To become the title character in director Jon M. Chu’s Jem and the Holograms, the first thing Aubrey Peeples had to do was to dive into the iconic world that is Jem and all that entails. But that didn’t happen because Peeples and her cast mates had no idea what they were auditioning for!
“I was not familiar with Jem beforehand. As soon as we found out what this was, we did all our research… but it was under wraps what the project was. It was originally called Hashtag Famous then Pink Moon because they didn’t want people to know that they were doing Jem yet,” Peeples told The Movie Mensch at the film’s press day.
The movie’s star actually thought she did a horrible job on her audition, so she was as shocked as anyone that she even got the part!
“The first time I met with Jon (Chu), I thought I blew it. It was so bad. My car broke down on the way there. I parked in a no parking zone. They had to move my car for me. I was like, ‘It’s a stick shift.’ They had to find someone (to move it). I was really sweaty because of running trying to find a parking meter,” Peeples admitted.
“I think what ended up happening was Jon was like, ‘Oh, she is quirky, just like the character.’ I’m just very disorganized and messy. I had to sing at almost every audition so it was a very long process but very collaborative.”
Knowing how passionate fans are about the ’80s cartoon series, Peeples and everyone involved wanted nothing more than to do the best job they could. See, fans adore this property. “I think the most important thing about this is that we really did want to pay complete homage to the series while updating it. That’s something we had to be very careful and respectful of, so I kept that in mind,” Peeples said.
“We studied the series constantly. I think the movie is very much updated, but musically, I feel like this movie is very accessible to pop radio which is awesome, and for me, I had to do my research on that. I wasn’t used to it. But Scooter Braun (one of the producers on the film) is incredible and he kind of led the way to that. The music is gonna be super cool for fans.”
Peeples is joined in the cast by Stefanie Scott as Kimber, Aurora Perrineau as Shana and Hayley Klyoko as Aja, who make up the Holograms. Meanwhile, Juliette Lewis plays the record company manager Erica Raymond who tries to control everything that is Jem and the Holograms. Watching over the band as they make their way through the rock and roll world of LA is Ryan Guzman as Lewis’ son and record company protégé, Rio.
Peeples was particularly star struck when it came to meeting Lewis. “She has been my role model for such a long time. I was so embarrassed when I first met her because I was like, ‘Oh my God. We’re gonna be best friends!’” she said.
Guzman was much more chill about the meeting. “I just ran up to her and called her ‘mom’ right away and she gave me a weird look. We had a whole conversation about Brad Pitt. It was fun,” Guzman said.
We last saw Guzman as a very bad boy in Jennifer Lopez’s The Boy Next Door. The actor, who first impressed us in the Step Up movies, is excited about audiences seeing a different side of him in Jem and the Holograms. “What I did in The Boy Next Door, I definitely didn’t do in this one or it would be a different rating,” he said and laughed.
“But, it was awesome that I got to be a part of something so iconic, and honestly one of the best parts of it was listening to these girls sing. I swear. That was one of the most nerve-wracking things for me. When they asked me to actually sing after listening to Aubrey sing, it was so intimidating. It’s one of those things that I think will captivate a very broad audience.”
Since Jem is so different from who Peeples is, it was a good thing she studied those original cartoons as well as dove into the script. “Jerrica/Jem is very different from me. I do think she’s very much a character. I don’t feel like we have a lot of similarities except for the fact that I really have no idea how to use the internet either,” Peeples said.
“I guess it’s challenging when you’re playing someone so different from you, but for me, as an actor, that’s what I prefer because that’s what you can really sink your teeth into. I think the most important thing about this is that we did want to pay homage to the series while updating it. That’s something that we had to be very careful about and respectful of.”
We asked Peeples to describe how much of her soul was consumed by nerves and how much by excitement once she heard she got the part and the day arrived where she had to start filming.
“The nerves come in because we have changed a lot. There probably is going to be some hate, but if we tried to replicate the series exactly, we would never have done it justice because it’s already so amazing, and that would probably cause more hate,” she said.
“I hope people respect that we’re trying to bring new people into the Jem world. That’s what it did for us. We didn’t know what Jem was, but now we’re in it and we love the whole Jem subculture. Hopefully, we’ll do that for kids today.”