411 Movies/TV Interviews: SDCC '09 - Kamen Rider Dragon Knight
Posted by Jeffrey Harris on 08.14.2009
The stars of Kamen Rider Dragon Knight join together for an exclusive interview with 411mania during this year's San Diego Comic-Con.
On Sunday, the final day of this year's San Diego Comic-Con, the cast and crew of the hit CW4Kids TV series, Kamen Rider Dragon Knight, were in attendance to sign autographs and announce the show's second season which is now currently airing. Kamen Rider Dragon Knight is the Americanized version of the Japan's hit show, Kamen Rider Ryuki, one of the many incarnations of the long running Kamen Rider franchise. Some of you might remember when Haim Saban did a spin-off show from the American version of the Power Rangers called Masked Rider. Masked Rider was an adaptation of Kamen Rider Black RX.
The Brothers Wang, Steve and Mike, re-worked the concept and made a new re-version that's much more faithful to the world and concept of Kamen Rider with Dragon Knight, and the actors actually say "KAMEN RIDER"! The stars of the show, including the two main Kamen Riders: Kit/Dragon Knight (Stephen Lunsford) and Len/Wing Knight (Matt Mullins), along with the lovely Yvonne Arias who plays the show's female lead, Maya, spoke with me for an exclusive interview to talk about the show and what might come after the end of Dragon Knight:
Matt Mullins (L) and Stephen Lunsford (R) showing off their Kamen Rider Venting poses.
Jeffrey "The Vile One" Harris: So what were you all working on before you started doing this series?
Matt Mullins: *Laughs* Begging for food.
Stephen Lunsford: The phrase, starving actors, comes to mind. I think I was working at Von's.
Yvonne Arias: Waiting tables.
SL: Yeah, exactly . . . I worked on a bunch of Disney shows. A few movies here and there, low budget, semi-high budget, grossed no money.
YA: You had a Bratz doll.
SL: I had a Bratz doll.
YA: I was very jealous.
SL: That's very true. I have a very big head on a very small body. That's what I was doing before.
TVO: And Matt, you practice martial arts?
MM: I do. I did martial arts for a while. I did a couple independent films as well, one of them of them was the Adventures of Johnny Tao which we showed a lot of here at Comic-Con where we got the initial funding to do the film, and that ended up getting a pretty decent success. And right before Kamen Rider, I did this film called Sideswipe and America's Got Talent.
Yvonne Arias.
YA: I was on Scrubs. I played Elizabeth Martinez. I did a few episodes of that. And I did this Fred Savage show called Crumbs, ER, and some independent films too. One of them, Confessions of A Pit Fighter, was just released by Lionsgate a few weeks ago, so check it out.
TVO: So how did you get your roles on the show?
MM: I did the pilot. I originally saw the casting for show. I saw the description of the character . . . I felt I was ready to fight for it. I submitted for it myself, I had my agent try and send it in, I ended up crashing the audition, booked the pilot, pilot was the series, and so yeah, that was that.
SL: I wasn't in the original pilot. They re-cast--
YA: We auditioned together.
SL: Yeah, Yvonne and I auditioned together. What happened was like three or four calls or something like that. I found the script because my agent sent it to me, and I loved it and I loved the characters. So I'm like OK, I got to get out for this. So I went out for it a couple times. And its funny the guys I was going up with, they looked nothing like me, completely nothing like me. I'm like, I'm not getting this; this is not what they are looking for. So went in there a couple times, and I got it.
YA: Did you have curly hair at the audition or was it completely straight?
SL: Oh no, my hair was like completely bushy, hairy curly. It was like afro-status. And then I went in for one of the final calls and they go, oh hey, we want your hair to be straight. Can you straighten it for us Stephen? And then I went in there look like some terrible version of like Donny Osmond, I was awful.
YA: Yeah, I auditioned with Stephen. I went in once, and then I went in a second time, and then they paired us up to kind of see what our chemistry was. Yeah, I mean I've always wanted something super hero in that genre. It's really exciting.
TVO:Kamen Rider is a huge phenomenon in Japan, and its also has a cult fanbase in the US as well. Did any of you do research on the Japanese versions, or did the Wang Bros. want you to go in fresh?
SL: I think they wanted us to go fresh. They wanted us to have our own interpretation of the series. However, when I found out I got the part; I immediately ordered all the DVD's like as many as possible.
