Playboy interview with Shane Moxie

History has not been kind to action star Shane Moxie.

Shane who?

Exactly.

To the modern, progressive cinephile, it is difficult, if not impossible to understand exactly what it was about this Arkansan ass-kicker that endeared him to 1990s movie audiences. Granted, his biggest following hailed from the Southern states, which offers something of an explanation, and yet the fact remains that from his sensational debut in One Tough Hombre (a redneck Rocky rip-off), continuing through to his blockbuster hit, caveman cop action/comedy Copsicle, when his star was eclipsed by a chimpanzee, Moxie remained one of the most bankable beefcakes in the business, standing bicep-to-bicep with the likes of Seagal, Van Damme, Lundgren, and Snipes. Had his career not imploded so spectacularly, Moxie might even have rivaled the A-list action stars of his day: Schwarzenegger, Stallone, and Willis. Instead, he became the poster-boy for celebrity excess, and a cautionary tale for young wannabe actors.

The following interview, conducted in 1996 by Playboy magazine, captures Moxie at the height of his fame, shortly before he would embark on the movie that at once proved to be his greatest triumph, and ultimately his ruin, Copsicle.

Readers of a sensitive disposition should proceed with extreme caution.

SHANE MOXIE, THE PLAYBOY INTERVIEW, 1996

As the 1980s drew to a close, Hollywood insiders predicted an end to the gratuitous violence and debauched excess that had defined that decade’s action cinema, and turned the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone into astronomically salaried superstars.

One man didn’t get the memo.

Like a lone soldier who refuses to accept the war is lost, Shane Moxie exploded onto movie screens with 1988’s One Tough Hombre. Inspired by his experience as an underground fighting champion – as he boasts in our interview, among other dubious claims – the surprise success of this redneck Rocky rip-off transformed Moxie overnight into America’s newest action hero.

With the exception of Moxie himself, whom as Playboy discovers is nothing short of cocksure, the success of Hombre took everyone by surprise, not least producer Maury Sussman, who had conceived the picture as an elaborate tax avoidance scheme, and was bankrupted when Hombre went on to become the sleeper hit of the ’88 box office; Sussman would later commit shotgun suicide.

Hombre’s boffo box office caught Hollywood’s eye. Moxie signed with Universal to a multi-picture deal, and released a string of back-to-back hits including Amishing in Action, Gung Ho-Ho-Ho, American Sumo, and Lambadass.

Riding high on his success – among other substances, if tabloid reports of phencyclidine abuse are to be believed – at the time of our interview, Moxie has charted at #97 on Premiere magazine’s Power 100 list, narrowly beaten to the coveted 96th spot by Nineties comedy king Pauly Shore. He currently finds himself in the rarefied position of being able to pick and choose his own projects.

Not bad for the boy from Toad Suck, Arkansas.

Born in 1962, the lovechild of an impoverished waffle waitress and the town hellraiser, Shane Moxie’s past is shrouded with mystery. It’s almost as if, with the release of One Tough Hombre, Moxie fly-kicked into the world, fully-formed.

A poor student, after dropping out of high school with no qualifications, just the fool’s dream of becoming a movie star, Moxie worked at a number of menial jobs (pie pan porter at the town pizzeria) while making ends meet as a slugger on the underground fighting circuit (no record exists of these bouts). As Moxie reveals in our interview, the precocious tough guy somehow also found time to serve his country with distinction in several elite military units.

Then came Hombre, a smash on the Southern drive-in circuit, and home video markets. While the critics were ruthless, most notably Roger Ebert, who savaged the debutant Moxie’s performance – “makes one long for the expressiveness of Steven Seagal” – when the B.O. receipts were tallied, it was plain to see that audiences had taken to their hearts the Arkansan ass-kicker with the mane of mullet hair. The Mox, as Moxie is known by his fans, had been born.

With Moxie’s rapid rise to fame and fortune, it wasn’t long before reports of rampant egoism began leaking to the press. A troublemaker on set, and a hellraiser off it, Moxie’s hard-partying lifestyle has already become the stuff of Hollywood legend. But by flaunting his newfound celebrity, industry insiders warn Moxie risks alienating the very blue-collar fans who made him. He is quick to dismiss such concerns. “Shane Moxie made Shane Moxie,” says Shane Moxie. “The Mox don’t owe anyone shit.” For as long as the hits keep coming, it seems Moxie can do no wrong.

