stuff I could do today. It’s a different type of training.
KSITETV: Can you tell me more about Arthur [the man from the video above]?
DDP: Arthur lost 140 pounds and went from walking on canes for 15 years to not just walking without canes, but walking and losing 140 pounds. Now he even teaches YRG. In ten months, he got into the shape he is in; in 12 months, he was teaching YRG. He’s been teaching YRG for 2 years now.
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As mentioned earlier, Dallas Page has been running behind the scenes exclusive video blogs from the set of “Pizza Man” at his blog, which you can find at http://therealddp.blogspot.com/. Once the movie is out, he’s promised to post some outtakes of his friend Rowdy Roddy Piper’s appearance in the film. Thanks again to Diamond Dallas Page for this interview. Next up: Heroes’ “Puppet Master” himself, David H. Lawrence XVII! Come back soon!
