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Sam J. Jones Flash Gordon Q&A Panel | Corpus Christi Comic Con 2025
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Aug 4, 2025
Sam J. Jones—best known for his iconic role as Flash Gordon—took the stage at Corpus Christi Comic Con 2025 for a candid, funny, and deeply personal Q&A panel. From Hollywood to hostile zones, Jones shared stories that spanned decades of experience in both film and high-risk security operations. Hear him talk about: How Flash Gordon became a cultural icon The never-made sequel and Disney’s current development plans with Taika Waititi His second career running high-risk security operations in Mexico Surviving cartel threats and protecting clients in armored convoys The connection between military training and acting Staying in shape past 70 and gym etiquette that actually matters Life lessons, humility, and how to get over yourself This panel goes way beyond typical fan service—it’s part motivational speech, part Hollywood insider, and 100% Sam J. Jones. Whether you're a lifelong Flash Gordon fan or just discovering his work, this is one panel you don't want to miss.
View Video Transcript
0:00
And what a beautiful way to kick it off. We've got one incredible and I got to
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say mesmerizing flashboard in Sam J. Jones.
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That's me. Scary way to start.
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That's a scary looking Santa right there. Hey kid, thanks for having me.
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Oh my gosh, not the call out. Okay, now I feel comfortable to sit with you on the couch. Are you kidding?
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Yes. See, this is where I sit. But now I'm chilling.
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Hey, sponsored by Ashley Furniture. I hope I'm right. So low here. It makes it disease.
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Okay, here we go. The back support. Look, if I close my eyes, just stop
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being rude. Okay, I'll just keep just meditating, thinking about how I'm going to answer. Okay,
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take your time. Exactly. Take your time. Get a little back. Don't be shy. Get myself back.
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Let him be comfy, guys. See, back support. See, if this is not
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sponsored by Ashley, don't bite my words, but couch sponsored by Ashley. Furniture, maybe.
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Yeah, back support, baby. There we go. Posture is everything.
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Didn't even need the mic for that one. So, as you guys may know, if you've been around before, you get the drift. This
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is a Q&A panel. I see a lot of lovely faces in that crowd. You have an incredible chance to ask some questions
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and get them answered. And people have been shy, so I'm going to be mean. Get a
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question, have an answer, go line up to that microphone. We've got some awesome volunteers. There is a little guy in a
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blue shirt right there that'll help you out. If you need anything at all, you know where to go. Come on, don't be shy.
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Line up. Line up. So, first of all, is this your first time in Corpus? Yes. Yes, it is.
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Yes. There's my There's my sexy voice. Okay. Yes. Uh, it is. Uh, been trying to
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come here for a long time. I'm very grateful. Right outside my window in my room, I
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get to see the uh Is it the beautiful view? Is it the Lexington? Is that cool? Yeah. That's I I look to the locals that
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know cuz I don't. But I'm happy. You have a good time so far. And And the crab. Have you had the crab
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cakes yet? That that puppy Well, it's not a real puppy.
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But that crab cake is about that thick, guys. Right. Is that normal for Corpus Christie?
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Oh my gosh. That's all I've asked. That's all I've had since I've been here. Is the hummus
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and the crab cakes down. That's a nice diet for the weekend. Yeah. Oh, it's wonderful. It really is.
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Yes. Okay. So, I'll kick it off with my own first personal question. um in with your work in the Marines,
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with your work in security, with your work in acting, do those fields of work overlap in any
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ways that you've noticed? Uh we Yeah. similarities, the irony of
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uh well, we've run into I don't know if you know, but I've been Yeah. Give
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I've only Yeah. Let me give you a quick little story. Okay. So, uh I've only been an actor 47 years. I've been a
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Marine for 53 years, right? In my mind, I'm still a Marine. I don't believe in retirement or, you know, former or ex or
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any of that kind of stuff. But yeah, so uh my wife was very encouraging. She always is. But but 25 years ago, she
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said, you know, you've been waiting by the phone for a while. It's not raining. Okay.
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And at that time, we have right now we have five kids. We have eight grandchildren. So at that time our kid
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our kids were very very young. I think we the youngest ones were two in
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diapers, one just out of diapers. So So she saw that was waiting by the phone
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and not providing. Okay. So she said, "Look, she said, "I don't know what you're
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going through, but we got two kids in diapers. One out of diapers. There's the door. There's the door. You come back to
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this family when you're providing okay. So my my here I am in my at that point
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my god I'm four in my 40s and uh so uh
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yeah so I my buddy owned a construction company. I started doing construction which was great. I looked at it as a
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workout. It was a great workout but I knew I couldn't do it forever. So she encouraged me to reach out to my former
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Marine Corps buddies who were doing what we call high-end high-end security
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operations protecting people in high risk environments. That's what it is. So
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uh I reached out and they said, "Oh, you got to get do all the training. We call it federal protective doctrine training.
