Bruce Lee Lost Audio Interview

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By Ben Johnson, on 07-03-2008 18:26

Ben Johnson discusses Bruce Lee’s first and only English language interview broadcast on The Pierre Burton Show, recorded on December 9th 1971. He discusses his new found stardom following the success of The Big Boss in Hong Kong and his interpretations of his own philosophy on the martial arts.

In the early 1970s, popular Canadian TV journalist Pierre Burton took his long running TV show around the globe to interview the world’s latest rising stars in the world of the arts. On December 9th 1971, during a special one off visit to Hong Kong, Burton interviewed a new actor known by the name of Bruce Lee, a Chinese-American on the cusp of superstardom following the release of his first starring role film, The Big Boss.

Topics of conversation vary from Lee’s new found superstardom (“An illusion,” he says as Burton asks him how he feels to be called ‘a superstar’), to his future plans of bridging the gap between Chinese and American filmmaking. Perhaps the most telling part of the interview is his assumption that his TV concept, The Warrior (later renamed Kung Fu starring David Carradine) would probably ‘not be made’ due to Paramount’s trepidation of offering a starring role to a Chinese actor. “They think that, business wise, it’s a risk,” he says. “I don’t blame them… In the same way, it’s like in Hong Kong, if a foreigner came [over] and became a star, if I was the man with the money, I would probably have my own worry of whether or not the acceptance would be there.”

Perhaps it was part of his indoctrination back into Chinese culture that had given Lee more of a confidence about his own career as to not vent his own frustrations at this kind of snub. But still, Lee tells Burton that his intention is to change the perceptions of Chinese culture in the eyes of the west. When questioned on matters of race, Lee simply describes himself as a ‘human being,’ using the hippy rhetoric which would manifest itself throughout Lee’s time in the US in the 1960s and via his status as a personal trainer to some of Hollywood’s biggest A list celebrities including Steve McQueen, James Coburn and script writer Stirling Silliphant.

But martial artists cite this interview as a rare and crucial glimpse into Lee’s personal philosophy surrounding his own style, Jeet Kune Do - The Way of the Intercepting Fist. He repeats the lines he wrote for an early episode of the TV crime show Longstreet, expressing how a fighter must be adaptable to as many different situations by using his famous water metaphor. “Empty your mind,” he says, “Be formless, shapeless, like water.” He also repeats his theories on styles, later summarized by his own system, and how their doctrines ‘separate man.’ It is also interesting to hear Lee acknowledge himself as quite a competitive fighter and clearly more than aware of his own skills, summing up his philosophical approach to the martial arts by using the following quote:

“To me, ultimately, martial art means ‘honestly expressing yourself.’ It is very difficult to do. It is easy for me to put on a show and be cocky and be pretty cool and all that…or I can make all kinds of phony things, and be blinded by it, or I can show you some really fancy movement. But, to express oneself honestly, not lying to oneself, that, my friend, is very hard to do.”

Burton called Bruce Lee ‘the most intense person I have ever met,’ and although he would have had no idea that in just over 18 months Lee would be dead, causing archivists to covet every remaining inch of priceless footage, there is still no doubting the sheer energy and intensity of Lee’s heavily westernized delivery and screen presence over the course of this interview. Just like in his film roles, Lee seems to have a hypnotic sway over the camera lens and turns the interview into a powerful and uniquely charismatic experience, while Burton does well to not trade verbal punches with Lee. As one of the very few English language interviews Bruce Lee ever gave (there are two others, neither of which were televised), this great footage is as much a testament to Lee’s very confident if slightly unstable character and it is certainly the most insightful glimpse into a man who left behind very few words and an ever lasting legacy.

That is why this highly coveted interview has already invaded the public consciousness through numerous excerpts and clips featured on TV documentaries and ‘rare' DVDs all around the world. We present it here in its full, uncut form.