SUPERCROSS: THE MOVIE
An Interview with Steve Howey and Mike Vogel

Steve Howey (The WB's Reba) and Mike Vogel star in Supercross: The Movie, an independent film set in the world of competitive motorcycle racing. In the film they play brothers who overcome emotional and physical obstacles to achieve success as racers. Over at the Four Seasons in Los Angeles, I had a chance to sit down with both Steve and Mike to talk about their upcoming film and surprisingly enough they have something in common, they both were up for superhero roles. Below is what they both had to say.

We all want to know how was it doing your own stunts for the movie

Steve Howey: Yeah it was great, jumping over those huge hills and landing all gracefully. Shit I didn’t anywhere near those stunts, you kidding me? No way I’m not lying about that. Stunt riders did that. I acted; I held the umbrella and blocked the sun out of my face and sipped chilled cold ice water with a straw. But I did do some stunts I rode a little bit. I’d killed myself on the first try if I did all that stuff.

Did you guys actually train for this movie at all?

Steve Howey: He (pointing to Mike) has a street bike. He rode before. I had no prior training at all.
Mike Vogel: Yeah and it showed. (Laughs)
Steve Howey: Unfortunately.

What interested you to do this project? How did you get involved?

Steve Howey: I got the call to audition for this movie. We actually went out for the same part.
Mike Vogel: Yeah I was better and so they pushed him somewhere else to another spare part they had in the movie so…
Steve Howey: Yeah called THE LEAD. (Laughs) Actually it was a different director it was a guy named Ed Decter, actually Steve Boyum was the original director then Ed Decter came on then Boyum came back. That was really cool because it great to work with Steve Boyum, who is an ex-stunt guy himself. So that the shots…
Mike Vogel: And an ex-motor crosser he knew what he needed to get.
Steve Howey: The shots of those stunt sequences are awesome, really cool and I think that’s what will bring new fans to the sport, hopefully because we captured that essence of how fast and intense that racing is.
Mike Vogel: Furious? (Laughs)
Steve Howey: I know I almost did say that. (Laughs)

Did you guys get to the X-Games at all?

Mike Vogel: He (pointing to Steve) did. I was working.
Steve Howey: I did. I gave out the gold medal for the biggest…
Mike Vogel: The step up jump.
Steve Howey: Is it highest air?
Mike Vogel: Yeah
Steve Howey: Yeah I gave it out Friday night down at the Home Depot Center, me and Tyler Evans who’s in the movie and who’s a Supercross rider, so that was really cool to check out.
Mike Vogel: The bad boys of the cross.
Steve Howey: The bad boys.

Have you made friend with the riders?

Steve Howey: Yeah like Tyler Evans, he’s like a buddy now.
Mike Vogel: All of our stunt guys too are all ex-riders. From Rich Taylor, David Pingree, Dave Castillo, Jimmy Roberts. These guys all came off their pro circuit and I mean they’re like 29 years old and they are retired from the sport because their bodies have taken such a beating at that point.
Steve Howey: Small window of opportunity for these guys and girls who are coming up.
Mike Vogel: I’ve actually gone out riding with those guys a lot since the film and its cool because I mean you don’t get that kind of training everyday.
Steve Howey: And they’re really cool. They don’t carry a lot of ego with them, which is really cool. They are very humble because like I said before the small window of opportunity. That’s their time to go for it to make it happen, if they don’t you know what I mean? Its not that they had a lost opportunity because the journey was there, because they love the sport but it’s a very…
Mike Vogel: Very quite. You can tell that there is something that there about to do. I mean they have like the track walks before the race and these guys go and do their thing and not a word is spoken between any of them, just staring at the track.
Steve Howey: Study the course; study if it’s soft, hard if it’s wet. What kind of conditions its under. And also I think when you’re dealing with something that’s so dangerous that’s where all the adrenaline goes to, that’s where all your fears are focused. Normal life is just very calm because they are winging these 250 Lbs bikes around like it’s nothing so when they are just walking around talking to you they are very chill. It’s like…
Mike Vogel: Coming down from the adrenaline.
Steve Howey: Yeah they’re just like “Yeah man, nah it’s great, cool I almost killed myself half a dozen times out there but I feel great.” (Laughs)

Was it kind of shocker to find out that some of these riders do this for next to nothing, they have to finance themselves out there and have to pay for the things they do instead of getting paid.

