While I was in California, for an all expense paid trip by Walt Disney Studios to do a press tour for several Disney projects, I had the opportunity to meet with the creators and cast of the new Disney XD series, Mech-X4. We were able to see the pilot episode of the show which debuts on Disney Channel on Premieres Saturday, November 12 at 8/7c on Disney XD. I really liked the show. It was smart and funny with pretty decent special effects for a kid’s show. What is different about this one is that it is a serialized show with some distinct story arcs, mysteries and more. The show is also self aware in that when Ryan yells, “MECH – EXECUTE!” Harris then says, “We’re doing catch phrases now?” I love it when shows do that. It doesn’t hurt that the cast gets along so well and has excellent chemistry as we saw in the interviews. I enjoyed when we did the meet and great and photos with the cast, they were really personable guys and funny, extremely funny. Kamran Lucas who plays Harris has the best lines in the show and he had some great answers to the questions asked in the interview.

Before we interviewed the cast we interviewed the creators of the show, Executive producers Steve Marmel & Anupam Nigam. These guys were the real deal as far as geeks who were able to weave some nostalgia into a new and exciting show. I could have talked with them all day. These guys liked what I liked and took that and made it into a show that I would have loved to have been watching at 7 or 8 years old. I will be watching it with Andrew and Eva. Below is my interviews with the cast Nathaniel James Potvin (“Ryan Walker”), Raymond Cham (“Mark Walker”), Kamran Lucas (“Harris”), Pearce Joza (“Spyder”) and Executive producers Steve Marmel & Anupam Nigam.

I was able to ask the first question of the Executive producers. The show was very much like a movie and so my first question was: What were your influences movie growing up because I think I saw something that might’ve been somebody’s influence there, an homage to something?

Steve Marmel: There’s a little ET. There’s a little Goonies.

At this point the bloggers reacted saying, “We saw that!”

Steve Marmel: We both love giant robots. So obviously, we’re ‘yay, we get to play with a giant robot.’ That’s both of us as kids.

Anupam Nigam: I love on Transformers. I grew up on Omega Supreme. And for me it was also Godzilla. It was a big influence. In fact there are several Godzilla movies where he fights a giant robot. I make him (referring to Steve) watch YouTube clips of it (Godzilla).

Steve Marmel: We’re both comic guys, and I’m a huge comic book guy. So that serialized storytelling of epic stories, that’s the stuff I love the most. But it’s the kids in the robot that I love.

Anupam Nigam: And it’s a good thing that we’re both comic book fans because it gives us a shorthand. I can just say, ‘oh, you mean like Fin Fang Foom, and you know.’ I’d say also when, when we’re talking about episodes, we tend to reference Luke Skywalker and Ultimate Spider-Man a teenage superhero.

Question: Is there a reason for a male team versus that there’s no girls on the team?

Steve Marmel: I would say we are a serialized show. That’s the sort of the engine of the show, the two brothers and the friendships, but keep watching.

Anupam Nigam: We can’t give away too much.

Steve Marmel: It wasn’t a conscious choice to or not to, as much as we know where the season is going to go, and we know who the characters are, and the universe widens like this, and it is inclusive.

Question: How did the idea of MECH-X4 come about?

Anupam Nigam: It’s really the brainchild of this gentleman (refers to Steve).

Steve Marmel: It started with, ‘hey, wouldn’t it be fun to do a show about, four kids that just happen to have to work together with a giant monster fighting robot.’ Then every step of the way through development, it evolved. ‘Wouldn’t be fun to actually have great special effects?’ ‘ Wouldn’t it be great to do it single camera and make it look like a movie?’

Then wouldn’t it be great, in this day and age where, storytelling is binged and serialized, wouldn’t it be cool if we could do a long story over a season? So it started with an idea, Disney went for it, and then all of a sudden, this great team started coming together and bringing everything to it. Anupam comes from a world of serialized storytelling and the director, Zach, has a passion for the nostalgic Goonies, ET vibe, that’s sort of an Amblin feel of it all. It all just became this thing through collaboration and really talented people.

