Mortal Kombat’s Josh Lawson Improvised A Lot of Kano’s One-Liners

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Mortal Kombat’s Josh Lawson improvised a lot of Kano’s one-liners in the film. The hotly-debated adaptation of the iconic video game series is available to stream now on HBO Max, as it releases Friday, April 23rd. Mortal Kombat's action has been attracting much of the attention, and rightfully so, as director Simon McQuoid says their goal was to craft "the best fight scenes that have ever been on film." But other than its signature fatalities, Mortal Kombat offers a little something for all audiences, such as snappy dialogue and campy comedy.

Josh Lawson, an Australian actor best known for his role as Doug Gugghenheim in the Showtime series House of Lies and his Oscar-nominated short film The Eleven O'Clock, stars in Mortal Kombat as Kano. The character is known as the leader of the Black Dragon cartel and for his longtime feud with Sonya Blade, played by Jessica McNamee in the film. Other than Kano and Sonya Blade, the Mortal Kombat reboot includes almost every character from the original game in 1992, excluding perhaps its most famous character in Johnny Cage. Veterans of the franchise featured in the film include Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim), Raiden (Tadanobu Asano), Liu Kang (Ludi Lin), and Scorpion (Hiroyuki Sanada).

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Recently, CinemaBlend had the chance to talk with Josh Lawson about the more comedic side of Simon McQoid’s upcoming adaptation. Lawson delivers a few funny one-liners in the film as Kano, and according to the actor himself, they were mostly the product of improvisation on set. When asked if Kano's witty one-liners were in the script, Lawson answered:

No, they weren’t. Simon McQuoid definitely let me off the chain to have a bit of fun and I'm not sure any two takes were ever the same. There would have been a lot to sift through. I had a lot of fun. I was able to kick the tires, of course there was a script and then there was a lot of scripted stuff too, but yeah, I was definitely able to just have a bit of fun.

While much of Mortal Kombat was scripted, which is to be expected, it seems like the actors had a lot of opportunities to improvise on set. In fact, according to Lawson, these chances to improvise allowed him to get much more acquainted with the character of Kano. Lawson says, "He's a bastard. He shoots his mouth off, his bark is probably a little worse than his bite." Fans of Mortal Kombat are likely to agree as Kano is known for his ability to trash-talk.

Though big-budget blockbusters often have to stick to a studio-improved script, it is nice to see that Warner Bros. gave McQoid the freedom to let his actors improvise. While a fan-favorite character in Johnny Cage, who is known for his funny one-liners, will be absent, Lawson's performance as Kano will likely provide much entertainment in Mortal Kombat.