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“There are a lot of similarity between an athlete like an MMA fighter and an actor. I’ve been acting all my career. Before every fight, I was terrified, I was scared, I was extremely unformfortable,” he revealed. “But, when you see me walking toward the Octagon, I’m putting on a mask. I’m pretending that I’m excited, I’m confident, I can’t wait to be in there. But, I’m lying to the audience, because deep down inside, that’s not how I feel.”
“To be honest, in our sport, we all have a lifespan. Unfortunately, the sad reality is that most of the athletes hang out too long in the sport of full-contact competition,” he began. “Whether that’s MMA or Boxing. I never wanted to make the same mistake, I wanted to retire on top. However, when you retire, I believe its important to find another goal. Whether you reach it or not, it does not matter. You need to find an objective, find a goal, a motivation, something that you need to work on. Mine? I turn it to movies now… I deal with so many high emotions, because it’s life-threatening. The thrill that you get, it is unmatched. So, you need to be able to put that into something else.”
“Right after I took my retirement, Disney came out and offered me the role,” GSP explained. “To come back as the Leaper. I did a little bit before with [Captain America:] The Winter Soldier. But, back in the day, I wasn’t prepared you know, I was more focused on competing in mixed martial arts. Now, it’s been two years that I’m training full-time as an actor. I’m having acting classes, English class, camera class, theater classes, audition classes. So, I was much more well-prepared for this one. So, it was perfect timing.”
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