STAR WARS REBELS: SPARK OF REBELLION interview with Steve Blum and Taylor Gray

**Disney provided me with an full expense paid trip to Los Angeles for the #VeryBadDayEvent and #DisneyInHomeEvent, #StarWarsRebels in exchange for my review of the events of the trip.  No other compensation is given. The opinions  in my posts are 100% mine.**

STAR WARS REBELS: SPARK OF REBELLION interview with Steve Blum and Taylor Gray

While we were in LA for the #StarWarsRebels #DisneyInHomeMovieEvent, we had the pleasure of interviewing Taylor Gray (Ezra Bridger) and Steve Blum (Garazeb “Zeb” Orrelios) who are the voices for the characters mentioned. We were able to have a look inside their thoughts and feelings about the new series.  This series is set 5 years before Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope and 14 years after the fall of the Galactic Republic and the Jedi Council in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.  The series follows a motley group of rebels (all of whom have been affected by the Galactic Empire in one form or another) that band together aboard a freighter starship called the Ghost. The series will also focus on the origins of some of the groups that form the Rebel Alliance.

Character Information:

Steven Blum as Garazeb “Zeb” Orrelios:

A seasoned and intelligent Lasat enforcer who serves as the muscle of the Ghost crew, call sign “Specter 4”. His physical appearance is based on Ralph McQuarrie’s original conceptual artwork for Chewbacca.

Taylor Gray as Ezra Bridger:
A charismatic 14-year-old con artist, thief, and pickpocket living on the Outer Rim world of Lothal as the Empire strip mines the resources of his homeworld for Sienar’s TIE fighter production. Unknown to him, he is able to use the Force, and has used it to get out of certain predicaments. Stealing to survive, he has no real loyalty to anyone. Joins the crew of the Ghost under the call sign “Specter 6”.

 

Our Interview:

Blogger:  What drew you guys to the film?

Taylor Gray   :     I like, ah, I love it.  I think it’s so cool,  my favorite part about it is all the action.  I think that that’s so fun.  I think kids are gonna enjoy all the characters and their multiple layers and how they run around firing off blasters and taking down troopers.   I think it’s all a lot of fun.  It’s action along with a lot of nice dialogue.

Steve Blum   :    I was drawn when I was a kid when I first saw it.  I was seventeen.  I was fresh out of high school, and I went to the premiere in 1977, and I was one of those kids in the theatre whose head snapped back when the imperial star destroyer comes across the screen and the whole theatre rumbled.  So, I get to relive this on a cellular level.  It activates all of those memories from that time and when I was graduating high school, I was one of those apathetic youth and I didn’t go to my own graduation.

To get to go and see something like that  was brand new.  It was stuff that we hadn’t seen before.  It woke up something in me and kind of gave me a new hope.   But to get to work on something like that now where  we’re bringing this to a whole new generation.  It’s really exciting for me, and I’m a dad.  I like working on quality programming that’s safe for kids and it’s really got a great underlying message. It does offer a notion that there’s something bigger than we are and that we can strive to be better than we are and  that a small group of people can be just as powerful as a large army against injustice.

Taylor Gray   :    And a little bit of the force.

Steve Blum   :    And a little bit of the force, yes.

Blogger  :    Were you a Star Wars fan prior to this?

Taylor Gray  :    Yeah,  I hadn’t seen all the Star Wars movies.  I had seen 4, 5 and 6.  It’s a nice joke with us, because we have some people in our cast, Vanessa and Freddy and then Dave as well who know more about Star Wars than anything I’ve ever met.  They know things that I think aren’t even in Star Wars that are… And Steve and I, Steven knows more than I do as well, but it’s been fun because, it’s cool to be a fan.  I’ve now caught up and understood why everyone loves it so much.

I remember being in school when I was little, and every other kid had either a Star Wars shirt on or a lunch pail or a backpack.  It all makes sense why it’s so appealing, but it’s, it’s really cool.  The best part of it is talking to fans of Star Wars and hearing their sentiments and why it’s so special to them, because everyone has their own connection to the Star Wars story.  So it’s been really cool,  coming up through all of it.

Blogger  :    We heard from some of the crew that you’re the funny one.  Have you pulled any pranks on the cast?

Steve Blum   :    Not really.  I think, what I just demonstrated there… [LAUGHING].  At the end of every effort, some, of these guys…

Taylor Gray   :    An effort sounded something ridiculous.  It’s like when we jump from building to building, or push a crate through planes.