Playboy sent freelancer Dan Schlatter to interview The Tough Guy from Toad Suck. Here is his report:

“Arriving at the swanky Hollywood eatery for our scheduled meeting, the maître d’ informs me that Moxie has already been and gone. He has left me a message where to find him, etched into a tabletop with a bowie knife, plus the check for dinner and drinks (enough to feed a third-world country) that he and his entourage have consumed without me. After paying the eye-watering tab, I follow his directions. Feeling like Captain Willard journeying ever deeper into the heart of darkness in his pursuit of Colonel Kurtz, I embark on an epic crawl of squalid gin mills, strip clubs, pool halls, gun ranges, porno theaters, and tattoo parlors, before finally I track him to a junkyard chop shop in East LA, where Moxie and a gang of mechanics are busy breaking down a red-hot Beemer.

Moxie cleans up, and we retire to the junkyard, where he consents to be interviewed while guzzling Olympia beer by the six-pack, and potshotting rats with a .475 Wildey Magnum (“my throwdown piece”). The first thing one notices about Moxie is, of course… that hair: A glam-metal rooster crest, buzzed on both sides, the rat-tailed mullet cascading from his shoulders like the mane of an alpha lion. Not since Farrah Fawcett has a celebrity hairdo so captured the public imagination. Moxie is dressed karate-casual in a sleeveless Gi shirt that shows off the medley of Special Forces tattoos adorning his chunkily muscled arms, moose-knuckled jeans (Playboy hardly knows where to look) with a red Wing Chun sash belt, and Gila lizard boots with stacked heels and ninja star spurs. He wears two earrings: a Native American dreamcatcher in one, a 12-gauge shotgun shell in the other. An M60 hand grenade hangs from the bike chain necklace around his neck.

It is a formidable fashion statement.

When he runs out of ammo, and rats, Moxie, looking spent, tells me we are done, and swaggers into the night with his ninja star spurs a-jangling.

Several weeks later we pick up where we left off, continuing our interview on the set of Clone Star (is America ready for an army of Shane Moxies?). I find the star relaxing in his trailer with a bottle of J&B and a harem of star-struck female extras. Between Moxie making frequent trips to the bathroom to “clear my sinuses” – he seems to be suffering from a heavy cold – we are able to finish our interview.

Shane Moxie proves to be a colorful, if often exasperating interviewee. It’s hard to know what to make of his wild boasts and braggadocio. Is he the real deal as he claims, or just a blowhard who got lucky? One cannot help wondering if Moxie is playing an elaborate Andy Kaufman-style prank at Hollywood’s expense… though perhaps that’s just wishful thinking and giving the man more credit than he deserves. Time will tell, and, one senses, sooner than later.”

*

Playboy: How tough are you, really?

Moxie: Shit, man. That’s your opener? You got a fuckin’ death wish asking a question like that to an Arkansan with a beer in one hand and a gun in the other?

Playboy: Let’s move on to safer ground. Tell us about the hair.

Moxie: (teasing out his mullet) I think it speaks for itself.

Playboy: It’s a bold statement, that’s for sure. When did you adopt the ‘do?

Moxie: Junior high.

Playboy: And you knew right away it was a keeper?

Moxie: Why go messin’ with a good thing?

Playboy: Did it cause you any problems in school?

Moxie: The hell do you think?

Playboy: Is that when you learned to fight?

Moxie: I been fightin’ since the day I was born.

Playboy: Who taught you?

Moxie: My daddy showed me a few moves before he bugged out on momma and me. Pop was a bar fighter – the best – ‘specially after he’d tied one on. They called him Blue Balls on account of the steel-toe boots he wore. Pop caught you in the nuts with them boots an’ you wouldn’t be layin’ pipe for a looooong damn time.

Aside from Pop, there was this Chinaman… or Jap… hell, maybe even Korean, I don’t know for sure what he was. Real Mr. Miyagi-lookin’ motherfucker. He had a dojo in town. Actually, it was the corner grocery store, but they all know that chop-socky stuff is what I figured, so I went and asked him to train me.

He said— (Moxie bucks his teeth, pinches the corners of his eyes, and performs an offensive Oriental stereotype) He said: ‘Cut hair, no need fight.’ I told the smartass I was serious and he agreed to train me… for five bucks a lesson. ‘Fih dorrah! Fih dorrah!’ You know what they’re like.

