Cung Le’s Hollywood assault

Don’t expect to see Cung Le back inside the cage anytime soon. I spoke with the Strikeforce middleweight champion in Vegas a couple of days before UFC 100 and he says he’s not sure when he’ll fight again. (Ostensibly, we were chatting up his new Round 5 collectible figure, which is very cool, btw, but you can only talk about a toy for so long.)

One of the most dynamic and exciting fighters in all of MMA, Le hasn’t fought since he broke Frank Shamrock’s arm to win the Strikeforce strap in March of 2008. Since then, he’s been following in the footsteps of Chuck Norris, attempting to turn his killer kicks into a big-screen career.

He’s appeared in small roles in a handful of films, most recently as the heavy in Fighting, the underground fight club movie starring Channing Tatum and Terrence Howard. And on Sept. 18 he’ll be seen opposite Ben Foster (3:10 To Yuma) and Dennis Quaid in the sci-fi/horror/thriller Pandorum. He even made it into the trailer, popping up first at around the 1:00 mark.

“I’ve mostly been playing villain roles and this finally gave me a chance to be a hero,” says Le.

Le plays one of the crew of a spaceship who are awakened from cryogenic sleep only to discover all the passengers are gone but that there may or may not be an alien on board. “This definitely isn’t Star Trek,” he says with a laugh. “It was great fun – a lot of running, fighting and a lot of actual acting, not just the action stuff, a chance to go toe-to-toe with Ben Foster in those acting scenes. He doesn’t take it easy on you. You have to bring it the same way you do for a fight, know your lines, understand your character, the motivations, what the scene is about and what the scene is supposed to accomplish.”

Le is serious about his acting career. He’s taking acting lessons and says it’s strange to go to auditions and see other notable Asian actors like “Robin Shou from Mortal Kombat” and the “dude from the second Matrix movie.”

Which begs the question of when Le will defend his middleweight crown. He’s wrapped up in promoting Pandorum until mid-September and then he says he plans on getting back into fighting shape.

“I’ll be looking to have a tune-up fight and then a title defense, unless another acting role comes along, in which case I will have to vacate the title so Strikeforce can perhaps have an interim champion,” he says. “As the champion I should be defending my title. Other fighters deserve an opportunity to fight for the championship and I certainly don’t want to hold anyone back. It will also depend on what’s in the best interest of Strikeforce, as well. I certainly don’t want my title stripped from me but we’ll have to see.”

If and when Le returns to the cage there’s already a couple of names being bandied about for potential opponents, including Robbie Lawlor and a rematch with Shamrock. “Either of those could be good fights,” Le says. “But that’s still a few months off.”

And maybe longer. I got the sense from Le that he’s content with where his career is headed. He’s 37 years old, has nothing left to prove inside the cage and has found a better way to make a living than by beating people up. He didn’t come out and say he was done with fighting, and in all likelihood he will come back for at least a couple more bouts. But if his heart’s not in it – and if Hollywood is calling with bigger, easier paychecks that come with two of the most magical words in the Latin language, per and diem – then stepping away from the cage is a no-brainer, no matter how badly the fans want to see him kick some more ass, sanshou-style.