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One moment you're a martial arts expert pining for the movies. The next you're the living embodiment of pure evil with a head like a voodoo tomato. Overnight, Ray Park has become a movie icon.

Words: Adam Smith. Photograph: Mark Seliger.

"I CAN SMELL CHIPS IN HERE," murmurs Darth maul ongingly, eyeing the trolley piled high with quality scran that has just been wheeled into the swank London hotel room. Since the Sith warrior has turned up as alter ego Ray Park, sans gangrenous tomato head, it's not difficult to see why food
might be high on the agenda - for Park is built like a buffed brick shithouse; 20-odd years of martial arts training having left him with a physique that has already reduced the usually strong-willed female PR staff of 20^th Century Fox to a fit of the vapours.

Restraining himself foodwise for the moment, he chats excitedly about the experience of being plucked from relative obscurity and planted firmly on a pedestal marked "icon".

"I hadn't really thought of it like that but people keep telling me about it," he enthuses. "Occasionally you sit back and think, I'm a part of history now. It's very exciting - and what I always wanted, to be a part of Star Wars. It's a great honour."

There's a palpable air of boyish excitement around Park that suggests he can't quite believe his luck. Almost breathlessly, he'll recount his experiences of meeting the cast and

crew ( "At first I was, "George.. he's a god... and Ewan and Liam... I'm working with big stars here!") in a soft cockney accent which is impossible not to warm to but unfortunately was one of the reasons Lucas redubbed his lines with another actor.

"I knew from the start that they'd most probably dub it, " he says, slightly disappointed. I was miked up and I went to a voice coach. But I don't think cockney coming in here and there would have suited it. I was curious to see what they did, I was hoping that maybe they'd synthesise my voice. But then it's not a big speaking part. There are only five lines. It's more about look and presence."

Ask him about the experience of becoming famous and you'll get non of the bad-tempred star rants about loss of privacy and irritating fans baying for autographs. This guy just can't get enough of it.

"I've done a few conventions and I've met a few fans," he says of his first experiences of the Star Wars circuit that'll no doubt keep him in high energy protein drinks for the rest of his natural. "It's amazing how extreme they take it. They're like, 'I'm so honoured.' I think, 'Why? I'm just me...' But it's nice, they're really warm, they're not poking me."

Poking, prodding, tweaking or in any other way manhandling Ray Park is probably not advisable. The multi-discipline championship winner has been a member of the British martial arts team for seven years, is a second level black belt and counts kick-boxing as one of his hobbies. But oriental rucking was, and still is, just a means to a more glamorous end.

"I wanted to be an actor when I was a kid. That's why I did the martial arts, " he says. "I watched Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. I wanted to fly about and do all the flashy movies that these guys were doing, to be recognised and sort of famous. I wanted people going, "Oh yeah... you're in the movies.

Until George put in the call, Parl's only experience of the world of celluloid was working as a stunt double on Mortal Kombat II. It wasn't nearly enough.

"It was hard on Mortal Kombat, " he remembers, "because you had to cover up and I didn't want that. I wanted to be in front of the camera. On Star Wars I said to them, 'Well, you hae to make the character do this,' and they said, 'You are the character. You can do it."

Well, most of the character anyway. But even if Park's gentle tones didn't quite cut the mustard for Darth Maul's voice, it's pretty clear that the months he spent leaping around in Tunisia are among the happiest of Park's life. And the wrapping of the movie left him with an almost terminal comedown; the vestiges of which seem to still cling to him.

"The down side was finishing the movie and being bored, " he remembers. "I really enjoyed doing something every day for six months and to finish that was really sad. You say goodbye to everyone and that's it. And the following week, I didn't have t get up at five o'clock in the morning but I still did. It was, 'What am I going to do now? ' For a week or so, I didn't even want to go training because what was the point? Then I started to get back into my routine. But I didn't do anything for a year afterwards, which was frustrating and boring."

All that was left to do was to look forward to the release of the movie which, with its attendant press calls and media hoopla, is another exciting chapter in Park's much enjoyed trip to Celebrityville. But the future is a little less certain.

"I've been to LA a few time to meet directors and casting directors, " he says of his plans post-Maul. "And they're saying, 'Well, there's this and there's that...' But you never know. I'm not going to say, 'Yeah, I'm going to get this because I've just done Star Wars'. "