The problem was I didn’t have no five bucks, or time to waste. I guess I could have mowed lawns, delivered papers, washed cars, worked my fingers to the bone to pay for my training – done whatever I had to, whatever it took…

Instead I went to the movies and learned from the best:

Bruce, Chuck, Billy Jack, Buford Pusser, Shaft.

(Moxie taps his temple) Fih fuckin’ dorrah, my ass!

Playboy: Then you’re self-taught?

Moxie: Right. When I was a kid back in Toad Suck, Arkansas, the trailer park where me n’ momma lived looked down over the drive-in theater. Me and my buddy Spanky would sit on the roof of the trailer with some field glasses, a tranny radio tuned to the drive-in frequency, and a sixer of suds we’d stole from Spanky’s old man, watching beat-‘em-up flicks from dusk till dawn. After the show, I’d copy what I’d seen on Spanky. Beat his ass black and blue. It was like the moves just come to me, supernatural-like. Spanky still walks with a limp to this day! (chuckles fondly at the memory of his crippled friend)

Playboy: That would explain your singular fighting style.

Moxie: Thanks.

Playboy: Yet it’s a style you claim has served you well. Your breakout hit, One Tough Hombre, was said to be based on your experience on the underground fighting circuit.

Moxie: Right.

Playboy: You later embellished these claims, citing an extensive military background.

Moxie: Affirmative. Before serving my country with distinction, I fought in a number of… let’s call ‘em ‘unsanctioned’ combat tournaments.

Playboy: You mean underworld?

Moxie: You said Mafia, not me.

Playboy: What was your fighting record?

Moxie: I’m still alive.

Playboy: These were fights to the death?

Moxie: May they rest in peace (genuflects)… because they died in pieces.

Playboy: I can’t help noticing your military tattoos.

(Moxie has gone to considerable effort to draw attention to them)

Moxie: Oh, these?

Playboy: Would you talk us through them?

Moxie: Over here we got the 75th Rangers… SEALs… Green Berets… Delta—

Playboy: What’s that one?

Moxie: Spetsnaz.

Playboy: You were with the Russian Special Forces?

Moxie: Da. As a double agent.

Playboy: I’m confused. Which unit did you actually serve in?

Moxie: All of them.

Playboy: That seems highly irregular.

Moxie: Shane Moxie’s a highly irregular kinda guy.

Playboy: No record exists of your military service.

Moxie: And what does that tell you?

Playboy: I can think of one reason…

Moxie: That’s right, it’s classified, so how about you just thank me for my service and let’s move the hell on.

Playboy: You’ve been unusually vocal in your appraisal of your fellow action stars.

Moxie: Just callin’ it like I see it.

Playboy: Care to call it like you see it now?

Moxie: Shoot.

Playboy: Arnold Schwarzenegger?

Moxie: He’ll make a helluva President some day.

Playboy: Sylvester Stallone?

Moxie: An underrated comic talent.

Playboy: (laughs) Ouch!

Moxie: I’m serious, man. Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot is gonna age like fine wine.

Playboy: Jean-Claude Van Damme?

Moxie: I can’t understand a word that fruity little Frenchy says.

Playboy: Steven Seagal?

Moxie: I need to be careful what I say here, for national security reasons… but having worked with Agent Seagal on a buncha black-bag ops for a certain intelligence agency I won’t name, I can confirm he’s the real deal.

Playboy: Chuck Norris?

Moxie: The second best in the business.

Playboy: Who’s the first?

Moxie: Take a wild fuckin’ guess, pal.

Playboy: No one could accuse you of lacking confidence, Shane.

Moxie: Or a big-ass dick.

Playboy: Not everyone shared your confidence. The producer of One Tough Hombre admitted that your debut movie was intended as a tax write-off. The success of Hombre bankrupted him, and he would later commit suicide.

Moxie: People underestimate me. It’s usually their first and last mistake.

Playboy: Most actors struggle for years before finding success, yet you seemed to arrive overnight. Has it been difficult to adjust to your sudden celebrity?

Moxie: I always knew I was a superstar and acted accordingly. It just took a little longer for the rest of the world to catch on.

Playboy: Do you ever worry about losing touch with your roots?

