After a stellar run at the global box office, John Wick: Chapter 4 is finally available on 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray, and to celebrate the release, we caught up with action star Scott Adkins (X-Men Origins: Wolverine; The Bourne Ultimatum; Doctor Strange) to talk about his villainous role as the notorious Killa Harkan. 
The British actor, who is a renowned martial artist, was practically unrecognizable in the film as he wore a massive fat suit and an ample amount of facial prostethics to truly disappear into character. We, of course, inquired about the extensive process it took to get him ready every day, as well as what it was like fighting Keanu Reeves under these very unique circumstances. 
We get into whether he remembers any key deleted scenes, his relationship with Donnie Yen, his reaction to the shocking ending, and a whole lot more. Plus, he was also generous enough to talk about his time playing Weapon XI in X-Men Origins: Wolverine and how he feels about that whole experience today. 
Watch our full video interview below or keep scrolling for the full text, and please remember to SUBSCRIBE to my channel!

ROHAN: How long was the process to get you into all those prosthetics and did it take you a while to get adjusted to being able to act and fight?

SCOTT: It took about three and a half hours every day to get everything on. The prosthetics were around my face and neck mainly, so there’s a lot of weight going forward, to fit in the mid back a lot and the neck, but it wasn’t that heavy. The suit wasn’t that heavy, it was more the neck that was the problem. And then, with the action, you never got acclimated to your surroundings. You’re in an uncomfortable fat suit with loads of marzipan on your face. It wasn’t comfortable, but you just gotta get on with it. You just gotta grit your teeth and get into your happy place and go for it.

ROHAN: Did you and Chad Stahelski craft any sort of backstory for Killa Harkan? 

SCOTT: Some of it changed, to be honest, like when I watched the movie! *laughs* Chad wasn’t so much concerned about that. He let me go in and do my own thing, you know, what’s on the page is what they’re gonna see. It’s important that I have in my head, how I feel about the different characters and what’s gotten me to that position, but, look, if you’d write a prequel, and it could all be completely different from what I’ve got in my head. What matters is what happens on the day, so I had a fair idea of where he’d come from, and what led to him being the way he was. I’ll keep it to myself, because it could change.

ROHAN: What was your experience working with Keanu Reeves and squaring up against him? 

SCOTT: It was great. When he goes, ‘I’m going to kill you.’ It’s like, woah, John Wick is just staring at me, saying he’s gonna kill me. There was a moment where I was taken out, and I thought, Oh, Jesus, John Wick! That was great. There was a bit of pressure, because I’m brought in and I’m in this fat suit, and I think everyone’s a bit like, is this gonna work? You know, what we’re doing here. There’s a tiny dialogue, and I’ve got to play this part. So, you know that there was pressure, but I was ready, and I just wanted to have fun. I really enjoyed it actually, I really relished playing the character.

ROHAN: You’re pretty unrecognizable in this role, what was the reaction from your family and friends? Did they immediately recognize that it was you or did it take a while before the texts started coming in?

SCOTT: Well, I don’t know, you’d have to ask them. *laughs* I actually thought I’d look much different. I thought I would be unrecognizable, and then, when I first put it all on, I thought, oh, well, it’s clearly me. It’s just a fatter version of me, but some people I know didn’t recognize me, and they knew I was in the movie. They were still waiting for me to crop up. So, I think the initial idea was – I think it was better if people didn’t know who I was, and then when the character starts doing martial arts, that’s got a shock value to it, because you don’t expect this big, fat guy to start doing all those kicks. But, obviously, anyone who knows me and what I’m known for will figure it out how beforehand but ultimately, I think what Chad wanted was a character actor completely disappear into that, and then when he starts doing the martial arts, it’s like, oh, shit, I didn’t expect that.

ROHAN: For your sequence, I imagine there’s a ton of prep work and rehearsal that went into that entire sequence before it was actually shot. Can you elaborate on the process? 

SCOTT: There’s a hell of a lot of prep. Well, you know, a lot of it, I’m not privy to. I was busy just working on the character and doing makeup tests and all the rest of it, and even with the fight stuff, I made a mess about it with Jeremy Marinas, the fight coordinator coming up with some potential ideas for choreography that we would put on a video and would give to Chad. Then, the fight was designed on the set, which I was surprised about it, to be honest, but I think it’s because they were so busy with other stuff, and they knew I’d be able to do it and Keanu would be able to do it, if we just made it up on the spot. But, yeah, a lot of prep work. I mean, I was going to work with the dog, because at one point, they thought the dog was going to attack me. So, I did a lot of training with the dog, which I enjoyed, but we never did it in the film.

ROHAN: The movie is fairly serious, for the most part, but you get to bring some levity with your scenes. Was that fun for you to be able to bring that element into this film?

SCOTT: I think my personality anyway, I look for the humor in things, but I don’t remember actually having a conversation with Chad about, oh, this guy is comic relief or anything like that. But I just thought, you know, the way it was written, I knew I could – he’s a character that enjoys the sound of his own voice clearly, and I just thought, well, I just feel I can have a bit of fun with this. Then, when I was playing the part, on the day, I would say to Chad, you want me to bring it down a little bit? He was loving it, so I even probably took it further, and yeah, I’m quite mischievous, and have a good sense of humor. So, I’ll always look for that in a part, a lot of the time, to be honest. I wouldn’t say John Wick is a serious movie anyway. It has its serious moments, but it’s an entertaining movie, right? So, you got to understand the tone of the film, and it’s very – I don’t want to say comic book-y because that means something else now. It was like a graphic novel. It’s like an anime come to life. So, I knew I could push it a little bit.