YA: Yeah, thanks for sharing.
SL: Sorry, sorry. I just like did that automatically. I bought them on eBay. It took weeks to get to me. But I watched everything, got a feel for what they wanted . . . it was subtitled. But yeah, I think they wanted us to come up with our own feel for it.
Matt Mullins.
MM: Yeah, I think with the Wangs in general, what they really wanted to do was take the foundation of what Kamen Rider was and make an Americanized show. They were never looking to do Ryuki but create a whole other plotline to the Kamen Riders. They try to do it in all the traditional Japanese heritage that was set before. Me personally, I researched because I didn't actually know what Kamen Rider was. I too was calling it Kay-men Rider for a while. I was screwing that up. Eventually, when I started researching it and understanding the lineage of it because the first that I found was the original '70's series and I'm just like "Whoa. Oh my God. What is this?" And then I started diving deeper and deeper and then just discovered what it was. And I didn't actually watch Ryuki until after I finished shooting the series. And I watched it all on CrunchyRoll.com.
TVO: For Stephen and Matt. Many fans have made note in the Japanese versions, there's sometimes a bit of a suggestive, homo-erotic element to the Kamen Rider duos. And then the fans saw that scene in the living room with Kit and Len, and Len is sleeping on the couch with Kit on the floor. And Len covers Kit with the jacket. Fans thought you were honoring the Japanese material. Or is it more like an older/younger brother thing?
SL: I would like to say its an older/younger brother thing. However there are some interesting aspects to the series because we made fun of one episode in particular that we called gay for pay on the set. And it's funny, its the episode where I'm like helping Len outside of Ventara. And I'm like holding onto Len outside of a junkyard. And he's like, "I have no place to go!" Because he's like a hobo.
MM: Yes, I am a hobo . . . that can kill people!
SL: I'm like holding on to him going, "You can crash at my place." And like we looked at the picture, a still from that--
MM: Oh, its so funny.
SL: Looking at that, its difficult to have a show like that where its like a duo and not have some type of thing like that. But I just laugh at that.
TVO: I thought him giving you the jacket was like a cool, Indiana Jones sort of thing.
SL: Yeah, exactly.
YA: Yeah.
MM: Yeah, absolutely.
SL: Yeah, I like that more than what everyone else is suggesting.
TVO: So Yvonne, do you think Maya likes or is attracted to any of the Kamen Riders? Does she like Len or Kit?
MM: We have an opinion on this too by the way.
YA: In a twisted way . . . I think at first of course its with Kit.
SL: Everyone assumes that they are going to be together, but the question is, are they? Hmm.
YA: And then there's JTC (Kamen Rider Strike) who she obviously is --
SL: She's just a slut.
YA: Well at first she is really, just like when she met Kit, I mean think about it. She's a paranormal reporter. She loves this whole science fiction world, and then she meets this guy, this boy, who needs helps finding his father. And then she watches him turn into a super hero. I mean how can she not be enamored by him? But as far as liking him, I mean that has never come about.
MM: Our opinion of it was too that she fell in love with which ever Kamen Rider happened to be in the picture at the moment.
TVO: So what about this new hot babe, Kamen Rider Siren? Who plays her?
Stephen Lunsford.
SL: A local actress, Carrie Reichenbach. She's been on Two And A Half Men and a bunch of other series. Gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous.
TVO: I saw her, and I'm like, I want to get on her bike.
SL: Yeah, exactly. I wouldn't mind riding her bike any day. But you know she's married, she's married.
TVO: Which rider is she into?
SL: I think she's into Kit, yeah.
YA: He wishes.
SL: Yeah, there we go, there we go.
MM: That's not a lie or anything, right?
SL: Watch the show.
TVO: How is everyone affording these nice motorcycles on the show? Do you guys have motorcycles?
MM: Gas mileage. Again, it sort of kicks back to the original.
TVO: Is there like a discount motorcycles 'r us or something?
SL: Except for the Ducati. You can never afford the Ducati. That's quite nice.
MM: That's one of the best things about the show, like they really tried hard to make sure everyone had a cool, different motorcycle.
SL: Everything from the Suzuki to the Triumph. I wanted the Triumph actually.
TVO: And about the show, even though its a kids show, I was surprised because its very well shot, it looks great in hi-def, and at times its surprisingly mature and there are some dark elements to it. Sort of the realities that Len has to deal with, and what Kit is going through his father.