Moxie: There’s a saying where I’m from. You can take the man outta Toad Suck, Arkansas, but you can’t take Toad Suck, Arkansas outta the man. Shane Moxie’s the same good ole boy he always was; he’s just making bank and mixing with a better class of people, is all.

Playboy: When was the last time you visited Toad Suck?

Moxie: For the drive-in premiere of Hombre.

Playboy: In your wildest dreams, did you ever imagine that a movie in which you were the star would premiere at the same local drive-in?

Moxie: Never a doubt in my mind. But I’ll be honest, that night, waiting to see how the folks back home liked the picture, that was the last time – hell, maybe the only time – the Mox ever knew true fear.

Playboy: And how was the movie received?

Moxie: When the end credits rolled, it was so quiet you coulda heard a mouse fart. At first, I thought the worst. Folks in Toad Suck, they don’t slash the theater seats when they don’t like the movie; they curb stomp a motherfucker! I was about to vamoose when someone in the crowd laid on his car horn… and then someone else laid on his… and then all of a sudden the lot was a storm of honking horns and flashing headlights. It was a drive-in ovation. I hadn’t seen a reaction like it since the Kenny Rogers racing movie, Six Pack, played.

Playboy: And you’ve never looked back.

Moxie: I’m where I belong now.

Playboy: Since then, you’ve cultivated something of a ‘bad boy’ persona. Rarely a week goes by when your mug – indeed, your mugshot – isn’t plastered across the tabloids. The wild tales of drink, drugs, women; are the stories exaggerated?

Moxie: Shit, if anything they’re downplayed.

Playboy: What about the company you keep?

Moxie: Like who?

Playboy: The Nazi Low-Riders, for one.

Moxie: Fellow motorcycle enthusiasts, is all. We never talk politics.

Playboy: And the, uh… ladies of the night?

Moxie: It’s cheaper than getting hitched.

Playboy: Controversy surrounded your recent charity event, ‘The Shane Moxie Invitational Mud-Wrestling Cup.’

Moxie: ‘Double-D Cup.’

Playboy: I stand corrected. This event provoked outrage among women’s groups.

Moxie: Butt-ugly bull dykes with their panties in a bunch cuz they didn’t get an invite. Look, the rasslin’ gals had a great time, the fellas watchin’ had an even better time, and more importantly, we raised a lotta money for charity.

Playboy: Money which the charity groups say they’ve yet to receive.

Moxie: (shifting in his seat) The check went in the mail.

Playboy: I understand the lawsuit is still pending; but what can you tell us about your recent nightclub fracas with American Ninja actor Michael Dudikoff?

Moxie: Not much to tell. I was at the bar, minding my own business. The Mox doesn’t go looking for trouble, but when trouble finds him, he rips off its head and shits down its throat. This fan comes up and starts hasslin’ me. ‘Can I get a picture, can I get an autograph, can I shake your hand?’ Now when the Mox is getting his drink on, he’s off the clock. I politely told the guy to take a fuckin’ hike. That’s when Dudikoff sticks his nose in. He musta seen me bitchslap the guy cuz he rolls up on me, starts giving me static, says to me like he’s Yoda or something: ‘Be nice to people on your way up, you might meet them again on your way down.’

Playboy: And what did you say to that?

Moxie: I didn’t waste my breath. I broke a bottle over his head.

Playboy: Dudikoff claims you hit him from behind, that the attack was unprovoked.

Moxie: That’s his pride talking. History is written by the victors, Mikey.

Playboy: On reflection, don’t you think he might have had a point?

Moxie: How’s that?

Playboy: You have a reputation for being difficult to work with.

Moxie: Says who?

Playboy: (consults notes) It’s a long list.

Moxie: If being a perfectionist and demanding perfection from lesser talents makes me some kinda asshole, then clap the cuffs on me and cart me off to Asshole Jail. That’s the price of producing great art.

Playboy: You consider yourself an artist?

Moxie: These (clenching his fists) are my brushes; the bad guy, he’s my canvas.

Playboy: Many critics would take exception to that self-assessment. Roger Ebert in particular has been scathing in his reviews of your work—

Moxie: Who cares what that fat sack of shit’s got to say?

Playboy: Well, you seemed to be stung by the criticism. You challenged Ebert to a boxing match. Were you surprised when he took you up on the offer?

