Exclusive Interview: Linda Miller on New ‘Kaiju’ Role, On Set Experience

For Kaiju United, Ishiro Honda’s classic 1967 film King Kong Escapes is one to remember. Not only does it have Rankin Bass as a co-producer, but it also features Kong in his own outing after the massively successful 1962 hit, King Kong Vs. Godzilla. It’s an entertaining ride full of great spectacle. One of its stars, Linda Miller, is a frequent guest at United States-based fan conventions, sharing her stories as one of the few individuals that can tell us what being on set of a Japanese film as an American during this timeless era was like. Linda, being the incredible Showa-era star she is, graciously agreed to sit down with Kaiju United to reflect on her story, talk about her upcoming role in Kaiju: Island of Fire, and show appreciation to her longtime fans.

Jacob Lyngle: Hello, Kaiju United! I’m here with Linda Miller, star of King Kong Escapes, The Green Slime, and some other various roles on television. Linda, did you want to go ahead and introduce yourself?

Linda Miller: I’m Linda Miller, and I played the Fay Ray part in the 1967 version of Kong, called King Kong Escapes. It was a Toho & Universal co-production. I got into acting after that, and then moved back to the states, deciding that the acting business was not for me. Then about 10 years ago, I started going to conventions and meeting the fans of KKE.

JL: I know that you were, in your own words, a “military brat.” During your childhood, you were constantly moving around, going from one base to another. Tell us a little bit about your experiences during your youth.

LM: My father was in World War II before I was born. He got out, got married, and they had me. When I was about four years old, my father re-relisted, and so we went from place to place with each assignment. I actually loved the life. I really enjoyed moving around. Each new assignment that he had was like an adventure. I would go to a different place; I would meet different people. However, as I got older and I started having boyfriends, then it was a little harder when we would leave. (laughs) But I would psych myself up and I would say, “Well, gee, I wonder who I’m going to meet at the next place?”

I had even considered for short time of enlisting myself, because my dad was an officer. I could have gotten in as an officer, and he was in the Air Force, which is like the country club of the military. In regard to traveling abroad, I had great experiences. We traveled when I was in second, third, and part of fourth grade. We lived in France for a time. When I lived in France, we visited Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, England, and just a whole bunch of places. I have some really great memories of that.

JL: In your talk with Kaiju Masterclass, you mentioned your knowledge of Spanish, and your desire to relocate to Spain. That never came to be, and instead, your dad was assigned to Japan, and the rest was history. What happened?

LM: Yes. He put in for Spain and explained that his daughter wanted to go to the University of Madrid, and I had this dream of being an interpreter at the UN. I was really jazzed when I found out he was going to go overseas. In fact, I skipped a grade so that I would finish high school when it was time for him to go over. I didn’t want to be in 11th grade and then go overseas and spend my last year in school there, so I took summer class, I skipped a grade, and I went from 10th to 12th grade. But one day, he came home and told me that we’re going to Japan. I was so upset. Little did I know that was probably the best decision anybody ever made.

JL: What was Japan like in the 1960’s?

LM: It’s not like it is now. It didn’t have all the high rise buildings and was not quite as developed and sophisticated as it is now. But the people were fantastic. I just really liked it. I liked that you could go anywhere in Japan and feel safe. Now, this was back in the ’60s, before we have the things going on we have going on now, so it felt normal to feel safe. I could be on the subway at midnight, of which I was many times when I was on a modeling assignment. It was midnight when we’d be finished for the day, and I would take the back alleys to get to the train or the subway. I never, ever, ever had any trepidation whatsoever. You could be on the subway at 1am – I never had a problem with anybody.