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Same as the Secret Service, same as the ATF, same as the FBI." And uh I went through that. I got all the permits, the
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weapons permits, all the training. It's basically common sense stuff, you know, and um and so that's what I do. So if
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the movie business is slow, then I run security operations and vice versa. And
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in between that, I get to come here to Corpus Christie and do these incredible the the these the these incredible uh
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comic cons. Yeah. So kickback. Yeah. So what's the moral of this story, guys?
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listen to your wives. Okay? Seriously, I She knew what to do. So now I got I got
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I have two different vocations and I'm still at 70 and I I mean I started doing
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this at 4550 but uh at 70 I have two different vocations and and the big
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lesson for me Kit was that I had to transition from oo I'm an actor and when
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I talk about me guys I want you to put your story your story into what I'm
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talking about. In other words, if you're if you're a doctor, teacher, truck driver. So, I had to learn to say I had
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to transition from I'm I'm an actor. I'm just an actor. You know, men, we need to
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be saying I'm a working man and I will do anything I need to do to legally
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legally okay to provide for myself and my family. And that was a turning point. Not only did it save my ass, it saved my
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marriage. The kids are happy. Just Yeah, they were really amazing. Nice. Yeah, I
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was It's very easy to find your niche and then just stay in that and feel like
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you can't leave it. So, it's very interesting. Very nice. I've seen a lot of I mean, you've won awards for this.
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You've won you've gotten a lot done in that in in that corner as well. So, it's incredible to see that. Um, and so that
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being said, since you do such awesome side ventures, back to acting, what's
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your favorite acting role that you've done so far? It might be a no-brainer. I mean, my gosh, I've been doing it for 47
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years. But, uh, I mean, Flashboard was iconic. The reason why we're here right now,
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I call I refer to Flash forward as the triple blessing. Well, okay, Sam, that
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that sounds cool. But what's the first blessing again for any of us is getting hired. Okay, first getting hired. It
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brings value. We're making money. you know, we're we're we're serving other people and other causes and sort of
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taking the eyes off of ourselves. Uh so, first blessing is getting hired. Second blessing is um whatever we do uh you
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know if the project turns out successful. That's the second blessing, right? Being part of something that is a
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success. And now the third blessing. So what's the what's the third blessing? Longevity. Okay, that's what we're
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talking about right now. So, yeah, it's I love it. Yeah, I think Yeah, I asked that question knowing the
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answer. Absolutely. Um, so once again, guys, I'm just saying. I don't know if you heard me the first time. This is a
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Q&A video. Come on. There. See, I have to push them to yell at them.
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That's crazy Santa right there, man. I know. He's coming straight to stare into your eyes. Come on, Santa.
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Tell us your name and your character name. Uh, my name is Ray. Uh, this is Art the Clown from Charifire 3 and 22.
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It's a little bit hard to talk, but uh I was going to ask you when you have that uh training for security things you use,
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any kind of like uh anything that you learned there that you um applied it in like on your movies about like uh some
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of the things you come across in for me, maybe it's my old age as you're in an echo chamber or
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something, but maybe back off just a little bit. Sorry. Is it better now?
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Yeah. Go ahead. Okay. when you the what you working in security like the moves that you learned there like um did you
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apply them in one of your movies like uh in the future or
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Oh yeah yes running security operations and and
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making a movie it's it's crazy the similarities I'll give an example when
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we go to make a movie when we go to put into uh to implement a security
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operation Uh we've already done for both we've already done about 80% of the work right
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movie business you do all your development all your pre-production uh we call that scouting uh security ops is
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called advanced work you've already done a whole lot of advanced work and of course you know you got to think outside
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the box because you could do all the planning you want you know you show up on a movie set and on a sunny day and
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next thing you know it's torrential rain and or know where it's happened before. So, you better have a plan B, C, and D.
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Same thing for security op. You've all you planned it out. You're going from point A to point B. You're doing this
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and then um you know, you need to be proactive in both uh operations. Yeah.
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But very very similar. Very similar. But you better you better be you better do a lot of planning. Do it right. Do it
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effectively. And then have some contingency plans. Option A, B, C, D, E,
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F, G, etc. Okay. I feel like that falls in line with a lot of careers. Thank you very much.
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Thank you for your question. Beetlejuice, come on up.
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So, I was I was wondering, have you have you embodied flashing in everything you
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do? Like security, Marines? Have you took flashboarding and became them?
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No, it's a great question. You're the go to Las Vegas guy, right? Yeah. You guys know backtory already.