Steve Blum   :    Yeah.  I mean, he’s not used to doing that because he’s an on-camera guy and he can do that with his face or his body, but in voice over, we have to do everything on the mic, and so we’ll have what we call sound sets and in the sound sets, they’ll say okay, now we need you to  take a punch or take six punches, three soft, three medium, three hard.  You’ll just hear us go [GRUNTING SOUND EFFECTS], and it can sound really filthy or, you know [LAUGHING] you go a lot of different directions.  But basically after every sound that he makes…  Do a sound.

Taylor Gray   :    [GRUNTING SOUND EFFECT].  Every time, though`.  Like you think you’ve heard it twice and it’s gonna come again, but it’s always, it’s always so funny, but the king of doing all those sounds is Steve.  There’s a thing that we do called the, what is it, ….

Steve Blum   :    A sound library.

Taylor Gray   :    Yes, sound library.  It’s like let’s hear you jump 20 times.  Let’s hear you get hit in the face.  Let’s hear you get shocked, and this guy can do every sound in the book when I’ve done it once.  I think that’s the only way I’m ever gonna get a hit, but, it’s cool to learn from him.  He’s so good at it.

Steve Blum   :    Well, I had to because I grew up doing anime, so in anime it’s a requirement to make every disgusting sound known to man.

Blogger    :    When you came in to read for the Wolf role, was anyone keen on what it could have been?

Taylor Gray   :    Jungle Book?  I thought it was like a discovery, like animal…  I had no idea.

Steve Blum   :    Yeah, I do so many military games and, and military type characters that I just figured it was some military guy and some fighting show.  I didn’t know what it was.  I do a lot of superheroes also, so I really didn’t know until I think I was in the studio just about to record, and I saw storm troopers in the copy and I went, oh, this is something different.  This is Star Wars.  This is, this is Star Wars!   Yeah, so  it was that moment of realization.  Dave can probably speak to that about, ….

Taylor Gray   :    Yeah, I still didn’t pick up.  I was like storm troopers, still probably like Jungle Book.

Steve Blum   :    Yeah, a lot of shows that we auditioned for are coded, they’re very heavily coded.  They want to protect that and we sign non-disclosure agreements once we do know, so I wasn’t allowed to talk about it.  I had to keep all that inside, and thank God I can finally talk about it.

Blogger  :    How have you embraced the hardcore Star Wars fans?

Taylor Gray   :    I think it’s awesome.  I had no clue that there, we went out to, the first little taste of it we got was they sent us this thing called Star Wars Weekends in Florida.  I had no idea what to expect.  I was like  it will be fun to like hang out with a couple people who like Star Wars and go on some rides.  There were like 60 thousand people who all had Star Wars shirts or full-on costumes, wardrobe, outfits, everything and  light sabers.  Just seeing that, I realized oh, wow, we’re in something much bigger than I thought. And it’s  been so much fun and they’re saying there’s so much more to look forward to, and I can’t wait.

Steve Blum   :    Yeah,  I’ve been doing the convention circuit for the last 10 years for my other work for my other work and  going to that weekend in particular seemed, you know, there was 20, 30 thousand people on the parade route, and they put us in convertibles and we’re waited on.  It’s great, and I’m thinking the show hasn’t come out.  Nobody’s gonna know who we are, and they’re chanting our names, you know.  It’s my name.  This guy had researched and knew everything that we did and people were bringing stuff up to me from my whole career.  It was amazing, and seeing the families, too.

There was this one family where there was a grandma in a wheelchair in her 90’s, and the way down to like a 2-year-old, and there are like 50 of them and they’re all together cheering for us as we’re coming out of the parade route, and they’re in first position right there, and they’re everywhere in the park that we were…  There’s all the signs and, and they had us take a family photo.

Taylor Gray   :    They all had code names.  They were, there was Red Leader [LAUGHING].  They knew what they were doing.  Yeah, and,  it’s so fun.

Steve Blum   :    Yes.  It’s been awesome.  It’s a whole different level of fandom too, and so show-specific.  It’s just amazing to me that after all these years, that the fandom is stronger now than it’s ever been.  It’s incredible.

Taylor Gray   :    With all the media, it’s crazy.  It’s on Twitter.  It’s unbelievable.  I’ve been telling people, I’ve had a Twitter before I’d gotten this, and I felt like half the people I see on Twitter somewhere in their little description of themselves, it’s like coffee enthusiast.  I like my hair.  I’m a Jedi.  [LAUGHING.]  I’ve seen Jedi, so I see the word Jedi in more of those biographies than anything and,  I understand why.  They’re the coolest type of person you could be.

