One Piece live-action's Taz Skylar trained "10 hours a day" to master Sanji's fight scenes

7 September 2023, 21:21

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By Katie Louise Smith

"I did absolutely every single one of my own kicks in the show. There is no CGI on my leg."

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Wondering if Taz Skylar does his own stunts as Sanji in Netflix's One Piece live-action adaptation? Of course he does. And the intense training programme he did to master those stunts is no joke, either.

British actor Taz portrays One Piece's resident expert chef and eventual member of Luffy's Straw Hat Crew. He doesn't pop up in the show until mid-way through, when Luffy, Nami and Zoro encounter him at the Baratie. Viewers then get to learn more about his character before he's welcomed into Luffy's fold.

Speaking to GamesRadar about how he trained for the role, Taz revealed his pretty hardcore training process and how he mastered the one request that One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda had for him when it came to playing Sanji.

Taz Skylar reveals intense training to do all of Sanji's stunts himself. Picture: Netflix, Toei Animation

In order to authentically portray Sanji the way he is in the original manga, Taz had to learn the art of stunt fighting without using his hands. Sanji, who is a chef, doesn't use his hands in combat in case they get damaged.

Confirming that he did his own kicking stunts in the show, Taz said: "I did absolutely every single one of my own kicks in the show. There is no CGI on my leg, and my stunt double was my trainer, and was very enthusiastically cheering me from the side. He was with me throughout every step of it, and I had various other trainers."

Discussing how he ended up deciding to take on all the stunts and fighting himself, he continued: "I wanted to do everything. Like, it was very much one of those jobs that if I was in for a penny, I was in for a pound."

Behind the scenes of One Piece on Netflix

Taz began training for two hours a day, which he quickly realised wasn't going to be enough because he didn't already have any martial arts training. So his training programme was upped to four hours, then to five hours a day.

He ended up flying his personal trainer out to South Africa so he could train for even longer each day. In the end, Taz did 10 hours of fight training a day to be able to fully portray Sanji on-screen.

"I really want that to land because it hurts. [laughs] And it's not an approximation. Eight hours is, if anything, a round down because sometimes it'd be 10," he added. "And it was every single day, seven days a week – I had straps on every single joint on my body. It was the most ridiculous process I've ever been through in my life. But! I did do every single kick, and I'm proud of it."

And if you've watched One Piece, you'll know just how much all that training paid off. Taz is brilliant as Sanji and fans are more than impressed with the way he's managed to portray the live-action version of the beloved character.