Director and Cast Talk JEM AND THE HOLOGRAMS in Hollywood

A few days ago @DesdeHollywood attended the JEM AND THE HOLOGRAMS press day in Hollywood.

Read below what director Jon Chu, and cast members Aubrey Peeples and Ryan Guzman had to say about the experience of bringing to life this beloved property from the 80’s.

Q: I was surprised to see some of the original cast from the animated series in cameos in this film. How important was it to get the blessings of the people who were originally involved?

JON CHU: It was really important. I’m a huge fan of theirs, so making the first call was scary because you don’t know how they’re going to react. They’ve been the most warm, appreciative, beautiful people. They’ve really introduced me to their world of fans, and I got to show them the movie a month or so ago. They were just crying and sobbing, and they gave me a big hug, because they can be polite, but until they see the movie, I don’t think they really know. They had to really trust me on that. Christy (Marx), Samantha (Newark), and Britta (Phillips) all have been the best you could ever ask. I didn’t know Christy’s relationship with Hasbro or what their thing was, so I called her after we had basically gotten Hasbro to say, “Yes, we’re going to make this movie.” She said that she had done other rebrands of other properties so she understood what that process could be like. I walked her through all the stuff. She said, “The one thing I wish I did in the series more that I didn’t get to do that I hope you get to do is focus on the sisterhood of these girls, because they’re sisters. I always kept them a little bit more apart from each other. I’d really like that.” So, that affected us a lot. We really built the story around that idea.

Q: Can you talk about casting Aubrey in the title role? Did she have to go through an audition and what do you think makes her stand out amongst the other actresses that you saw?

CHU: We saw a lot of women and girls out there. We really wanted someone who could sing, so we could be very genuine about that — someone who understood music, someone who understood the idea of coming into a world where you’re dealing with your own identity, someone who is close in age to what Jerrica would be. First and foremost, the thing we really wanted is for this to be a story about Jerrica. This isn’t actually Jem. She becomes Jem. So, this is about her identity, who she is as a girl that is starting to deal with this stuff. It was fun because she loves analog things. She loves Polaroids and old music, and she has this old guitar that she plays. Yet, she is a very modern girl and she was just honest. I think that combination really drew us to her. We found her very last moment. We were going to shut down the movie if we didn’t find the right Jerrica. That was a hard thing to come across. But when we found her, we knew that was exactly the sort of quirky, real, but also girl-who-becomes-a-princess story that we wanted to tell, and she could really carry that.

Q: This has been a passion project for you for a very long time. Can you talk about what the experience was like reimagining this as a live-action movie?

CHU: I pitched it 11 years ago, but it was a very different version and it never got made. It was to Hasbro and to Universal, but it was really about Jem, and it was just the live-action cartoon version of it, which was fine, but it wasn’t anything new. What I think happened 10 years later was social media happened. I’d gone through a lot of different things that had happened and we came down to the idea that we needed to tell the story about Jerrica. For me, in order to make it into a live-action movie, you needed to have a character that you really cared about. And, as crazy as the world gets, and I think this is just the beginning of how crazy the world can get, we needed someone that we could care about, root for, be fearful for. That was our vehicle in. The one thing we wanted to do was just make a great movie. We wanted you to laugh. We wanted you to cry. We wanted you to move your feet. If we could get that out of a “Jem and the Holograms” movie, then we won. But it’s difficult, because you want to pay homage to the original and you have to let some things go as well. It’s like when someone like Juliette Lewis comes to your table, and you’re like, “She’s such a great villain for this!” It was always Eric Raymond, a man, playing that role. But when she came in and she was so great, how could you not make this character into a woman? We took that leap of faith that the audience would go with us for that fun. Again, this is sort of our “Batman Begins” to “Jem and the Holograms.” So, even 5IN3RGY will evolve eventually. I always saw this as a first step of getting us into the world, and then knowing, as you see in the end, that things are about to hit the fan.

Q: How did you avoid the pitfalls of the other toy-turned-cartoon movie properties like “Masters of the Universe,” “Transformers,” “G.I. Joe,” “Josie and the Pussycats,” and others?