Regarding the citizens in Japan at the time, I love how orderly they are. There’s so many people in Tokyo and they’re so crammed together that they have a respect for your boundaries and your space. I only had one slightly uncomfortable situation there, when I was on a train and an older man was very drunk. I was with my friend, and the drunk gentleman was saying some very unkind words in Japanese to me. In two and a half years with almost every day on the train, that was the only bad experience I had. The food was great. I remember that. I remember they ate a lot of fruits and a lot of vegetables, and it tasted so good. When I was there, it was 300 yen to $1 USD so it was like, you could get a ham sandwich for 100 yen. You could get a taxi driver for 100 yen. Our money went so far at that time.

Of all the places I’ve ever lived, Japan was my favorite. But I have to acknowledge that I had the best of both worlds, because every day I went downtown, or I went somewhere on a modeling assignment, and then I came home to my American house and my American family. Of course, not American TV, because I Love Lucy was dubbed in Japanese, and all those programs were dubbed in Japanese, but other than that, I had the best of both worlds.

JL: How did your modeling career begin?

LM: Honestly, I had never had any fantasies or dreams of being in front of the camera in any aspect. When my dad went to Japan in March, my mom and I followed in June after I graduated. I was living in Oklahoma, so we had to drive from Oklahoma to San Francisco to catch the plane, and on the way, we saw a sign for Vegas. So we decided to go to Vegas first, and we went to see Eddie Fisher. You probably don’t even know who that is, but he was a singer. He was married to Elizabeth Taylor and Debbie Reynolds at one time at different points in his life.

So we went to see his show. We were standing in line, and this man came up to my mom and I and said, “We want you to sit up front.” So we sat right in front at the edge of the stage, and we went, “Wow. We got good tickets!” Eddie Fisher came out, and since I was in the front row, he began singing to me. All the lights were shining on me, and I was mesmerized.

We get to Japan, and the day I arrived, my dad said, “There’s a girl that we used to live next door to when we lived in France, when you were in second grade. She graduated, and she’s having a graduation party tonight. She wants you to come.” I went to the party, and there was a girl there. Now, I’m really short. I’m just tad over five feet. She was about my height, and she was bragging about how she was making all this money modeling, and she could buy clothes; she could do this and that. I just looked at her, and I thought, oh, hell, if she can do it. I can do it, you know. (laughs) I got all of the information from her – how did you start? Where’d you go?

If I remember right, I think it was a TWA airline stewardess who lived in Japan, who opened up a charm school for all these military kids. So I went there, and I signed up, and I took the class for makeup, I took the class for hair, you know, just all these girly things. While I was there at one of the classes, one of her clients came in, who I think was an accordion guy. They had an accordion magazine, and so they said to her, “We want her on our magazines.” So that’s how I started modeling. I never did finish the charm course. I just started working a lot. At that time, I didn’t speak much Japanese, so I had an interpreter that would go with me everywhere. She’d tell me to be at Mitsubishi, this, or be in whatever building at 9am and talk to Mister Tanaka, or whoever.

JL: Tell me about a day’s shoot.

LM: I went there and was told I was not a fashion model because I wasn’t tall enough, but they would say, bring this kind of clothing with you. And so you go there, and you show them what you brought. They say, okay, wear this, here’s the product. There’s a little area where you stand, and all the lights are there. The cameraman is over here, and he just starts talking to you. You just do whatever he tells you to do, while he’s clicking away constantly. Then that’s over, and you say, thank you very much, and then you go home, and you get money. I really liked that, so I worked all the time. I did a toothpaste commercial, a Nikon camera commercial… I did just a bunch of stuff. I worked all the time.

Simultaneously to that, my very first gig was a TV show called English for Millions, and it was on NHK TV. The host spoke both English & Japanese. On the show, there was a Japanese girl, and there was an American girl. One of the girls at the charm school was moving back to the States, and she said to me, “I need somebody to replace me. Will you do this?” So she took me down to the studio, and they said, “Okay, fine, you’ll do.” We did that once a week for about two years. So I did that, and then I did the modeling all of the other days. It was lots of fun. That’s where I learned how to speak Japanese, and I never had any bad experiences. Everybody was kind to me. Everyone took care of me like their little sister, so I had really great experiences.

