Benz wasn’t a huge fan of the Rambo films before starting work on Rambo. “I grew up watching all of the Rocky movies,” confessed Benz. “I was an athlete growing up so Rocky was actually very important to me. I think I actually ice skated to Eye of the Tiger one year. I’ve seen the Rocky films like seven times each, each of them. I remember everything about them. As far as Rambo, I was pretty young when the first one came out. I was very girlie. It wasn’t my thing. I have since seen them and have become a fan.”
While Benz admits she wasn’t a fan of John Rambo going into the movie, she is however a longtime fan of Sylvester Stallone. “I think the performances he gets out of his actors are so beautiful and natural and extremely nuanced. I was excited to work with him in that way. I said to him very early on, I said, ‘Whatever it takes for you to get me to deliver that kind of performance, do it. Just don’t lie to me. If you tell me something is great when it sucks, I’ll know and I won’t trust you. Do whatever it takes.’”
“We had a lot of talks about Sarah and the amount of courage that it took for her to be there, to be the only female missionary on the adventure. We talked a lot about her back story as far as her relationship with Michael [played by Paul Schulze] and how Michael has been numerous times, how this is her first time and she probably insisted on coming and had to fight a battle with him to allow him to bring her. That’s why she didn’t want to go home. That’s why she didn’t want to give up going in so easily as everyone else could, because it was a battle to get there in the first place for her, finding that courage.”
As for working with Stallone, she found the actor/filmmaker to be extremely humble. “He’s the first one to make fun of himself,” revealed Benz. “He’s extremely jovial and funny with a great sense of humor, especially about himself. He does whatever it takes to put you immediately at ease. He’s really great to work with. He’s extremely intelligent, which I don’t necessarily like. I would challenge him on things that he would say and I would go home and look it up on the internet. I would be completely wrong. He knows everything - absolutely everything! He’s extremely well read. He just knows everything and it’s frustrating.”
“Let’s face it. Mr. Stallone is a huge presence on film, and as Rambo especially. To be able to take that one and challenge that for me was a big challenge. We worked a lot on those scenes to really find that strength and courage within me. To be able to stand opposite him without going, ‘Oh my God, you’re Sylvester Stallone.’ We all had that moment. I had to get over that very quickly to be able to take him and challenge him. He’s a big guy to take on and challenge.”
While she loved her director/co-star, Benz wasn’t quite as thrilled about some very persistent set visitors. “There were ginormous bugs flying around. It was so funny because after being there for about two months, we had some reporters come down and they were interviewing us,” said Benz. “One of the reporters interviewing was like, ‘How has this experience changed you?’ As he was asking me that question, a giant bug landed on his shoulder and I just reached over and squeezed that thing and crushed it in between my fingers. I was like, ‘The fact that I did this without squealing, this is how this movie has changed me.’ Deet [bug spray] became my perfume of choice actually while I was there. I was covered in Deet head to toe nonstop.”
Huge bugs weren’t the only creatures that kept Benz on her toes during the filming of Rambo. Benz can laugh about it now, but one animal got a little too close for comfort while she was tied up for a particularly demanding scene. “There were a lot of moments in this movie where reality and fantasy got a little crossed for me. That was one of them. I was really tied up. There was no fake tie. I was really tied. I couldn’t get away. During one of the takes, the pigs broke through that little fence and the cameras were rolling. I was already doing my work to freak out, but then all of a sudden it was a real freak out when you have a 400 pound pig sniffing your toes and sniffing you. You have Sly yelling, ‘Keep it going! Keep the cameras rolling!’ They were going to rush in and get me out and I was freaking out big time. I needed a lot of comfort after that experience.”
The shoot was physically demanding but Benz was well-prepared to take on the action scenes. “As soon as they called me and asked me to take a meeting, I went to the gym. Just in case. I thought it was important having read the script and seeing all of the action scenes. I wasn’t necessarily involved in a lot of the fighting, obviously, but I felt it was important for me to be in the best physical condition that I could possibly be in so I could handle the rigors of shooting in Thailand. I’m a runner so I just upped my running and my sprinting and did a lot of mountain running. You’ve got to do 10-12 takes and you’ve got to be in physical condition to do that without pulling a muscle or getting too winded. I thought it was important.”
