Speaker 1: I Am all In again.
Speaker 2: Let's just.
Speaker 3: Luke's Diner with Scott Patterson, an iHeartRadio podcast.
Speaker 1: He Everybody, Scott Patterson, I Am all In Podcast one
Speaker 1: eleven productions, iHeart Radio Media and iHeart Podcast. We have
Speaker 1: another episode of Luke's Diner one on one with Mark
Speaker 1: A dec.
Speaker 4: Costcos very well pronounced.
Speaker 1: Not bad, right, not bad?
Speaker 4: You got it.
Speaker 1: I am gonna tell you a little bit about Mark.
Speaker 1: He's a renowned actor and martial artist with over forty
Speaker 1: film credits including Brotherhood of the Wolf, Cradle to the Grave,
Speaker 1: and Drive. He's best known for his roles as Wolf
Speaker 1: Fat in the Hawaii five Oh and the chairman on
Speaker 1: the Food Networks Iron Chef America. While he doesn't cook
Speaker 1: or judge on Iron Chef, he brings intensity and flare
Speaker 1: to the show as it's charismatic overseered to Costcos. Has
Speaker 1: also starred in the Crow series and appeared Agents of Shield, Chicago,
Speaker 1: p D, Lucifer Hallmarks, The Perfect Bride Films. Yes, Mark,
Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. Nice to have you.
Speaker 4: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Scott.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this. Your father, Yes, is a
Speaker 1: renowned martial artist. He is and he was inducted in
Speaker 1: ninety nine or you were inducted, and so.
Speaker 4: My father, I believe that my mother were both inducted
Speaker 4: into the black Belt Hall of Fame and then I
Speaker 4: was last year.
Speaker 1: Oh congratulations, thank you, thank you so much. My son
Speaker 1: is a green belt white stripe. Oh fantastic tangs sudo. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's been going at it a couple.
Speaker 4: Of years, and he tried to practice on you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I kind of stopped that. He's he's ten years old.
Speaker 1: He's hitting too hard.
Speaker 4: Now, yeah, yeah, big and strong.
Speaker 1: He's you know, he's not even seventy pounds yet, and
Speaker 1: he's just like he's he's like a bar of iron, and.
Speaker 4: They know the targets to hit, you know, I.
Speaker 1: Say too.
Speaker 4: As your voice goes up.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so you were raised in this discipline, and
Speaker 1: so when did you discover martial arts? I mean right away, right,
Speaker 1: your mom and dad had you in the dough sho.
Speaker 4: You know, in one way, I would have discovered it myself,
Speaker 4: but I didn't.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 4: My father was the founder of his own style. I mean,
Speaker 4: his his base style was kadu kempo. He'd also boxed,
Speaker 4: did some judo, and then he got into uh style
Speaker 4: he's from Hawaii called Kadu Kempo. From Kadu Kempo, he
Speaker 4: formed his own style which had more of a Chinese
Speaker 4: and Filipino influence. My stepmother raised me along with my dad,
Speaker 4: and she was my mom was his first black belt,
Speaker 4: female black belt in his style, and those two raised me.
Speaker 4: So I have pictures of me at four years old
Speaker 4: doing stances in some moves that at six six years old,
Speaker 4: mom and dad put my brother and I in our
Speaker 4: first tournament. It wasn't like we said, oh, we want
Speaker 4: to we want to go fight guys we don't know
Speaker 4: in a stinky, sweaty gym on the weekend instead of
Speaker 4: riding our bikes with everybody else in the fields. We
Speaker 4: found ourselves in this big tournament and my brother was
Speaker 4: on one side of this huge line of little kids
Speaker 4: and I was on the other. And that's how we started.
Speaker 1: How did you go from this very very unique background
Speaker 1: to Iron Chef America. I mean, do you come from track?
Speaker 1: You know, It's like, no, I know you had a
Speaker 1: big career in film and TV, but here you are.
Speaker 1: You know, there's this big resurgence for you and Iron
Speaker 1: Chef America everybody. Everybody knows you. Now you're the Chef's chairman.
Speaker 1: So how did you get that gig?
Speaker 4: How did you Scott? I'm still trying to figure that out.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's it's a crazy one. So you mentioned
Speaker 4: the movie Brotherhood of the Wolf. So apparently that French movie,
Speaker 4: period piece, French movie where I play Native American was
Speaker 4: a movie that one of the executives at one of
Speaker 4: the big corporations in Japan liked, and they happened to
Speaker 4: have the original Iron Chef in Japan. They had that
Speaker 4: franchise and it was coming to America and for them
Speaker 4: to get the new chairman, they had approval or that
Speaker 4: executive I guess had some power and apparently had some
Speaker 4: approval on whoever the next chairman in America would be.
