Pierre: why would they want to learn Chinese martial art? because of a movie role?
Bruce Lee: not really. most of them you see, to me at least, the way that I teach it, all types of knowledge ultimately man self-knowledge. is, therefore, these people are coming in and asking me to teach them, not so much how to defend themselves, or how to do somebody in. rather, they want to learn to express themselves through some movement, be it anger, be it determination or whatever. so, in other words, what I'm saying therefore, is that they're paying me to show them, in combative form, the art of expressing the human body.
Pierre: which is acting, in a sense, isn't it?
Bruce Lee: well......
Pierre: or would be a useful tool for an actor....
Bruce Lee: it might sound too philosophical, but it's unacting acting or acting unacting....if you know--
Pierre: you've lost me!
Bruce Lee: I have huh? so what I'm saying, actually, you see, it's a combination of both. I mean here is natural instinct and here is control. you are to combine the two in harmony. not--if you have one to the extreme, you'll be very unscientific. if you have another to the extreme, you become, all of a sudden, a mechanical man--no longer a human being. so it is a successful combination of both, so therefore, it's not pure naturalness, or unnaturalness. the ideal is unnatural naturalness, or natural unnaturalness.
Pierre: yin/yang, eh?
Bruce Lee: right man, that's it.
Pierre: one of your students, James Coburn , played in a movie called our man flint, in which he used karate. was that what he learned from you?
Bruce Lee: he started training with me after the film. not...
Pierre: so he learned after he played in our man flint.