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Yeah. I know he's been the, you know, we've talked a few times. Uh, again,
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same security operations movie business. Sam J. Jones/ Gordon. I don't say that
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to be koi or or smart or whatever whatever the word is or arrogant, but
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there's not much of a difference. Okay. Now, why is there not much of a difference between Sam J. Jones and
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Flash Gordon? Well, first of all, Flash Gordon is one of the few superheroes who
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does not have superpowers. And I I I think I think this character and then
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Sam J. Jones, I'm the guy on the Marine, you know. I mean, if something went down right now, again, this is not u
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braggadocious or whatever the term is. You can It's okay. If something went down, seriously, if something went down right now, whether
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it's Flash Gordon or Sam J. Jones. Neither of those two are going to call a
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board meeting to figure out what to do. I'm going to neutralize I'm going to I'm
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going to discern and identify the threat, which will take maybe 1,000th of
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a second. And then I'm going to neutralize the threat. I'm not going to call for my agent to come in here, okay?
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here for the attorneys to no. We're going to all of us, we're going to, you know, we're going to help each other out
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and we're going to neutralize whatever that threat is. It's just that simple. Uh so I'm like that in real life because
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of my military background and just u you know just common sense stuff. And we
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have this uh military, law enforcement training, uh security, private security,
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government security. We have this we have this little technique which is simple. I love this common sense. It's
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called the duck theory. Okay. If a guy comes in this room right now, if he walks like a duck, looks like a duck,
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talks like a duck, it's a freaking duck. Okay? Don't over brainstorm and we don't
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want to hurt. No, no. He it's a freaking duck. It's a bad guy. Okay? He's he's
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either getting ready to do something or he's about to do it. uh you don't need
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to but if you're not sure, you know, you don't want to tackle him and take him
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down unless you know for sure. But I'm just saying behavioral forensics, that's
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a fancy name for uh the study of human behavior. Okay? If it looks like a
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freaking bad guy acting like a bad guy, it is a freaking bad guy. So, you know, maybe I'm not going to tackle him and
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break his arm or his leg, but uh, you know, maybe just assess it and then when I'm done with my assessment, maybe he
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needs a nice throw a hug or a headlock or something. You know, we take take notes every simple, guys. You know,
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we use these other fancy terms called situational awareness. How about, okay,
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again, okay, something over there is not right. Okay, we have to stop thinking
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about maybe hurting other feelings when it comes to something that is so freaking obvious and so 100%
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preventative from happening and just address it. That's makes total sense. Thank you for your
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question. I know what this guy's going to ask. Uh I'm just curious, what's your workout
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routine? What's my workout routine? Well, I just left the green room. That's where they
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serve all the snacks. canoli. Okay. Now, uh yeah, I keep it
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simple. My Everybody knows Lou Frigno, my buddy Lou Frigno. Incredible.
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He's still in great He's 74. He's in great shape. And he's he's oversimplified
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everything. And I'm basically doing what he's doing. We go in the gym together. And I love that the first thing he says
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when we go into any gym, whether it's the hotel gym or the local gym here, he'll go up to the manager and say,
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"Look, Je and I, we're here to out, okay? We're not doing autographs. We're not doing selfies until we work out. So,
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why did I tell you this? Okay, we need to eliminate I still go to the gym today. I have my own gym at home, but I
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I go to any gym I go to. It blows my freaking mind that there's a guy sitting
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on that chair where I want to do the lat pulls or whatever it is, right? Uh uh
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you know, chest and he's sitting there on the freaking phone. Now, now my my first
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thought is I want to go up and take his phone away. Okay. But you can't do that. You know, he can. It's okay.
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Yeah. But here's the deal. Working out, don't take anything personal, okay? Just
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loose philosophy. It's now mine. Go to the gym. Eliminate any and all distractions. Put your phone on silent.
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Um unless your wife is calling, guys. Okay. Um uh and uh so for our age now, we've
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we've uh decreased the weight. We're not going there to, you know, snap the backs
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anymore or pull any muscle. So get in that gym, uh eliminate any and all
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distractions and lower the weight. When you go to do your form, whether it's
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curls, absolute perfect form, none of this nonsense, okay? Just don't fight it
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going down a little bit, okay? Absolute f perfect form back straight and then
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your next station. Are you ready for this? Here's the key. Your your next station should be only five to 10
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seconds later. Okay, that's it. None of this two minute. Unless you're on the pull-up bar, you're doing heavy weight.
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I got it. Maybe rest a minute. But you should be going from station to station
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every 5 to 10 seconds. So if somebody's in that seat, that's your station. You
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know what? Skip him or her. Go to the next one. Don't take it personal. You're there to get your workout done. You're
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not there to socialize. And uh and believe it or not, you can get a lot done. I'm not making this up. You can
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get a lot done within 7 minutes, within 12 minutes. Okay? And then if you got
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more time, but I'm just saying non-stop. So now you've done a cardio weight routine. And then and then of course if
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you got more time, 45 minutes tomorrow, you do it. Uh but you do something. You
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don't do nothing. Now, of course, eating, here's my thing about eating. Eat as much as you want, but everything
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you put in your body should be of value. Eat a lot. People say, you know, eat
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three to five chicken breast. Eat a steak. Okay. Um, but when it comes to
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cheating with the desserts, yes, yes, cheat one day a week. But the problem we
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do is the human condition is we want to compound it. Ooh, let me get that piece
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of cheesecake, man. Every day. Every day. Every day. No. No. But cheat. Don't
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Don't deprive your body of those cool things out there like me. Flowerless chocolate cake. Oh, come on. Give me a
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flowerless chocolate cake. I'll eat the whole thing in front of you one day a week.