JL: How did you land the Kong gig?

LM: About two years into being there, I had a contract for the cover of a young girls magazine that came out weekly, so myself and another girl would switch off weeks on the magazine covers. A producer named Arthur Rankin Jr. saw, and out of the blue, gave me a call. That’s how I got involved with King Kong. I was at the right place at the right time. Arthur said to me, “You look like my Susan Watson.” I didn’t audition or anything, and I remember telling Arthur, “I’m going to ruin your movie because I don’t know what I’m doing.” I tried to talk him out of hiring me at first!

JL: Were you aware of Rankin-Bass as a big production studio at the time you were speaking to Mr. Rankin?

LM: I had no idea. I didn’t know because I was living in Japan. Over in the US, he had Rudolph and all of those other holiday specials. So, when I met him, I had no idea who he was. In fact, I didn’t know who anybody was [on King Kong Escapes] that I was working with until after the fact. I had no idea who Arthur was; I didn’t know he was a big deal. Part of that is because he didn’t act like a big deal. He was from New York, so he had that real professional, I’m in charge, kind of demeanor. He was in charge, but he wasn’t intimidating about it. I never met Jules [Bass], but we spoke with Arthur frequently. I knew that he knew what he was doing, because he had a Japanese girlfriend at the time, fluent in English. In fact, she took me to get my hair dyed blonde. I didn’t want to go blonde at the time because I was a natural brunette. Now, look at me! (laughs) When I was with her she told me, he does this and that over there in the States, and he does these things here in Japan. So I knew that he was definitely a pro at what he did. That’s one reason I was worried that I was going to ruin his movie. And, I truly was concerned I was going to ruin his movie.

JL: I hope you feel different now.

LM: It depends on what scene we’re looking at. (laughs)

JL: Do you remember what scene was filmed on the first day of production?

LM: I remember it vividly, because I was so anxious and nervous. It was the scene where the movie opens up and Lieutenant Watson’s walking through the submarine. There’s these guys there, and they salute, and I say something like, behave yourself, or something like that. That was the first scene we ever shot, and I was so frightened during that. I was so nervous. I told my mom, from that day, for about two weeks, that they were going to fire me. I said, “They’re going to fire me. I just know they’re going to fire me!” But that was the very first scene that we did in the film, and knowing the feelings and the trepidation and how anxious I was, I felt like I could hardly even speak. That’s how uptight I was. Then when I see it, I go, you don’t look like you’re freaked out. Looking at it, I’m amazed at how much I don’t look freaked out.

JL: What about the last scene?

LM: The last scene was where we’re in the Cadillac. We’re going down the dock in Tokyo Bay, and Kong is going off in the distance. We’re waving, saying, “Goodbye, Kong!”

JL: Tell us about your King Kong Escapes co-star, Rhodes Reason.

LM: He was very flamboyant. He had this booming, Broadway type voice. Very impressive. But he was really nice to me on the set. The one advice specifically that is so funny… we’re doing a scene, and he was explaining that when he had to do a scene with this one woman, she had really bad breath, and he had to kiss her. He said, “That’s the last thing I want to do.” So he added, “I imagined her face was a rose, and I was kissing a rose!” I wish I could say it the way he said it, because it was very dramatic and very over the top. (Impersonating Mr. Rhodes) “So I just kissed the rose, and I did not kiss her. I kissed the rose.”

He also helped in the scenes when I was in Kong’s hand, and I had a blue screen behind me. That’s it. Whatever is happening, they’re going to add later in post. I have to react to nothingness when I’m doing my lines. So, Mr. Rhodes was trying to help me use my imagination, and explained to me that you have to pretend it’s actually happening so that you can react to it properly, Then, at the Tokyo Tower scene, we were filming four o’clock in the morning, and we were really, really tired. He wanted me to cry at this one scene, so he was telling me, I have to think of something really tragic in my life. Now, when we were filming this I was 19, so I hadn’t had a lot of tragic things in my life at that point. So, after trying, I was able to cry, and he was so proud of me, and I was so proud that he was so proud of me. Those two things I remember strongly, but especially the rose. The rose was definitely the highlight of his training me.