Speaker 4: And because of the Brotherhood of the Wolf, because of
Speaker 4: a French movie, I got on a Japanese list for
Speaker 4: an American show. And when Food Network started to take
Speaker 4: meetings for their new chairman, I was on the list
Speaker 4: and they called me in. I spoke with them. I
Speaker 4: was very upfront. I said, I've never taken a formal
Speaker 4: cooking class in my life. I've never taken a cooking
Speaker 4: class in my life. As matter of fact, I barely
Speaker 4: even cook, but I do kick different, you know, one
Speaker 4: vowel difference, but maybe it's you know, in the ballpark.
Speaker 4: And we started talking about the Caro the chairman, how
Speaker 4: he doesn't need to cook, and I said, you know
Speaker 4: what we could do. We could play around if if
Speaker 4: you invite me to the show, I could take my
Speaker 4: passion for martial arts and that energy that I see
Speaker 4: at martial arts tournaments, because you know, kitchen stadium is
Speaker 4: a field for cooking. I could take that same energy
Speaker 4: and you know, transfer it to Iron Chef. And so
Speaker 4: we started play. The producers and director like that idea,
Speaker 4: and we started playing with the character and giving him
Speaker 4: some oof and you know, bring it up, bring it up,
Speaker 4: do this, do that, until we final got what you
Speaker 4: guys saw on on on the show.
Speaker 1: Right, So what's your favorite what's your favorite dish that
Speaker 1: you that you personally enjoy?
Speaker 4: Okay, I have to say so I've had that question
Speaker 4: a lot in terms of who's my favorite chef? Right?
Speaker 4: And I have to say every because we shot oftentimes
Speaker 4: two shows a day, that's two Iron Chefs and brilliant
Speaker 4: Challenger chefs. Unless of course, an Iron Chef did a
Speaker 4: double battle, which that happened every now and then. But
Speaker 4: in terms of food, five that's twenty courses of food
Speaker 4: for me every day. So to single out one in
Speaker 4: particular is very difficult because I have to say most
Speaker 4: of them literally were off well, they were just off
Speaker 4: the charts fantastic. They were fantastic. Yeah, I've had I
Speaker 4: remember Iron Chef Garcis did these ribs and it was
Speaker 4: early in the morning. It was our first battle in
Speaker 4: the morning, and I try to only eat one or
Speaker 4: two bites of each course, even if they're fantastic, which
Speaker 4: they often were, because one I didn't want to get full,
Speaker 4: and two I didn't want the wardrobe to have to,
Speaker 4: you know, get me new clothes for the shows. It
Speaker 4: would have been very easy to put on weight with
Speaker 4: all the food I was being served, Oh real quick.
Speaker 4: So Scott, this is the thing. The difference from my
Speaker 4: life doing Iron Chef America, where they paid me to
Speaker 4: sit and eat get excited about food. Have some of
Speaker 4: the best chefs in America cook with some of the
Speaker 4: freshest ingredients and I didn't even have to judge, right,
Speaker 4: no comment. So twenty courses a day versus my life
Speaker 4: in Taiwan when I was seventeen, where I was teaching
Speaker 4: conversational English and German to business people to earn money
Speaker 4: to pay my rent for my food transportation and kung
Speaker 4: fu and Chinese class. Because of the no money, I
Speaker 4: only ate once a day, every second day, and I
Speaker 4: did that for six months. So every day that I
Speaker 4: went to Iron Chef America brought up tons of emotion, appreciation, gratitude,
Speaker 4: and how interesting an adventurous life can be. You know,
Speaker 4: you make one choice or don't make a choice, or
Speaker 4: don't do something, and things happen, you know. So every
Speaker 4: day all that made me super grateful, for one having
Speaker 4: a great job with incredible people that I was learning from,
Speaker 4: and they were feeding me. I had foodst I had
Speaker 4: food every day. It was crazy. And there's not one
Speaker 4: day where I didn't sit there and look at these
Speaker 4: brilliant judges and all these chefs and all this food
Speaker 4: and go, wow, I am one lucky guy. I get
Speaker 4: to eat. I get to eat great food. So all
Speaker 4: that to say, ah, the food back to Iron cheff
Speaker 4: garcis he made these ribs and I wanted to eat
Speaker 4: everything on my plate. But I remembered I got another
Speaker 4: show to deal and this and that. So after the show,
Speaker 4: I told my wife, let's go to Let's go to
Speaker 4: Iron Chef Garcius's restaurant and have that food, because a
Speaker 4: lot of Iron chefs had restaurants in the city we
Speaker 4: were shooting in New York. And she said we can't.