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Seriously. Um, but yeah, when I leave here, they got the uh lasagna. They got
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the sweet Italian sausage with the lasagna and they got the canoli. I'm going to have a plate today. Okay.
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Thank you for your question. Amen. Well, you know, yeah, you know, but keep it simple. Everything I'm
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talking about nowadays, again, apply it to your own life, but keep it simple. But again, and the key thing that L
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said, do something, but don't do nothing. Even if it's seven minutes. Well, say what can you do in seven
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minutes? How about go in the weight room, pick up the dumbbells for seven
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minutes. Okay. When you But not sloppy. 7 minutes. You'll get You could possibly
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get 100 to 300 reps if you do it right. Oh my god. Three 200 reps, 300 reps.
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That's a freaking workout in seven minutes. That makes a lot of sense. I I think that that that philosophy could apply to
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a lot of things. It's uh you get so intimidated about the fact that you're wasting the time that you don't realize
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if you put the time in it works. You you're ahead from where you work. Um so going going back to speaking about going
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to the gym and saying no selfies autographs until afterwards. Oh yeah. Insane loop.
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Is that impactful for you guys working to deal with? It's on a higher level with Luke because Luke's my god the Hulk Mr. Olympia. How
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many people do you remember that he came back at the age of 42 years old? Now raise your hand if if you remember he
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came back he won all those Olympias and Mr. World and all that in his 20s. He
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decided to come back at the age of 42, right? You remember you remember? Okay. Do you remember what his competitive
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weight was? What he competed at? What his weight was at 42 years old where he
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got second place in the world as a 42y old. Your memory guess. Guess what is? Remember, he's a 6'5 frame.
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Anybody guess? Throw it out there. How much?
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No, he's a 6'5 frame. 320 lb. He got second place in the
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world. 320 lbs. He competed at and he proved
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that a 300 pounder can win. Okay. Can could be top, you know, top top two in
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the world. Uh remember he wasn't competing with 40 year olds. He was competing with the with the 21.
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It's such a different age for him. And I mean like even when you're like going into your 30s or there's such a
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significant decrease. There's only so much you can do. So yeah, that's crazy crazy work.
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So when we were going to gym together, it's about Lou Frigno, you know, and they say, "Yeah, yeah, you look for me."
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I said, "Yeah, I'm Dolph London. How you doing, man? Good to see you." Uh but no, I mean you walk into a gym,
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you know, it's it's I don't care who you are, you know, Jason Lamo. Yeah, he's he's very recognizable. But there's, you
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know, especially a gym where people are competing, you know, like Gold's Gym or World's Gym or something like that.
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Yeah, Lou is the guy. Absolutely. Yes, sir.
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Question real quick. What is the most dangerous situation you found yourself in during your security work?
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For whatever you can say legally. Yeah. I know. What's the most dangerous situation that we've ever been in,
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right? Where security, you know, here here's the deal. We're uh
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okay. Running crossber ops into Mexico on a daily basis for many, many years. I
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did. And thank God I had a great supervisor. Seriously, he would let me off to go to ComicCon or to or to do a
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movie. No. No. Seriously. Uh but dangerous. You know, we're taught to see we don't we don't play around with this
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stuff. In other words, we're we're running hard um in a a two to three car
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motorc convoy, right? We're running hard, meaning hard skins, meaning
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armored vehicles, level six armored SUVs. So, that's really our weapon
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really in Mexico. But if we see something up here, we we send out a counter surveillance guy uh in his, you
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know, whatever he's in. Something very nondescript like a beat up family van. seriously. Uh and uh he may call it in
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ahead, maybe reroute us, but if we see something up ahead, we don't sit there and go, "Well, what do you think? What
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do you think?" No, it's immediately within within a second. Uh left turn,
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right turn, U-turn, whatever. We don't continue forward. Um and it's a great
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question because um kidnappings are huge, not just in Mexico, but you know, all over the world. that really in the
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old and this is going to sound crazy to you guys that don't know much about cartels or whatever but in the old days
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with the cartel bosses especially in Mexico they were very good businessmen. Okay,
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before they asked America to get involved in Mexico, hey, help us take down the cartel leaders, which was a
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huge mistake because we took them down and the younger elements came up. They
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were not good businessmen. They were very stupid, hardcore criminals who wanted to make a mark. So, let me go
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back to the old cartel guys. If they kidnapped somebody and the family paid
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ransom, they were released, returned home. Okay, that's good business. All
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right, but we started interviewing some of these businessmen who were kidnapped.