JL: Let’s talk about your giant co-star a bit. Did you ever meet Haruo Nakajima? Most of your scenes were with the giant hand.

LM: I never met Nakajima-san personally, just a few times when a photographer wanted a promotional picture with me. (Linda shows us a picture of her and Kong that is hanging in her office) In this one, I was coming out of makeup or hair. It was at the end of the day, because I had that thing on my head, and I was coming out. He just happened to be there, and a photographer just happened to be there, and that was the only time that I met him during the production. I met him in costume, so that was it, really. There’s also a photo of Arthur, Rhodes, Kong and me. There’s a picture of all of us as well, but that was the only time. I didn’t formally meet Nakajima-san until 2016 when I went back to Japan to do a convention in 2016. I met him there, and then we did another convention together in Pasadena. I think we only did two together; that was it.

JL: Did he remember you at all?

LM: I don’t think so. Number one, I was 50 years older. Number two, he didn’t have any interaction with me at all when we were filming. He was probably occupied by being in a really hot costume and had other things on his mind.

JL: What was it like to do these conventions with Nakajima-san in the twilight years of his life?

LM: He liked women a lot, and especially young women. Let me say, he was not inappropriate, but at 80-some years old, he was very interesting. The thing that was great is that we would go to conventions, and everybody would be lined up for him. He did not get that kind of applause, that kind of recognition in Japan, but he did here in the States. Everybody loved him because he was Godzilla and King Kong. He just loved to take pictures with the young women fans that would come up. He’d hug them and take pictures with them. Like I said, he wasn’t inappropriate, but you just could tell he really liked that.

I met his daughter, Sonoe, too. He didn’t speak hardly any English, and by then, I had forgotten a lot of my Japanese, because it was 50 years later. But there was enough that we could somewhat communicate. He was a very nice man. I was happy to see that he got the acclaim here in the States, because he did not get it in Japan. He was just a suits actor and stuntman in Japan, not like, you know, Takarada-san, who was a big star in Japan, too. That’s why Nakajima-san loved coming to America.

JL: Did Mr. Takarada always have that “movie star” vibe, or was that a thing he played up for the fans? I will forever recall his presence at shows – he always wore very nice suits, was very classy, and very distinguished. What was working with him like?

LM: Yes, of course, but in a good way, he gave off that vibe, I thought. You respected him because of that. He had a little bit of an ego, because he’s him, but it was nothing like the Hollywood movie stars or anything like that. He was really great with the fans especially. I don’t know if you experienced that, but we did G-FEST together in 2016. We sat right next to each other, and he took his time signing and talking as much as he could with his interpreter. He was really good to the fans, and he really appreciated it, but you knew that he was the star. Also, being older and a Japanese man, especially that older generation… he was big kahuna. (laughs)

I was sitting next to him, and I was kind of amazed. I just reverted right back to when I was in Japan, and I wound up serving him. I would get him stuff, like, if he needed a pen or something to drink. I found myself in that female role at that time, you know, the female serving situation, and I just kind of chuckled. It was very old fashioned that way. He was very kind to me. He did a whiteboard for me, and he just was a really, really, really nice guy. We were supposed to have done G-FEST in 2019 together, because I was afraid I wouldn’t get to see him again, because I knew he was having some health issues. I won’t go into it too much, but it didn’t work out. I didn’t go to G-FEST that year, and then he died shortly after. I was so upset at the people I was upset with, because it didn’t happen. It was all arranged and was supposed to have happened. I was so disappointed that I didn’t get one more time to see him before he passed away. Because, you know, Nakajima is gone, Rhodes is gone, Takarada is gone. [Hideyo] Amamoto is gone. That leaves me and Mie Hama… we’re the only two left from the movie.

