Quintin “Rampage” Jackson has been as busy as ever of late.
“Crazy busy,” as he put it, speaking to Cageside Press in conjunction with the release of Lord of the Streets, a new MMA-themed action flick featuring himself and Khalil Rountree Jr.
Rampage Jackson is one of the most experienced fighter-turned-actors to have made the jump from MMA to the movies. In everything from cult horror flick The Midnight Meat Train (2008), to 2010’s big-screen A-Team adaptation, Jackson has consistently found work alongside his fighting career — but Lord of the Streets offered him a new opportunity: playing the bad guy.
“I never really played a villain like this before, and I thought it would be fun. It’s good to switch up things sometimes, just hope I don’t get typecast as a villain,” Jackson told Cageside Press. “You’d like to be the nice guys in the movies and stuff like that, but sometimes it might be more fun playing the villain.”
Despite appearing in a number of big screen titles, Jackson noted that he hadn’t acted for a bit prior to Lord of the Streets. “I hadn’t done a movie for a while at this point. It’s almost like starting over for me,” he said. And even though he has far more credits than some of his fighting co-stars, “It was cool, it was cool being there with the other fighters. I didn’t look at is as I’ve done more than them.”
When it came down to his character, Kane, Jackson based his performance in part on Suge Knight.
“I just figured that Kane was a combination of Suge Knight mixed with Nino Brown [portrayed by Wesley Snipes in New Jack City],” Jackson revealed. “I just wanted to play a character that can be as memorable as those two characters. When you think of Kane, the guy’s a f*cking asshole. So I didn’t really have to go anywhere in my mind, I just wanted people to f*cking hate him.”
‘Lord of the Streets’ is out and free on Tubi.
It’s Khalil Rountree’s first movie and the cast includes Anderson Silva, Rampage Jackson, Cheick Kongo and Rigan Machado. 🤙🏼https://t.co/LaQ7GvqokJ
— Alex Behunin (@AlexBehunin) April 24, 2022
In addition to Rountree and Jackson himself, notable MMA fighters including Anderson Silva and A.J. McKee also appear in the flick. Silva, in particular, struggled initially with his character, one of Kane’s henchmen in the film.
“It’s funny you asked that, because Anderson Silva is such a nice guy,” Jackson said about acting alongside Silva. “In one of the scenes, he had to get rough with the girl, and call her a b*tch. He was like ‘no, I don’t want to do it.’ The director was telling him to do it, he says ‘no.’ He didn’t want to do it, he’s very soft-spoken, a very nice guy. I told him ‘Anderson, just think of it as Axel [the character] is doing it, he’s calling her a b*tch, not Anderson Silva.’ He’s like ‘oh, okay!’ Once he got that, he was on it, and he did it, he called her a b*tch, he did a great job.”
Aside from Lord of the Streets, Jackson has a number of titles in production, and is currently training to a role in June. He’ll also be rooting for teammate Chieck Kongo, who challenges Ryan Bader for Bellator’s heavyweight title next month. “I’m rooting for Kongo 100%,” said Rampage.
Lord of the Streets, featuring former UFC champ and Bellator MMA star Rampage Jackson, is available on streaming platform Tubi now.