Speaker 4: I said, why not because he doesn't have a restaurant here,
Speaker 4: and he may not even remember the recipe, man, you know,
Speaker 4: but it was that good that, I mean, all these
Speaker 4: years later, I still remember it. I remember morimotos on
Speaker 4: Iron Chef Morimoto making this one particular dish and the
Speaker 4: sushi rolls when you cut it, it looked like stained
Speaker 4: glass from a chapel, from a from a church. Amazing,
Speaker 4: you know. And that was the interesting things. Not only
Speaker 4: was the food delicious, but it it it looked, it
Speaker 4: appeared the visions and the imagination to make these things.
Speaker 4: It just visually it looked amazing. They it smelled. That
Speaker 4: kitchen smelled amazing. With the exception of Battle Oval Halloween
Speaker 4: Battle and I had I'm not even gonna say, who
Speaker 4: meane this fried crunchy pork sphincter rings not onion rings
Speaker 4: sphincter rings. I guess there's an audience for that. I'm
Speaker 4: I'm not cultivated enough to like it yet.
Speaker 1: I don't even know where to go with that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: sphincter rings, okay, that I would say, it's spicy, Scott.
Speaker 4: The camera was on me right there as the Shepherd's
Speaker 4: describing it, right before I was starting to and I
Speaker 4: already had an idea because of the aroma hits you
Speaker 4: and cameras are on you, and I'm you know, right here,
Speaker 4: and I'm trying to the character's position of being Switzerland, right,
Speaker 4: So I'm crunching into this and I don't know if
Speaker 4: it was just my imagination or the aroma or everything above,
Speaker 4: but it was. It was a rough one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, let me ask you this.
Speaker 1: Then. You know this show Gilmore Girls, it's all about
Speaker 1: comfort food, and.
Speaker 4: Yes, what is it on that show?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: I just tried not to knock into the furniture.
Speaker 4: No, you were you were great. And by the way,
Speaker 4: the episode I watched you talked about putting nutmeg in
Speaker 4: your coffee. I tried that yesterday. It's really good. That's
Speaker 4: something you made up or is that a thing?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: No, No, that's that's in the script.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, okay, but I mean, do other people do
Speaker 4: that or just your character because i've before.
Speaker 1: No, I think it's a you know, it's a fairly
Speaker 1: commonly practiced in the northeastern United States, maybe in the
Speaker 1: Midwest too, Okay, I think in the West coast they
Speaker 1: probably used pineapple. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 4: Well, I tried your nutmeg and know it was really good.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank You're welcome. That's that's so from your childhood.
Speaker 1: What would you say is the the comfort food from
Speaker 1: your childhood? If you were to remember one dish that
Speaker 1: brings you back to all those great memories from.
Speaker 4: Childhood, probably Ramen Simon in Ramen. Yeah, we had that
Speaker 4: in Hawaii, and then I used to make it for
Speaker 4: my mom and brother in Colorado. We didn't have it
Speaker 4: anymore in Humburg, but as a kid, I remember Roman
Speaker 4: Roman noodles.
Speaker 1: I'm in So, if you were to if you were
Speaker 1: to come into Luke's Diner, yes, I have two questions
Speaker 1: for you.
Speaker 4: Okay, what would you order?
Speaker 1: Where would you sit?
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, okay, okay. One, I'd sit at the counter
Speaker 4: because your characters seem really cool and I'd want to
Speaker 4: figure out because I haven't watched the whole all of
Speaker 4: the seasons. I would. I want to know about where
Speaker 4: Luke came from, what his dreams were, what happened to him. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and two I watched that whole episode, and you guys
Speaker 4: talk about the cheeseburger or the burgers and the fries,
Speaker 4: but I didn't get to see them. So I would
Speaker 4: order what I didn't get to see.
Speaker 1: Okay, burger fries, all right, fries A right.
Speaker 4: Get at the counter and I'd cut you up.
Speaker 1: There you go, man, I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 1: if I could interact with you very much much because
Speaker 1: it's always busier in a bad mood, right, So you
Speaker 1: know we could have talked. We'll talk martial arts. Do
Speaker 1: you know about time sudo? We'll want to talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about that.
Speaker 4: I only know what from seeing I've never practiced any
Speaker 4: I learned some.
Speaker 1: Very interesting techniques because I studied.
Speaker 2: A little bit.
Speaker 4: Did you study too?
Speaker 1: A little bit? Not a lot, not a lot, but
Speaker 1: I but I but I dabbled, let's say, and there
Speaker 1: was some very interesting concentration focused techniques that my teacher
Speaker 1: taught me. Where you recreate the flame, you stare a
Speaker 1: flame twenty minutes a day, wow, and then everything just
Speaker 1: seems to you know, around it get hazies, but that
Speaker 1: focal point stays clear, that flame.
Speaker 4: Where would you where did you watch the flame?