JL: You are one of the few remaining people I could speak with that has worked directly with Ishiro Honda, the director of King Kong Escapes. Through all of my readings, I’ve heard that he was very relaxed, yet precise. What was he like? How did he direct?

LM: I think you hit it on the head when you said he was very relaxed. He was very relaxed, in control, and very chill. I don’t remember the first time I met him. I’m sure I met him before filming started, but I just don’t remember. But on the set, he was relaxed and was very well-organized; he knew exactly what he wanted. He ran a tight ship, but at the same time, was the nicest guy. He was so good to me, he instantly knew, well, it was obvious I had never acted before, but he was gentle with me. I was grateful, because if he would have been like – you hear about some of these Hollywood directors yelling and screaming – at me, I wouldn’t have made it. I would have said what I would have said and left. But he wasn’t that way. He knew I had my limitations.

We did have an interpreter. His name was Henry Okada. Henry had lived in the United States, so his English was flawless. He was an interesting character as well. I understood most of what Honda-san was saying to me, but with Henry there, it kind of made it a little deeper. I understood it a little deeper when Henry would explain it, because I missed some of the nuances because of the language. Rhodes had to have an interpreter for everything. Honda-san was just so gentle. He didn’t badger you, and he didn’t have 15,000 takes. You just did a couple takes, and that was it. You either got it or you didn’t. Sometimes, if I wasn’t doing what he had in his mind that he wanted, he would act it out for me physically.

At the very end, when we wrapped, we did a photo of the whole cast and crew, and he was in the middle. I sat kind of at the end, and he called me over and had me sit right next to him. It just warmed my heart, because I really wanted his approval. I knew I probably, well, definitely, wasn’t the best actress he had ever worked with. I really, really liked him. Also, he wasn’t impressed with himself. He was there to do a job. He had a vision of what he wanted, and he wanted the actors to do what he wanted. It was a fun set. If it had not been the good experience that I had, I probably never would have been interested in acting ever again.

JL: Did you did you lose contact with Honda-san after the filming wrapped? Did you ever speak to him again?

LM: No, no, that was it. We went to the premiere, and I saw him there too, and then that was it. The premiere was like in September and I left in February to come back to the United States.

JL: The earliest interview from our community that I could find was by Vantage Point Interviews, aka Brett Homenick. We’re big fans of his work. Was he the one that re-discovered you? How did this “discovery” happen after years of living another life?

LM: I had a mortgage company in California, and then in 1995, I moved to Virginia. I stayed in the mortgage business until like 2001, and now what we do is build houses. I do the designing and the contracts… well, I pretty much do everything but go outside and build the house, right? Thank God. Wouldn’t like that. So, I’m at my desk… it was around 2014 or 2015. I get a phone call, and this kid says, “Hi, my name is Brett Homenick, and I live in Japan.” I said, “Oh my gosh, I used to live in Japan, too!” “I know,” he replied. So, I said, “Well, how do you know?” His reply was, “Well, we’ve been looking for you.” That made me a little bit nervous, so I was like, “What did I do?”, and he said, “No, no. We’ve been looking for you for about 15 years. Do you know how many Linda Millers there are in The United States?” He was right, though. There’s a ton of us out here.

I said to him, “How did you ever find me?” Up until this point, I’m being a little cautious in talking to him. He replied, “Well, I was talking to an old friend of yours, and I mentioned you. My friend said, “Oh, I know Linda. Her middle name is Jo.”  That’s how I found you.” I was thinking, what friend could have said this? So when I asked him, he replied with Yosuke Natsuki, who was my first love. When he said that name, I said, “Okay, I’ll talk to you. What do you want to know?”  Basically, Natsuki knew my middle name, and he just happened to mention it during his interview with Yosuke. From there, I guess, he Googled me and somehow found the company that I worked for. That’s how it happened.

