The fight scene between Roddy Piper and Keith David alone, is worth the watch
Someone should have been ko'd a lot sooner with those heavy weight strikes.
While at
New Beverly Cinema for a screening of "
They Live" on June 10, 2012, actor Roddy Piper spent some time talking about how he, director John Carpenter, and costar Keith David staged the alley fight in the film. At five and a half minutes, it remains the longest fight scene in cinema history.
Piper said that while Carpenter asked him many questions in preparation for "They Live," the director also made him watch "
The Quiet Man" starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara. Aside from its beautiful photography of the Irish countryside, the also has one of the longest fights ever in movies.
Carpenter was determined to make an even longer fight scene. To that, Piper said "okey dokey."
Another reason Carpenter asked him so many questions, Piper said, was because "he was trying to figure out who to put with me."
Keith David ended up being his costar. Piper described the veteran character actor as a "220 pound dancer ... he is like Mike Tyson and doesn't know it." He also went on to say that David is a "great and wonderful man" and that he "kept laughing at all my mistakes."
Piper did have a hand in choreographing the fight, and much of the rehearsal between him and David took place in Carpenter's backyard. He taught David how to throw and take a punch, but knowing how punches on camera can seem fake, Piper eventually told him:
"Listen Keith, just hit me. From here and down [pointing to below his neck and above his waist], just hit me, and go as far as you can."
Piper said that David "had no problem doing that."
In filming the fight, Piper said he and David worked on three sections of it, taking each portion "as far as we could." The day after that, they worked on the closeups for the scene. Rumor has it that it took three weeks of rehearsal to get the choreography of the fight just right.
The audience was shocked, however, to hear that even with the fight scene lasting almost six minutes, "five minutes were taken out of it," according to Piper.
"They Live" also inspired a parody on "South Park" in which Timmy and Jimmy duke it out in a shot-for-shot remake of Piper and David's fight. Upon learning that this particular "South Park" episode featured "little crippled kids" fighting, Piper said he "felt so bad about it" and refused to watch it for "about 10 years." What changed his attitude regarding the episode was when he was at an autograph convention a few years ago:
"There was a beautiful little kid in a wheelchair that came up and told me about it,
and he was laughing his a-- off!Then I watched it and, oh baby Jesus put the hat on! One got hit in the crotch and another with a wheelchair! So you know, if he likes it, then I like it too! I just didn't want to offend him."
The fun halted a bit when Piper talked about the prospective remake of "They Live," a fact that did not please any fans in the sold-out audience. Apparently the remake will not have a fight scene in it.
While some were disappointed to hear that, it's probably just as well. After watching Piper and David pummel each other with such rawness, it seems impossible to top what they did. May "They Live's" world record for the longest fight scene in movie history never be broken!
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