Speaker 1: I just, you know, I'd set it up in my
Speaker 1: room and okay, you know, get in the lotus position
Speaker 1: on the floor and light a candle and stare at
Speaker 1: the flame. And because I was a professional baseball pitcher,
Speaker 1: were you really Yeah? I did that for seven years,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to be able to just sort of
Speaker 1: block out the crowd and block out everything except the
Speaker 1: catcher's knit and where he wanted me to throw the ball,
Speaker 1: because the catcher would give you the signal, and then
Speaker 1: he set up inside outside high you know, whatever it was,
Speaker 1: and I didn't even want to notice the presence of
Speaker 1: the hitter or the umpire or I just you know,
Speaker 1: it's like a movie that you see that everything is
Speaker 1: just you and the catcher communicating. He sets up his
Speaker 1: mit where he wants it and then recreate the flame
Speaker 1: inside that mit and then everything else fades away. And
Speaker 1: it actually worked. Yeah, it actually worked. So it was more,
Speaker 1: you know, what I got out of was more of
Speaker 1: the psychological stuff, which was fascinating to me, absolutely fascinating
Speaker 1: to us, and I've applied it to certain situations in life,
Speaker 1: which very helpful.
Speaker 4: Yes, I love that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So you were a professional baseball pitcher for seven years.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, but I dabbled and I have some martial
Speaker 1: arts stories and I'm not going to tell them now,
Speaker 1: but but I got back into it with my son's
Speaker 1: teacher because he's a renowned black belt. He's he's like
Speaker 1: a nineteen time world champion. He's still you know, he's
Speaker 1: forty two or something at.
Speaker 4: This He knows what he's doing.
Speaker 1: He did, right, But he's just so great with the kids.
Speaker 1: He's so great with the kids, and he's got some.
Speaker 2: Great kids over there.
Speaker 1: He's got such talented kids. My son doesn't compete yet, okay, ten.
Speaker 1: He just does it for the forms, right right, he
Speaker 1: loves the form.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's great. Good, good technique and breezing great.
Speaker 1: He's great at that stuff. And I think he's going
Speaker 1: to start competing because mister B as they call him
Speaker 1: at the karate school, he's always taking kids to the
Speaker 1: world championships of the national championships and they come back.
Speaker 1: World champions are national champions and you know they always
Speaker 1: come back with five or six medals. You know, what
Speaker 1: are you doing now? What are you currently up to?
Speaker 1: What projects are you working on? Okay?
Speaker 4: I was in Mongolia for seven was in Mongolia for
Speaker 4: seven weeks prepping a show which we opened in the
Speaker 4: English language in Singapore live theater show called The Mongol Khan.
Speaker 4: And I'm one of the leads of that show. And
Speaker 4: I love being back on stage. We are bringing it
Speaker 4: to Los Angeles and Broadway. We're not sure this year
Speaker 4: or next year. We have dates in Japan going back
Speaker 4: to London. So I'm back on stage after many, many years.
Speaker 4: But I love it. Exciting.
Speaker 1: That's exciting.
Speaker 4: Oh, Scott, I love it. I love it. And this
Speaker 4: particular show, may I show you our program? Sure, it's
Speaker 4: done in two languages, in the Mongolian language and in
Speaker 4: the English language. This is our Mongolian language cast.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, look at that.
Speaker 4: It's a period piece and this is our English language cast.
Speaker 4: And I'm in the blue.
Speaker 1: Are you playing a Genghis Khan?
Speaker 4: I am playing. I don't want to give it away,
Speaker 4: but I'm not playing the con ron Yuan. Up here
Speaker 4: is our con I'm this guy right here. I am
Speaker 4: playing second in command and it's a really fun character.
Speaker 1: Does Marco Polo have a cameo in the play? You could? Well,
Speaker 1: that's exciting. So you're gonna be on Broadway, You're going
Speaker 1: to London.
Speaker 4: Yes, So we're working on that and I'm doing a
Speaker 4: couple of indies in between. Okay, so still moving, still working.
Speaker 4: I still train Shakespeare and presence and voice with my teacher,
Speaker 4: Patsy Rodenberg. She's out of London, and uh, I still
Speaker 4: work in the craft, you know, trying to get.
Speaker 1: Mark de Coscas. Thank you so much. Look out for
Speaker 1: Mark's new play, big production, The mongol Con, which will
Speaker 1: be coming to Los Angeles and New York Broadway in
Speaker 1: New York London, So go check it out here next year. Mark, Uh,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for your time and good luck
Speaker 1: with the films, the indies and and this wonder will
Speaker 1: play that you're in.
Speaker 4: Scott, thank you for having me and protect your growing.
Speaker 1: I always do. It's the first thing I do when
Speaker 1: I wake up. I Hi, buddy, have a good one.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 2: All right, hey everybody, and as again.
Speaker 5: Follow us on Instagram at I Am all In podcast
Speaker 5: and email us at Gilmore at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 4: H