Related Resources • "Blade: Trinity" Credits, News and Trailer • "Blade: Trinity" Photos • Jessica Biel Films and Photos • Ryan Reynolds Interviews and Movies

“Blade” screenwriter David Goyer takes over behind the camera for the third and final film in the series, “Blade: Trinity.” Wesley Snipes returns as the 'daywalker,' but this time his secret mission is exposed to the outside world. When the FBI discovers his existence, he's forced to join with a group of human vampire hunters called Nightstalkers. Jessica Biel and Ryan Reynolds co-star as two of the highly trained Nightstalkers who help Blade track down the original vampire, Dracula.

In this interview, Jessica Biel (who looked fit and gorgeous), Ryan Reynolds (also looking good) and screenwriter/director David Goyer share a few behind the scenes tidbits and discuss their experiences of working with “Blade” veteran, Wesley Snipes:

Jessica, can you talk about bulking up for this role?
DAVID GOYER: By the way, she's toned down from what she is in the movie.

JESSICA BIEL: Yeah, that's true. Basically Ryan and I spent probably two months before we even started shooting for a month and a half, in the gym everyday.

RYAN REYNOLDS: Thighmaster.

JESSICA BIEL: Ryan loved the Thighmaster. Two or three hours in the gym every day, a crazy nutritional plan, martial arts fight training every day for an hour. I had archery training every day and that's every day. Slowly but surely I got bigger and leaner.

How much getting used to doing all that training and creating a new body did it take?
DAVID GOYER: You got a little addicted to it, in a weird way.

JESSICA BIEL: Absolutely.

RYAN REYNOLDS: You have to. If you're going to commit to that, you're going to have to find some way to make it bearable and enjoyable.

DAVID GOYER: There's a funny little anecdote there: One of the days when Jess was shooting with the bow and arrow - you were up in the arch or whatever – and we've got these cameras aimed at her. And we're shooting with a high speed camera, like 300 frames per second so it's very slow motion. She had learned how to shoot this arrow very well and all the crew were behind – she was maybe 30 or 40' away, but she was up in the air three stories - and all the crew were behind safety glass. The only thing that wasn't covered was literally a 2" by 2" thing right in front of the lens of the camera. We said, “Aim for the camera.” BAM! Right down the lens into the housing of the camera. Destroyed like a $300,000 camera.

JESSICA BIEL: (laughs)

DAVID GOYER: It was caught on film and I'm actually going to put it on the DVD.

JESSICA BIEL: Are you?

DAVID GOYER: Yeah. It's in slow motion. She shoots, she looks badass and everything like that, and then there's this pause and she's like [arms pumping in the air], “Yeah!”

JESSICA BIEL: I just cracked up because it was like I hit the lens and then there was this laughter. In slow-mo the glass blew all the way back.

DAVID GOYER: It hit the lens and embedded like 8".

Just think about the poor guy looking through the camera at that.
DAVID GOYER: We actually ended up destroying about five cameras on that movie.

RYAN REYNOLDS: How could they worry about a piddly f***ing $300,000 lens when you had the most triumphant moment of your life?

JESSICA BIEL: I know!

How much training did it take to do the bow work?
JESSICA BIEL: The archery training was probably some of the hardest training that I did. There's muscles that you don't even know you use in your back, and you have to be really relaxed and really focused. And it was hard. It was really, really difficult.

DAVID GOYER: Jessica was a better shot than [her stunt double]. We used her stunt double in very few shots, usually when there was flying glass involved and things like that. And Jessica was a much better shot than her stunt double was.

JESSICA BIEL: I just had so much more practice with the bow than she ever did. The actual poundage – I practiced with a much heavier bow, probably something like pulling maybe 20 or 30 pounds back. And then the arrow obviously goes so much further and faster. But we had such crazy, pointy, deadly tips on these arrows that we had to drop the poundage down to a really safe [level] so that if I hit anything, I wouldn't kill anybody.

