Last week Scoop posted an article about an Indiegogo crowdfunding page for The Order, an action movie starring at least 18 former Power Rangers actors. Scoop talked to writer-executive producer-star Karan Ashley (Mighty Morphin Power Rangers) and star Deborah Estelle Philips (Power Rangers Time Force) about getting the Power Rangers actors back together, the filming process from concept to filming plans, and keeping fans involved through crowdfunding perks and social media.

Scoop: What you’ve been doing since Power Rangers?
Deborah Estelle Philips (DEP): Well, I knew right away, when the show was coming to an end that I wasn’t sure I wanted to continue in the field. I just didn’t know if that was for me anymore. I wanted to focus more on my personal life. I guess, if I can make a long story short, a lot happened in my personal life after Rangers, from the passing of my mother to just a lot of things going on. I needed to focus on me and have some healing time.

Then I realized that acting, getting back into it, was kind of like a therapy session. So, I was like, let me go back to the theater and really study again and dig deep to use the wounds and the pain to portray whatever it is, therapeutically speaking. So, doing that was great. There was some projects that I had done. I did a webseries called, The Cavanaughs for four seasons and I did a feature called The Company We Keep with Roy Campanella II.

So, I was doing things here and there, but I didn’t know if my heart was in it anymore. With Rangers, it was such a great time for me. I really enjoyed the innocence of it. I’m not really one to really stretch myself and do things where the fans will be like, “Wow, what is Debbie doing? She’s doing something a little bit more mature.” I was little bit uncomfortable with that. I kind of wanted to stick with the innocent side of it. But, it was just hard, because I kept getting type-casted into things that were not child friendly. So, I was like, “Okay, I’m done with this business.” I left a couple of times.

This time I left because I felt that it wasn’t in my spirit to do it. Even though I have a passion for acting, the business side of it was something that I really wasn’t a fan of. But, I realized I love acting, so if the opportunity comes, great, I’ll do it, but I’ll really have to feel it out because my heart is in a different place. So, I left again and focused on family, got married. I have a little boy, he just turned three. I’m just so happy being a mom with my son. So then…

Karan Ashley (KA): Then I called you! [laughs]

DEP: Then Karan walked into my life! It’s so funny, because I’ve always seen Karan Ashley as, “Oh my God, that’s Mighty Morphin.” You know these people. I love Mighty Morphin, and I always have. I have mad respect for anybody that’s with Mighty Morphin because they paved the way for all of us. Everybody should remember that and respect that. We wouldn’t be doing this many seasons, not to mention a reboot, without them, because they did such a great job that it will never die. So, the fact that this girl pops into my life was like, is this real? And then I had the privilege to work with her on another project – a calendar of pinup dolls – when I met her it just clicked. Then she calls me and she’s like, “By the way, I’m having a little get together at Nakia’s [Burrise] house. Why don’t you come over?” I’m thinking to myself, great, absolutely. That’s when all these other faces started popping in. I started thinking, oh my God, what is going on? [laughs]

KA: That was the funniest meeting ever.

DEP: I had to pinch myself. I felt like the most popular kid at school. It was the craziest thing. I felt so accepted.

KA: What was funny was I didn’t tell anyone who was coming. I just said, “You guys come over, I have this project I’d love to present to you. It’s like a pitch party, I want to pitch a project to you. There was probably fifteen of the eighteen [in The Order] that showed up. The only reason the other ones didn’t show up was because they weren’t in town. So it was the funniest thing to see the look on her [Deborah] face, the look on Azim’s face, everybody. They were like, “Hold up!” And all of a sudden Walter Jones walks in, and we’re like “Hey Walter!,” then Catherine Sutherland walks in and we’re like “Hey Catherine!,” and then David Yost walks in and we’re like “Whoa! David Yost! He never goes anywhere.”

DEP: That was crazy I was like, “Where is TMZ? What’s going on?”