He explained to me that there was a fan base out there, and after hearing that, you could have knocked me over with a feather. I couldn’t believe it. I thought nobody ever saw this film, because I never told anybody about the film, because they dubbed my voice, and I was embarrassed about that. So I never told anybody about the film, and I was just flabbergasted that anybody would still be interested in this movie. After that, over the course of a few months, Brett and I did Skype interviews, because he’s in Japan.

This is what’s really cool… I had secretly… I never told anybody, and I never even vocalized this idea because it was so beyond the realm of possibility; I couldn’t even say it. But deep inside, I wanted to see Natsuki one more time before I died, or before he died. So when he said Natsuki, I just flipped out. So anyway, Brett, and I do the interview, and it goes into G-FAN magazine. After that was published, I got a call from another person who said, “I’m doing conventions. We want you to come to a convention.” I ignored him because I didn’t know who he was, you know, so, I ignored him. Then I got a thing in the mail from Akira Takarada introducing this fellow, saying, “Come do conventions with us,” and after my first event, they were like, “We’re going to take you to Japan and you’re going to do some conventions over there.”

I was excited about that opportunity, but I was even more excited that my secret wish of seeing Natsuki one more time was coming true. I got to see him twice again before I left. That was the highlight for me. That’s how it all came about. On the day I got called, I came home and said to my mom, “You are not going to believe the phone call I got today.” My mother should have been an agent or a publicist, because unbeknownst to me, my mother called the local paper and told them. I’m an only child, so she had no one to put her attention on but me. She told them about me, so the newspaper came and did an article on me. It’s got published in the local paper and the Richmond Times. After that, I had friends and people at work & in my church that were like, “What? You were in a movie?” It just kind of snowballed from there.

JL: After a decade of these convention appearances, how does it feel to have a chapter of your life that had been closed for so many years suddenly reopen like that?

LM: I am a firm believer that God has a plan for our lives. Now, sometimes we get in the way and mess it up, mess up his plans, but in this phase of my life, I’ve come back to faith. I’ve seen a lot of miraculous things happen in my life. The first third of my life, I was so lucky. Everything was great. The second third was really tough, but now, this last third is very exciting again. When it happened, there was a while I was just kind of numb. I didn’t know how to feel about it, except excited. I remember at my first convention, I said to my agent, “Oh my God. These people are going to be expecting a 19 year-old girl, and here she is, 50 years later. I don’t look like what I used to look like.” He said, “Oh, don’t worry. They’re older too. They don’t look like what they used to look like either.”  I was afraid somebody would come up to me and be like, “What happened to you?”

I went to these conventions, and then I said to my mom, I’m going to be so embarrassed if nobody wants my autograph. It was a really good convention, though. It’s been 10 years. I count my blessings, because you just never know when somebody’s going to ask you to do one again. During COVID, it was horrible. But you know, if I could do three to four a year, I’m really happy. That’s what it’s been averaging lately.

I enjoy it so much, because I have my real life, and now I have my fantasy life. I love meeting the fans. The fans are the best joy, because they like meeting me, and everybody likes to be liked, you know? They’re very nice to me, and honestly, I haven’t had any bad experiences with anybody. Sometimes I sit back, and I think, who would have ever thought at your age you would be doing this, and having so much fun doing it? Who would have ever thought that there’s still some people who want you to continue doing this? It’s a big thing; it definitely is. That’s why I try to keep myself open. Like, you know, wanting to do an interview like this. I always make myself available because I enjoy it. That’s the number one reason. I really enjoy the fans and meeting people from other countries. When I was at G fest, there was people from Germany, England, Ireland, and a bunch of other places. I can’t remember them all, but it amazes me. Then, I get people who will send me posters from other countries, to see what it looks like in their language. I’m very, very appreciative, because I know by the grace of God, I’m here.

JL: In recent news, it has been announced that you will be returning to acting in Kaiju: Island of Fire. What made you decide to come back to acting after all of these years?

