Mandy Bhari has been practicing martial arts for over 25 years. She co-owns and operates the Hybrid Academy Of Martial Arts in Glasgow where students practice physical fitness, learn self-defense and ultimately train in the same field of martial arts philosophy founded on the inspiring principles founded by the late iconic martial arts legend and Jeet Kune Do founder, Bruce Lee, of whom Mandy is also a devoted fan. Having just recently gotten back into acting in the last few years, Mandy is also an accomplished stuntwoman and actress who applies her versatility while engaging in screenfighting workshops with her students, choreographing and executing skits, and even shooting shortfilms.
I recently managed to catch one of Mandy’s shortfilms by writer/director Johnny Herbin, Rough House, where she served as the producer and starred as the main actor along with fight choreographer George Johnston’s stunt team. I got to talk to Mandy for a little bit about her most memorable experience about making the short film. “Well shooting rough house I had to kick a door in and by the third take I actually did kick it right off it’s hinges!!”, she says. “The crew were all laughing and saying I was a complete badass!!”.
I have seen some pretty cool shortfilms in my time as a fan of action cinema features and shorts on many levels; Rough House, to me, was not only a wicked experimental action piece, but a very charming one, especially given the title if you are familiar with the colloquial meaning of the word. Hopefully we can look forward to some more action short pieces in the days, weeks and months ahead.
I should also point out that Mandy has been one of my biggest supporters; She’s smart, has a big heart, and a no-holds barred/take no s*** personality, making her one of the hardest working and toughest people anyone would be lucky to work with or call a friend. Granted, her career will hopefully lead to sharing a project on set one day with actor Tom Cruise.
You can check out Roughhouse for yourself below, and click HERE to learn more about it at her old blog. To learn more about Hybrid Academy and possibly join, follow the school on Facebook, Twitter and visit the official website.
Click HERE if the embed fails to load, and to learn more about Mandy Bhari, she has a new personal website now up and running over at MandyBhari.com.
