It isn’t superpowers that make you a hero

MEDICAL MAYHEM: Bradley Steven Perry and Jake Short as best friends Kaz and Oliver in Disney XD's Mighty Med.

MEDICAL MAYHEM: Bradley Steven Perry and Jake Short as best friends Kaz and Oliver in Disney XD's Mighty Med.

Published Mar 20, 2014

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Household names on the Disney Channel, Bradley Steven Perry (Good Luck Charlie) and Jake Short (A.N.T Farm) have been teamed up on Disney XD’s new live-action series, Mighty Med. Debashine Thangevelo learnt more about their misadventures…

AT 15, Bradley Steven Perry is au fait with what it means to be a child star. After all, he started out with small roles at age 8 before being poached by Disney for Good Luck Charlie, High School Musical and Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure.

Meanwhile, his 16-year-old Mighty Med co-star, Jake Short, first made his mark in the movies before graduating to TV with Dexter and Futurestates. His initial foray into acting was in The Anna Nicole Smith Story in 2007.

Now these two teenagers have embarked on a fun-filled, adventurous journey (of misadventures) in Mighty Med, which was co-created by Jim Bernstein (Phineas and Ferb) and Andy Schwartz (Scrubs).

A quick overview of the premise: while hanging out at their favourite comic book and video store The Domain, best friends Kaz and Oliver stumble across a secret door that leads to the hospital that treats their favourite superheroes. Naturally, they are in heaven when surrounded by all these fantasy and sci-fi characters.

By the same token, they also have a task – saving the superheroes by working with teen superhero Skylar Storm and the chief of staff’s meddling nephew, Alan Diaz. And, in so doing, the teens become heroes, too.

On getting their heads around the medical jargon, Perry says: “Mighty Med is a show about two teenagers who end up working in a hospital for superheroes. Jake and I play the two teenagers and it’s a lot of fun, but the medical lingo is really tough at times. There are tons of ridiculous medical words in the script and a lot of them are completely made up. I read the script and often think, ‘I’ve got a pretty good vocabulary, but I’ve never heard of these words before’. I google them and nothing comes up. When I get to work, I walk over to the writers and producers and ask, ‘How do you want me to say this? I have no idea what it means!’”

Lingo aside, much fun is had on the set.

Short shares: “We are always laughing and giggling on set, and we love to pull pranks. My favourite prank was the time I covered Paris Berelc’s (she plays Skylar Storm) dressing room in toilet paper.”

Hey, they are teenagers, after all. It’s considered funny to them – they are still crawling their way up to the Punk’d league.

Perry continues: “There are lots of cool stunts in the show, but most of the action goes to the superhero characters. Jake and I really, really want to do more. We are hoping for a big fight scene or a scene where we are wired up and have to fly across the room. We did a shoulder roll for one episode recently. But it was like a small somersault.”

And a famous basketball player gets screen time as well.

“You get to meet lots of super-heroes and villains on Mighty Med. There are characters like Gray Granite, Brain Matter and Crimson Demon, as well as The Great Defender. A famous basketball player called Dwight Howard plays The Great Defender. I’m a huge fan of basketball, so it was really cool to have him,” reveals an elated Perry.

Meanwhile, Short has his own pet likes.

He admits: “I’m not into comic books as much as my character in the show, but I’m a huge fan of gaming. I’m also really into super-hero movies like The Avengers – they are always awesome.”

By the way, Perry has the best dressing room. He gushes: “I’m really into sports so I’ve decorated my dressing room with the colours of my favourite teams. I’ve got lots of American football merchandise from the New England Patriots and I’ve got baseball merchandise from the Red Sox. Jake? He has couches, chairs and a desk. It’s more practical, but mine looks better.”

In-between learning their lines and all those pranks, the guys also have to finish their homework. Heck, at least they have the best of both worlds – work and play!

• Mighty Meds airs on Disney XD (DStv channel 304) from Saturday at 10.15am.

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