The live-action Straw Hat Pirates left an impression on fans with Netflix’s One Piece. Quickly confirming a second season once the first season was a hit, the streaming service is preparing to see Luffy and company revisit some familiar anime territory in a brand new way. One Piece season two might not have started filming, but the live-action Sanji, Taz Skylar, is preparing for his role and recently discussed his commitment to the role in season one.
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Taz Skylar began the interview with Esquire Middle East, attending the Middle East Film & Comic Con, and dipped his toes into how he approached the hard-hitting role, “Ooh… yeah I did all my own stunts! Part of how I prepared for it… I really went psychopathic on it. Like, let’s throw absolutely everything we possibly can at the wall because we don’t have much to stick right now, we’re starting from zero.”
The Training Needed To Be Sanji
Skylar then revealed that he was spending some serious time both in the gym and the kitchen to make sure he was up to task when it came to playing One Piece’s Sanji, “It was 4 hours of training in the morning, then I’d cook a dish we needed to do for the show, repeat that dish over and over again, another 4 hours, then we’d go to the sauna and stretch, they’d pull on my legs and push on my back. That made me improve really quick but what it also did was decimate my legs. I have scar tissue on the inside of my ligaments and it took me about a year to feel like I could land on my legs without pain – I used to duct-tape my legs! I had to be quiet about it so they’d let me do my own stunts.”
The live-action Sanji then took the opportunity to mention the second season of the Netflix hit, stating that he can focus more on choreography for the upcoming episodes rather than training alone, “There was no real way of improving whilst not hurting myself because of how far we needed to go. Whereas for the second season, because I’ve maintained my level and haven’t stopped training ever since– I trained this morning with Iñaki at the UFC gym [in Abu Dhabi]! Iñaki came with me to a kickboxing session and he’s gotten so good at tricking in between the seasons too! So, because we’re kind of at a level that we’ve maintained, the second season for me is about how much quicker I can be. There are not many new kicks or moves to learn, so it’s more about how great we can make those moves. Part of it is going: instead of training 8 hours today, I’m going to train 4 and focus on choreography. Or maybe today I’m just going to do 2 and then stretch, because the less injured everything is, the quicker everything moves.”
