CraveOnline: Did you watch Jem and the Holograms?
Ryan Guzman: I had to do some research. Get some Rio research.
Rio has a very interesting story arc in the show.
Oh God, he’s a player, slash, like…
And a victim too!
Yeah!
You feel bad for him too, because he’s dating Jerrica and then she comes on to him as Jem and I’m like, “Is this a test?” What are you supposed to do here?! It’s the same woman. I feel bad for him.
[Laughs.] Yeah, because in the end he’s falling in love with the core person. He’s not falling in love with this add-ons with Jem or Jerrica, it’s just, he’s falling in love with who she’s really is. And she’s doing this weird test or whatever, and calling him certain names and saying whatever it is she’s got to do. That’s games!
“I think if they do a [‘Jem’] sequel I’m asking for the purple hair.”
Yeah, it’s brutal.
Yeah, I did my research for sure. The only problem is, and I know I’m going to get flack for this, but I don’t have purple hair.
Oh…
I don’t have the purple hair.
Did you consider the purple hair?
Oh yeah. I think if they do a sequel I’m asking for the purple hair.
That’s good. Did you do a screen test to try it out, or did they not want to go that far?
It was more centered on the girls’ story, and I happen to play the road manager, engineer who works for his mom’s company. So the storyline was changed a little bit from the actual cartoon and it was this weird thing of making sure it’s relevant now, but giving you the authenticity from the 1980s.
Is it set in the 1980s?
No, it’s set now. You’ve got to catch the demographic of the young kids nowadays and get them interested and invested in it. So what I feel like they’re doing, and I hope they do, is this is the story of the making of [the band], and afterwards here is Jem, and here is Jerrica, in all their glory, and all their crazy, weird hairstyles.
“They gave me a 15 minute vocal lesson in the back of an alley.”
[Jem and the Holograms director] Jon Chu produced your Step Up movies but he didn’t direct them…
He was an executive producer on a couple of them.
Did you work with him directly before this?
I met him a couple of times, but no, I didn’t really know him per se except for the few things that we talked about. But he was a great guy. In fact when he asked me to audition for him I actually told him, “You’re making a mistake.” I told him, “I don’t sing. I’m sorry. You’re going to hear my voice and it’s going to crack glass, and you’re going to realize what a mistake you’ve made.” And from then on he’s like, “No, I believe in you. Just come in and we’re going to see what we can do.”
I finally ended up just getting the courage, mustered it up and went in there and did my thing and then finally, after hearing what they were going to have for singing, the guy that’s singing for me… I listened to a little bit of it and I said, “That doesn’t sound like me. I just want to try now. I just want to see if I have that ability.” And they gave me a 15 minute vocal lesson in the back of an alley. The next thing you know, I’m in the sound booth recording a track for the film, and now I’m on the film.
Did you try singing for them in an audition piece?
They told me just to come in and act, and if my acting was strong enough we could work around the singing. And I go, “Man, this is the one film I feel like I’m not giving my all to.” So that’s why I did the singing.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast and The Blue Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
