By Christina Radish
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Masi Oka and Tim Kring at the 2007 San Diego Comic Convention
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In Heroes: Season 1, due out on DVD and HD-DVD on August 28th from Universal Studios Home Entertainment, ordinary people with extraordinary abilities link a group of complete strangers that may determine the future of the world. The most acclaimed and addictive new series of the 2006-2007 television season, Heroes was created by executive producer Tim Kring, who has developed the emotionally charged storytelling that the series has become known for.
Talking to MediaBlvd Magazine, along with Best Supporting Actor (in a Drama Series) Emmy nominee Masi Oka, Kring discusses Season 2, what fans can expect to find on the Season 1 DVD and how it feels to be celebrating eight Emmy Award nominations.
MediaBlvd Magazine> Heroes was the breakout hit of last season. Tim, do you feel any pressure to top that success with the second season, as well as with the spinoff series Heroes: Origins?
Tim Kring> It’s not pressure to top it, it’s pressure to keep it going. This particular show has become a show that is been defined by its ability to defy your expectations. People want that experience of watching the show and not knowing where it’s going to take them. The difficult part is constantly trying to stay one step ahead of everybody’s expectations, but we have a really extraordinary staff and an extraordinary cast, and we’re on a big roll right now. And so, it feels like we’re really poised to repeat the creativity of the first season. Obviously, we hope that the audience comes along for the ride.
MediaBlvd> Who came up with the idea of having Kevin Smith write and direct an episode of Heroes: Origins?
Tim> I did. The idea of the six episodes is that it’s an anthology series. Each episode will tell a stand-alone story, concerning various characters that are not on Heroes, but who are out there in the world, experiencing these transformations and discoveries of power. Each one of these stories is intended to feel and look and be different from one another, and to have a different tonal quality to it. It really lends itself to the idea of unique voices coming in and doing these episodes. So, Kevin is the first, in a very interesting line of writers and directors that we are hopefully going to attract to this show.
MediaBlvd> Season 1 ended with such a cliffhanger, and it set up Season 2. Tim, where did the inspiration come from, to go so far into the past? And, Masi, what has it been like to film Hiro’s storyline for this season?
Tim> We had started to lay in the groundwork for going to the past by building the character of this legendary samurai character that Hiro’s character was so attracted to -- a character named Takezo Kensei. But, I guess the idea literally came one day, when I was out for a run. I had this image of Hiro’s character in feudal Japan, so that’s where it came from.
Masi Oka> Production is moving at a really fast pace. The filming has been fantastic. The location looks phenomenal. It looks like feudal Japan. You wouldn’t guess that it’s Ventura County. The location scouting people found an amazing place. And, it’s been so fun working with David Anders and Eriko Tamura. They are the main focus in Hiro’s feudal Japan storyline. There has been lots of action and drama, so it’s been great. Hiro will be in feudal Japan for a handful of episodes.
Tim> We chose to depict feudal Japan in a very rural way, so that we could actually shoot it in Southern California. But, we are relying very heavily on production design, with costumes and props. We built a few structures that are very authentic, and it’s really been amazing to see it come to life.
MediaBlvd> Tim, what, if anything, can you say about the new villain?
Tim> There are a couple new villains. Last year, we had a couple of villains. We had Sylar (Zachary Quinto), and we had Linderman (Malcolm McDowell). In last year’s season finale, we gave a premonition of someone who was a very scary villain out there, who had invaded the dreams and nightmares of this character on our show, named Molly Walker, who can locate people, just by thinking about them. We teased the idea that there was another villain out there, and the audience can expect to see him somewhere in the first run of episodes. They’re doing 11 episodes in a row, that start on September 24th. And, somewhere in that run of episodes, we’re going to introduce a very scary villain. We have literally not cast the actor, as of now.
MediaBlvd> Heroes is very much based on the ensemble. With such a large cast, moving into Season 2, including all the cast additions that you’ve already mentioned, is it difficult to juggle all of the characters?
Tim> It’s a constant challenge, on a show with this large a cast, to balance things. Last year, when the show was starting, and for the first part of the season, it was very important for us to have every character in every single episode because people were getting to know them. Now that people known most of these characters, and are used to the storytelling of bouncing around from one story to another, I think we can spend a little more time, this year, on fewer storylines per episode, that allow us to highlight certain characters each week. And, by extension, some characters will be left out of episodes each week. That’s the way that we’re going to juggle it this year.
MediaBlvd> Masi, how are the new characters informing Hiro?
Masi> In Season 2, Hiro’s doing a lot of stuff in feudal Japan, so the characters he interacts with are going to be in feudal Japan. Hiro could, theoretically, take people back into present day. I don’t know the storyline, unfortunately. But, as far as I know, Hiro is in feudal Japan.
MediaBlvd> Masi, over the last year, your character has become the coolest geek around. Do you feel like you’re giving geeks out there some street cred for the masses?
Masi> I’m very fortunate to be able to represent the geeks. For me, the notion of a geek has always been someone who’s passionate about something, whether it’s computers, ant farms, musicals, storytelling or paperweights -- whatever it is. Anything you’re passionate about. That’s what makes us human. It defines us as individuals. It gives us our uniqueness. It’s more commendable to be a geek, and be passionate about something, than be apathetic about everything.
MediaBlvd> Tim, when you were creating the character of Hiro, did you ever think that he was going to catch on as this quintessential, cool geek?
Tim> I did think that the character represented a certain portion of the viewers out there, so I did feel the people would relate to him. But, no, you never expect this kind of reaction. I’ve worked on lots of things before, and this is a unique situation, where the show, and Masi’s character, have been embraced with such enthusiasm.
MediaBlvd> What makes the character of Hiro unique is that, out of all these reluctant heroes, he is the one non-reluctant hero. He really enjoys his power. Tim, how did you think of the concept of having one hero who just plain enjoys being a hero. And, Masi, what did you think of that aspect of the character?
Tim> When I wrote the first draft of the script, the character didn’t actually exist. It was a preponderance of characters who felt that these powers were an affliction. The accumulative effect of that, at the end of reading that first draft, was that it was kind of a downer. Nobody seemed to have any fun with it. And so, the character was really created to lighten up the initial script. At the time, it hadn’t been green-lit to be made as a pilot, so I was still trying to sell the script. That’s where it came from. I felt I needed one character who embraced it in a very enthusiastic way.
Masi> I thought it was phenomenal because it wasn’t one-note. Tim Kring created an amazing, beautiful world with such rich characters. Hiro embodied the sense of the everyman, in many ways, and how we all dreamed as a kid of wanting to be a superhero. And, he’s someone who kept his dream. He believed in it, and finally his dreams came true. To be able to live my dreams of becoming a superhero, vicariously through Hiro, is just fantastic. I’m just very fortunate that Tim entrusted me with the character.
MediaBlvd> Masi, in the first season viewers got to see wildly different aspects of Hiro. There’s the young, enthusiastic and a little bit naVve, early Hiro. And then, we see the future, bad-ass Hiro. What are the challenges of creating a character who goes through such a change, that we don’t get to see?
Masi> There’s definitely a lot of challenge in it. The writers gave me a gift, when they threw this future Hiro in. Anytime you play a character that’s so different, it needs a lot of back story and preparation, and the writers gave me just enough information to know what that character needs to go through. I was fortunate and so grateful that the writers trusted me, by giving me this gift. And, it was definitely fun to play it.
MediaBlvd> How much fun have you had, working with George Takei? And, how much more of that interaction will we see this season?
Masi> George Takei was phenomenal to work with. He’s not only a generous actor, but a generous person. He’s an icon, in every aspect of Asian-American TV and American cinema. You learn so much from him. And, if you were to ask George Takei he would say, “Well I found working with Masi to be quite an experience. He’s quite a young and talented individual. And it’s nice to see the sci-fi generation get passed on from the older to the younger, and see the legacy being kept alive.”
Tim> In the season premiere, you will see George Takei, as well as Masi and everybody else.
MediaBlvd> Tim, what other kind of sharp, brilliant casting, like with Malcolm McDowell in Season 1, will we see in Season 2 of the show?
Tim> The audience can expect some interesting casting. I cannot spoil it because it’s going to be too much fun. But, I would look for another face that will have a very similar impact to George Takei, for the real genre fans.
MediaBlvd> Do either of you have any real-life heroes?
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Masi Oka at the Heroes Panel at the 2007 San Diego Comic Convention |
Masi> As sappy as it makes me sound, my real life hero is definitely my mother. I was raised by a single mother, who came from Japan to America to provide for our entire family and give me a better life in America. She gave up pretty much her entire life for me. So, it’s going to take not only my lifetime, but my lifetime after that, to repay. I’ll never be able to repay what my mom has done for me.
Tim> Right now, I have two small kids that I’m trying to involve in charitable works that our family’s involved in, so this topic has come up quite a bit in our family, lately. We’ve been involved in a few charities here in Los Angeles that we’ve spent some time with on weekends, donating our time. Seeing the people that are working in these very obscure ways, doing tireless work to help the community, I’m just struck by how many people out there are heroes, especially in a world where celebrity is so ephemeral and temporal, and where people come and go very quickly in our consciousness. It’s just really fascinating to see people that are dedicating their lives to helping others.
MediaBlvd> Were either of you expecting the Emmy nominations at all, or were you just completely stunned?
Tim> I was not expecting the Best Show nomination. When I realized that we were on the initial short list, I looked at the other shows, and we were on the outs, after I figured it out. So, I was definitely surprised by that. But, I must admit, I was really rooting for one for Masi. I was expecting one for Masi, as well as a few of the technical Emmys. I would have been very disappointed had a few of our technical people not been nominated because I really felt that we had been pushing the boundaries of quality in TV, all year long. I was hoping that it would be recognized.
Masi> I owe a big thank you to Tim, for everything. I was actually pretty confident the show would get nominated. We were so confident that I was hanging out with Zachary Quinto that night, and we were going to stay up all night and watch the announcement, so we could share the glory together. And, unfortunately, we fell asleep. But, we had a very nice wake-up call.
MediaBlvd> What do you think of your Emmy chances, and what could a few wins do for the show?
Tim> Obviously, I was just thrilled to be nominated. I had talked myself out of any chances of getting a nomination before it was announced, so I was very thrilled and surprised by it. Clearly, in the category of Best Show, we’re up against very stiff competition, like The Sopranos, which was crowned with so many accolades this year. It feels like that’s the one to beat. But, obviously, winning a few Emmys really helps with a show like this. This is a show that many viewers dismissed, early on, as a fantasy show, or a genre or sci-fi show. Those kinds of shows are not always associated with critical acclaim or with awards. And so, for a show like ours, the recognition is very important because it stamps the show with a certain mark of quality that will attract new viewers.
Masi> I’m just floored and humbled, and I’m definitely proud of our nominations. Personally, it’s definitely an honor to have Tim entrust us with his characters. I make sure I portray the character in the best way possible, that enables him to be approachable and the average everyman that viewers can imagine themselves being. To just be a part of this ensemble is absolutely amazing and a gift. So, to have an Emmy nomination is definitely a cherry on top. The nomination is fantastic, and we’re all proud of it. The nominations reflect the hard work that we’ve all put into the show.
MediaBlvd> Masi, can you recollect your very first job in the TV business?
Masi> My first TV job in Los Angeles was actually for a pilot called Straight White Male, for the FX Channel. It was a pilot that didn’t get picked up. But, I recall it pretty well because getting that job allowed me to fulfill the contract I had with ILM at that time. It allowed for me to stay in Los Angeles and continue working for ILM, in a tele-commuting capacity, while pursuing acting down in Los Angeles. That was definitely a memorable role for me.
MediaBlvd> The special effects guy for Heroes has said that you help them out on occasion, with several technical issues. How nice is it to go back and forth, between your creative side of acting and your technical side?
Masi> It’s really nice to be able go back and forth. I have a lot of respect for what goes on, not only in front of the camera, but behind the camera as well. I remember spending months and months, just to get about 200 frames out. A show is as good as its weakest link, and whether it’s the caterers or the effects folks, or whoever, we have fantastic people all around. Our effects folks are doing a bang-up job. And, it’s great to be able to talk to them on set and say, “Hey, why don’t we try to do this?” It’s really cool to be able to talk about that on the set, and have camaraderie there.
MediaBlvd> Tim, can you talk about the plans for a hardcover graphic novel, based on the series, to come out in the fall?
Tim> As I think a lot of the fans know, we produced 22 online comics that ran concurrently with the show. They were five- or six-page ancillary storylines that ran online, along with each episode of the show. Some of the best graphic artists in the business were involved, and some of the best writers in the business were involved. And, we are compiling all of those into a hardbound book that comes out in the fall. The two hardbound covers will be done by Alex Ross and Jim Lee.
MediaBlvd> What are your plans for the Season 1 DVD?
Tim> We knew early on that this kind of show was especially designed to watch on DVD, so we started our planning of the DVD pretty much right at the very beginning, in terms of the behind-the-scenes footage that we shot and the commentaries. It was something that was certainly planned for. And, the core audience of a show like Heroes is very savvy about these kinds of things, and wants a DVD that reflects the nature of the show, which is always surprising and always state of the art. We are aiming very high with it. We are doing an HD-DVD release, that is for very serious DVD fans, and has tremendous interactive capabilities. It allows you to navigate onto the Web and collect various materials, and participate in various games and tests, and that sort of thing. That runs on an HD-DVD player that many people are starting to buy.
Masi> DVDs are great because it gives us an opportunity to give fans more. We not only just recap the episodes they’ve seen, but there’s like 50 extended and deleted scenes. We even have the 72-minute premiere of our pilot episode. Heroes is a great success online through iTunes, but even those fan bases want the extra value of the DVD.
MediaBlvd> What else is on the DVD set that fans can look forward to?
Tim> I think one of the big items is the original uncut version of the pilot. As many people know, the pilot was originally designed to air as a two-hour pilot, then was re-cut and taken down to an hour. A couple of storylines were taken out of it, that were never seen by anybody, other than the Comic-Con audience in San Diego last year. I think that gives tremendous insight into what some of the original impetus of the story was really about. I think the fans are going to really find that fascinating. And, obviously, the commentary is always a really fun and interesting way to watch the show. There are also the 50 deleted and extended scenes, which will give people a tremendous amount of new information. And, again, I can’t stress enough how cool the HD-DVD is. Through a device called U Control, that allows the viewers to follow various threads in the show. As you know, the show has a symbol that is found frequently in many of the scenes. The HD-DVD highlights that and shows it to you, even in the most hidden places in the scenes. There is even an extension that allows you to look closer at all of the paintings and various artwork that Tim Sale did for our show. So, there’s just a tremendous amount of extra stuff for the fans to watch.
MediaBlvd> Do you hope that the DVD will bring in some new viewers?
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Tim Kring at the 2007 San Diego Comic Convention |
Tim> With a show like this, there are so many people that felt that they couldn’t jump onto the show mid-season because they felt that they would have missed too much. And, there are people that just wait now for the DVD to come out, in order to catch up with what’s on television. It’s those viewers that we’re really hoping to attract, so that we can gain a new fan base for the opening of the second season, which is about three weeks after the release of the DVD. It could work out very nicely for us.
Masi> And, Season 2 is about new storylines. That’s the whole idea. it’s a new beginning for everyone, so that people who haven’t watched Season 1 don’t have to catch up through the DVD, but can also just jump into Season 2 and watch it from there.
MediaBlvd> Given that great content takes great planning, and now that the show’s popularity has really been cemented, what kind of storytelling possibilities do you see for the DVD format, down the line?
Tim> A lot of this is being driven by new technologies that we’re hearing about every single day. And, we’re getting pitched a few ideas that are starting to make us think about the storytelling, in different ways. One of the examples is this idea of being able to follow storylines, or to create the format of a story yourself, as a viewer, by following certain characters. As you know, we do multiple storylines with multiple characters. There are technologies that now allow you to put a story together in the way that you want to watch it, which is a tremendously interactive way to watch a show. And so, we are trying to respond to that this season, by allowing for that technology to be used on the show. Basically, we are approaching Season 2 with many of the same ideas as Season 1, and are creating just as much extra material for the audience to see.
MediaBlvd> Can you talk about the upcoming Heroes World Tour? How unusual is it for a TV show to do that kind of promotion overseas?
Tim> I didn’t have any awareness of whether it was ever done or not. The idea was hatched when we took the cast to the NAPTE convention in Las Vegas, where we met many of the overseas buyers, who all asked the same question, “Is there ever a chance that you could come visit us?” And, we just politely nodded our heads and made small talk for a while. But, the truth was that we started to hatch this idea of, “ Since the show is rolling out, all around the world, it would be really terrific to be able to take this show on to some of these countries, and take the cast to some of these countries, and play up the idea that the theme of the show has this big universal, global quality to it.” It’s an embodiment of what the show is, and the message of the show. It just happens to coincide with the release of the DVD on August 28th. It’s really to bring the show to these other countries, as it’s rolling out in all these various territories. We’re going to New York, London, Paris, Munich, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore and Toronto. There will be three separate groups that are dividing up and going to the different locations. One is going to Toronto and New York, one to London, Paris and Munich, and the other to Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore.
MediaBlvd> Heroes has had such a strong fan base since the beginning. What are you guys fans of?
Masi> What I’m really passionate about, these days, is just getting to work on a great show. I also get to meet great people, whether it’s my cast, or the writers, or just going down the street and meeting the fans. It’s just really cool. Experiencing life right now is what I’m passionate about.
Tim> One of the downsides of running a big television show is you don’t have a lot of time in your life for hobbies. But, I’ve always been passionate about storytelling. And, I find whether it’s this show, or any of the other shows that I’ve worked on, that process is still the same. The idea of facing a blank computer screen or blank page is still the same process, and I still try to find the truth and the humanity in every moment that I write. In many ways, that part of it has not changed at all, since I started this career as a writer, 20-some years ago. But, I’m obviously a big fan of this kind of storytelling, which I think was not available to television until very recently -- the idea of a big, long unfolding saga. It’s a tremendously exciting way to tell stories. It just keeps generating. And, the more twists and turns and reveals, the more story that’s generated. It’s a very exciting, adventurous way to tell a story.
MediaBlvd> What were the comic books and films that influenced you both, growing up?
Tim> I did not come from a comic book background. I was not a Star Trek fan either. I saw the original Star Wars, but none of the other ones after that. And so, I have very little knowledge of the sci-fi world, and almost none of the comic book world. I’ve been a writer in television for 22 years now, so my training was very much in character development, and I chose to approach this material almost entirely from the idea of who these characters were. I created the powers to reflect who the characters were, and not the other way around. I didn’t start off by saying, “I want a guy who can teleport.” I started off by saying, “I want a guy who feels trapped in a life that is not his dream. What could be a power that would be the most wish-fulfilling for that character?” And, that was the ability to teleport out of that life. That’s how I approached it.
Masi> I was definitely a genre fan growing up. I was a Star Wars fan. I, personally, didn’t grow up on American comics, either, but I saw the movies that portrayed them. I grew up reading Japanese Manga, so most of my comic book heroes came from the Japanese Manga world. Tezuka Osamu was fantastic. And, these days I’m a big fan of Urasawa Naoki, who’s doing actually a homage to Tezuka Osamu. He currently has a series, called Pluto, which is loosely based on Atomic Boy. Growing up, Manga is a part of our culture, so I grew up with that in Japan. And, I’m fortunate enough to keep in touch with that world in America, with imported comic books.
MediaBlvd> Tim, what inspired your process, then, in creating these extraordinary entertainment events? Is it mythology or a magical muse that guides you?
Tim> I’ve talked a lot about the inspiration for the show came from, in a real-world way, in terms of wanting to do a show that had a large ensemble cast and a large, unfolding saga, and was looking for ways to connect with the audience that I thought would be meaningful, in the world today, given all of the problems that we have and the scale and size of those problems. I knew that we needed to have protagonists that could actually affect some of these huge changes. So, it veered me away from a cop show, or a law show, or a medical show because I felt that the problems I wanted to talk about were just too big. That’s what led me toward the idea of superpowers. I have to admit, that’s something I don’t talk about very often, lest people think I’m a kook, but I really did feel like it was an idea that came from someplace else. I percolated it and channeled it because it felt like an idea that wanted to be told. I’m not sure exactly where it came from. There is always that strange muse that touches you, and you do wonder where it comes from. This was definitely one of those ideas. It wouldn’t go away, as much as I tried to suppress it and push it away. SI knew it was complicated and would be difficult to pull off, but it just kept coming back.
MediaBlvd> Tim, have you considered the possibility of a Heroes feature film, at some point?
Tim> There’s been no real serious discussion about it, mainly because the show is doing everything that a movie would do. I’m not sure what story we would tell. And, I think it’s also very dangerous to spread the brand of a show too wide, too quickly. We’re constantly trying to manage just how big the brand actually gets.
Masi> With what The Simpsons Movie did, Universal might get some ideas. If you want a Heroes movie, please keep us afloat for another 14 seasons.
