'Warrior' Executive Producer Shannon Lee Promises Season 3 Cameo in HBO Max Revival (Exclusive)

On Wednesday, HBO Max officially renewed Warrior for a third season, and executive producer [...]

By Michael Hein

On Wednesday, HBO Max officially renewed Warrior for a third season, and executive producer Shannon Lee has already teased a major cameo for the new installment in an exclusive interview with PopCulture.com. We spoke to Lee back in January, when the first two seasons of Warrior first hit the streaming service. At the time, she said that she hoped to make an appearance in Season 3 herself if they could only get the green light.

Warrior ran for two seasons on Cinemax before the cabler stopped producing original content, effectively canceling the show since it no longer had a home. Since January, fans have been campaigning on social media for a streaming service to save the show, and it finally paid off. The cast and crew are overjoyed too, and now Lee's promise came can come to fruition. Lee helped develop Warrior from an original TV treatment written by her father, Bruce Lee, and like him, she has a strong martial arts background. She said that in Season 3, she might finally get in on the cast's intense training regimen.

"So, it started out — of course — with just the people who did the majority of the action would be training, training in the martial arts, working on their fight sequences and choreography," she said. "But little by little, it was like everybody in the cast wanted to get in on it, and wanted to work out. And pretty soon, everybody would be in the area where we'd set up for all the training and choreography practice, like, training! And wanting to learn the moves, and everybody would get up and join in. It was pretty special... I know there are shows with a lot of really tight-knit wonderful casts, but this show had that going for it."

Naturally, we asked Lee if she joined in any of these team-building training sessions. Lee learned her father's martial arts style, Jeet Kune Do, from some of her father's personal students. She also studied Taekwodo, Wushu and kickboxing.

"I do have a background in martial arts," she said, laughing. "I was definitely invited. I wasn't able to get on set a ton because we shot in South Africa, but here's the thing — why Season 3 needs to get going is because [stunt coordinator] Brett Chan and I were talking, and we were saying 'okay, well, if we get a third season, we're going to have to get you in a cameo.'"

This was not just a vague plan, either, as Lee revealed how far Season 3 discussions have gone. She said: "The two of us, we'll have to fight each other in Season 2. And I was like 'alright, if we get a Season 3, I'm in.' I have to start training."

Hopefully, Lee will get a chance to fulfill that promise, thanks in part to massive fan outcry for more episodes of Warrior. The show was added to HBO Max in January, and executive producer Justin Lin posted an impassioned plea on social media for fans to get the word out on social media, hoping word-of-mouth advertising might help him persuade HBO Max to revive the series before it loses too much momentum. The streaming giant is giving fans what they want, and Warrior Season 3 is now in development. The existing episodes are streaming now on HBO Max.

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