Steve Howey: Well that's where the love comes in, they would not be doing it if they didn’t love it because the accolades and the rewards are slim to none.
Mike Vogel: Select few get to participate in that whole…
Steve Howey: It’s a lot like Hollywood. One percent work and then the rest of the 99 percent are struggling. Because the factory riders, they get all the free merchandising, they get all the free gear.
Mike Vogel: You show up freshly rested flown to these events while these guys are driving their own pick-up trucks there and then they’re working their 9-5 jobs during the week while the factory riders are in their own private test track dialing it in getting their bikes set to their exact specifications.

You guys been staying pretty busy to the point where you can actually turn down certain roles that might not be quite up to your specs, what happened with Angel in X-Men 3?

Mike Vogel: That was a surreal week you’re usually fighting it out to get one job and you get two on the same day is a wild thing. The schedules conflicted and so I had to make a choice of one or the other and I was honored to even have the opportunity of making the choice but at the end of day I just kind of…the opportunity to work with like a Wolfgang Petersen for me was huge, he’s just done so many great movies that I wanted that chance. And it’s more of an actuary piece so that’s why I sided with POSEIDON.

Who do you play in Poseidon?

Mike Vogel: I play a character named Christian, Kurt Russell’s daughter who’s played by Emmy Rossum. I’m her fiancée, I’m basically spend the movie trying to earn his (Kurt Russell) trust and I can’t give any of the rest of the information away. (Laughs)

Have you seen the original film?

Mike Vogel: I haven’t. Whenever there is a remake or something I don’t like to see the original first just because…first of all it’s not directly related to the original and I don’t like having any pre-quince notion of what I’m suppose to do, or what its suppose to look like. I want to do my own thing. But that will be seen after we’re done.
Steve Howey: And I got to turn down an all male star cast of Dawson’s Crack and I also turned down Schindler's Fist, which I really wanted to do at the Tom Cat on Santa Monica Blvd. (Outburst of Laughs)

But seriously what do you have coming up?

Steve Howey: (Still Laughing) No seriously I just got back from China shooting…
Mike Vogel: Put a leash on him
Steve Howey: Oh that was one of the requirements in Dawson’s Crack (Laughs). I did a movie called DOA: Dead or Alive based on the video. It was shot in China. It was very intense.
Mike Vogel: Tell them about the food.
Steve Howey: The cast and myself lost a significant amount of weight because of the lack of food that they had. Well we shot in HENGDIAN and they have a life size replica of the Forbidden City there. So they shoot the Ming Dynasty, Quing Dynasty all the different era’s of the provinces and of the culture of China, they have these studios with the life size replicas, so they shoot all there soap operas there, they shot HERO there and KUNG FU HUSTLE was shot there. And so they don’t have a lot of Western people go there so there was no McDonald’s there was no Subway’s none of that. They had duck head soap.
Mike Vogel: Deep fired Sabbarro’s (Laughs)
Steve Howey: Fresh Water EEL, I don’t believe there was actually beef I think it was water Buffalo, cause I didn’t see any cows. I saw water buffalo. (Laughs) But it was a great experience and I love China communist (Outburst of Laughs) but no they have great people and a great culture and it was a lot of fun, bootleg (laughs)

Did you play the video game before hand?

Steve Howey: They did. The girls, because basically the four girls the main cast, played by Jamie Pressly, Holly Valance, Sarah Cater and Devon Aoki so they all got an XBOX and the DOA games and all the guys in it were like “WHOA, we’re in China and we want play HALO now.” So they needed to know how to fight, they were playing it (the game) to see what their fighting styles were each character had a fighting style. But for my character I didn’t have to train Kung Fu or martial arts, I was a computer tech and I finally got the XBOX and got to play my HALO. These video games adaptation to movies are the new hit thing though.

