Bey Logan: You worked with him and Dolph on Universal Soldier. Personally, I think you should have got, at least, a co-directing credit on that film, because, apart front the action sequences, there was precious little else…
Vic Armstrong: I got a very nice credit as it was, I must say. They don't normally recognise second units as much.
Bey Logan: Wasn't Andy Davis, who directed Under Siege, meant to direct Universal Soldier?
Vic Armstrong: That's right. I signed up when Andy was doing it. It was a different script completely. Absolutely different. It was called Universal Soldier, but that was about it. It was more of a political thriller, about oppression of the third world, in South America, and about this elite military team coming into a country to take over and help out, and then getting taken over themselves. Andy was still on it while we were shooting Double Impact. We were having meetings about it. I must say I didn't like the script very much, and I told Jean-Claude that. Anyway, Andy Davis left, and Roland Emmerich game onto it, and he brought with him what he described as this modern day Frankenstein type story, and we ended up shooting that.
Bey Logan: I think that that plot, as a structure to contain all these terrific stunt set pieces was great, but what was missing was the heart of the piece, which is where I feel you succeeded while Emmerich failed.
Vic Armstrong It had none at all. That's why I couldn't believe it made the money it did, although Double Impact made more, domestically, in the States, than Universal Soldier did. No, it had no heart at all. I didn't I like the characters, either of them particularly.
Beg Logan: I know I keep asking you to compare and contrast people, but, as someone who's worked with Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren on a couple of projects each, how do they differ in their approach to their work?
Vic Armstrong: They're both tough in that they haven't been in the business long enough to trust their own judgement. That's what gives you confidence. There's a slight insecurity, but, once you win their confidence, they’re both fairly easy to get on with, and I'm fairly easy to get on with, and I can talk through things with people. They're very similar. Not ‘easy', I wouldn't say…
Bey Logan: How were they with each other during the shoot?
Vic Armstrong: Oh, fine. Never any aggravation at all. I thought there would be, to tell you the truth, but there wasn't. They got on together, happy as anything.
Bey Logan: What was the most difficult sequence to shout, stuntwise, in Universal Soldier?
Vic Armstrong: For me, there were two tricky ones: Running down the Hoover Dam, which was pretty spectacular. In the script, they rappel down. Well, I throw up every time I read another rappelling shot! It's been done to death. How can we do this and make it look interesting? So we had these special rigs made and from the early days I thought we'd do it Australian style, with them coming down face first. We took quite a bit of time getting it right but for me that made the sequence. The other scene was the prison bus flipping. It was tricky, because you really had only one bite at it. I had five cameras, and every single camera is used in that sequence. That was a hell of a shot…
Bey Logan: I heard that you had to re-shoot the ending of Universal Soldier. Why was that?
Vic Armstrong: Again, as with Joshua Tree, the ending wasn't big enough compared to what had gone on before. In the original ending, they fight, and Devereaux's mum is killed. It was all outside. Ally (Sheedy) ran away and got blown up. There wasn't any aftermath, except her crawling across the ground, just to prove she was still alive. They had previews, and the audience wanted to see more of a confrontation between Van Damme and Dolph. We went back to where, in the original shot, Dolph throws him into the barn. He picks Jean-Claude up and throws him inside the barn, which was a set we built in a big warehouse. Everything in the barn was new, and the scenes showing that mum and dad were still alive.
Bey Logan: Who was that terrible old codger they got to play Van Damme's father in the film?
Vic Armstrong: You know who that was? I used to call him Lurch! Ron Howard's Dad! I couldn't believe it! I wasn't sure if he was all there… Weird character.