Wesley Snipes Told Mahershala Ali He Needs to Be An ‘Elite Athlete’ to Play Blade
Marvel recruited Mahershala Ali a while back to play the hero Blade in an upcoming film. And at the time, the original Blade Wesley Snipes had some words of wisdom for his successor.
Wesley Snipes’ advice to Mahershala Ali for Blade
Snipes already knows what it takes to play Blade. The actor portrayed the action hero for three films in his younger years. Which allowed him to display some of his skills as a martial artist. Because of this, Snipes wanted to let Ali know that being Blade required tremendous physical commitment to do the role justice.
“Make sure you’re in shape,” Snipes once said according to Games Radar. “Try not to get hurt… The demands of an action movie is you’ve gotta be an elite athlete, and being well-conditioned to survive and to avoid injury.”
Snipes already kept himself in top condition even before he was Blade. He practiced several martial arts and asserted he had a habit of working out.
“They were all training a good three months before we started shooting,” Snipes said in a behind-the-scenes featurette of Blade Trinity. “Every day, four hours a day, seven days a week.”
This meant that Snipes simply had to add on to what he was already used to doing to play Blade.
Wesley Snipes felt no emotional loss after Mahershala Ali was cast as Blade
Snipes was once looking forward to reprising the Daywalker even after Blade Trinity. Although Trinity was the last in Snipes’ Blade films, Snipes was seriously mulling a bit of a comeback. But his Blade sequel never moved past the conversation stage.
“All the main execs [at Marvel] and my team, we’ve been discussing for the past two years. Everyone’s enthusiastic about it, everybody gets it. But they got a business to run and they gotta square the things that they gotta figure out before they can get to it, I guess. In the meantime, we got a business to run and our own slate of things to do so,” Snipes once told Vice. “But the next time you see something in [the Blade universe], mark my words: what we did before is child’s play compared to what we can do now.”
During the interview, Snipes was asked about what he’d think about someone else being cast as Blade in his place. Snipes didn’t seem against the idea. But he couldn’t think of any actor that could fill the half-vampire’s shoes.
“I mean wow. Who’s that guy? And one that can overcome everybody’s preconceived idea of who Blade is supposed to be,” Snipes said. “Skill wise, there’s not a lot of guys out there that dance, that do the martial arts, that act well and can have that Blade flavor. Not a lot of chocolate guys out there. If they’re gonna go chocolate. If they’re gonna go vanilla… ehhhh, I don’t know. Non-traditional casting: I’m with it. I’ve been a beneficiary of it. I don’t know if it would be good for marketing but you never know. So, yeah, it’s a tough one. And they gotta be in shape and have some sex appeal. F***ing Blade has some sex appeal.”
But it seems Snipes felt Ali was a worthy actor to inherit the Blade mantle. He had nothing but praise for the Oscar-winner when he was picked. At the same time, he wasn’t all that distraught about missing out on Blade, either.
“I don’t walk around as Blade, so I’m not attached to the character like that. I feel no emotional loss, zero, and I’m happy that he’s being recast and [he] will more than likely do a great job,” Snipes said.
Wesley Snipes once shared he was almost recast for ‘Blade Trinity’
Snipes faced the possibility of someone else playing Blade even before he officially retired his character. He confided that he wasn’t too sure about returning to the franchise after Blade 2. But when he brought his reservations to the studio, the studio gave Snipes an ultimatum.
“I mean, they tried recasting before,” Snipes said. “During the negotiations for Blade 3 they asked me if I’d consider doing the role again, but I was like nah. So, the agency I was with told me that [the studio] was going to give me ‘til Wednesday to make a decision or they were going to move on. And I was like, what? We just did two movies and made money for everybody and you’re saying to me that if I don’t want to do the third one, you’ll make it without me and find somebody else? And I was like, ‘OK, let them give it to somebody else, because we had already decided we didn’t want to do it anyway.'”
