Daz Crawford is best known as Diesel, one of the Gladiators in the hit 90s TV gameshow. He also played the casino thug Zed in "The World is Not Enough" (1999). As Lighthammer in "Blade II" (2002), this is Crawford's first major role in a feature. The film, directed by Guillermo Del Toro, is a high-octane horror fest with some intensely choreographed fight scenes. Although Del Toro is noted as a director who knows what he wants and drives hard to get it, it wasn't just four months of unrelenting slog. According to Crawford, they worked hard, but partied harder! This is Daz's on-set report...
"Guillermo is a fantastic person, he was brilliant to work for. He got 150 percent out of everyone. He worked with you in such a way that it didn't feel like that you'd just crashed your way through a 14-hour day to get the result he was looking for."
"Many nights we were out till the early hours. Wesley threw lots of parties and also did a slot as a guest DJ at a couple of clubs in Prague where we were shooting. As for Guillermo, he had this party trick that started with him mixing some crazy cocktail of a drink and ended with him throwing you around like a rag doll!"
While the schedule was punishing, Crawford remembers Del Toro putting that aside for more important matters: "We'd been on set for a long time when Guillermo came in with a load of champagne and was shouting that he'd just been told he'd become a dad. That was a nice moment."
