Exclusive: RJ Cyler Talks ‘Power Rangers’Posted by Wilson Morales
March 22, 2017
Coming out this week from Lionsgate is the big screen adaptation of Power Rangers, which hits theaters on March 24, 2017.
Directed by Dean Israelite, Power Rangers is written by John Gatins, Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama, Zack Stentz and Ashley Miller, and Max Landis.
The Power Rangers cast includes Dacre Montgomery as Jason the Red Ranger, RJ Cyler as Billy the Blue Ranger, Naomi Scott as Kimberly the Pink Ranger, Becky G as Trini the Yellow Ranger, Ludi Lin as Zack the Black Ranger, and Elizabeth Banks as Rita Repulsa.
Saban’s Power Rangers follows five ordinary high school kids who must become something extraordinary when they learn that their small town of Angel Grove – and the world – is on the verge of being obliterated by an alien threat. Chosen by destiny, our heroes quickly discover that they are the only ones who can save the planet. But to do so they will have to overcome their real-life issues and band together as the Power Rangers before it is too late.
For RJ Cyler, this is his big follow-up to doing the critically acclaimed indie Me, Earl and the Dying Girl, which came out in 2015. Since then the Florida native has crafting his acting skills while DJing on his spare time to stay humble in this business.
Blackfilm.com spoke with Cyler recently to discuss his role as the Blue Ranger and being in a Power Rangers film.
What attracted you to this film?
RJ Cyler: I don’t know! I was watching Disney channel for like my entire childhood, right? There came a point in time where I was like “dang, that just looks fun.” You get to play dress up and act like these different people and they get paid for it! That’s what they can do for a living. You know my creativeness would sometimes get me in trouble because, it’s like, I’m talking in class or I’m playing around in the wrong situations and they’re just like “RJ shut up!” And “okay, goodness gracious y’all are so serious.
But then becoming an actor you get paid to use your imagination, you know? And that’s one thing that makes acting really pure to me and just lovable because you get to use the weird ideas that come up in your mind and put them towards a character that could touch somebody. That makes it really cool to me.
Can you talk about playing Billy the Blue Ranger? What’s the difference between how you play him and what folks remember from the TV series?
RJ Cyler: I feel like the difference between me and David Yost, his rendition of Billy, is they both come from different backgrounds. Even though they’re both the same characters which really was something that me and Dean talked about who was our director. It was just starting from ground zero with this character.
The same problems that the Billy in 1993 had, he doesn’t deal with much problems that Billy have, or that 2017 Billy. It’s a lot more depth to this Billy, so you have the front façade that Billy would think he’s this nerd, he’s this smart kid obviously. But people don’t know that Billy is also an alone person. He’s a person that feels, he’s hurting a lot in situations but he plays it off. He pushes it to the back because he puts everybody else’s happiness in front of his. He doesn’t trust a lot of people close to him. That’s why he sticks to signs, he sticks to what he knows. Some people wouldn’t know that about Billy if they didn’t watch the movie.
These characters are really, really deep and they’re audience driven because it’s just like some of the problems and feelings that some of these characters have will sometimes be instantaneous to the people that are watching it, who are also just like “damn, I was feeling like that before I came in here! I’m about to cry for two seconds.” You know, that connection to be able to throw my ideas in there and touch somebody is way different from David’s way of doing it.
How much of the Power Rangers did you actually watch growing up?
RJ Cyler: I watched the crap out of the old movie. SO me and my brothers Broderick and Steven used to watch the movie like it was breakfast. It’s like every single day we have to watch this movie. If we don’t watch this movie we are going to lose our mind so don’t mess with this movie. It was one of those things that kept us all bonded. That was one thing we all bonded over was the Power Rangers movie.
Then before that, we would catch the show sometimes, and it was like cool to see throughout the years how they changed and had theses different ideas from P.D. to DinoStorm to NinjaSteel to, just all these different Power Rangers situations! You can tell that the creators behind it had these crayon boxes for brains. They just spit out brilliance and it’s really cool to be a part of a franchise that stays that relevant for that long.
In playing the role, was it all you or CGI? How much training did you do?
RJ Cyler: We did a lot of training. Some people try to discredit how much we train but we trained so much for this movie that it’s probably sickening. Two months prior to even going to Vancouver we started training physically and stunt wise and fighting and martial arts.
Then up to Vancouver everyone would thought that the training would die down a little bit, but it actually doubled and tripled! Then it was everyday training, and so intense that we would be able to do the same thing our stunt double did just in case it was like “who wants to do it this time?” Or for the character, sometimes it takes you out of it when you have to continue the scene after somebody else does the stunt. It’s like you want to be in it, you want to be there, you want that gear to just punch to second, you know? It was a great portion of it that we did ourselves.
Credit to our VFX team who were amazing and our stunt team also who were amazing because they could do stuff in the suits that we couldn’t do! There’s no way that I could make my foot touch my head like Aaron Tony does in the suit. I’m not that flexible first of all and my suit was too tight. But it’s a bit of everybody’s help but for the most part everyone just did all of their own stunts.
Can you talk about working with this cast? How long did it take before you guys started to really get to know each other?