CHU: In terms of other cartoons that turned live action, what’s interesting about those things is there are many different versions of “G.I. Joe.” There’s many different versions of “Transformers” that exist at the same time. There’s the Nickelodeon cartoon version, or there’s the toy versions, and there’s still the old 80’s version that exists. I think that these brands can exist on those multi-layers in those different versions. I don’t think it ruins that audience for that particular one. Jem continues to live in that 80s cartoon, and people will continue to watch it and be inspired by that version. A different audience may be inspired by this version. Maybe some people from that version will see their Jem in this version. For me, that’s certainly what I tried to bring over – the things that I thought were at its core and were essential to it, especially as this was sort of an origin to get there. I don’t quite know how to avoid pleasing everybody, but I do know there will be more Jem ideas, whether it’s in the other comic book that exists, or from a cartoon that they may make, or whatever it may be. That’s the great thing about art, and what we do is everybody gets their take, and it either lives or dies by the people who are affected by it.

Q: When adapting something that’s a cult classic to a lot of people, what’s the biggest challenge for you to pay homage to the original but then create your own space?

CHU: I couldn’t think too much about that. Of all the things, from “G.I. Joe” to even the “Step Up” movies, when I first came on the “Step Up” movies, I would say, “Oh you can’t do another ‘Step Up’ movie. It was just one!” And then you do it, and then they do five more. There’s a different audience maybe that follows it, but it adjusts and changes. It’s the same thing with the “G.I. Joe” stuff. Same thing with even the Bieber stuff. My movies have been so different from one another that Bieber fans were really mad that I was doing something with guns in “G.I. Joe.” Then, the “G.I. Joe” fans were really mad that I went back to do a Justin Bieber movie. Then, I went to go do a “Jem and the Holograms” movie. It was very confusing. I think I confused people, but the thing is, I’m a fan of things as well. I feel those same things when I see that. So, I don’t call them haters. I hate when people go, “Oh those haters.” They actually have good points and they have their thing. I wish they would judge the movie first and see the movie before they jump to those things. Then, they can say those things and there’s a debate there. For me, I just have to stay focused on I need to make a great movie, a movie that if you know everything about Jem and you know nothing about Jem, it works. It’s the same thing when I went into “Justin Bieber,” I didn’t know who Justin Bieber was. But, I knew I had to make a movie that I could bring my friends and they’d be like, “I hate Justin Bieber,” and by the end, they’re like, “I may not love Justin Bieber, but I really understand Justin Bieber.” I wanted to do that with “Jem” and say, “We can do that.” I’m the youngest of five kids. All my sisters watched it. I pretended not to watch it, but it was always on. I wanted to make sure that we could communicate how that affected me or the people around me that I know in a unique way, and that was first and foremost a character that we loved and could root for and go with. If we got that right, then the world is sort of our oyster as we build in all the other things.

Q: Aubrey, we’re heard that you are a very analog girl but also very modern. Can you talk a little about the process you went through to get the role and were you familiar with Jem beforehand?

Aubrey Peeples: I was not familiar with Jem beforehand. As soon as we found out what this was, we did all our research but it was under wraps what the project was. It was originally called “Hashtag Famous” then “Pink Moon” because they didn’t want people to know that they were doing JEM yet.
But, we all auditioned probably like five or six times each. The first time I met with (director) Jon (Chu) I thought I blew it. It was so bad. My car broke down on the way there. I parked in a no parking zone. They had to move my car for me. I was like “It’s a stick shift” and they had to find someone (to move it). I was really sweaty because of running trying to find a parking meter. I was like “I’m so sorry. I’m gross”. I think what ended up happening was Jon was like “Oh, she is quirky, just like the character”. I’m just very disorganized and messy. I had to sing at almost every audition so it was a very long process but very collaborative.

Q: Can you talk about bonding with the other girls as a band?