Question: What’s your favorite behind the scenes moment so far?

Anupam Nigam: I came from the one-hour world; this is my first time on a half-hour comedy. It’s my first time on a show that targets families instead of adults, so I had a little trepidation. I’d seen some of the footage… the show looked amazing, and in the third episode – which will air Saturday, November 12th – the director sent me this one quick clip of Ryan and there’s an explosion in the head of the robot. He just goes flying across the thing, and it looked amazing.

It looked like any kind of action movie you would see in the theaters, and I remember asking him ‘how did you hide the wires; how did you hide the rigs?” And he said there were no wires; there were no rigs. Nathaniel just did that; he was able to jump and make it look like he was being thrown across the robot. I was like, okay, this show is gonna be amazing.

Steve Marmel: We do what Zach likes to call Kung-Fu takes. Once we get everything that’s written, once we get the intention down, then there’s usually a thing where the kids get to do whatever they want. And the camera rolls. They get to do whatever they wanna do. And invariably, in every episode, somebody does something funny, or poignant, or weird, or interesting that’s an extension of what was written – that’s surprising. That happens because they know the character, and they’re having fun with it, and that makes me really happy.

I was able to ask another question which came from one of my followers on Instagram. He also collects toys and specifically transformers and other robot toys. So the question was about toys. The question was ‘Will there be good and bad MECH, and will there be toys?’ The answer was pretty much what I would have expected.

Steve Marmel: I’m pretty sure that they might wanna sell some toys on the show.

Anupam Nigam: And I’m pretty sure I’d like to buy them.

Steve Marmel: I would say that if that person is focusing in on, he or she will, be very happy.

Anupam Nigam: As for Villainous MECH, you have to watch.

I certainly will be watching when the show debuts on the Disney Channel in an expanded premiere weekend with four back-to-back episodes on Disney Channel, the Disney Channel App and Disney Channel VOD, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 11 through SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 13.

Not only did I get to interview the Executive Producers but I also got to interview the four main cast members: Nathaniel James Potvin (“Ryan Walker”), Raymond Cham (“Mark Walker”), Kamran Lucas (“Harris”), and Pearce Joza (“Spyder”). These four young men were entertaining, insightful and so funny. You can tell that they enjoy working together. What follows are some excepts from the interview. The show records in Vancouver, BC.

When we asked the actors what their favorite episodes were we learned a little behind the scenes tidbits. For instance Kamran enjoyed the second episode of the series and a giant shack falls on him. Then some ooze is poured all over him. This happened on a freezing cold day and they had to do the take about four times. The ooze that was poured on him was the stuff that they put in McDonald’s milkshakes. I’ll never look at a shake the same way again.

Raymond Cham: I would say my favorite was watching the peanut butter get flown on Nate. That was great. As a friend to watch, it was great.

Nathaniel Potvin: I think my favorite scene from the first episode was actually first getting in the harness, and jumping up in the air and stepping as the robot. So, yeah. That was my favorite.

Pearce Joza: Definitely my favorite would be the first- the first scene I ever filmed. It’s just to work with these guys for the first time it was really a memorable moment.

Question: In what ways are you guys like your characters?

Pearce Joza: All right. I like to say I’m like my character and not like my character. Spyder’s very crazy and he likes to do a lot of daredevil stuff type things. I lived in Colorado for a long time so I like to go out back and, play in the pond and climb trees or whatever. I also love school. I’m taking college level courses and Sypder’s not very good at school.

Nathaniel Potvin: I’m kinda like my character because, Ryan is always rising to the occasion. Whenever he has to fight a monster or even stand up to his brother, I’m kinda like that in some ways. Also, I have two older brothers so I know exactly what Ryan goes through on a daily basis. Ryan loves to skateboard. I love to skateboard. So there’s some similarities between us there.

Kamran Lucas: Harris and I are pretty similar in book smart terms. But not so much. We both dress really nice and we’re both ladies men.