RJ Cyler: It was literally the first day we met. I know that sounds cliché but the first day we met all of us were like “Hey!” Because we already had a group chat before that production set up and we all would go there and say what’s up. We got to meet each other months before we seen each other physically. We already had these inside jokes and all of this. When we actually got to meet it was just like “Hey, that’s what your face looks like in public! Okay, that’s nice. It doesn’t look as weird as it does on the phone,” but that’s because I have MetroPCS.
So it was really cool! Then that night we went to my house in Vancouver and we had a table read and in that span of time we cried together, we got mad together, we laughed, we ate really unhealthy food together. You know, it was just chilling with your brothers and your sisters. That’s how I was feeling. When we did get to set it was just like shooting a movie with your best friends. That’s really cool to have especially in the cast because now a days in Hollywood they be like “oh yes, we love each other and oh!” And then behind the scenes they trying to cut each other’s throats. Like, don’t be fake behind.
Now if you had a choice, and if you had to start all over again, who would you want to be? Would you want to be Blue Ranger or would you want to be any other color?
RJ Cyler: I think I’d want to be Billy. It’s just the fact that it’s so much to Billy that people don’t know, and that’s for each and every character, but I’ve spent so much time, like I’m dedicated to playing this Billy character. Because even as a young kid, I was like “this would be my rendition of Billy.” You know, the Blue Ranger is this to me. And that’s what I put in this film right here, and I hope it resonates with a lot of people. Not saying that other rangers don’t resonate with me because it’s a lot of similarities between me and every ranger. And I know most people are like, you should resonate the most with the black ranger! I’m like, is that because his suit is black y’all? Come on, calm down.
But you know, that was something that does come up a lot. Why don’t you want to be the Black Power Ranger? Because I want to be the Blue Power Ranger! It’s cool, you know. It’s cool for the black me to not be the Black Power Ranger. It’s not a crime to not be the black power ranger. Yeah. Goodness gracious.
What’s interesting is that this is a cast of diversity but the roles are universal. It’s never really thought that “Billy’s the black guy” It’s not his background. Or that Ludi’s character’s Asian. They’re just playing characters as opposed to racial backgrounds. Did you think about that in as far as Billy’s character or your Portrayal of Billy?
RJ Cyler: I thought about a lot when it came to that. Because when you’re doing Billy, and the breakdown of Billy, you wouldn’t think of a black dude. But then at the same token we could be wrong for having that mindset right? Because nobody would think that we are the way that we are just by looking at us, right?
So we have to take down that barrier of, oh this person of course would look like that, or since that person looks like that he obviously has this mindset or he obviously does that because at the end of the day none of us know until we actually open our mouth to meet another person. So when it came to creating Billy, it’s like okay Billy’s from here, he’s from there, that and this. But he still likes this, he likes country music, he likes this thing, these two foods make him really happy for some reason even though they’re disgusting together. It was a lot more of just trying to figure out the inner thoughts of Billy, right, instead of the outer appearance.
They asked, oh do you want Billy to be more cool, but I was like I really don’t care to be honest. Because either way it goes the personality of Billy is going to be the same. Just because he might like this color or this clothing choice, it doesn’t make Billy think this way or that way. His thinking is what makes his outfit work because he’s just that cool ass person.
How was wearing that costume?
RJ Cyler: Tight as hell! The suit consists of like four layers. Five layers plus the add-ons.
First you put on this suit that is just like a really big body. It’s a brown suit that makes you look like a really big piece of poopoo. Then you put on the muscle suit, right? SO that’s like the padding suit to stick to the costume. And then you’ve got the blue base suit, or red or whatever the respective color is. Then you got all these add-ons like the shin guards and then the spats for the shoes and then like the chest plate is a whole different layer to the suit! Goodness gracious with two hoods that go over from the turd suit to the blue base suit and then its just like really tight and you’re just stuck there like “What’s up, y’all? I’m a tightly wrapped hot dog and I look good!”
It does feel powerful when you look at yourself in the mirror. It really, really looks good on camera thanks to our VFX team but most of the suit, like 95% of the suit is just us wearing this hot behind suit. So some people don’t really know that but it’s like, we were really hot!
I lost weight in the suit, it’s like a big body shape but it shapes everything.
Do you have other projects coming up?
RJ Cyler: Well, I’m working on a lot of different stuff right now. I just finished this movie called “Sierra Burgess is a Loser” and then we had to do promo for “I’m Dying Up Here” because that comes out June 4th. And it’s just like goodness gracious! RJ don’t stop running! And the my DJing is happening right now so it’s just like all right, keep going, keep going. Then we have another couple of projects that are in the works and in final negotiations.
At the end of the day, the week it comes out, what’s a good reason for folks to go see Power Rangers?
RJ Cyler: I really think folks should go see Power Rangers because it’s a message and there’s something in there for every single person that goes and sees it.
There’s a situation that somebody’s dealing with that’s gonna come up in the movie and the way to handle that situation might be in it, or something to alleviate that situation may pop up in the movie. Just that laugh that you need, or that cry that might pop up because this scene is coming up and you didn’t have that one thing to open the valve a little bit to let that emotion out.
There’s something in this movie for literally every situation which is really cool. Most of Hollywood don’t get it right, this one gets it right!
