July 2014
By Linden Wilson
On a warm afternoon in May, the Southlake suburb of Timarronbris business as usual. Fragrant trees sway in the gentle breeze, a yellow schoolbrbus drives slowly through the neighborhood, and sprinkler systems meticulouslybrwater each perfectly manicured lawn. Inside one house, Reggie Rolle and hisbrwife, Amy, are getting their children ready for after-school activities. Raven,bra 7th grader at Dawson Middle School, has club volleyball practice.brAt six feet tall, it’s no wonder her team is currently ranked No. 1 in thebrcountry. Roman, 9, plays flag football (his team is a back-to-back statebrchampion), but the Rockenbaugh Elementary School student prefers knocking downbrthrees on the basketball court. A second daughter, Jasmine, is finishing up herbrsophomore year at USC, where she excels as an art major.
During thebrday, Amy works as a freelance makeup artist for Tom Ford and MAC, and Reggie isbran area manager for the American fashion label rag & bone. But these peoplebraren't your typical suburban parents. Behind the normalcy of their everydaybrroutines with their kids and their jobs lies a powerful truth. Reggie is reallybrDamon Henderson, the heroic Green Galaxy Power Ranger, and Amy is Trakeena, a formidablebrvillain and one of the Power Rangers' most evil enemies. Well, at least on TV.
Reggie andbrAmy met in the late 1990s after signing on to “Power Rangers Lost Galaxy,” thebrseventh season in a series that spans 21 years and 20 seasons to date and isbrthe second most-watched television show in worldwide history behind “Baywatch.”brAmy, a Kentucky native, had been working in Los Angeles for several years as abrmodel before she hired an agent who sent her on TV auditions. Reggie, who was bornbrand raised in suburban Minnesota, had been singing, dancing and acting sincebrchildhood. He'd done numerous commercials for companies like Nike and Adidasbrbut had only been in the city a year when his agent introduced him to a managerbrsearching for actors for pilot season.
“She wasbrlooking for more ethnic actors,” Reggie says. “There were a lot of people in mybrgroup, including Josh Hartnett and Amy Adams. She actually auditioned for ‘PowerbrRangers' with me, for the Pink Ranger.” Reggie had six callbacks for the show,brwhen typically actors only have two or three. “I found out later from one ofbrthe producers that the Blue Ranger and I had the most callbacks because theybrpicked us first, and they wanted to see other actors with us. At the time, Ibrhad no idea.”
(Amy Adamsbrdidn't land her role, but as Reggie points out humorously, she ended up doingbrfairly well for herself.)
Althoughbrthey were both cast in the show, the Rolles didn't meet each other immediately.brWhile in a wardrobe room for a fitting, Reggie noticed a wall featuringbrheadshots of all the actors who'd made the cut.
“I wasbrlooking at them — oh, he got in, he got in, then, who's that?” he recalls, after spotting Amy’s picture. “They told me shebrwas the villain. For the first couple of weeks, we didn’t get to see her inbrreal life. It was just photos, or I would see a Polaroid lying around of her inbrher costume.”
Then onebrday, Reggie arrived on set for makeup.
“I walkedbrinto the makeup trailer, and she was there,” he says. “I just thought, whoa,brand said, ‘Hey, what's up?' And we started talking.”
BecausebrAmy's character, Trakeena, was initially written as a minor role, the twobrdidn't cross paths much in the beginning. The main “Power Rangers Lost Galaxy”brvillain was Trakeena's father, Scorpius. An animatronic puppet, Scorpiusbrrequired a great amount of manpower to operate and make him look real.
“That thingbrwas giant,” Amy remembers. “It weighed hundreds of pounds. When they would trybrto move it to another set, it was really difficult. So, they had the Red Rangerbrdestroy him, which made me have a really good reason to want to destroy him andbrpretty much all the Rangers for being friends with him. After Scorpius was cutbrout of the storyline, I started working more and became a series regular.”
Filming wasbrbroken up into two units, first and second. First unit shot on sound stages inbrValencia, where the spaceships were built, while second unit was always onbrlocation.
“Usually, if we were on secondbrunit, she was on first unit,” Reggie says. “Most of the time, the Power Rangersbrwere together. It takes a week to shoot an episode, and we shot about 52. Webrwere all like siblings because we were together 13 hours a day. The nightbrbefore our first show aired, we had a slumber party at the Red Ranger's housebrso that we could wake up in the morning and watch it together.”
