Jean-Claude Van Damme was the title alien in Predator before he was hurriedly recast.
In the early 1980s, Belgian martial artist Jean-Claude Van Damme arrived in America with dreams of stardom.
His first few years in America were, however, tough.
An alien from outer space?
From that tiny germ of an idea came Hunter later re-titledPredator written by brothers Jim and John Thomas.
If anything, the Austrian Oak needed a powerful new enemy even more than Stallone did.
The question was, what would this predator actually look like?
The original concept called for a stealthy, ninja-like creature that could move rapidly among the trees.
There did, however, seem to be a bit of confusion over what the role entailed.
They did a cast of my body, Van Damme later recalled.
My feet were in the cast of the alien.
My hands were in the forearms, my head was in the neck.
I was moving everything with cables.
They wanted to shoot on the muddy slopes of Mexico in the real jungles.
It was virtually physically impossible to do.
I told them it wouldnt work.
The designers werent the only unhappy ones.
But when Van Damme returned for his costume fitting, the grim task ahead suddenly to hit home.
I look like a superhero.
He was so angry.
As the actor was strapped into his suit, little did he know that worse was to come.
Im like, Jean-Claude, did no one tell you?
Its a cloaking equipment.
Youre invisible for half of the picture.
This is not you.
Oh, are we in trouble…
They even got up early to sneak in some extra iron-pumping sessions in at the gym.
Shooting continued for several weeks without a predator in sight.
Then, finally, a large box arrived with the much-anticipated costume inside it.
Maybe if you shoot it from a low angle, itll look bigger, one producer suggested, weakly.
Production photos show Jean-Claude being helped into his predator costume, its ungainly rubber shoulders slumping.
In another, the most amusing of the lot, Van Damme sits next to actor Carl Weathers.
Van Damme is staring at the horizon, apparently with a mixture of exhaustion and sheer disbelief.
It was just impossible.
I shot a shot.
then they looked at it and said, no way.
The creature didnt work, it was hokey, it didnt look believable.
In the late 80s, he suggested that hed left the production because of fears for his own safety.
The costume took about 20 minutes to put on, Van Damme toldStarlog.
It was thick rubber and I couldnt see anything, there was just a small piece to breathe through.
I needed cables to move my jaw and head, and it was hard to keep my balance.
I know my limitations, and Ill break my legs.
The stunt man promptly broke his leg.
When production shut down afterwards, Van Damme left and was never asked to return.
Filming resumed for a further four weeks, with McTiernan capturing the final confrontation between the predator and Schwarzenegger.
That helped me a lot.
He didnt know I was an alien.
This article originally appeared onDen of Geek UK.