ROHAN: You’ve worked with Donnie Yen before, what is your relationship with him like?

SCOTT: My relationship with Donnie is that I have the utmost respect for one of the greatest martial arts actors to have ever lived, and I am such a huge fan. I appreciate everything he says to me, and all the advice he gives to me because he really does know what he’s doing, like no one else, you know, there’s Jackie Chan, there’s Bruce Lee, there’s Donnie Yen, right at the very top. So, I’m a student to him, and it’s kind of he’s the sensei and I’m the student. That’s the relationship that I have with him, and that’s the way it is in my head anyway. He’s the man, so I want to learn from him.

ROHAN: Do you remember any of your scenes not making it into the final cut?

SCOTT: I suppose I can give it away, can’t I? I probably won’t get shouted at. There was a bit where Donnie Yen and me, we have a little moment. He meets me on the stairs and stabs me with his sword and that’s not in the film. He just sticks the sword in me a little bit, so I’m bleeding from somewhere I shouldn’t be bleeding from. But, I think because I was wet you couldn’t see it.

ROHAN: What was your initial reaction to the ending? Did you know about it going in or was that a surprise?

SCOTT: I was watching it at the premiere, and then I saw the gravestone and I was thinking, ‘what, he’s dead?! What’s going on?!’ And, I’m like Jesus Christ. Nobody told me about this. I was actually saying to them just before the film came on, so when are you going to do #5? And they still didn’t say.

ROHAN: With a prequel film like Ballerina on its way, there’s always a chance for a character like Killa Harkan to resurface, is that something you’d be interested in exploring?

SCOTT: Well, I wouldn’t say no. Would I come back to the John Wick universe? No. I’d love it. Yeah, of course, but I wouldn’t hold my breath either, because Killa is a side character. I mean, look, there’s a lot you could tell, and he’s a fun character and the audience certainly appreciated him. So, if they did bring it back, I think it’d be a smart move, but it’s not up to me.

ROHAN: What has your experience been working with Chad Stahelski and the 87 Eleven team?

SCOTT: I mean, I’ve known them going back ages, and I’ve worked with them, as a second-unit director and all the rest of it. Yeah, we come from the same world of martial arts movies, and we’ve got the same – we’re inspired by the same people, you know, Jackie Chan movies, the Bruce Lee movies, Japanese movies. So, it’s just refreshing to work with people that know how to shoot action, because normally you’re thinking, are they going to mess this up in the edit? Is it going to be butchered? Is all this hard work for nothing, because some editors gonna come along and mess the whole thing up? But with them, you know, it’s gonna be done at high quality, because they got final cut. They’ll tell the editor how to edit the action scenes.

ROHAN: You’ve been part of so many great franchises, is there any action movie on your bucket list that you’d like to maybe work in one day? Something like Mission: Impossible?

SCOTT: You say Mission Impossible, I mean, yeah, those films are great. I do really appreciate them. I think Tom Cruise is amazing, and the way he puts life on the line for his movies, you know, you got to appreciate that. I really do enjoy those films. Yeah, that is a good action franchise. Absolutely.

ROHAN: Deadpool 3 is now shooting and it seems like they’ll be tying up a lot of loose ends – if they called you, would you be interested in getting another go at Weapon XI?

SCOTT: They brought back Weapon XI at the end of Deadpool 2 to kill him, which I completely support by the way. He needed to die, because it was an abomination of character. I was a bit upset that they didn’t – I mean, you know, I would have done that for free, but probably they were filming it in a different country, but I would have happily let them shoot me in the head for that film.

ROHAN: Since it’s been fourteen years since X-Men Origins: Wolverine and, you’ve already said you’re happy they killed him in Deadpool 2, what is your sort of relationship to that Weapon XI role, since it was so early in your career?

SCOTT: I tried to stay away from stunt work, even though I’ve done a load of martial arts films, and the casting director had probably sending his stunt man anyway, which is fine, but my agents would always say, no, no, you can’t do stunts because you need to be appreciated for your acting. If you’re doing stunts, you know, that’s just the way it is. So, I made them give me the credit of Weapon XI, but they wanted me to do the stunts. J.J. Perry was the action coordinator. He really wanted me to do it. It was just my way of legitimizing it, but essentially, I was a stunt double for Deadpool, and Ryan wasn’t there. He was off filming this Sandra Bullock movie, so I don’t even know if he knew what was going on or how the character was gonna be presented.
He was probably shocked when he found out that it was very different to Deadpool in the way he should be. I thought it was weird, you know, the rays coming out the eyes and the claw and everything. Yeah, it was strange, but I was just there to do a job and I got my SAG card and I had a good time in Sydney. Yeah, it was a bad version of that character, but Ryan Reynolds wasn’t even there, so they had to sew his mouth shut, because that was the way around his availability. To sew his mouth shut, so he doesn’t have to talk. I mean, that’s the way I saw it.

​​John Wick (Keanu Reeves) uncovers a path to defeating the High Table. But before he can earn his freedom, Wick must face off against a new enemy with powerful alliances across the globe and forces that turn old friends into foes.