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This is a long long question, but I I have to address this. We started interviewing them. Okay, so and you
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know, they didn't Well, they got kidnapped. Why? They didn't have a security ticket. Now, they were driving
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a level six armored Suburban, armored Land Cruiser, you name it. level six,
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which is very, it'll stop at 50 cal, you know, if you just keep moving and not, you know, stop if you're stagnant or
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stationary. Um, and so we would ask him, okay, you know, after he was the lucky one, okay, that the family paid the
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ransom and he was released. So we we would always have these case studies, okay, what did you see up ahead? Well,
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you know, I I saw up ahead. I saw before they took you. So, well, I saw um it was
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strange at this stop sign, you know, hundred, couple hundred feet, there were these, you know, white pickup trucks
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over here and over there and they were just sort of parked there and their elbows were out the windows and they
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weren't acting natural. So, it was a staged kidnap, right? They were there.
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That was the spot. And and then I said, "How did you know that?" He said, "Well, they were just like frozen and and not
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talking like everybody else, you know, in their cars or acting normal." Boom, boom, boom. And I said, "Well, why?" We
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said, "Why did you continue forward?" Okay. If you knew something wasn't quite
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right, the dust theory was right. No. He He said, "Because I was late for work." I said, "Okay, so you
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got to the intersection. What happened?" Well, they all came out of their trucks. They had AK-47s and they said, "Get
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out." I said, "Why did you get out when you're in a level six armored Suburban?
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Why did you get out of your vehicle? All you got to do is take your freaking foot, hit the gas pedal, floor it, and
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you will go through them. You go through you'll ram through any vehicles that are there." He goes, "Oh, I got scared." I
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said, "Okay, you have your way out." So, it's a fascinating study again about the
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duck theory. It was completely formidable. Even though he didn't have a security team, which was foolish, he
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decided he could handle this on his own, but it was foolish. But he, again, he I want to tell you how blessed he was. Uh,
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Ransom was paid. He was released. But there was many, many cases there where the younger elements took over. When the
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senior cartel guys went to prison that we helped, uh, you had these young guys who didn't care about good business. The
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people that were kidnapped never returned. brands of pain never returned. So, uh, the we didn't fear that. It
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wasn't an arrogant thing because we knew what the hell we were doing. We knew we were being surveiled and watched every
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day for years. So, what does the cartel boss do? He sent out his surveillance
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team looking at our American team operating in Mexico. He has to go back
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to the boss to say, "Okay, it's probably 80 to 90%
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probability of success if we hit them." Guess what? He went back to his car boss
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every single time saying it's probably only a 20 or 30% probability of success.
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Why? Because we know what the hell we're doing. We know how to use. In those early years, they were 10,000 lb armored
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uh vehicles. a 10,000 lb weapon coming at you, no matter what you have in your
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hand, no matter what you're driving, is is a force to be reckoned with. And now, of course, the the ballistic materials
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are far uh lighter and all that. So, yeah, and plus they had to deal even though we were private sector, they
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would have still the US State Department will come down on them. But the only issues that we would have would be
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outside the actual running of the operation, the cartels wanted, and
26:55
again, we're not messing with their cartel business, okay? We're not messing with their drugs or whatever they're
27:00
doing. Uh, but the only what we did know, no matter what, the cartels wanted
27:05
our armored vehicles. Senita, you know, in Mexico, if you you know, when you go to get gasoline, it's one of the few
27:12
places in the world you don't step out of your car. You do not pump the gas yourself. Everybody knows that, right?
27:19
You do not get out of the car. And in the army vehicles, the glass goes down about that far. So, you just you just
27:24
pump. And then one day, we had one of the guys who decided he's our top
27:30
liazison guy from Mexico, great guy, Jose, and he decided, you know, um he
27:37
decided to get out and shake hands with the gas station attendant like he's running for office or something, right?
27:42
But he was smart enough to stand there with the door open, the car running, and you know, sort of, you know, watch his
27:49
situation awareness. Um, and then all of a sudden he felt something behind him and he looked and there was a Suburban
27:55
rolling up on him and he could just tell just by looking at their eyes on what they wanted to do. Anyway, so uh they
28:03
came running at him. He jumped in the vehicle. Right as he shut the door, they
28:09
fired a 45 cal at his head. Thank God the door was closed, we have the
28:17
wraparound uh you know armorament right there. Um and you know he needless to
28:23
say he he went home. Uh he lived he took I think he took two weeks off. All
28:28
right. Uh but they wanted our vehicles. So from that point on anytime we were going to gas up our vehicles we would
28:34
always go in twos. But again, he broke protocol. He stepped out of his vehicle.