KA: Azim was like the commentator. Azim is one of those people where anything he feels, he says – it just comes out. He said, “What kind of secret Power Rangers meeting am I at? What is this?” Azim was crazed, we were dying laughing. It was so hilarious.

Scoop: Did he think you were going to give out decoder rings or secret keys?
KA: At any moment! Every time the doorbell rang, everybody would turn and look.

DEP: I was just so honored to be invited to it. It was such a privilege. I’m thinking to myself, this is insane, what’s going on here? It was amazing, such a nice surprise.

KA: It was a no brainer. Her [Deborah] and Erin [Cahill] are very similar, they’re very lovey, lovey – they’re the most lovey girls you’ll ever meet in your life. We met Deb – I remember it was me, Nakia and Catherine, we hang all the time – and we were like, “Where did Deb come from? She’s so nice. She’s so pretty. Where have you been, Deb?” We’ve had Erin in our lives for five years and we didn’t understand why we hadn’t met Deb yet.

Honestly, with everyone I thought, if we’re doing a movie, we’re going to be on set with each other twelve hours a day, probably for six to ten weeks, including rehearsals, you have to pick people you like, [laughs] as well as people that are talented, and people that fit the characters. I was like, if I’m going to have to go that way and take this plunge together, then I have to pick people that I feel will really take the plunge and really support each other. They’ve done an amazing job of that. Deb was a no brainer, she was cast strictly because she’s the nicest person I’ve ever met. That was reason number one, then she’s talented and she’s beautiful and all those other things.

Scoop: Karan, tell me about the process you and David J. Fielding went through from creating the concept to collaborating on the script.
KA: The way it worked was, I had this idea and literally every time we saw each other over the last ten years we always talked about working on something together. And there have been times where Saban [Entertainment] has contacted some of us and tried to bring people back. We’d be like, “Oh, is it going to happen this time” then it would fall through and would never materialize. I, personally, always felt that if we do it, we should do something completely different. Especially if we’re not going back to the show. The show is still a hit show, the show is still popular. That is a sacred space.

So I felt like if we’re going to do something outside of that, I wanted to do an action movie. I told somebody yesterday while they were interviewing me that I knew I had to do action because you can’t cast eighteen Power Rangers and have a romantic comedy. They aren’t going to care! [laughs] Everybody’s always wanted Aisha and Rocky to be together – we could have built a whole story around that, but I don’t think so. It could’ve happened, but I think people wanted to see us fight. That’s one thing we know, it’s that people want to see us fight.

I always felt like there needed to be two teams – there needed to be bad guys and there needed to be good guys. All the Rangers don’t have to be good. I think it’s even more interesting if there’s something terrible that happens that makes them go bad and these are the people you love to hate.

I told David about it, and instantly our chemistry clicked and we started writing. We started kicking around ideas. Literally within the first conversation we mapped out the first thirty pages of the script. I thought, by next year we’ll have a good script and literally within two months the script was done. It was just magic, it was all blessings, it was everything larger than us that was happening. We were just typing. We started going into rewrites, because at that moment we were trying to figure out who would be who. I felt like that was holding us back. We had to really separate ourselves from the people personally, and just write really bad guys, really vicious people and really heroic heroes and those two had to go together. We had these people that needed moments so we had to start building out these moments.

We would ping pong it. We would take it section by section. He would go through a scene and then I would get it, I’d rip it to shreds and rewrite the whole thing, then he would get it and rip it to shreds and rewrite the whole thing. We would spend a whole week on one scene. But, the minute it was done, it was like “Oh my gosh, that’s the best scene I ever wrote.” You really felt and you could see characters and you could see the depth. Once we got it to a good place, that’s when I decided to have the pitch meeting. Because I thought if it isn’t good or if it’s not something for them to hold on to, then they’re not going to want to do it. Luckily enough we were able to build enough moments for everybody that they were all in. Some instantly that night and then the next day the rest were in.

