GR: But was there a plan to develop your character more or did it change over time?

DW: No, I mean it was always meant to be a journey for Sunny’s character. I mean, it's very loosely based on Journey to the West, and what we mean by loosely based is the Monkey King is given this mission to take the Buddhist scriptures from India to China. It's not just about that. It's about this journey that he goes on. The way with this group of people and they're in charge of doing this. And each bit of adversity that they run into is a metaphor for life, and it's a journey that by the end of it, the Monkey King himself changes. In the beginning, he's a petulant, rebellious character, and by the end he becomes enlightened. And so what we wanted to have that same kind of character arc for Sunny. So the first season, unlike the Monkey King, Sunny's more of a cold hearted killer with not much feelings, but the fact that his wife, his girlfriend is about to have a baby, that changes everything. Because all he's done his whole life is take lives and suddenly he's created a life and that's kind of emotionally changed something in his head. That starts his little seed that creates his journey path for him. And this season it's all about getting back into the Badlands. He's been taken out of the Badlands, and is getting back into the Badlands, and finding his girl who’s been kidnapped. He doesn't even know if it's been born yet. And so to make the family union, to get away from what he was, being a cold-hearted killer, and becoming a better person. Can he even achieve that? And so that's really the change for Sunny, and I think last season was a setup of what Sunny was like before and this season you see the change happening within him.

GR: You think being a dad helped your character a little bit to understand what to do?

DW: Oh, totally. And I think the writers maybe even, because of my personal life, know that and put that element in there. But yeah, if I didn't have a kid, I don't know if I would be able to play the character with this much emotion as I would have if it was 10 years ago. The idea of having a kid versus actually having a real kid and dealing with that every day. And the fact that, I would literally kill for my kid. I mean, this is me Daniel Wu saying, I've done certain things that happened with her that's not typically in my personality, because you have a family and as a male of the family, you're the protector. Naturally these things happen to you, and you wouldn't be able to recreate that necessarily as an actor on your own— a true feeling of that.

If I didn't have a kid, I don't know if I would be able to play the character with this much emotion as I would have if it was 10 years ago.

GR: So I guess, backing up a little bit, can you talk about martial arts? I heard a little bit, you did martial arts since you were a little kid but can you talk about that and how it relates to what you're doing today?

DW: I started Shaolin Kung Fu when I was 11 and that was because when I was 7, I saw Shaolin Temple which was Jet Li’s first movie. And that blew me out of the water. I remember my grandfather took me to Chinatown, the Great Star theater in San Francisco and he was like, you know all that stuff you've been watching? Before I used to watch Kung Fu theater every Sunday when I was a kid. That stuff was fake. This is the real deal. And so I saw the amazing thing in that movie which was the training scene where like they're doing all these weapons and all that stuff and I remember that scene very clearly. I was like, that's what I want to do. They're doing the preying mantis, they were doing all different styles within this 5 minute scene, and I was a hyperactive kid. My parents thought I'd get in fights and stuff in school so they didn't want me to learn. It wasn't until my mom found my first teacher, YC Chiang in El Cerrito, California and he became my first teacher. He wasn't just a Kung Fu Teacher. He was a Qi Gong master, Tai Chi master, Chinese brush painter, calligrapher, Chinese medicine doctor, as well as lawyer, so he was a very well-rounded renaissance man. And so I think that really pulled me into learning martial arts and learning more about my culture, I think. I trained with him for many years, and he wasn't into competition at all, and I wanted at 17 or 18, you know you want to prove yourself. So I wanted to start competing, and so then I switched over. I still trained with him but I also trained with another coach, a Wu Shu coach. I switched over to Wu Shu with a coach named Zhang Hong Mei and she was a women's national champion when Jet Li was the men's national champion, and then she married an American Philip Wong, who’s also a really great Wu Shu practitioner on the US team. They started a school so I started training with them for many years. And so that was the basis of the foundation of my martial arts. And then over time, I've learned boxing, Muay Thai and a bunch of other things. Krav Maga, Jiu Jitsu a little bit but I'm more of a striker, so I'm not really a grappling kind of guy. But yeah martial arts has been a part of my life whether it's been in the movie business or not. In fact, when I first started the movie business, I actually tried to keep it out of my career because I didn't want it to be pigeonholed as just a martial arts guy. And then eventually worked it back in and so that there we have it with Badlands, it's back in my life.

And so I saw the amazing thing in that movie which was the training scene where like they're doing all these weapons and all that stuff and I remember that scene very clearly. I was like, that's what I want to do.