by Taylor Campos

Nickelodeon kicks off summer with the premiere of “Bucket & Skinner’s Epic Adventures” on July 1st, 2011! Bucket and Skinner are two best buds, and your typical high-school freshman. These two frosh are always getting themselves into sticky situations, but seem to have a good sense of humor about it all.

Bucket and Skinner have three main goals in life: to stay friends forever, always be near a beach, and when they’re not near a beach, find a way to get to one. You’re not going to want to miss this live-action teen comedy!

Taylor Gray, the sensible teen who plays Bucket, shared with KidsNewsInc “It’s different and is going to grab the attention of many teens, especially ones who love the beach, or even those who have never seen the beach in real life”.

You’ll always catch Bucket and Skinner hanging out at the beach, shredding some waves, working at the local surf shop, or chasing after girls! Though there are many ‘surfettes’ (girl surfers) on the beach for Bucket and Skinner to drool over, Bucket (Taylor Gray) has his heart set on the class cutie, Kelly (Ashley Argota). Kelly is the brains and beauty of their school. In the premiering episode titled “Epic Election”, Bucket is determined to win Kelly’s heart.

Skinner (Dillon Lane), Buckets best friend, nominates him as class president for the sake of winning over the sincere adoration of Kelly. Little does Skinner know, nominating Bucket for class president forces him to campaign against the most popular jock in school, their rival, Aloe (Glenn McCuen).

Being that Bucket is extremely unprepared and inexperienced with the schools student council, he teams up with Kelly’s younger sister Piper (Tiffany Espensen). Piper is not your typical middle school student, she is always coming up with interesting and cunning schemes to get her way.

On Tuesday, June 21st, 2011 I had the awesome experience of getting to sit down to interview the shows two starring actors Taylor Gray (Bucket) and Dillon Lane (Skinner) in New York City! We had a great time talking about the show and their lives both on and offset. Both stars agree they’re much like the character Skinner, sharing his optimistic overview on things. They also reveal they can grasp a sense of reality and measure what’s right and wrong if they need to, much like Bucket. 

The two stars make it clear that they never really experienced some of the problems the characters get into on the show, because Bucket and Skinner seem to get themselves into a lot of crazy situations!

Before these two wild kids got started on “Bucket & Skinner’s Epic Adventures” they had a pretty cool past! Dillon released a music album a little while back called BroKen Promises, a mix of acoustic with pop! This album features Dillon’s popular songs such as Never Understand My Life, and Hanging on a Heartbeat, check it out!

Taylor on the other hand booked his first commercial five years ago doing stunt work for Dannon Spring Water. Not long after, he continued in a feature film The Take, starring John Leguizamo and Rosie Perez! Since that Taylor has appeared on a number of popular shows such as Numbers, Hawthorne, and The Mentalist!

Both Taylor and Dillon agree that the crazy stunts and special effects make this ‘Gnarly’ surfer show different from other teen shows that have aired in the past.

The next topic that came across was role models and celebrity crushes! Taylor tells KidsNewsInc “My role model is my dad, and my celebrity crush is Jessica Alba, I’m following her on Twitter!”

Dillon tells us “My role model is my Mom, and my grandpa! My celebrity crush is Taylor Swift!”

Taylor tells us “My parents are so, so supportive, much more supportive then I could ever imagine, or even ask for really.”

Dillon parents were especially supportive as well, “Without my mom I wouldn’t be where I am today. Living in Arizona and doing everything in LA wasn’t easy, if it wasn’t for my mom I wouldn’t have been able to do it!”

Both stars agree that Ashley Argota is a really cool mentor on the show because of all her experience!

When talking with Dillon he told me “I’ve always wanted to be an actor, or a musician, I play bass, guitar, drums, and I sing, I started singing when I was ten or eleven.”

Taylor shared with us, “Since I’ve been a teenager, I’ve wanted to be an actor, I think it’s the coolest thing!”

Both Taylor and Dillon agree that as they continue filming, they’d like to contribute their ideas, creating more awesome and “Epic episodes”! Dillon and Taylor both sing the theme song for “Bucket & Skinner’s Epic Adventures” together! Hopefully we’ll see much more of their talent and ideas on the screen!

After joking around for a bit, it was clear that Dillon and Taylor were in fact just as close off set as they are on the show! “Super close” as Taylor says!

With their personal time they enjoy playing guitar, Hanging out, hanging out with each other’s families, and pretty much everything else! Off the set Dillon and Taylor are always playing basketball, sometimes messing around, not serious basketball, stating that “At other times the basketball can get pretty serious!” according to Taylor. “What happens on the court stays on the court!”

The transition from a regular populated school, to a three-student class was a big change for Taylor and Dillon!

Taylor shared “The experience was a lot different, I’m use to being in a class with thirty kids! Now I’m in a class with two other kids and a teacher, a completely different vibe! A positive result was developing really strong relationships with everyone in your class, which is different then at a normal school” Taylor also admitted that school topics and discussions now seem to be relaxing and enjoyable.

“I went to normal school pretty much majority of school, but then I got into a lot of music stuff and started homeschooling, the past six years or so. I’m pretty accustomed to it at this point, but it was weird at first.” Dillon added.

For the future both stars decided they’d love to be actors for the rest of their lives, to them it’s the coolest profession and the most fun thing to do. Dillon would also like to have a successful future in the music industry as well.

Practical jokes are a big part of being on set for Dillon and Taylor! They’re constantly stealing each other’s phones and hiding them, just leaving a list of clues! On April fools day Taylor got everyone good! He put a sign on the main entrance door to the building they were performing a run-through in saying that the door was broken to use the door next to it. The next door proceed to have another piece of paper saying it was broken also and to use the next door and every door had a paper on it saying it was broken! Before they knew it, people were walking around the building looking for a door with no sign! They realized this was a prank when they reached the main doors again! April Fools!

Both Dillon and Taylor love the beach in real life! Taylor says “I remembers when I was young, in the beginning of every summer my brother and I would get our hair buzzed off, and if the next day was a beach day, we’d get up really early, pack up the car, put the sunscreen on, and spend the whole day at the beach!”

The beach is really exciting for Dillon as well, “In Arizona there was no beach so every time we went to California we had to go to the beach, it was like this notion of amazing!”

Being on set all day can be a little overwhelming and hectic but Dillon and Taylor pushed through it! They both agreed that the hours are what was the most difficult thing to deal with. Not to mention that they both did a lot of their own stunts and were always running around so they weren’t only mentally tired but also physically! The food was the greatest thing about being on set for Dillon and Taylor; they said it was awesome, there was always so much!

I really enjoyed myself talking with Dillon and Taylor that day! We had a really great time and I got to know them pretty well! Not only are the two boys funny while acting but they have a great sense of humor off set as well! This was definitely an experience I will never forget!

So many kids can’t wait to watch “Bucket & Skinner’s Epic Adventures” on Nickelodeon! It’s going to be a huge hit and you should tune in also! It has all the elements of a great show! Classic best friends, crazy adventures, and just all around fun and funny scenarios!

No Matter the situation, Bucket and Skinner are always going to be there for each other! They’ve been best friends since they were kids and that’s not about to end! We can’t wait to watch them on screen July 1st; there is no better way to begin summer than to begin it with Bucket and Skinner!