Scoop: Did you have a preconceived plan to put each actor in a certain role or did the cast collaborate on choosing their parts?
KA: There are a couple of characters that are super fun. All actors want to be this guy or that girl. So, I knew I couldn’t have ten people vying for the same character. We had to make that decision. It was literally like a chess match – we kept moving people around and moving people around. David and I would go to comic cons with everybody and secretly be watching them. It was me, David, and Johnny [Yong Bosch], because at this point I brought Johnny in [Bosch is a co-executive producer] and we’d be watching them talking about characters they could be. It was crazy. If they only knew the things we were doing at all these cons. They didn’t know we were watching them.

DEP: That’s so funny we were being auditioned and we didn’t know it.

KA: But when it came to bad guys – known of these people are despicable or terrible or want to destroy half the population in the world. So, some of those choices came just from being a fan of them as actors. I’d go through IMDB [Internet Movie Database] and I’d pull up projects they worked on. For some people I was like, wow, I bet if they had the chance they’d want to be bad or they’d want to be good. Some people just carry that hero quality and you have to roll with it.

Scoop: What action movies would you compare The Order to?
KA: That’s a tough question because this is the thing, what you guys see is unrehearsed. We kind of did it Power Rangers style where they’d tell us, “Go over there for thirty minutes and work out your fight because we’re shooting you in thirty minutes.” So the pressure was on. But then it was almost like riding a bike, it was there for us, but it was just the memory thing, remember the moves that was killing everybody. But everybody learned it really quick, nobody faltered. I think what you guys are seeing right now is like level one. We’ve already started budgeting at least three weeks of rehearsal so there’s going to be major rehearsal, eight-hour days of straight fighting.

DEP: Thank God [both laugh].

KA: Which is a great workout for us leading up to a movie. After they finished their fights, and they were so good, everyone was like, “So are we going to get to rehearse for the movie because I don’t want to do it this way. My kick is here [motions to chest level] and I want my kick here [motions to head level].” I think it’s going to be similar to Kill Bill. Those fights with those women – we’re going to be that tough, we’re going to be brutal. It’s not going to be PG, it’s going to be a little on the violent side.

DEP: I think it’s going to be like Fast and the Furious a little bit too where it’s like the pop, pop, pop. It’s quick, but it’s clean. It’s not too violent where your kids are going to be horrified.

KA: Yeah, we’re not blowing brains or nothing.

DEP: It’s like tasteful violence – if that’s possible.

KA: And heroic qualities. You know, if you went through a wall a normal person would die and these people are still going. They’re kind of superheroes in a human way.

Scoop: It’s funny that you mention Kill Bill and Fast and the Furious because when I was looking at the promotional photos, Karan, I thought you looked like Vivica A. Fox and one of the other girls had a Michelle Rodriguez thing going on.
DEP: Yes!

KA: I love Michelle and Vivica, like those are my heroes. You know how when you’re writing characters you think what is this girl like? I wanted my character to be almost tough, like Michelle – she’s tough. I didn’t want my character to be a girlie girl, I didn’t want her to be a sweet girl and then all of a sudden she creeps up and kills you. Those people were definitely influential, those are iconic woman.

Scoop: One thing I enjoy about the Power Rangers series is that the girls are just as involved in the action, they’re superheroes just as much as the guys. It looks like that carries over into this film.
KA: Absolutely! [both laugh] These people are assassins, there an elite team, the Order, they’re all above the normal level as fighters – that’s the way they get in. So when the Order splits and there is two sides – the bad and good – it’s almost like they’re fighting themselves because they are so elite. It gets brutal because it’s like fighting your best friend or fighting yourself in the mirror.                                                                                                             

Scoop: Deb, when you came on board and worked on the sizzle reel how did you get in the headspace of the character. Did you know a lot about the role before you started filming?
DEP: I knew enough. I actually really fell in love with the character when I read the script and it was funny because I was originally supposed to play another character. But as I’m reading it I’m thinking, “This chick is cool.” I was really drawn to her. This is before I agreed to the project, because I hadn’t been in the business in a long time and I had to make sure I could do this. I really had to meditate on this.

