Back in Black - An Interview with Johnny Yong Bosch
June 9th, 2009
Another long delay between posts/updates but I’m back and pleased to present the full length, unedited interview with Johnny Yong Bosch. Yup, full-length - two months out from its publication in NEO, there’s little to worry about in terms of undermining the print version, so you, lucky readers, reap the benefits of my seemingly perpetual distraction from updating the site!
To anyone who grew up in the ’90s, Johnny Yong Bosch is instantly recognisable as the face of Adam Park, the second Black Ranger on Saban’s all-conquering kid’s show, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Replacing the original Black Ranger, Zack (played by Walter Emmanuel Jones), Adam soon became a fan favourite character and earned Johnny a following of devoted fans. Since leaving the show, Johnny has become one of the most prominent voice actors working in anime today, starring in the likes of Eureka Seven and Akira, and gaining musical acclaim with his band Eyeshine. For those missing seeing him in front of the camera, Johnny is also hard at work writing, producing, directing and starring in a number of independent movies. The following interview was conducted at the London MCM Expo, where we spoke of his career to date and what’s next for him.
Please note – portions of this interview can be seen in issue #46 the British print magazine NEO.
Matt Kamen – Johnny, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Let’s start with your background, a lot of which is based in screen combat. When did you start training in martial arts?
Johnny Yong Bosch – Well, that’s a good question… I got interested in martial arts at a young age, somewhere around four or five or six, when they’d show kung fu theatre on Sundays or whatever and that’s when I started to train myself, outside in the backyard with my brother, mostly against my brother. But then I started studying Shaolin kung fu around 14 or 16, somewhere around there, and then from there I studied a few different things after I got onto Power Rangers – jeet kune do, hopkido, kendo and things like that.
MK – What do you practise now?
JYB – Now I just kind of, like, it’s a general thing. I was going to a place called House of Champions that is boxing, kick boxing, it kind of has everything. Capoeira, different things like that. So now it’s not necessarily a specific style, it’s maintaining ability.
MK – Are you keen to practise your own stunts as a result of your training?
JYB – Most of the times I do, when they let me! The last film I did 100% of my own stunts; actually the last two films I did a 100%.
MK – Is that how you ended up with five stitches in your head? [Note - Johnny injured himself filming a stunt sequence on the film Devon's Ghost]
JYB – Yeah, one of them is.
MK – When did you decide to pursue acting as well as martial arts?
JYB – Well, I know at some point when I was younger I wanted to be Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan and it wasn’t until maybe Junior High, something like that, or early freshman year in high school where I thought maybe I’d become an actor or action hero or something like that. And that was kind of my dream and so, when I had the chance, when they were actually holding auditions for Power Rangers in Texas, I thought that was a great opportunity for me to see if I had what it took.
MK – When you, Steve Cardenas and Karan Ashley joined the show, there was a bit of controversy over the reasons the previous actors left. Did that affect you behind the scenes?
JYB – Not really. I think it was just a strange… thing, y’know? It was just an odd situation. The producers didn’t want them and they didn’t want to be there and it was just kind of a mess. So to have us come in, the producers were more than happy to have us there. To be honest, in the beginning, the kids didn’t have any idea we were there. [For a while], they didn’t realise that I was a different person – even though I’m not black! The kids didn’t realise, they still called me ‘Zack’ earlier on, until more episodes started to air and they realised I’m not the same guy. Strange, I guess.
MK – Was their any difficulty gelling with the remaining cast – David Yost, Amy Jo Johnson and Jason David Frank?
JYB – I got along with them fairly well, especially Jason Frank and Jason Narvy. Jason Frank and I used to train together quite a bit, since we both study martial arts – we had a connection immediately. David Yost, I don’t think he always got along with me. I had no problem with him but he had a problem with me, getting cool things to do on the show and stuff, but I never had any grief with him really.
MK – You’ve worked with a few of the former cast since leaving Power Rangers, haven’t you?
JYB – I have. I did a film with Karan Ashley and I did the one where I got stitches on my head, with Dan Southworth who was on Time Force. Jason Frank and I are planning on doing something together next year, too.
MK – You’ve returned to the show a couple of times – what keeps you going back?
JYB – Koichi Sakamoto. The money’s not that great but Koichi Sakamoto’s the executive producer and he’s a good friend of mine and I like to work with him and [his team] Alpha Stunts. In fact, because of him, I kind of actually got into anime. So it’s really just that I’m a good friend of his and it’s whenever he wants me to come back, y’know? It was a lot of fun to go out to New Zealand to film the Operation Overdrive team-up.
MK – Moving onto Trigun now, was that your first anime role?