LM: When I started going back to conventions, that was one of the questions I got repeatedly. I did not leave acting because I didn’t like acting. I left acting because I didn’t like the environment. One time, it just occurred to me: I don’t have to be in Hollywood to act. I don’t have to be in that environment. I can do other things in other locations. They don’t have to be big budget, and I don’t have to be the star. That was very exciting to me. With Island of Fire, I’m nervous about it, but I’m excited at the same time.

I’ve always wanted to act, but I’ve put it on the back shelf because it didn’t seem practical with where my life was at that time. But now with where I work, my “boss,” partner, whatever you want to call them – I’ve known him for almost 30 years – I just tell him, I’ll be gone this weekend. I’m going here; I’m going there. I have complete freedom, and I try not to take advantage of it, but I have complete freedom, so sure, I would love to do some acting again. I do not like the Hollywood system and the nuances that came with it, but my love for the art of acting never left.

JL: What can you tell us about your role in Island of Fire?

LM: Not much at this time. I have a promise. But you know what it’s like in the movie business, everybody promises. You never know until actually signing on the dotted line. I think it will happen, I think they’re getting closer. I’ll be so excited when it does. I’ll be really excited.

JL: Last question, Linda. How did your role in King Kong Escapes shape the rest of your life? Aside from meeting the fans – did it teach you anything about the things you’d end up doing later on?

LM: Some of the effects were down the road, but I think if you’re going to dream, you need to dream really big. There’s no sense dreaming little and getting a little. Dream really big, and you might get a lot more than you thought. So it taught me that I can do whatever I put my mind to. Sometimes you don’t consciously say “This is what I learned.” out loud, but you see it over your life. When I started my mortgage company, I didn’t have any fear about doing it. But, if I would have known what I was going to run into, I probably wouldn’t have started it either. But because I just kind of blindly said to myself, “I can do this,” I went ahead started my mortgage company, and it was successful. Part of that is growing up as a military kid, it’s like, you adapt to whatever your circumstances are if you want to thrive.

I’m a big believer in the idea that you have to have vision for your life. You have to see yourself doing whatever seems like impossible, and then you can do it. It might take you years to do it, but I’m a big believer in having vision. You have to be open to opportunity, even if it doesn’t pan out. You have to keep that spirit alive. As I get older, you know, people say, “Oh, you’re get older. You’re gonna lose your hearing.” And it’s like, I’m not gonna get old. I obviously will get older, but I don’t have to get old. I don’t have to see myself crippled. You can’t fight aging, you know? I see it on my face. I see it in my body, but in my mind, I don’t feel old.

When I came back from Japan in that second 1/3 of my life, I had my company. So, money and career wise, I had vision. But for my happiness, I didn’t have a lot of vision. What really brought me back to life was the fans. It reignited my spirit, and that’s why I’m so grateful. (tears up) Oh, man. I’m such a big crier. Excuse me.

JL: You’re okay. Take your time.

LM: But it’s true. It’s like, you know, you get to a certain point, and everything can be so humdrum. Then this drops in my life, and it’s like, my life is exciting again; I feel invigorated again. It’s because of this, and because of the fans and the people that are even interested in talking to me, that I feel so alive and happy again. If the fans weren’t interested in talking to me, where would I be?

JL: Thank you for sitting down with Kaiju United. We appreciate you.  Any last thoughts or words for the fans?

LM: Well, thank you. I appreciate it. I will be in Brooklyn from May 31 to June 1 at Kaiju Brooklyn. I’m very excited about that. I hope the fans will come out and support not just me, but support the whole convention. I see there’s a lot of vendors that are going to be there. Each time I go to these events, I’ve made it a tradition in the last few years to go buy a pair of earrings from one of the vendors. It’s fun! I just love earrings… even though I don’t have any on right now. (laughs) I just hope people will come out and see me and support the show.