28:40
He became a soft target. In any uh environment, any environment, wherever
28:47
you are, you you want to be you want to be a hardened target. You want to be a
28:52
soft target because it's a what's it called? Something of opportunity. It's a
28:57
it's an opportunity right at that moment right there. Yeah, makes sense. So, uh needless to say, he didn't get out for gas again, did he?
29:04
No, no, no, no. That was it. And and then of course they the the SOP, the standard operating procedure, if you
29:10
ever get out of your vehicle, you're you're no longer part of the security team at all. Period. Period. For for any
29:17
reason. Thank you for your question. Uh so to to hop off of that and of
29:23
course with whatever you can say legally and in the comfort of their comfortability. I'm being safe. Do you
29:30
have any meaningful connections with clients or any like do you have any meaningful connections?
29:35
Meaningful. Yeah. You better you better define meaningful, you know, positive. Well, you know what? Okay. Yeah. I mean,
29:41
because you know my daughter when she started doing uh one of my daughters when she started doing Facebook years
29:46
ago, she said, "Dad, I've got 3,000 friends now." I said, "Really? Do me a
29:51
favor, okay? send you a little Facebook message and ask all your 3,000 friends.
29:57
Um, how many of you are willing to lay your life down for me? Okay, I guarantee
30:03
you no one's going to say yes, I'll do that. That's really what in my opinion what the real definition of what is a
30:10
real friend? Someone who's willing to lay his or her life down for yours from
30:17
mine. That's really what the true definition of a friend. Now, if you're acting like a fool and an idiot is saying stupid stuff and acting really
30:24
stupid, I'm not going to back you. I'm not going to back you if if you're being an idiot. But, uh, going back to your
30:30
question, the meaningful uh, no, I mean, look, it's business. Yeah, it's business is business. You don't
30:36
really um, we have a I agree to this to a certain extent, but part of our
30:42
training um, in in security, whatever it is, protection is um, they're not
30:50
You're not their friend. Okay? You're not their friend. Don't get too Don't get too close. You've seen
30:55
this in movies, too, a lot of stuff like that. I was watching that really cool um
31:00
TV series four or five years ago called The Bodyguard, right? Remember that? I said, "That was so cool." But then it
31:07
shows him sleeping with the client, right? He's sleeping with the the lady he's protecting. I said, "You know what?
31:14
What a horrible security professional. What a terrible terrible
31:20
uh of the security profession. I don't care how much the boss pressures you
31:25
into it. No, no. Your your job is to protect the contract. Okay? The actual
31:31
written contract, okay? And and the person, if you lose the person, you lose
31:36
the written contract cuz the person is no longer there. Now, you start bringing the personal element. you know, easy.
31:43
And I one of my gifts in the security ops other than uh what I do best, you know, uh running them and doing all that
31:51
is the greatest downfall in any operation. Again, I talk about security
31:56
ops, movie industry, and you replace it with whatever you do, the workplace is I'm real good at discerning
32:05
and identifying division. the greatest downfall. Matter of fact, I was asked to
32:10
come to relocate to San Diego from LA to help these crossber offs to replace an
32:17
American security team that was screwing up personally. Not only were they
32:23
sleeping with the boss's secretaries, they were getting them pregnant.
32:29
So, this is what this is what turned my career around in the in the becoming the security guy is and I and I told my guys
32:37
I said, "Here's what's going to happen." Okay, we're going to do the we're going to do the Billy Graham method when we're
32:43
around. What's the Billy Graham method? Watch me. Other words, Billy Graham had the same secretary for 45 years. anytime
32:51
she came into his office. Okay, not only were the blinds open, but the door was
32:57
propped wide open at all times. At all times. I said, "Anytime any of any
33:02
females, bosses, secretaries, whatever, assistants come into our office, even
33:08
though we have cameras, okay, I want the door propped open with a chair and I
33:14
want you sitting in the chair by the doorway." And and guess what? We we didn't have any issues. None. And of
33:20
course in Mexico, there's this culture. I know we got it in America, too. There's this culture of men hugging and
33:27
kissing women all the time. Well, look, as a security professional, I said, "Look, you're not running for mayor,
33:33
okay? You're not running for office. We're not." And so, we had great success
33:38
for many, many years and didn't have any of those. But again, discerning, identifying, divisions. Well, that is a
33:46
huge division. That's just one element of division and let's say a security team. The other is dealing with alpha
33:53
males, okay, in a after the boss is said, you know, we're we're in our
33:59
command post and we become like a bunch of adolescent children, right? Uh but
34:05
any of the the alpha stuff coming to know, you know, the boss likes me better. He wants me to drive them today,
34:11
not you. You're going to be in the number two chase vehicle and I'm going to be the lead. in that stuff all that
34:17
does that is poison and if it spreads it's cancerous and it will kill the
34:23
entire team. So my gift is identifying that, addressing it, and if the person does want to comply, I don't care. You
34:30
know, we've had, you name it, we've had the best the great Navy Seals part of our team. We cops, the military guys,
34:37
they're gone. They're freaking gone. Cuz once you preach, once a division sets
34:43
in, Yeah. you you you got to you got to get rid of it. You got to get rid of it immediately. No. Like, well, maybe let's
34:49
give him, you know, he's already had two chances. No, no more third chances. you're out of here. Protect the
34:55
contract. Protect the principle that that you're protecting. That should fly into whatever we're doing,
35:00
right? Whatever your work environment is. You know, if you're hanging out with some people that are talking real bad stuff
35:06
about the boss, don't get involved. Okay? Don't get involved. Uh it'll be by
35:12
association, you know? Don't even agree. Just just walk away, smile, and God
35:17
bless you. Have a great day. Don't get involved because it will come back and it'll bite you in the ass. And because
35:22
you were associated, you may be fired. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Yeah.