KA: She really did.

DEP: I was like, “God, tell me if I should be doing this.” So literally I was in the middle of making that decision and Karan called me and was like, “There’s just a little adjustment here, I’m thinking of changing your role to this other character.” I was like, “What? Yes, absolutely, I loved her!”

It’s a very relatable type of character. I don’t know how much I can give away now, so it’s more of a thing that you should sit, wait, and watch. We’ve got so many other things going on to promote. I’m really excited to get into the headspace. It was very relatable. It was kind of meant to be. I don’t know how much I can say. When you see more we can have another interview because I’m bursting with so much excitement. You have no idea what’s coming.

KA: We’ll definitely be talking to you next year after the film is done – you’re one of the first ones, we’ll talk to you.

Scoop: That’s awesome!
KA: When they can finally talk they’re going to be like, “Thank God!”

Scoop: Yeah I probably have fifty questions but I thought, they’re not going to answer any of these.
KA: It’s funny because we are doing it in such a weird way. It’s not all the time that you talk to people before the movie is even shot or in the midst of preparing. So it’s a little different.”

DEP: I like it, I like the mystery. This is such a unique way to market. Everybody’s profile picture changed and people are wondering what on Earth is going on? I had an idea that it was going to be a creative marketing strategy but I saw the symbol for the first time with everybody else. I got a kick out of everybody’s confusion.

KA: I loved the whole conspiracy theory. People thought it was Illuminati. I was like “What?”

DEP: I know! I would be the last person to join the Illuminati.

KA: Right? Me too! And then it was funny because there were fans saying “It’s confirmed” and I was like, “Guys, that’s how rumors get started, you have no confirmation that this is Illuminati.” But they were like, “It’s confirmed!” and I was like “Okay TMZ, back up!” [both laugh]

Scoop: Wow, the Power Rangers Illuminati.
KA: It got a lot of attention, more than you know, a lot of attention.

Scoop: It’s a cool way to market the movie. That actually leads into something I wanted to ask. Why did you decide to go the crowdfunding route instead of shopping around for production companies?
KA: Well, we’re doing that as well. Both are happening simultaneously. One thing was because if we crowdfund the money we can maintain the creative control of the project. There are other people who’ve come around and said, “I’d love to invest, but…” and then they give this long list of demands. It’s one of those things that I’m like, I kind of want all the Rangers in it, I kind of want the lead person to be that lead. We’re kind of holding on.

The other thing is, our fans over the years are at every single convention they asked “When are you going to have a reunion? When are you getting back together?” I felt like this is the one time we can take them along for the ride. This is the one time that they can not only invest financially but invest emotionally. Even with the perks we designed them so that the aspiring actor can get a speaking role, the inspiring producer can actually come and sit in on producer meetings and be on set, and the guys who come and have their own blog or different things they do with a camera, they can actually come and shadow a cameraman. They can learn something.

We could’ve just thrown it out there and said that we have this new movie coming out, but I felt like they deserved better. So we spent a lot of money, we spent a lot of time, just to present the project to them, just to tell them the story and they are all in. I’ve never seen the fandom on fire the way it is lately because they are so excited for this to finally be happening. Then when they found out that we’re doing it, they’re over the moon. They can’t believe that we’re producing, we’re in control, the actors are signed on. They’re getting it up on social media, they’re promoting it heavily. It’s like everyone is all in one hundred percent. I think that’s the only reason why we’ve had some success, because we respected them. We weren’t going to randomly post a video online, we’re going to build up to it.

I know the reality of it is that when they see us they still see Aisha or they see Deb’s character or Jason instead of Austin [St. John]. So, I didn’t want to throw them for a loop I felt like we had to gingerly get them there, we had to give them clues. Then it exploded when we showed them the first trailer – because we have the second trailer coming out next month to blow their minds again. It’s like Deb said, they didn’t know about a lot of this stuff.