Raymond Cham: Oh, how do you follow that? I’m kinda like my character in a way. When it comes to family I’m very protective. You’ll see that later ‘cause right now you’ve just pretty much seen me prank my brother. I care for my family and I’ll do anything to protect them and make sure that they’re okay. I’ve also dabbled in sports a bit. When I was around eight or nine, I used to play basketball. Other than that, I’m not too similar.

Photo Courtesy of Dusty Pendleton

Question: If you had any super power in life what would it be?

Raymond Cham: Shape shifting! Right? It’s the craziest. Boom, I wanna fly, I’m a bird. I end up in the water I’m a whale. I could be anything. Yeah, ‘cause it’s my favorite. I think about it all the time. Maybe too much, but… Everyone’s like, I wanna fly. What? That’s it? That’s all you wanna do? I could do that. I could do anything.

Kamran Lucas: I kinda wanna have the ability to stop and turn back time. ‘Cause in case I wanna change something like when I was younger, I was at LEGOland and this girl pushed me. I was really mad ‘cause she did it for no reason and I just want to go back and say, ‘hey, I’m on Disney Channel now.’ I’m not like that in real life. Just to that one person.

Nathaniel Potvin: If I had a super power it would probably be teleportation because who wants to pay for airline tickets? No one. No one does. Also, it would just be really convenient. If I got locked out of my house I could just teleport inside my house.

Pearce Joza: Telekinetic powers.

Raymond Cham: It’s a cool word.

Pearce Joza: Yes it is.

Pearce Joza: It’s pretty much controlling anything you think with your mind.

Nathaniel Potvin: That’s cool.

Raymond Cham: I couldn’t have that super power ‘cause I can’t pronounce that word. Tele… I can move stuff.

Pearce Joza: See that water bottle? It’s over here now.

Question: You guys seem to have a good relationship working together. Seeing you guys joke around, does it take extra takes or…?

Kamran Lucas: I don’t think there’s ever been a one take thing. Yeah.

Pearce Joza: Yeah, it does take longer to get things done I think, maybe sometimes. But, I think we still keep it mostly professional.

Question: So you’re still having fun.

All of the guys: Yes. Yes, of course, yeah.

Raymond Cham: I mean I’d love to say that I’m the most professional person in the world, but I’m doing takes with laughs all the time. I mean these guys are hilarious and in between takes we talk to each other. Sometimes we’ll just carry on into the scene and then I’ll just laugh. Then as soon as one of us laughs, it’s a wrap. Sometimes you just see the director like, ‘ahhhh.’ Cut. Cut. Guys, you’re laughin’.

Question: What got you guys interested in acting?

Nathaniel Potvin: Personally for me, I got into acting because my dad and my mom were kind of in the industry. I love watching movies. I think there’s a lot of stuff I can learn from movies. Initially when I started watching movies I thought ‘wow, I wanna be like them.’ I wanna, change people’s emotions just by pretending to be someone else, or becoming someone else. So I thought, just the art of becoming an actor is really interesting to me so that’s what motivated me to become an actor.

Pearce Joza: When I was four my mom took me to see this stage play, Frog and Toad. I was sitting out in the audience going ‘why am I out here and not up there?’ So for a very long I was on stage, and then I started watching Jim Carrey. He’s my comedic mentor, he’s great. I’ve done a bunch of his stand up. I thought he was hilarious. I was like, hey, I should do that. That would be awesome. So yeah, that’s how I got started.

Raymond Cham: I started when I was eight. I loved performing. That was my thing I loved…’cause I’m also a dancer. Just being on stage and performing for other people is really fun for me. When I first started, it wasn’t really because I really wanted to become an actor. It was really just like filling a void of performing. Then eventually I started watching more and more movies and every time I would watch a movie – especially with teens – I remember when I would see Harry Potter with my mom, we’d go to midnight showings. I would always have this feeling… I still don’t even know how to explain it really. It was a mixture of jealousy and want. Like I was hungry for it. For some reason I just would leave the theater like, that was amazing and I wanna do that. I would be – not upset, but I would just think – why am I not doing that? It’s kinda weird because all those people worked their butts off to get there. I was just really intrigued and wanted to do it.