SL: My father, yeah.
TVO: It feels like an evolution of the old Power Rangers show its sort of growing up, but its still appropriate for kids and really good.
SL: Well I know during the series, we tried really hard to make it like that. The way I would try to constantly look at it, it's the Batman Begins of kids series. We wanted to make it realistic enough for people to somewhat buy it, I mean its Kamen Rider, it's the universe of that, its like buying Star Wars. We actually really tried to make it so it's not like some corny rehash of like the Power Rangers shows.
MM: And its like with Kamen Rider and today's super heroes its like you don't have those just a super hero story where its good guy destroy bad guy and that's it. There's turmoil in all the characters now with like the Batmans and Watchmen, it's like the same inner-turmoil of what you have to do, and I think that's what the show is also trying to keep up with.
TVO: There's depth. I like that there is depth. Also, you both (Lunsford and Mullins) finally do have action figures of yourselves, though the likenesses aren't that great.
SL: Yeah.
MM: Mine's Caucasian, has dark hair. That's as accurate as possible, so what else could I ever want?
SL: Seriously, if you look at my little figure, he has liked ripped abs. I'm just like, wow, I've worked out a lot like that's ridiculous.
MM: And how are we the same size?
SL: I don't know, the same size. Yeah, that's kind of --
MM: I'm not complaining. Yeah, but my Christmas shopping is done, which is awesome. Just like everyone is getting the same thing--
SL: Just call Bandai, "Send me 30 of these things to send to people."
MM: "Oh great, another Len toy."
TVO: Ever imagine becoming action figures?
SL: Nope. Well, I'd hoped. It was a goal, something that everybody kind of dreams of.
MM: Graduate high school. Earn black belt. Oh, action figure.
TVO: At the licensing expos, the ad for the show also talked about a possible feature movie going off of the series. Would any of you possibly come back to do a movie or even another TV series?
MM: Sure.
SL: I think the script, depending on who was involved, if the Wangs were still involved, things like that. If the original cast was still involved, yeah I'd be completely down for that.
MM: I was such a big fan of the Wangs even since the beginning, since the pre-show pilot they just had this vision that they carried throughout the series. They fought for really what they believed in, keeping the show -- certain people wanted the show to be one way, this way, or that way. Steve [Wang] just wanted to make a show that in essence was as good as what the original Kamen Riders from Japan were. They really stuck to that. That's one of the parts that I've loved about it the most. And plus Steve Wang is THE MAN.
TVO: Yvonne, would you like to come back for a movie maybe and marry one of the Kamen Riders? Maybe have a Kamen Rider wedding?
YA: *Laughs* I know that would be interesting . . . yeah, we'll see what happens. So far . . . fall season's going to air; we don't know what's going to happen, what we're going to be doing.
MM: We know what's going to happen.
SL: We know.
TVO: So is there really no way to save anyone from the venting void?
SL: We can't talk about that.
YA: We can't let the cat out of the bag.
MM: That is the great question, but in all essence, venting somebody is -- that's it. There's no road back. You can't say death, but that's death.
TVO: Matt, it looks like you do a lot of your own stunts in the show. Do you ever get banged up?
MM: During this show, no. There are actually, the action scenes, the outpost stunts; the choreography was just so well done. It was shot so well, I did not get hurt at all.
TVO: But you did hurt the Cho Bros. a little bit, right?
MM: *Laughs* In the show, yes. But they're both really tough guys, and they did it, you know, that was a really fun fight.
TVO: I feel they were being a little arrogant so you wanted to lay into them a little bit.
MM: A little but you know because, Len, and again I don't have to say much, I just have to you know, just bring it, and I can put it out there.
SL: Oh, its been brought it.
TVO: Thanks so much for your time, and I don't want to keep you from your autograph session.
YA: Yeah thanks.
SL: Thanks a lot.
MM: Thank you.
Matt Mullins (L), Yvonne Arias (C), and Stephen Lunsford (R).
The second season of Kamen Rider Dragon Knight featuring Mullins, Lunsford, and Arias is currently airing on CW4Kids. Remember to get all the latest entertainment news, awesome movie reviews, and dish on Hollywood by adding 411mania.com to your favorite places. Also remember you can follow us on Twitter here:
