These three American Gladiators are really ready to be star athletes. They already talk in soundbites. Hellga is already fascinating fans for her name and her buff arms. Toa is The Rock's cousin, with Samoan tattoos and attitude. Justice is a mohawked wall of muscle. They don't need to say a lot to make their points.
Toa: My name is Toa, the Polynesian warrior.
Hellga: I'm Helga, the Viking warrior.
Justice: I'm Justice, the American warrior.
CraveOnline: What goes into choosing the gladiator names? Were you worried all the cool ones were taken?
Justice: No, actually Justice is actually my middle name. My name is Jesse Justice Smith and I like Justice because that's what I go by.
Hellga: And Helga is a Nordic word for butt kicker so that's not a problem.
Toa: Toa is the Polynesian word for Warrior and I came up with that myself. It's kind of in me already, so it's an extension of myself.
CraveOnline: What gladiators do you remember from the original?
Toa: I was a big fan of Nitro, Malibu, all the guys who were so entertaining and so athletic. They're all icons.
Hellga: Definitely I looked up to Zap. She's actually a friend of mine now, and Sky because she's the only one that's taller than me.
Justice: Yes sir, I was a big fan as well. I look up to Nitro. He's a real good guy. He's also on the set training us and helping me out.
CraveOnline: What gladiators have you bonded with so far?
Justice: Oh yeah, we're all like family over here. Everybody, we get along fine, we hang out with each other and we've grown to love each other actually, in a short period of time.
Hellga: Yeah, I'm really amazed. A lot of times, different athletes can be really competitive with each other. Just different groups of people can have different dynamics but we all get along so well, it's just been effortless.
Toa: We've been together for about a month right now through training and shooting. It's kind of like summer camp, when you get together with your friends and then you've got to go, wait for next season. It's kind of sad that it's come to an end, but it's only the beginning. So it's awesome.
CraveOnline: What was the audition process?
Toa: Actually, I got to bypass all that. I was a late entry. The rigger who's doing all the games, he's a friend of mine who works in the stunt industry as well. He told me about this and I came down the day before they did the final cut, and made it.
Hellga: A photographer that I worked with submitted me. He actually worked with the first show too. I was there at Gold's Venice doing my trial. It was fun. It was a lot of fun, saw some friends and I'm here.
Justice: It was pretty interesting for my audition as well. I wasn't invited actually. I went with a friend that was invited and I was waiting on him. Then they came out and asked me to audition. I did and my friend was like, "Sh*t, I knew I shouldn't have brought you to the audition because your mohawk's bigger than mine, plus you're 10 years younger." It was very interesting. He didn't get the part but he loves that one of us did.
CraveOnline: What are each of your backgrounds as far as training to build those bodies?
Hellga: I've been a bodybuilder. I also compete in the World's Strongest Woman. I was third and fourth in the world for a while. Now I'm a rower. I think I'm just an inherently big person and most of the people in my family are big Dutch and Swedish people. But the World's Strongest was something I just lucked into. A girlfriend of mine is an Olympic athlete and she knew people that were casting for that. My numbers worked out. I wound up in Zambia, Africa competing in 2001.
CraveOnline: So how many hours do you train and what are your routines?
American Gladiator: Toa
Hellga: It depends. For the strength things, it's usually more like about two hours and it's a lot more about food timing so that I replenish my body to store new muscle. A lot of science behind it. When I do physique competition, it's dropping 30 pounds in four months. That's just about basically starving, but concentrated starving so you're not really. Good nutrition.