DAVID GOYER: We did some tests with some of the arrowheads that she was firing. We did one test where it actually went through the wall of the set. And we just said, “We've got to reduce the poundage because, literally, she's going to kill somebody.”

Ryan, what kind of special weapons do you carry?
RYAN REYNOLDS: I just have like 30 guns on me at all times. My workout everyday was just kind of putting my wardrobe on, really.

DAVID GOYER: We had two electronic pistols that have little gun cameras on them with little mini-CDs so they record a first person view of when you're shooting. Then he comes home, he pops them in and watches what he just shot.

RYAN REYNOLDS: Yeah, for most guys it's porn but for me it's this. We also had a beefeater – we called it. This big, huge Dirty Harry-kind of gun. That was on my side. Do you remember that old show “Sledgehammer?” It felt like that. I slept with it. I talked to it. [I kept] it under my pillow. So I also had that one. Then I also had this one called a 'bonejack.' It's just gigantic. It was actually built in the late 19th century. It's just a pump-action shotgun that has like five barrels. I ended up not using it.

DAVID GOYER: You see it in one deleted scene. If we ever do a Nightstalkers film, it will be in that because on the stock, it's got the mudflap girl.

RYAN REYNOLDS: Yeah, it's really cheeky.

JESSICA BIEL: I remember the first time we were at the gun range practicing. I had my cool seven-shooter and he had this gun - he couldn't get it over his back. He was like [struggling hard, groaning] throwing it over and [shooting], and it would just shake that whole place.

RYAN REYNOLDS: This thing was like 20 pounds and it was ridiculous.

JESSICA BIEL: You could barely even get it off your back.

DAVID GOYER: It was so big that it was almost comical.

RYAN REYNOLDS: It was comical because you're at a firing range, all these people are so seriously shooting their little guns. And like I picture this slow pan down like, “What the f*** is that?!” You look down at this guy with basically like a World War II cannon, firing it. At the beginning of the movie I couldn't lift it. I couldn't swing it over my head. By the end, we'd basically trained so much that I could finally get it.

DAVID GOYER: He got much better. We were going to use it for Ryan's entrance into the movie – for Hannibal King's entrance in the movie. But I don't think you had the muscular chops enough to swing it out yet?

RYAN REYNOLDS: To swing it out? No. It wasn't until towards the end. We started training a month before the movie started and then by five months in, we were at our peak shape.

JESSICA BIEL: It's so funny because I don't think people can really tell. I can tell. Like, I look at us and the beginning scenes that we shot, we look really lean. But as it goes on, we're just getting ripped.

RYAN REYNOLDS: Bigger and bigger.

JESSICA BIEL: You look so different. I can really see the difference.

RYAN REYNOLDS: You leaned [up]. I gained about 20 pounds and you…

JESSICA BIEL: I just dropped it and then built it back up again.

DAVID GOYER: The funniest thing was “Fitness Magazine” or something. Can I say that?

JESSICA BIEL: Yeah!

RYAN REYNOLDS: It's ridiculous. “Muscle and Fitness” magazine was interviewing our trainer.

JESSICA BIEL: They wanted to do a story on our training. They said, “Well, we're really interested in Jessica but we're just not so sure about Ryan because of the ab implants.”

RYAN REYNOLDS: They thought it was just prosthetics on my stomach!

DAVID GOYER: He's got like an 18-pack instead of a 6-pack.

RYAN REYNOLDS: It's true. They didn't believe it.

JESSICA BIEL: They really thought he had ab implants.

RYAN REYNOLDS: Four months after we finished shooting, I'd been in New Orleans shooting another movie and my agent and I were having a bite to eat – actually in London – and he's sitting there and goes, “Wow, I just can't believe how ripped you are.” And I pulled up my [shirt] and my gut flopped over. And he just looked like he wanted to cry. “How?!”

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2: Injuries, Practical Jokes, and Wesley Snipes

"BLADE: TRINITY" RESOURCES:
"Blade: Trinity" Photo Gallery
"Blade: Trinity" Credits, Trailer and Websites