Around ten or eleven, I thought… this is what I wanna do. I started taking acting classes and then just watching movies ‘cause I think that’s the best thing you can do as well. Just because there are so many great movies and great stories being told. Just seeing how people play certain things. It’s like how would I do something different? Or just like wow, everything he did was just flawless. I think it’s great. Then working on set is the greatest school. That’s what got me into it.

Hanging with the fun cast of Mech-X4 at the #MechX4Event – Raymond Cham (“Mark Walker”), Kamran Lucas (“Harris”), Pearce Joza (“Spyder”) and Nathaniel James Potvin (“Ryan Walker”)

Not to be outdone, because, you really cannot outdo Kamran, he had a funny response to the question. He always had the best responses to the questions that were posed. When I posed for the group photo with them he shot a look at my nametag and was calling me by name and really pulled me in, I’m watching the show just to see what more funny lines this guy has. He’s got really great comedic timing.

Kamran Lucas: So, I was always a great liar. I would break a plate and I’d be like, ‘ah man, the maid did it, I guess.’ We didn’t have a maid. I look back and I think, wow, that was really mean. But, no. I could probably incorporate this into something I could do and, you know, we all have our heroes. Mine being Selena Gomez on “Wizards of Waverly Place” on Disney Channel. And I thought, I kinda wanna do that.

A friend of mine had taken me to an acting class. I went and it was just really interesting. It was kinda like, forgetting everything that you’re doing at the moment, not being you. Blank slate. You’re being totally someone else and you’re pretending and acting like anything else. It was just really interesting to see that, and I thought, I wanna do this. So it eventually became a profession and now I’m here, and I’m really grateful that I get to do that.

Question: Why do want to be on this role, and how you got the role.

Nathaniel Potvin: So I read for it and, obviously Steve saw something in me, ‘cause when I looked back through the audition tape… I didn’t think I was that great. We went back and we were going through this process of going through audition, after audition, after audition.

Finally, the last audition, which is actually the most memorable for me, was with me and Raymond. We were doing stuff together and at the end of the audition, we did had this banter back and forth which we adlibbed. That’s actually really what got us the roles. I was really excited about that. I love my character because I can see a lot of myself in my character. But also, what kid doesn’t wanna be a superhero? It’s pretty amazing.

Kamran Lucas: When I got the role, actually it was very interesting… I had also auditioned for this other show to be a series regular. I remember going in for a screen test, which is the level before getting the job. I got a call from my manager saying, we’re really sorry but they don’t want you to be the character. I visually remember me being in my bed and I was so crushed. ‘Cause this was something I really wanted. But the next day I got a call that I was gonna do a chemistry test for this show. I guess a little happiness spark kinda came back, and I thought – you know what… why should I be upset? I ended up getting the job and I’m so thankful ‘cause now I get to be on a Disney Channel show which is something I’ve always wanted. I guess my dreams have kind of come true.

Raymond Cham: I wanted to do it because, one, it seemed like a really cool show. Then two, experience. I think being on set is a great way to learn. Also this show kind of, uses everything. It has its very normal moments, and then it has its very crazy moments. I’ve never worked with a green screen before, so I thought that would be a cool thing to learn. Because a lot of things are green screen. So that’s a really good tool to have in your back pocket. And the brotherly moments, I think are really awesome. It just seemed great.

Pearce Joza: I had been auditioning for two years for the role. Originally I was too short for the part. So these guys went and shot the pilot. They came back down and they wanted to cast my character again, so I went in. I just went in for a screen test and that’s when I met these two right here. It just happened very fast, is what I remember. Then I got a call from my manager one day. And he said, is this Spyder? And I was like, ‘apparently it is now!’

It was a fun day at Disney Channel and meeting the cast of MECH-X4 and also the Executive Producers. This is a funny and smart show that is definitely something that the kids will certainly enjoy. I can’t wait to watch it again with them this coming weekend on Disney Channel. I’ve already set my DVR as the show is on later than they are up. MECH-X4 will be presented in an expanded premiere weekend with four back-to-back episodes on Disney Channel, the Disney Channel App and Disney Channel VOD, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 11 through SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 13.