That and obviously the continuing of comic book movies, now you turned down Angel for X-Men 3. After you’re done with Poseidon do you think if they asked you “hey were doing Aqua-man or Captain America” any of you guys interested in doing those types of roles?

Mike Vogel: Steve was up for S…
Steve Howey: You know I don’t know about that. If the opportunity presents itself, maybe. We’ll take it from there. I don’t about you but I auditioned for Superman (Returns) and it was one of those things where…because of the unfortunate death of Christopher Reeve, that’s one of those roles where it’s a great opportunity to do it because it’s an epic film cause it has such a history, but at the same time you’re kind of playing with fire.
Mike Vogel: You’re in the suit.
Steve Howey: You’re wearing tights but he’d play it with such charm that it would be a hard suit to fill literally. So this new guy…

Brandon

Steve Howey: Brandon, right. I hope knock on wood he does great for it. But there is like a lot of pressure to play superheroes. We were talking about this, like young up and coming actors out there. You know like bad asses.
Mike Vogel: Who’s the new Russell Crowe
Steve Howey: They’re not many, you think of a young Russell Crowe or a young Mel Gibson and you think you can name that A list or B list actors that are out there but they’re not many. But you need that kind of actor; you need that kind of personality to fill those shoes. It’s a hard question to answer just because if it does present itself we’ll take it from there, but at the same time you’re like “Wow”…
Mike Vogel: You’re blending commercial with art. I think I speak for both of us, the thing that we chase is…you chase the work you chase the material. And if the material pushes you as an actor then it’s a no brainier.

Like for Angel in X-Men 3, was it the script? Was it the fact that you had to choose between Brett Ratner and Wolfgang Petersen?

Mike Vogel: Well Brett Ratner was attached to it. It was Matthew Vaughn, so I mean again there’s a number of things that go through your head but at the end of the day you’re looking at material. It wasn’t that the script was weak, or this or that. The part in Poseidon was little bigger it offered me more opportunity to play around with the character so that’s what I went with.

Steve did you auditioned with Bryan Singer?

Steve: Yeah, with Bryan Singer. We sat around and talked. See that’s why I think Supercross was great I don’t have to do the all “Hey” elbow nudge gags that’s kind of what I have to do, they’re some humor in it, he (Mike) has more of the humorous stuff, which is great but I was playing something different, which I wanted to do.

You both get ladies

Steve Howey: We both get ladies not complaining there.
Mike Vogel: The ladies…
Steve Howey: I think for the Superman audition I was little bit more like “Hay, Wow” when my cape gets…I don’t know like I was putting the cape over my head look I’m Superman nun, Red nun I don’t know. (Laughs)

Do you think comic book movies are a trend that’s going to be faded out?

Steve Howey: I don’t know. Spider-Man did really well.
Mike Vogel: If it keeps making money they’ll keep making them.
Steve Howey: If it keeps making money they’ll keep making them but the thing is thought there is a lack of risk by some of these…basically the YES men or NO men for these projects and I think when you have a new project that comes and it’s really off and different…when you got a board to go to and the numbers are the bottom line, it’s kind of hard to go like “this is a great project, this is going to make such much money.” Because it’s really about money, that’s why these comic things are getting really big, it’s for a huge audience everybody can go. Specifically speaking and I think Vogel could say the same thing and to reiterate what he said it’s the work. It’s about the work and hopefully some of these studios will start making more of these independent (films) that can potentially be mega blockbusters because of the material, but it’s really hard right now just because there is a whole horror movement right now. Because they know that their going to make what they put into the movie. I mean I don’t know if the opportunity presents itself I'll wear blue tights. (Laughs)

SUPERCROSS: THE MOVIE RIDES INTO THEATRES ON AUGUST 17TH 2005