JYB – That was my first anime.
MK – And straight into a lead role!
JYB – Yup. [Laughs]
MK – Was recording for that much different to dubbing over the Japanese sentai footage for Power Rangers?
JYB – Oh, absolutely. I had to match the lip flaps instead of head bobs so it was quite a bit harder. With Power Rangers, it was easy. You’re shouting, “Right!” or “It’s morphin time!” or “Let’s do it!” and it’s so easy. [Trigun] was different, definitely. It was actually my first real acting job. Power Rangers, it’s… it’s not acting, really. It’s very childish. Trigun was my training I guess.
MK – Which role do you get more recognition for?
JYB – I think it’s been both, really. It seems like every convention I attend, I’m either shouting “It’s morphin time!” or ‘”Love and peace!”
MK – Do you ever get sick of that?
JYB – I don’t get sick of being asked about it. It does get tiresome if I’m answering emails, only because it’s the same question over and over. If I’m at a convention panel and there’s a ton of people there, I get asked a question once and its done but answering emails gets kind of tough because it’s the same thing, the same answer. I know for them though, it’s new, so I can’t really be too upset!
MK – After Trigun, you did the new dub of Akira. Did you have any qualms over re-dubbing Kaneda?
JYB – They had a dub that was previously done. Well, Akira was the first thing I’d seen that I knew was ‘anime’ – I’d seen Speed Racer and things like that but they were just cartoons [to me], I didn’t know they were anime. So I was excited to get the role of Kaneda. And, to be honest with you, I never really liked the voice for Kaneda when I saw it the first time. I thought, “Eh, that’s kind of a weird voice” but the film was cool. So I was excited to do it but I was thinking maybe people were going to be upset that I’m redoing it. The thing that kind of kept me going and made me happy was that the director wanted it redone because he was unhappy with the way it was originally dubbed and how they’d slightly changed the script, so he was hands-on with the new one.
MK – Since Akira is arguably one of the biggest anime movies to mainstream audiences, do you feel like you’ve left your mark on pop-culture history there?
JYB – I guess, but it’s sort of like cheating because it was already big before I worked on it. It’s pretty cool to think of it in that way though. [Laughs]
MK – Moving onto a more recent show you’ve worked on, Eureka Seven – lead character Renton is the youngest character you’ve played. Does that affect your approach to the role?
JYB – It was tough. I saw that they were recording it at one of the studios that I often work at, and they had been recording it for a while. Then they had me come in for an audition a few months after they had already started recording. The role I went in for was Renton and they said it was the lead role. I thought, “Well, that’s kind of weird,” because they’d already been recording it but I guess there’d been some miscommunication or they didn’t like the way the voice was being done. I think it was just miscommunication or somebody screwed up because the person that was doing the role as a younger kid and as an older kid and somehow… I don’t know. So they wanted someone else to do it because they weren’t happy with the voice. So with me going in, they wanted it to be VERY young and I think the director was actually pretty scared that I’d be replaced as well if I didn’t do it super-young. So he pushed me as hard and as high as possible, which was hard for me, because I felt like I didn’t have very much range as high as he pushed me. It wasn’t until maybe episode 18 or 20 where he started to let me play the character more the way I felt comfortable with. So yeah, it was tough but I’m still pleased with the role.
MK – Did piloting the giant robots remind you of your Power Rangers days?
JYB – [Laughs] Yeah! Absolutely. Always. Almost any anime that I do, there’s something in there that reminds me of Power Rangers.
MK – Has your role as Ichigo on Bleach affected the response you get at conventions?
JYB – Definitely. It’s certainly one of the most popular things as far as what I sign. I sign quite a bit of Bleach stuff now, whereas it used to just be Power Rangers and Trigun. So it certainly affects in that sense. I’m happy about that – I really like the role and I like the show, I’m pleased to be working on it.
MK – Do you have any concerns about working on such a long-running show, over 200 episodes and counting?
JYB – My only concern is that I don’t want it to start sucking, y’know? [Laughs] A lot of anime, they start off really well but then they sometimes end really poorly, or they start off poorly and end really well. As long as the story keeps going well and there’s good emotion and things like that, I’m fine with it. I’m still pretty excited about it.
MK – Given the length of Bleach, do you have any fears of being typecast?
JYB – Well, I feel like I’ve done enough different anime that… Actually, you know what? Maybe yeah. Maybe I will be typecast. Because when I look back now, I can see that I play a quite a few of the ‘young lead hero’ types. I’ve played a couple of young bad guys too but I don’t mind people saying, “Oh, he’s the hero,” I wouldn’t mind if they keep making me the hero.