Peeples: We all bonded right away. We had chemistry reads and I think what’s so cool about the film is our relationship in real life comes across on the screen. Everything is so genuine and we love each other. We’re talking over each other and I think that’s natural. We had like two weeks of rehearsal beforehand so right off the bat we were spending like twelve hours together just through rehearsal so we really bonded. Steph calls it rockstar training. Thank God we get along because that would be a lot of long hours.

Q: How excited were you when you got this iconic role?

Peeples: That’s where the nerves came in for me is that we’ve changed a lot and there probably is going to be some hate (from original fans) but I feel like if we tried to replicate the series exactly, we would never have done it justice. I hope that people will respect that we are trying to bring new people into the Jem world because that’s what it did for us. We didn’t know what Jem was and now we’re in it and we love the whole Jem subculture. Hopefully it will do that for young kids today.

Q: You guys got to work with bonafide rocker chick/actress Juliette Lewis. What was that like?

Peeples: She has been my role model for such a long time. I was so embarrassed when I first met her because I was like “Oh my God. We’re gonna be best friends!” But she’s so cool.
Ryan Guzman: I just ran up to her and called her “mom” right away and she gave me a weird look. We had a whole conversation about Brad Pitt. It was fun.

Q: Ryan you were the bad boy next door in that movie with Jennifer Lopez and this character is very different.

Guzman: Yeah, what I did in “Boy Next Door” I definitely didn’t do in this one or it would be a different rating. But, it was awesome that I got to be a part of something so iconic and honestly one of the best parts of it was listening to the girls sing. I swear. That was one of the most nerve-wracking things for me. When they asked me to actually sing after listening to Aubrey sing, it was so intimidating. It’s one of those things that I think will captivate a very broad audience.

Q: In doing your research, how much of the comic books and TV show did you pull into this and how much was your own musical background?

Peeples: We studied the series constantly. We had to do our research. I think the movie is very much updated but musically, I feel like this movie is very accessible to pop radio which is awesome and for, me, I had to do my research on that. I wasn’t used to it. But (producer) Scooter Braun is incredible and he kind of led the way to that. The music is gonna be super cool for fans.

Q: Was it hard to get into the actual character? And when a lot of this movie resting on your shoulders, both music and acting, which do you feel is the most challenging for you as an actress?

Peeples: I do think that Jerrica/Jem is very different from me. I don’t feel like we have a lot of similarities except for the fact that I really have no idea how to use the internet either. I guess it’s challenging when you’re playing someone so different from you but for me, as an actor, that’s what I prefer because that’s what you can really sink your teeth info. I think the most important thing about this is that we did want to pay homage to the series while updating it. That’s something that we had to be very careful about and respectful of.

Q: How much time did you actually spend with your instruments and do you feel like you’ve honed that craft?

Peeples: I’ve played guitar for a few years now so I didn’t necessarily have to learn it but we did have a very short time period to learn the songs. We were all learning how to be a band and learning the songs vocally and also musically as well.
Guzman: I did nothing. I was working on my abs. (laughter)

Q: What is your own personal musical style?

Peeples: I’m like a blues/jazz/rock singer. I write mostly blues music so definitely this is very different from me but I loved getting to do it because I don’t normally sing pop so it was a big learning experience as well.
Guzman: I listen to soul, funk, hip-hop, r&b.
Peeples: You do?
Ryan: I love some “Tower of Power.” I was getting down to that earlier today.

Q: What does Jem mean to you? She gives hope to a lot of kids.

Peeples: I think at least one of the main messages of the series and in our film is about self-empowerment and self-expression and trying to filter out all the noise of worrying about what people think of you and just being yourself. It sounds cheeseball but I think that’s a good message for anyone at any age or generation just because you always need to be reminded of that.

JEM AND THE HOLOGRAMS is now playing in theaters nationwide.

In a hyper-linked social media age, an orphaned teenage girl, Jerrica Jem Benton, becomes an online recording sensation, and she and her sisters embark on a music-driven scavenger hunt – one that sends them on an adventure across Los Angeles – in an attempt to unlock a final message left by her father.