Youth worker doubles as Hollywood actor

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Russel "Sam" Badger says he doesn't have a clue about acting - yet he worked with international film star Jackie Chan.

"I don't know anything," chuckled the man originally from Mistawasis First Nation, 65 km west of Prince Albert. "They just picked me because I kind of look like an Indian."

Now a Sturgeon Lake area resident, Badger finished shooting his scenes playing a chief in Chan's new action-comedy titled, Shanghai Noon, last summer. Filmed near Calgary, the movie is currently in theatres.

The film is set in the late 1800s. Chan plays an adventurer who volunteers to find a Chinese princess who flees to North America because she doesn't like the man she has been arranged to spend her life with.

Chan's character takes the assignment because he loves the princess, played by Lucy Liu who is a regular cast member on the television program Ally McBeal.

As Chan tracks down the princess, he ends up on a train in the old west. A locomotive accident separates Chan's car from the rest of the train.

"He finally ends up in my camp," said Badger. "I play the part of a good chief - so I help him (Chan) out once and a while."

But preparing for the role took a little bit of work, since Badger had to learn another culture.

"I have to speak Sioux in there and I'm Cree," he said. "That was quite a challenge. So I had to learn my lines on the set."

Badger got the part because of a last-minute phone call in May of 1999 from his agent in Edmonton, after Gordon Tootoosis couldn't take the role due to another commitment.

"I didn't have to audition for it," he said, adding he was contacted on a Friday and flew to Calgary the next day for shooting.

But Badger said he didn't mind the last-minute rush.

"To be with Jackie - anything," he said. "I've seen his movies and he is outstanding."

Jackie Chan does his own movie stunts, which have seen him do things such as hang from helicopters and break various bones. That appeals to Badger.

"I admire him for that," he said.

During Shanghai Noon filming, Chan took a kick in the crotch from one of his co-stars for a stunt during a river fight scene. But Chan wasn't hurt, since he was hooked to a set of wires that pulled the actor back as the kick was about to connect, said Badger.

For other stunt scenes with fellow actors, Chan would co-ordinate the moves before shooting. Badger said Chan is very funny even when he is simply explaining something because the star is so animated when he speaks.

He, along with Liu, is also a nice person, said Badger, who spent a lot of time talking with the pair between takes.

"They're both grounded," he said.

But this wasn't Badger's first stint at acting. He has taken up various roles in such movies as Summer of the Monkeys, My West filmed in Italy, and The Dinosaur Hunter.

In 1991, Badger did a Saskatchewan Tourism commercial with Don Adams, famous for his role as Maxwell Smart, Agent 86, in Get Smart, a television comedy series about Cold War spies.

Badger played Chief Sitting Bull in the commercial standing behind the actor, as agent Smart used his shoe phone to talk with his boss at headquarters.

"He said 'Hello Chief' and I said 'Hello,'" explained Badger. "He kind of did a double take after that."

Besides acting, Badger has a full-time job with Prince Albert's Youth Futures, a group that helps 18- to 21-year-olds get off social services and into educational programs at places such as the Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology.

His role at Youth Futures is as an independence coach to help encourage the young adults. To help his clients, Badger has set up an acting class taught by Jan Cash who runs a Prince Albert talent agency. The classes of about 10 students each run in the summer.

Before getting his education degree from the University of Saskatchewan, Badger lived on the streets in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

"I used to sleep in lumber yards," he said.

But learning about his culture helped him battle his problems with drugs and alcoho. The experience also inspires his clients at Youth Futures and helps him relate to them.

Working with the likes of Jackie Chan doesn't hurt either.

"I tell them, If you want something badly enough, you can get it."