MK – Are there any specific characters you enjoy playing?
JYB – Well, I love the action heroes but, again, it’s just any character where I feel there’s some great emotion there. With Ichigo, there’s a mystery him and his mother and I love doing any scene where either he’s talking or crying about her, or with Rukia, there’s something there, some emotion or some love, and I love doing those scenes. Or when there’s so much emotion in a battle, those are my favourites.
MK – Are there any types of role or character you’ve not had the chance to play yet?
JYB – I dunno. I feel like I’ve played quite a bit now. I guess as long as I can keep playing characters that have some decent emotion, like in Devil May Cry 4. Nero is probably one of my favourite characters, just because of the emotion.
MK – You recorded the motion capture for Nero too, didn’t you?
JYB – Yes, I did. It was a lot of fun. [Going out to Japan] made that extra special.
MK – And Dan Southworth was on that too?
JYB – In fact, that’s where I met him. Then, when I was working with Koichi to do Broken Path, we both said, “Hey, we should have Dan come out for this.”
MK – Do you prefer to do independent movies such as Devon’s Ghost or Broken Path, compared to larger, more mainstream fare such as the Power Rangers movie?
JYB – I wouldn’t mind now doing bigger budget things. I think for me though, back then, I was young, I was eighteen, I had no idea about acting or how to treat my career. Now, I feel like I’ve gone through the hoops and I guess I’m more prepared now. So I wouldn’t mind now but I definitely love independent films, mainly because I have more control. On Broken Path, the producer only wanted action; no acting, no crying, just “FIGHT!” and his fear was because he had never really seen me act before. So, I got together with Koichi and said “We’ve gotta do something, ’cause I’m not gonna just fight the whole time, it’ll be stupid.” So when [the producer] wasn’t around, we wrote the scenes and we shot stuff to make the film, in our opinion, better.
MK – When you did Devon’s Ghost with Karan Ashley, had you kept in contact with her since your PR days?
JYB – Yeah, I’d kept in contact with Karan. More with her manager, actually. I got along with him really well and I still work with him on films and so they brought that project to me and I said “Sure!” I should have probably looked it over a bit more but I still had fun.
MK – Your newest film, Stray, is the first film you’ve written and directed, is that right?
JYB – Yeah. Actually, Stray was done after Devon’s Ghost. Because when I shot Devon’s Ghost, that was my first directing gig and I was fighting with the director of photography the whole time. He was older, he had more experience and he thought that he knew better than me, so he wouldn’t really let me do what I wanted to do. I would tell him to shoot this way and then I would go and start to act but I could see him trying to do something I hadn’t told him to do. So I ended up really torn apart at that film and it turned out not the way I wanted it to be. So Stray was my “I’m gonna write something in two weeks and shoot it in 30 days for $500!” movie. Now it’s taken me two years to edit – it was around eight hours long and I had to cut it down, in fact I’m still working on it. It’s been very difficult for me to finish because of the other projects I’ve been doing.
MK – What else are you currently working on?
JYB – Well, I’ve just finished Broken Path, the film I did with Koichi, and then I shot a film called Hellbinders with Ray Park [the actor who played Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace]. So I’ll do some live action stuff and then I’ll do quite a bit of stuff with my band, Eyeshine. And, of course, there’s some shows I’m working on that I can’t talk about yet.
MK – When did you form Eyeshine?
JYB – We formed the band – we weren’t called ‘Eyeshine’ until around 2004 – around 2002.
MK – How much time do you get to give the band with all your other endeavours?
JYB – We try to perform once or twice a month and practise a couple of times a week, when we have chance.
MK – Do you tour yet?
JYB – We tour conventions, actually, which is great exposure for us. It’s mostly just around the US so far.
MK – On a bit of a tangent from that, as part of an independent band, how do you feel about illegal downloading? Do you see it as a way of getting the music out to an audience, or that your work is being stolen?
JYB – Y’know, it’s weird, because we’re not a big, signed band… So, I’d prefer people to buy our CDs but at the same time I’m like “Hey, it’s our music but if they love it enough to wanna steal it, fine”, y’know? It doesn’t bother me at this point, because I feel like our fans are very supportive and it doesn’t really affect me. I’m not Metallica!
MK – Was being in the band useful experience for recording as Saku in BECK?
JYB – With that show, I felt like I could relate with every situation that they went through. A lot of the places that they played, I thought “Wow, that’s just like this gig we did.” So it felt very familiar to me – except I was the drummer in BECK!
[At this point, Johnny's agent tell us we're out of time.]
MK - Thanks for your time Johnny, any final words?
JYB – Thanks for the support, everyone, and thanks for watching!