Question: What was it like ride the bikes that were fabricated to replicate the original period motorcycles?

Michiel Huisman: I was one of the guys that were lucky enough to ride these bikes. It was really like a dream to ride Harley-Davidsons or replicas of bikes that either don’t exist anymore or they’re behind glass at the Harley-­Davidson Museum in Milwaukee. They were great fun to ride and very challenging to ride. The old ones were even harder. You basically had to be half a mechanic yourself. Now, I’m not a mechanic, so I had four guys following me all the time.

Gabe Luna: The fact that they built using reference photographs and some of the math given to them by the company was a truly extraordinary feat. They're steel bikes, steel frames, not shocks, leather belt drives. I mean, the whole shoot was setting out to do impossible things and then the movie gods shining on us and actually accomplishing those things. But it wasn’t without hard work and great engineering by all of our engineers. And as we got on them, all of us eventually got them started in a traditional fashion, just, like, pedaling and then popping the intake, and the thing started up. We were all very proud of that.

Question: Did you know how to ride before taking on this role, and could you tell us about the foibles of learning how to ride?

Michiel Huisman: I knew how to ride a bike. I rode a motorcycle all throughout my 20s, and I thought I would never get in a car. Eventually my wife and I had a child, and I got in a car.

Bug Hall: I spent most of my late teens and early 20s going back and forth across America on motorcycles.

Gabe Luna: I was riding dirt bikes as a teenager. It had been a long time since I had been on a bike, but I did two months of riding here in L.A. at Lucky Wheels Garage. But everything we knew about the modern bike you threw out the window when you jump on something that was built in 1903 that had a whole different design. The clutch isn’t really a clutch. It’s just a tightening of a leather belt around your back wheel so that you can be motorized forward. But we had three weeks of training, and we were all thankful to our stunt riders. I want to make sure everyone knows that we rode some but they rode like animals and made sacrifices for us. And I love them all for that.

Question: What was it about these characters that really stood out to you?

Michiel Huisman: Well, first of all, for the three of us, we portray the three founders. I think what stood out to me is how individual they were and how much they complemented each other. I don’t think the company could have become what it became without any one of them, they really needed each other.

Bug Hall: It’s a really great example of how three very different minds can come together on something. And, really their love for each other was more unifying, I think, even more than the machine that they made. But just their differences is what really molded and sculpted this amazing thing. What made that also really awesome too is that a lot of times when you go into a project, you’re looking at your character-- what is this guy? Who is he at his core? And these guys, they were such individuals, and yet so much of who they were depended on the other character on just such a fundamental level.

Robert Aramayo: I certainly think that one of the things that really drew me, and to my character in particular was there was an enormous level of creativity and, I believe, artistry involved in the creation of this machine. But I would agree with these two. It’s the love between all three characters and what is produced from that love that really attracted me to this.

Gabe Luna: I read the script and there’s this character called the "Texas Cyclone” and I was down with that. Not only was he of Mexican/Scottish descent, but also he was born in Waco, Texas, which is about an hour and a half from my hometown. And all of those ideas were very appealing and then just reading the relationship that we built. This brotherhood that develops into a rivalry between Walter Davidson and Eddie is a really beautiful thing. And it’s just them pushing each other, finding the extent of what the bike can do, finding out their own human capabilities, and then trying to smash through whatever wall that is and find what’s on the other side of that. So it was a really beautiful story I was really happy to tell.

Robert Aramayo

Episode 1: Monday, September 5 from 9-11pm ET/PT

Amazing Machine: Bill Harley and brothers Walter and Arthur Davidson found the Harley-Davidson Motorcycle Company. But competition is fierce, and Walter puts his life at risk in deadly races to beat industry powerhouse, Indian Motorcycles.

Bug Hall

Episode 2: Tuesday, September 6 from 9-11pm ET/PT

Race to the Top: Harley-Davidson must rejoin the racing community if the business is to survive. Distracted by their race to the top, the founders leave themselves vulnerable to a devastating and unforeseen threat to the survival of their company.

Gabe Luna

Episode 3: Wednesday, September 7 from 9-11pm ET/PT

Legacy: The Great Depression ravages America and cripples the motorcycle industry. With their company on the brink of ruin, Walter, Arthur, and Bill flout conventional wisdom by embarking on their most ambitious and expensive design yet.