UCLA's Peaceful Warrior

As gun-wielding symbiologists and genetic mutants storm through the multiplexes, a quieter film is poised to make Scott Mechlowicz ’03 a hero as well.

Based on a semi-autographical novel by gymnast-turned-inspirational-circuit mainstay Dan Millman, Peaceful Warrior stars Mechlowicz as Dan, a cocky young athlete on the path to Olympic glory. But when Dan happens upon an eccentric stranger (Nick Nolte, whom Dan dubs “Socrates”) hanging out at a Texaco, he learns to tap inner strengths, Karate Kid-style, and live a more fulfilling existence than ever before.

Its New Age premise aside, the movie is “something everyone can relate to,” Mechlowicz says. “Everyone at some point has had that sensation of complete euphoria, be it winning something they’ve worked hard to achieve or getting a raise or kissing a girl for the first time. And it’s about having that moment of clarity, and trying to maintain that, and keep that throughout your whole life. That’s something everybody wants.”

Mechlowicz applies that philosophy to his career, as well, which really took off following his graduation from UCLA’s Conservatory Acting Program. Being in the program, Mechlowicz says, helped prime the New York-born, Texas-raised actor for leading roles in movies including EuroTrip (2004) and Mean Creek (2004). Fellow Theater Department students tangibly affected his own work, he says, and UCLA professors including April Shawhan, Gary Gardner, Tom Orth and Delia Salvi were “a gigantic influence.”

“They say that the program is more competitive than getting into Harvard Law,” Mechlowicz adds, laughing.

Equally competitive is the world of professional gymnastics, which Mechlowicz studied intensely in preparing for Peaceful Warrior. “There’s so much blood and sweat put into the sport,” he says. “It’s quite a spectacle to watch.”

While the film features Olympic medalists and other title-holding athletes as stunt people and extras, “to be so specific that even the 2 percent of gymnasts out there would say, ‘that’s legit,’” Mechlowicz trained six days a week, and subjected himself to “a crazy diet you’d never want to be on … My body transformed drastically. I became so much stronger than I knew I was able to be.”

Another of the movie’s transformations was to UCLA itself: Although Peaceful Warrior is allegedly set at Berkeley, scheduling conflicts made shooting there impossible. So much of the film was shot at UCLA, then edited to look like the northern UC campus.

“I was so happy to be back at UCLA shooting a film. It meant so much to me to be there,” Mechlowicz says. “That was one of my favorite parts.”

Peaceful Warrior may not be a box-office miracle, a la The DaVinci Code or X-Men: The Last Stand. But if early screenings are any indication, it will leave an impression on thoughtful summer moviegoers. Like the book—which has sold millions of copies since its 1980 publication, the film “hits you pretty hard,” Mechlowicz says.

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