Posted in: Horror, Movies, New Line Cinema, Warner Bros | Tagged: final destination, Final Destination: Bloodlines

Final Destination: Bloodlines: Lee on Casting, Directors, Short & More

Tinpo Lee (Kidding) spoke to Bleeding Cool to reflect on his time on Final Destination: Bloodlines, working with cast & crew, short & more.

Tinpo Lee has become one of the most versatile and in-demand actors in Hollywood, particularly on TV. While most may recognize his role as Marty in the daytime soap General Hospital, Lee's been in several prime-time shows with nearly 50 credits to his name since his debut in the shorts In the Eye. He's appeared on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Passions, Mom, Chicago P.D., Criminal Minds, The Young and the Restless, NCIS: Los Angeles, Grey's Anatomy, This Is Us, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Kidding, S.W.A.T., and more recently, Animal Kingdom, and Doogie Kamealoha M.D.. While promoting his latest work in Warner Bros/New Line's Final Destination: Bloodlines, Lee, who plays family patriarch Marty Reyes, spoke to Bleeding Cool about joining the horror franchise, working with directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein, castmates, and death scenes.

Final Destination: Bloodlines Tinpo Lee on Directors' Dedication to Franchise, Film Reunion in a Short, and More

Bleeding Cool: How'd you get involved with 'Final Destination: Bloodlines,' and did you feel any weight on being part of such an established horror franchise?

Honestly, I came into the franchise like I would come into any other job. It was a standard audition process for me. I came in late because they had started even a little bit of production before the (2023 SAG-AFTRA and WGA) strikes. They had to stop and restart, so when I came on the project, I was brought in for an audition, then a second audition callback with the directors and producers. There wasn't a ton of pressure, per se, because, frankly, I didn't even know what I was getting into. There might have been a code name that it was working under when I was first auditioning. It wasn't until I got cast that I realized what I was being put into and what a big deal it was.

How are Zach and Adam as creatives?

Oh my gosh, they're fantastic! They're super collaborative. That's probably part and parcel of them being a directing team, right? They are, by default, working as a team all the time, so collaborating. That's a huge part of their process. They're very forthright in asking for input and asking what the actors were thinking about characters, motivations, movement, and all those things. "Collaboration" would probably be the keyword for me, and incredibly warm and then excited. [Adam and Zach] love this franchise and movie. I don't know the history of their fandom of the franchise, but…Man! They just loved it. There's a rumor that even when they were pitching for the project, they put together an entire Rube Goldberg death sequence via Zoom for their pitch. So yeah, I think passion is what stood out.

What do you make of your co-stars working with Kaitlyn [Santa Juana], Teo [Briones], Richard [Harmon], Owen [Patrick Joyner], and Anna [Lore], and what they were like?

The standout for me is how quickly we became a family. Part of that was a literal family, right? We're all family in the movie. but we all got pulled up to Vancouver and there for several weeks before production started. By the nature of the ensemble cast, many of us were working while others had time off. There were a lot of dinners, movies, and jacuzzi time that we all got to hang out and bond.

They're all such warm, generous people. In fact, right after the production, I'd been working on writing and producing a short film. In that time in Vancouver, and I think that was around March-ish last year, It coalesced for me having met Richard and Rya [Kihlstedt] on set, and we also tapped my daughter (Payton Elizabeth Lee), and I wrote, produced, directed, and starred in this short film. So, we tapped Richard and Rya to come play the two other roles in this film, and we shot it in October in Utah. We pulled Richard down from Vancouver and Rya from LA and had a mini-reunion on set.

What is the name of this short?

It's called 'Fu' and is inspired by the character Fu Manchu. It's the reclaiming of that character and taking it back from the racist stereotypes it embodied originally at least, and re-casting it in a modern, contemporary psychological drama.

Were you disappointed you didn't get one of those elaborate death scenes in 'Final Destination?' There's that barbecue showing all the different possibilities, and [Alex Zahara's character] Howard gets the lawnmower.

Was I disappointed in not getting one? Yeah, of course, I was very disappointed. I would have wanted to get smashed by the train. That seemed like an appropriate death, but I don't know, maybe [Marty's] still alive.

Final Destination: Bloodlines, which also stars Brec Bassinger, Gabrielle Rose, and Tony Todd, is in theaters and will come to Ultra HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray, and DVD on July 22nd.

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