Moxie: The guy’s seen too many movies if he thinks he could ever beat the Mox.

Playboy: Ebert got himself into the shape of his life. Went into training camp with Sugar Ray Leonard. You must have seen the photos – he looked like a tank!

Moxie: A septic tank, maybe.

Playboy: Why did you back out of the event?

Moxie: I didn’t back outta shit. I ruptured an Achilles’.

Playboy: So you do have an Achilles’ heel!

Moxie: (missing Playboy’s joke) Two of ‘em. As far as I’m concerned, the fight’s still on… when you least expect it, Roger.

Playboy: Aside from the critics, your movies have come under fire from minority groups for their depiction as villains. Don’t you feel any responsibility to challenge stereotypes?

Moxie: I challenge stereotypes in all my pictures! Black, brown, yellow; put the ass in front of me, it’s getting kicked.

Playboy: What about the violence in your movies?

Moxie: Awesome, right?

Playboy: Parent groups don’t think so.

Moxie: But the kids love it.

Playboy: I think that’s the problem. Parents objected in particular to the scene in Gung Ho-Ho-Ho in which the Salvation Army Santa you play impales an elf—

Moxie: An elf terrorist!

Playboy: —on Rudolph’s antlers.

Moxie: The little fucker was coming at me with a Kalashnikov! They’d prefer their rugrats saw Santa killed? Besides, I lightened the kill with a quip.

Playboy: ‘Merry Christmas, motherfucker.’

Moxie: Zing!

Playboy: What does the future hold for Shane Moxie? Do you ever foresee a time when you’re too old to kick butt?

Moxie: Hell, no. The Mox is gonna beat Father Time’s ass, too.

Playboy: Then we won’t be seeing you branching out into comedies like Arnold and Sly any time soon?

Moxie: Well, scripts as good as Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot are rare as rocking horse shit in this town. But as a matter of fact, I’m developing my own action-comedy called Copsicle. It’s a buddy movie about a couple of prehistoric cops in modern-day New York. One’s a caveman; his partner’s a chimpanzee.

Playboy: And which one will you play?

Moxie: The caveman, wiseass.

Playboy: Sounds like dream casting to me.

COPSICLE

Pre-history’s toughest cops…

Blasted from the past to save the 90s!

(dir. John Landis, 1997)

SYNOPSIS: 48 Hrs meets Encino Man… Preserved for centuries in a block of ice, caveman cop Stone, and his chimpanzee partner, Boo, are thawed from their icy tomb to apprehend their nemesis, Thugg, a Neanderthal drug dealer of narcotic pterodactyl guano, who is wreaking havoc in modern-day NYC. Comic high jinks ensue as the caveman cops struggle to adapt to the politically correct 1990s.

Critic Roger Ebert wrote of Copsicle: “Witnessing Moxie flounder through the role he was born to play – a caveman – one can only sympathize with his simian co-star. Mr. Duke carries Moxie’s considerable deadweight, anchoring the picture with a remarkable debut performance, and a shoo-in come awards season, which deserves so much better than this otherwise formulaic dreck.”

In the history of Hollywood’s feuding stars – Bette and Joan on Baby Jane, Jerry and Dino, Hanks and Hooch – nothing compares to the bad blood between Moxie and his chimpanzee co-star, Duke, during the making of action/comedy Copsicle.

A huge summer blockbuster, and Moxie’s biggest hit, Copsicle catapulted both Moxie and Duke to the A-list. Had Moxie made better career choices, he might have enjoyed the longevity of Schwarzenegger and Stallone (and indeed, Duke himself). While Duke went on to win the Academy Award for Best Actor in the Ron Howard-directed biopic, Duke, Moxie would kill his career overnight with his notorious Face/Off-meets-Soul Man “blackface thriller,” KKKop. [Poster art REDACTED] Today, he remains little more than a footnote in action movie history.

About the author

Adam Howe writes the twisted fiction your mother warned you about. He is the author of Die Dog or Eat the Hatchet, Tijuana Donkey Showdown, Black Cat Mojo, Scapegoat (w/ James Newman), and the editor of the Wrestle Maniacs anthology. Writing as Garrett Addams, his short story Jumper was chosen by Stephen King as the winner of the international On Writing contest. He lives in London with his partner and their daughter. Tweet him @Adam_G_Howe.