35:28
So, going back to the conversation about Lero in a way, are there any other cast members or celebrities that you keep up
35:34
with outside of acting nowadays? Well, our leading lady leady lady Melody
35:40
Anderson, she was the only other American in uh in Flashboard and and she lives here in the States and we do we do
35:47
a few comic cons uh together. But Lou, yeah, I mean Lou and I, we probably it used to be at
35:54
least I mean my guy sometimes twice a week we would text. Now we're doing once a week, maybe once every two weeks. Um
36:02
but yeah, but I just want to mention this about A-listers in the business. Uh
36:07
Mark Wahberg, now we don't hang out, right? Uh but he's he is such a blessing
36:14
to be around. He's one of the most as an A-lister, he's one of the most humble
36:19
human beings that you'll ever meet. You know, plus all the good causes, you know, he's doing with what wounded
36:25
warriors tunnels tunnels towers just unbelievable. and he he's a gift.
36:31
And then he's got this, a lot of people don't know, you know, he's got his F45 fitness thing, but that's also connected
36:38
to the militant. So, he's just a huge uh he he really just gives a lot of his
36:43
time, but just uh a great family man and uh very humble. Very humble. It's really
36:51
the the people in the business that have a major attitude problem uh are the ones
36:56
who think they're an A-lister. Okay. The ones who think they're an A-lister and
37:02
some of them are not. Some of them are not only not a blessing, they're they're what's the if you're not a blessing.
37:10
Yeah. They're a liability. Liility. Yeah. They're a liability
37:15
as far as what we're talking about now. The human conditions um you know, life
37:20
as it is going through it, choices, challenges, adversity, and all that. Yeah.
37:26
So, on that note, we do have 10 minutes left for the panel. So, if there is any questions that you guys have been thinking about and you just haven't
37:32
stood up now is a great There you go. I'm get I'm getting you. There you go.
37:44
Tell the secrets down there. We got to pat the dead air. Oh, you can't ask any questions. Oh, don't ask him that. He might come down
37:50
there with you and choke on. I just want to say I really enjoyed you and Flash forward and I think you're like Linda
37:57
Carter to what is to Wonder Woman. Uh as far as I am I'm going to I'm going to
38:02
show my Sam who are you really? So
38:09
my question and I all due respect but uh my question is was there ever talk of a sequel to
38:16
that movie because yeah let me make this answer quick. Uh we have we have a a fa phase. We have a
38:24
vernacular a term a phrase a phase. Yeah. It's a phrase in the industry and
38:30
ob I'm sure you use it too. Uh we say hey how's that project going? Uh it's still in development which really means
38:37
we don't have the freaking money yet. It's the endless development. But here's the crazy thing about Blast
38:42
Port. I'm not making this up. Over the past 35 years, the people that came on
38:47
board, the first phase of wanting to do a sequel is you acquire
38:52
you acquire the screenplay rights. Then after a given amount of time, a year
38:58
later, you pick up the option and you do the movie. You pay a lot more movie. You do it. Well, the people that have come
39:05
on board, the five, six people that have come on board in the last 35 years, all
39:10
reputable people proven with a whole lot of uh money and reputation
39:17
uh you know to to do it. It's the craziest thing. The first was Steven Summers. I think Van Helsnik, he
39:24
screenplay rights, he didn't follow through with the option. Okay, it didn't happen. After that was Neil Moritz, all
39:30
the Fast and Furious movies. Okay. Revitable movie didn't follow through
39:35
with the option. Fox Studios called me in 8 years ago. Said, "We just acquired
39:41
Fox Studios." Okay. Not a production company at Fox. Fox Studios acquired it.