I have to commend the cast because they knew me as Karan Ashley the friend, they didn’t know me as Karan Ashley the producer slash thinks I know something about marketing person. Because I don’t know. We just did a lot of research and are just trying things. Some things work, some things don’t. They really walked out on faith and really said, “Okay we can have official posts on my social media all day.” They really have believed and they are equally as excited. Every time we reveal something we’re on a group text. I get a hundred group texts a day. They’re equally as excited. We got together and we watched the trailer together. They watched it at least eight times in a row. Azim, again, was running around the room. He was literally circling around. You know that final shot where he does the sword thing.

DEP: Oh, I love it!

KA: He was like, “Woah!” Every time the special effects got bigger and bigger. I said to him, “Why didn’t we film this? We should have filmed this.” It was like magic.

DEP: Ever since I got into the convention world I’ve noticed that the fans are part of our family. I’m meeting Rangers from other seasons and that’s a family, but the fans are also part of the family. I feel that with the crowdfunding idea it’s a way to get them involved. Not just saying, “Hey we want your money so we can make this movie,” because as Karan said there are other investors, so it’s going to get done regardless. But it’s a way to say, “You guys, this is our movie, we’re doing this together, we want you guys involved. However you want to invest your time and energy, however you want to promote it – you’re involved. This is our movie. We’re giving you what you guys have wanted the best way we can, legally speaking.” No color coordinated outfits, we have to be careful.

KA: People have been asking that, I said “Absolutely not.” We are not getting sued. We are in full support of the new one. This is the thing, Saban is spending a lot of time and money on a new movie coming out next year as well and we’re fully supporting that one. We’re all planning on sneaking into the theater the day it opens and seeing it right along with all of you. We’re not going to rock that boat.

DEP: I’m totally supportive of the movie as well, but I do think that for the fans that are kind of nervous that this movie might be just getting rid of the original element involved, this is something fun. I think it’s just perfect timing. We’ll see how it goes.

Scoop: Once you start principle filming how will you keep fans in the loop?
KA: Same thing. We’re going to be releasing short clips, we’re going to release behind the scenes clips. When we shot the sizzle we literally had our production crew, we had two behind the scenes crew, we had a photographer, we had three or four things going on all at the same time. These guys were doing interviews, we were doing everything because we wanted to capture as much as we could capture leading up to the movie. We’re going to keep doing the same thing, when we go location scouting we’ll post videos. With social media it’s so easy. We can post videos, we can talk about it, we can release these things. So we plan on doing that as well.

Scoop: Will there be another Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign?
KA: No, one and done, so in the next sixty days we’re going to work as hard as we can to impress people. You can financially contribute, you can share it on social media. People are contributing however they can and hopefully through the crowdfunding as well as private investments, we’ll be good to go.

But, even if we make not one more dollar from this point on, we’re still going to make a movie. It just depends, is it going to be a world premiere on Facebook or is going to be world premiere on Netflix. It just depends on the budget. The bigger the budget, the bigger the stunts, the bigger the action.

Scoop: Do you think you’ll be adding anymore Power Rangers cast members?
KA: I am! There are five other people that are onboard. We’re just figuring out all of the specifics. There are a lot more characters, even if it’s just one scene, they pop in and have a moment.

Scoop: Do you have upcoming convention plans for the next few months?
KA: I have Harrisburg, Pennsylvania comic con, I have Phoenix Comic Con, I have Infinity Comic Con, and I’ve got two or three that are still pending that could pop up at any moment in between the next month or so. That’s pretty much June and a piece of July.

Scoop: Thank you ladies for taking some time to talk to me.
KA: Thank you so much, Amanda, really. The support that we’re getting and the fact that you wanted to talk to us means the world to us.