From Dudley to Hollywood - martial arts teacher lands role with upcoming blockbuster
A martial arts teacher in Dudley has taken his talents to Hollywood after landing the role of fight coordinator in an upcoming film.
Rob Lock, who owns Rob Lock's Academy on Wellington Road, created the fight scenes for Polite Society, which is a Universal Pictures and Focus Features film set to be released on April 28.
The 62-year-old has previously worked on "Suffragette" starring Meryl Streep and Helena Bonham Carter and was Anya Taylor-Joy's "personal coach" for the film "Morgan".
Rob said he was first approached to take on the role in Polite Society around a year ago, and is "honoured" to be taking part.
He added: "I read the script and within a day or two I was laughing out loud, it was so funny and so good. The foremost thing is they wanted me to build the fight, not only build the several fights in the film but also coach the actors and actresses in the fight scene and on top of that, coach the stunt performers and the doubles who are doing the fight scenes.
"(When) coaching someone who is an actor or an actress, very often they have only done stage combat and very often they haven't done any serious martial arts, which is my job to get them up to a level in as short as space as possible.
"I love martial arts, I love film, it's a passion. I love the thrill of watching the performers on set, it's just an unbelievable feeling of watching it all come together."
Rob, from Bewdley, explained that before choreographing each fight, he was briefed by director Nida Manzoor, who suggested certain influences for each scene such as Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill".
The father-of-three spent around five weeks creating the sequences, before rehearsing them with the stars of the film for 12 weeks at a studio in London.
And Rob has travelled to the capital this week for a cast-and-crew preview of the blockbuster, before travelling to Los Angeles next week for an "influencer's workshop" to discuss his involvement.
He said: "It's a very exciting time to see all of this come to fruition. There's been rave reviews, there's been over six million views on the trailer alone – I'm so proud of it and just so honoured to be pulled into it.
"We have actually booked out one of the screens at the Showcase Cinema a few days after its release for just my people; for family, friends and academy members so that's really exciting."