Steve Blum   :    Hey, you’ve got Freddie Prinze, Jr.  Yeah, he’s on Twitter and he’s going crazy about it.  It took Star Wars to do that.

Blogger   :    Since you didn’t know what you were going in for to read for, was there a point of time where you wondered about turning it down before you knew what it was?

Steve Blum   :    I don’t turn down anything.

Taylor Gray   :    Me neither, but there’s a fine, sort of, this, it was actually this one.  I  was doing something else that day, I think and I remember being really late too, I was like an hour, and not normally would we show up late to anything and I was, I was running an hour late and I remember calling my agent, I’m like I’m late.  I’m gonna make a fool of myself.  I was sweaty.   I was working on something else.  I had a hat on, and I was like I’m just not gonna go into this.  I don’t even know what it is.  And he’s like just walk in.  I think they’re still there.  And I remember walking in like this, so ridiculous.   I can’t believe I’m late.  I feel so bad.

Then yeah, it worked out.  Now I’m so glad that I did, ’cause that I had, I guess that’s maybe a recurring thing in my life.  I’m like no, I can’t do this, but, um, it sit, my mom’s over there nodding, yes.  Yes it is.  [LAUGHING.]  But yes, so this is, this has been awesome.

Steve Blum   :    Well,  I treat every role as though it is the most important thing in the world.  A  friend of mine wrote a song called Soldier A, and it’s, it’s about like the, the most innocuous character who, who dies every episode, but you have to invest as a voice actor.  Especially on camera, we don’t have the luxury of grabbing a role and carrying it, you know, through a whole series and being able to depend on that for  income.  In the case of the show, of course, it’s a little bit different, but,  there’s so many shows that I work on where I am literally fired every day.

I go in, I work one day on a show and I’m on to the next thing, and so I treat every character with great reverence and I’m very grateful for the ones that I book.  I have invested that much into something like this and then it fleshes out to something like this, it’s gravy, it’s amazing.

Blogger:    My 21 year old son’s first experience with Star Wars was the prequels, and his favorite character was Darth Sidious.  Did you have a favorite character?

Taylor Gray   :     I hadn’t even seen all those, all those three films, so I had then caught up, Anakin.  When he was young and racing the pods, because I had played like the, ’cause Star Wars has everything.  I played  the video game where you’re racing through the, the deserts…

Steve Blum   :    The pod racing.

Taylor Gray   :    Pod racing.  [SOUNDS LIKE: Thank you.]  I just needed reassurance from somebody.  I thought Anakin.  He was young.  He was the hero and  he was my favorite character, but Darth Sidious, that’s a much cooler character.  We met Ray Park when we went on weekends and he was Darth Maul.   I thought he was awesome, ’cause I hadn’t seen all those shows, so that is another character that I think is so cool.   I hope that kids like the characters from this show as well.  And I think it will be a lot of fun.

Steve Blum   :    They probably will.

Blogger:   How did you get to the top of that tower?

Taylor Gray   :    Ladder hopefully, or the force.  Anything that I can’t answer, I just say the force.  [LAUGHING.]  People seem to be like okay, sure, let’s, let’s go with that.

Steve Blum   :    That’s a really good question.  I was wondering that, too.

Blogger :    What was your favorite scene to voice over?

Steve Blum   :    Well  pretty much, I don’t know.   I love all of it for so many different reasons.  I think one of my very favorite scenes that I’ve seen so far was Ezra’s realization that he was doing something of value.  After our first initial struggle, and then stealing stuff, and he’s sitting there and we’re giving away food, and that was the whole  purpose of our mission.  We’re risking our lives to do that.  To see that look of realization on his face where he’s just going, well, I didn’t do anything.

It’s like he didn’t deserve the praise and you see a little bit of a transformation in him [SIMULTANEOUS TALKING] and that was, that was a very powerful moment for me.

Blogger:    Another moment is when he realized you came back for him, another strong turning point.

Steve Blum   :    For me actually not taking care of him and letting him go, that was a really hard thing for me to play as, as a dad.  It was really hard for me to, to just say see, you’re on your own, and leaving him with the empire.  I mean, that was, that was terrible, but thank God we resolved that.  [LAUGHING.]  I can sleep now.

You can watch  “Star Wars Rebels”   The half-hour series will be on Disney XD on MONDAY’s,  (9:00 p.m., ET/PT).