39:47
Called me in for a meeting and asked me some questions. What do you want to do? We want to bring you in. Boom. Boom. Boom. Um, and you know, the younger
39:55
obviously had a younger guy, a younger girl that was kind of attached. And
40:00
after well let me see. So they had that and then they Disney bought Fox 2 and
40:08
1/2 years ago and brought in Takawati to write to develop write direct and
40:15
produce the new Flash Sport 2 and a half years ago. So Takawati and Disney have
40:22
it in development. Okay. Isn't it crazy? I used to think, well, what the hell is
40:28
going on? If they can't do it, then by golly, give me the money and I'll get this. Do it yourself. I'm going to produce. But as I and so I
40:36
Googled Takawat, if you go to his IMD IMDb page,
40:42
actually, he's updated it uh because in the development section, movies and
40:48
development, there's 18 movies that he gets to pick and choose. So,
40:54
it's not as though they don't have the money. It's about, okay, I've got 18 choices right now. Disney wants me to do
41:02
that. Universal wants me to do that. And so, but I had closure on that. Meaning,
41:07
okay, some of these uh high rolling uh producers, directors, it's just a matter
41:14
of what do I pick? Waiting for them to actually go. So, that's where it is right now as we
41:19
speak. Um, and then of course I always stay in contact with King Features SL
41:25
First Entertainment. They own the licensing rights to Flashboard and they can really talk about details. Um, but
41:32
just reading the reading the updates on the news and stuff like that, but yeah, that's what it comes down to. Whenever
41:39
uh and evidently Takati Flashboard is very close to him and had a huge impact
41:45
on him growing up, so I just want to see it I want to see it get done. I I I really do. Yeah.
41:50
It's going to be nice to have somebody uh at the at the helm that actually has passion behind the project. That's nice.
41:57
Thank you. Thank you so much. Of course. Um on that note, I will say one last
42:03
thing with all these people who can conveniently go hang out by your booth and ask him questions if you didn't have
42:08
time or didn't have the heart. It's okay. It's understandable. If there's anything that they can take away from this panel and take away from you in
42:14
general, if they don't see you again, what would you like to Yeah. What would you like them to take away from? What would you like to take away? Let me
42:20
check my wallet first. I got that. No, no. Um, you know, again, I I can only
42:26
give you I can only speak about my successes and my failures. when it comes to life, I I could, you know, you know,
42:33
us guys, you know, I I probably lived in it in in
42:38
insanity for a number of years, meaning um and my wife was very instrumental in
42:45
having me get over myself. Okay? But the insanity that I lived within my circle
42:50
of guys was we would continue to make the same choices over and over again
42:56
expecting a different end result. Sorry. I don't care how good of a guy
43:02
you are, how good your heart is. That is insanity. We have to change our choices if we want
43:09
a different end result. And again, this doesn't take some mystery to figure out.
43:14
You know, I'm a praying man. My wife says a praying lady. We we we just nip in the bud. We don't sit there for we,
43:20
you know, a couple seconds. We speak a blessing with each other. We ask God to come in and give us the edge that you
43:26
know the things we haven't quite figured out yet that you know that our human uh intellect can figure out. He we ask him
43:33
to come in and say hey you know we can't figure this out. So that to me is the edge is really bringing in uh bringing
43:40
in the good lord to say what's missing here you know help me maybe get a little bit more over me. Okay we're going to do
43:47
it my way my way my way. Well, my way may be the right way, but the way I
43:53
present it to my wife, uh, you know, isn't the correct way. It negates my
43:59
rightness, right? It negates my rightness on saying my way, my way. Even though maybe like So, I'm just saying we
44:07
just need to as men get over ourselves. Just keep it simple, common sense,
44:13
practical thinking. Listen to those ones around you who really you know that you
44:18
know that you know that really love you and really looking out. You may not want to hear the answers and I didn't want to
44:25
hear my wife's right. I just don't write it down. we don't want to hear it, but but we
44:31
need to humble ourselves and we we need to hear it. And then just go out and when what whenever we and here's a
44:36
here's a little elementary key thing that's really helped me a great deal is when we open our mouth all anyways. When
44:43
we open our mouth to speak, I don't give a crap what everybody else is speaking. When we open our mouth to speak about
44:50
ourselves or anybody else, we better be building ourselves up and we better be
44:55
building everybody else around us. Otherwise, keep our freaking mouth shut.
45:00
It's just that simple. That's what we want to do. Just that simple. That simple.
45:05
Great. Cool. Yeah. Thank you so much. What do you say? Oh my god. No. You're cute.
45:13
Can you squish the Oh my gosh. Squish it. Yeah. There you go. Where is he? Thank
45:19
you so much for your time. If you want to catch him, it's weird, isn't it? If you want to catch him at his booth, you'll be here the rest of the day. Are
45:25
you doing Sunday? Yeah. You can get them tomorrow, too, if you guys still have time. Thank you so much for your time.
45:31
Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah, I'm here all weekend. I bought a sleeping bag, so I'll be under
45:36
my table for that for hours.
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