The Dean of the Screen!
Keith Jardine spent most of his adult life learning how to become a better mixed martial artist but when it was clear that his fighting career was over, he quickly realized he didnât have a plan âBâ where his future was concerned.
Despite nearly six years spent in the UFC including wins over champions like Chuck Liddell and Forrest Griffin and then eventually competing for Strikeforce, âThe Dean of Meanâ didnât make the kind of money that allowed him to retire and never work again. Actually, Jardine was in a similar situation as so many fighters where he was always dependent on claiming a show and win bonus but winning was never guaranteed.
âThe trick with the fight game is first of all, itâs broken up into you show up, you get a certain amount and then you get double that if you win,â Jardine told MMA Fighting. âYou never think about losing. You never think about âoh Iâm only going to get paid this much for a fight.â You always think about the big amount.
âYou get in that cycle. You donât get a monthly check. Just when something happens, you get paid. So whateverâs in your back account is just numbers, itâs not real.â
Add to that, Jardine admits that coming up during his era in the UFC where he first appeared back on The Ultimate Fighter season 2, most competitors werenât really in it for the money anyways.
Fighting and winning was the biggest goal because back then the UFC was barely removed from paying to get broadcast on Spike TV and nobody ever thought MMA would command deals that would pay $1.1 billion per year.
âFighters now, fighting is popular and they fight because they want to be a superstar,â Jardine said. âBut a lot of us fighters back then like Chuck and me and âRampageâ [Jackson] and all these guys, weâre just trying to prove something to world. What better way to prove that youâre somebody than youâre a fighter, right?
âWhen youâre fighting, youâre literally naked in front of millions of people just bearing your soul there. Thereâs something that makes us want to do that. To be retired and done and I donât see how you can get fulfillment going to do a day job.â
While options were seemingly limited, Jardine did have one potential career awaiting him after he was randomly discovered by a pair of filmmakers in a completely coincidental encounter.
It turns out, Jardine was just days removed from arguably the biggest win of his career when he bested Liddell in a three-round war and he just happened to run into a writer and director duo preparing to shoot a film in his adopted home state in New Mexico.
âRight after what a lot of people say was my biggest fight, when I fought Chuck [Liddell], that was on a Saturday and I came here to see my doctor on a Monday, because it was like I was in a car accident,â Jardine explained. âI went to this small town in New Mexico [called] Bernalillo and I was in a little cafĂ© there and Brian Taylor and Mark Neveldine were scouting for locations there. They came up to me all super shy [saying] âhey, weâre doing this movie, do you think youâd be interested in reading for a role in it?â Like hell yeah, Iâve always wanted to do that.
âI didnât know who they were. It turned out they were the writers and directors of the Crank franchise, and they were doing Gamer with [Gerard] Butler here in Albuquerque, and thatâs how I got my [SAG-AFTRA union] card and thatâs how I got started.â
The role in Gamer gave way to Jardine picking up additional parts in other productions while also doing stunt work to pay the bills. Heâs credited as âbar fighterâ in the Emmy winning series Breaking Bad and âInglewood Pedestrianâ in Crank: High Voltage but Jardine knew if acting was going become more than a part time gig, he had to get better at it.
âAll the skills I learned through fighting â train, train hard, train hard everyday, I trained too much, I killed myself with training, but if I want to be a good actor, Iâm going to have to train at acting,â Jardine said. âThen I did that.
âI think at first, I was pretty OK. Because I didnât know any better, and I was just playing. Then I started taking it seriously and I started trying and I got a lot worse and a lot more contrived. I had to really study, I had to really learn the craft, and I put thousands of hours working on it and then roles started coming on. Like I had a Paul Thomas Anderson role, which is the Akira Kurosawa of America. Heâs a directorâs director. That kind of got it started with me, but I did stunts at the beginning, too, and that paid the bills.â
While his IMDB page is littered with acting roles now including appearances in films like John Wick, Inherent Vice and Logan, Jardine wasnât just getting offered these parts by accident.
In fact, Jardine revealed that he effectively spent everything he had saved from his fighting career in an effort to become a full-time, working actor in major film and television productions.
âAt the beginning when I first got out of the UFC, I spent all my money going to L.A. and doing auditions,â Jardine said. âBack then we did auditions in person and my agent said âyou should really be here for this one.â I get on the plane and fly to L.A. It will pan out 1 out of 10 times or whatever.
âI was really getting to the bottom there. We didnât make a lot fighting back then. Then a stunt role came on [for] John Wick and a couple roles came on and I made some good money with that. That kind of helped bridge while I was working on my acting until those roles started coming along.â
As much as he enjoyed acting, Jardine recognized that he was going to have to reinvent himself again after the COVID pandemic hit and film productions effectively shut down due to quarantine rules.
The lockdowns didnât present much time to work but it did give Jardine the opportunity to get better at his craft, which soon included developing his own ideas as a writer and potentially as a director as well.
âI decided if I want to do something interesting, Iâm going to have to create it myself,â Jardine said. âI have no experience in writing, Iâm not a great writer, but I know dialogue. I study the hell out of acting. I know dialogue. I have good coaches, too. I can write dialogue. I can write interesting dialogue. In fact when anybody reads my scripts, thatâs always the biggest mark is the characters and the dialogue.â
Jardine admits his first script was not very good, and his second was written as a Western that actually got some interest, but it was making a short film where he starred and directed that really earned him some attention.
âI did really well with that short,â Jardine said. âBecause of that, I was able to do Kill Me Again.â
In addition to film-making, heâs played a generic goon in a bunch of movies. Great look for it.
Kill Me Again is Jardineâs first feature film where he served as writer and director. The movie centers around a serial killer played by Final Destination star Brendan Fehr, who gets trapped in a time loop reliving the same violent night over and over again.
The film features appearances many of Jardineâs closest friends in the fight industry including Tait Fletcher, who has also gone onto have a very successful acting career of his own, as well as Michelle Waterson, Donald Cerrone and Maurice Greene.
The project was fun but also grueling because Jardine knew that he couldnât miss with his first film or he may not get a second chance.
âAt my age, you donât get a flop and get to do it again,â Jardine said. âIâm not just out of film school doing movies. This has to be good. Everybody has to get their money back and every scene has to be spot on.â
Kill Me Again has received overwhelmingly positive reviews including one that called the film âa slick and cool time at the movies.â The reception has opened even more doors for Jardine in the film industry, and he admits the excitement he felt from this project may have exceeded the exhilaration he used to only feel when he was competing in the UFC.
âItâs on par or maybe even better than walking out of the ring from some of my biggest fights,â Jardine s said. âBecause of all the work, all the heart, all the love, every piece of you is in that.â
With a growing resume that now reads fighter, actor, director and writer, Jardine appreciates that he was able to find a second career after his first ended. Thereâs no telling how many more jobs he might add before itâs all said and done but Jardine is proud that these days heâs recognized as frequently for his work in front of the camera as he was taking and giving punches at the height of his fight career.
âIâve had reinvent myself a bunch of times,â Jardine said. âThank goodness Iâm a way better actor and a filmmaker than I ever was a fighter.â
POTD ! Changing TT
Is he gonna crowdfund his next film?
Good on the Dean of Mean!