It’s Boom Time! We got an awesome chance to ask Mike Ginn aka Gem of Power Rangers RPM a few questions about his time on the show!
Had you ever heard of or watched Power Rangers before auditioning?
A: Definitely! We had Power Rangers in New Zealand where I grew up. I remember watching Mighty Morphin and the Turbo movie as a kid. My brother and I would jump through the air and go “HEY-YA!” like they did. I loved it!!… and then NEW ZEALAND BANNED IT FROM TV!!! Something about too many kids pretending they were power rangers and beating each other up in schools all over NZ or something? So we only ever had the first season and movie in NZ for Power Rangers… Stupid huh?
What was the audition process for RPM like? Did you audition for any prior seasons?
A: Well the audition process for me was interesting in that, as many of you know, Gem always speaks with his twin sister as they speak in half sentences to form full sentences together lol. So I was actually paired up with an actress to do the audition scene and we were told beforehand who we were paired with so we could meet up and work the scene with them before the audition. The scene we actually read for the audition wasn’t one that was included in any episode in the end, but it involved Gem and Gemma practicing action poses (similar to that of the Ginyu Force), it was fun. I read with 3 actresses including Li Ming for Gemma before they selected us.
I did audition for one other season years before RPM, I had also even been an extra on another prior season too, this was all at a time when I was just getting into acting. What happened in between those events and RPM was going to drama school to study acting for 3 years full time. I got the part of RPM Gold in my first year out of drama school. Just had to stop being a n00b, I guess.
Do you remember what it was like to hear you got the part of Gem?
A: Yeah, I actually remember I was on my bed when I got a call from my agent to let me know that I had gotten the part. I was SUPER HAPPY, and probably said a lot of Expletive Yeah’s!
What was your first day on the set like?
A: I’m gonna be honest and say I don’t remember exactly… It wouldn’t have been a nervous experience thing or a super excited thing either, I’m usually all about the business so me making sure I do my job. I don’t know if you wanna edit out this question or not, since my answer’s lame lol.
Who would you say was your closest friend on the set? Fun Memories?
A: Well you can probably guess who based on who Gem was stuck to, splitting lines with, and in basically every scene together with lol. I can tell you an “unFun” memory, one time I was practicing my morph and happened to be a bit too close to said friend, and clipped her right under the chin as my arm was coming up doing the “windmill” part of my morph. She was not happy.
Fun memories… I’ll be corny with this answer, but to be honest, times when I reflect on set, in the moment, appreciating things like the fact that I’m on Power Rangers… I’m in a freakin power ranger suit… I’m fighting these crazy monsters… doing cool fight scenes… When I catch myself realizing, “man, I’m a power ranger!!” How can that not be fun?
Do You Have Any funny behind the scenes stories?
A: In the early days of deciding how Gem and Gemma would look, going into a hair and wardrobe fitting, an early concept was to give Gem and Gemma identical bowl haircuts and bucket hats. Take a moment to picture that. Soooo glad they didn’t go with that idea!
Also, on the last day of shooting, I loved how one of each of the RPM leather jackets went missing, and the boss lady questioned the actors what they knew, and no one knew anything… or rather just didn’t rat each other out lol.
If you can remember, What was your favorite RPM episode to film?
A: I enjoyed a few, “Belly of the Beast” (18) was cool cause there were lots going on in that episode so lots of varied action to shoot. I also enjoyed cock blocking Flynn too when he was trying to get cozy with Gemma at the end of “Not So Simple” (21).
How did you go about playing Gem? Were there pieces of your own personality in him?
A: Well Gem is a very excitable and child-like character, I’m sure everyone has that inner child and a “Gem or Gemma” inside them too, unless you’re Donald Trump, then maybe not. I went about playing Gem by channeling my inner-child. There were definitely pieces of my own personality in him as probably any character will have pieces of an actor portraying them. In this case, Gem looked very much like ‘Inner-Child Mike that likes to blow shit up’ lol. I also went about playing Gem by choosing to offset his child-like manner by being more “serious” when it involved people he cared about being threatened, usually in fight scenes, y’know, when taking care of business.
Do you happen to own any Gem or RPM merchandise?
A: I was given an RPM Gold action figure on the last day of shooting. I also have an action figure given to me when I was at Power Morphicon, this one has weird battle armor. I was also given my Ranger Key (thanks, Mark!), and my prized RPM possession is the RPM Gold helmet that was gifted to me by a super awesome dude called Wayne Leung. Thanks again, Wayne!
Was It Hard To Time to use your Twin Speak With Li Ming Hu (Gemma) ?
A: Early on Li Ming was the one that had the hard part as they used to always have me start the sentence and she would always finish. They later mixed it up later on, but it wasn’t too hard, just had to pre-empt it a bit so the sentence sounded as if one person were saying it with no obvious breaks. Li Ming definitely did it the best out of all the other actresses I had to do it with when auditioning.
If you were to return to Power Rangers, what would Gem be doing today?
A: Gem and Gemma are dead, they played with explosives one too many times and blew themselves up. KIDDING! Well it’s obvious they have Peter Pan syndrome, so they’re still 6 in the head, they’re still creating awesome gadgets, they’re flying around as fighter pilots launching missiles at something, and of course, blowing shit up. I would hope some things never change. 🙂
Was Gem’s Favorite Catch Phrase, “It’s Boom Time” written for Gem or did you create it?
A: It was written for Gem by Eddie Guzelian. My mind isn’t as awesome to come up with something like that, but thanks for even considering it could be. If I wrote it, it would’ve been something bad like, “it is the time to make an explosive sounding noise!”
Did The Process Of How The Show Ran Change After Eddie Guzelian Left And Judd Lynn Took Over?
A: Unfortunately, I didn’t have the good fortune of being involved while Eddie was running the show, I came in after that. Even still though, Eddie showed me plenty of love and support during and after the show. Him and his wife, Maddy have shown all of the RPM actors a lot of love and support to this very day. A lot of people don’t know, but Eddie and his wife have done so much for us RPM actors outside of the show than anyone could ever imagine, that’s the kind of great people they are. We all greatly appreciate him and we were all sad what happened to Eddie on RPM.
Do you have any fun fan interactions you’d like to share?
A: One thing I really appreciate having worked on Power Rangers is being able to positively influence fans that enjoy the show and share that love with people. I had a lady contact me and told me how her grandson, Landon, a huge power rangers fan, was super sad and crying having recently visited one of the Disney theme parks and not seeing any power rangers (Disney no longer owning the property rights having just sold it back to Saban). He had been looking forward to seeing them since the last time he was there, having seen them a previous time there when Disney still had the rights. So I decided to mail him my action figure, autographed pics, and hand written letter to say hi to him personally and apologize for our absence, explaining that we were off fighting Venjix and evil. I was later contacted again by Nana that he was super happy receiving all the gifts and letter and apparently he was on the phone calling all his friends telling them a power ranger knows his name. I felt very blessed.
Where can we officially follow you on social networks?
A: My IMDb is http://www.imdb.me/mikeginn You can hit me up on Twitter @mikeginn, I always try my best to respond, and I’ve just recently started using Instagram, I promise to never take pictures of my plate of food. You can follow me @mikeginn on IG too.
Thanks for reading. Love you all!!