Contrastingly, Amy filmed many ofbrher scenes with Japanese stunt team members donning monster costumes. “Theybrread their lines to me in Japanese, but in the TV show, it comes out in Englishbrbecause that's done afterwards in ADR [automatedbrdialogue replacement]. It was a little different for me than it was for Reggie.brThere was a lot of bonding with him and the other Rangers.”
Trakeena's outfit was alsobrsignificantly more intricate than any other cast member because she was halfbrhuman with tentacles, antennae and other bug-like features.
“That was a trip from day one,” Amy laughs. “Ibrhad to get encased in plaster to make a mold of my body and was in it for eightbrhours with just my head sticking out. They used that to build a dummy of mybrbody, an exact mold, in order to create a costume. Then they did the same thingbrfor my head. It was an intense process.”
The final product was made out ofbrneoprene rubber. Stiff and uncomfortable, Amy wasn't able to move around verybreasily, especially when she had to chase someone while carrying her 40-poundbrstaff. Eventually, that costume was only designated as her battle armor so shebrdidn't have to wear it all the time. A second suit was created to replace it,brbut Amy remembers it being equally impractical.
“It was like a cat suit, and therebrwas no way to use the bathroom without the assistance of another person,” shebrsays. “So, I got really close to my hair and makeup person. She was with me twenty-four-sevenbrwhen I was on set. Also, I wore this costume every day out in the desert forbrtwo years, so I had crazy tan lines because of the hole patterns. I went to abrtanning bed to try to get rid of them for like a year.”
Because of her extravagant costume,brhair and makeup, Amy typically had a 3:30 a.m. call time for first unit and abr2:30 a.m. call time for second.
“I was inbrhair and makeup for about two-and-a-half hours,” she says. “The exteriors onbrlocation could be anywhere. They can be two hours away. [The show would] alwaysbrpick desert landscapes that could seem like a different planet. So they'd say, ‘Amy,brbe at Vasquez Rocks for hair and makeup at 2:30 a.m.'”
Finally, abrscript brought Reggie and Amy's characters together. In an episode titledbr“Green Courage” that aired in October 1999, Damon — a mechanic — offers to fixbrTrakeena's broken ship in order to rescue a political official that she has kidnapped.
“For me, beingbron ‘Power Rangers' was such an unexpected adventure,” Amy says. “It gave me goodbrstories and experiences that you don't have ordinarily.”
Reggiebrrecalls one experience that still resonates with him today. “There was a timebrwhen Make-A-Wish kids came to set. Their dream is to meet you. I met this kidbrfrom Australia, who I think had cancer. You're in your world, and then all of abrsudden, in between scenes, you might be sitting in your chair when this familybrcomes up to you. It just takes you away from everything. It was pretty lifebrchanging for this kid from Minnesota.”
After thebrcouple wrapped “Power Rangers” in 2000, they remained in L.A. for six yearsbrbefore deciding they wanted to live in a more family-friendly city. Southlakebrappeared on their radar after Amy's good friend, a Southlake native, suggestedbrshe check it out.
“We werebrlooking for a better school system,” Amy says. “A lot of Roman's life as abrlittle baby was spent in the car taking the other two to and from school. Hisbrquality of life was basically Ryan Seacrest on KISS FM. The sense of communitybrin Southlake was very appealing to us.”
Reggiebrhopes Southlake will remain their home base for a while, although he admits hebrsometimes misses L.A. “There are certain things about big cities that are goodbrfor kids when it comes to the real world. But in communities like Southlake,breverything's designed for families.”
Amy alsobrhad guest appearances on TV shows like “Third Rock From the Sun,” and Reggie appearedbron “All About Us” and “Charmed,” but both count “Power Rangers” as their most memorablebrfilming experience because it helped develop their family.
“When Ibrsigned up for the show, I was just looking for the next job,” Amy says. “Youbrwork, and whenever your job is over, you're unemployed again and need to hustlebrto get the next one. But the one thing I didn't realize about ‘Power Rangers'bris that it never goes away. It will always be around, and there's always a newbraudience. Every couple years, there are new little kids who like it. Our wholebrseason aired again last year, on Saturday mornings. We'd wake up and watch it atbrhome. It is a piece of our family.”