Our friend, Ryan Gibson Stewart over at Heroes Wiki, has an exclusive interview with Heroes writer Chuck Kim, who wrote the episode “0.7″, the “Sword Saint” documentary and a few of the graphic novels.
In the interview Kim reveals a few secrets about Richard Sanders, Adam’s “newest bride”, Claude Rains and Angela Petrelli..aswell as other interesting stuff.
Ryan Stewart: So how’s the writer’s strike going?
Chuck Kim: It’s very boring. [laughs]
I’m sure it is!
Yeah. It’s extremely boring. I mean, it’s really awful. This is the first show that I’ve ever worked on. One of the very cool things about it is that the crew is on set basically Monday through Friday, sometimes Saturday and Sunday, working on the show. They’re there on the set for twelve to fourteen hours a day, and they’re still just so enthusiastic about the show. The camera people, the lighting people, the grips—everybody—they’re just so “into” the show. The fact that they can keep up that energy keeps us very excited too. We all feel really awful for those people, too, because not only are we not working, but they’re not working as well. Overall, it’s just a really depressing situation.
It’s hard because I’m sure they all support the cause, yet it’s not their fight, though they have to suffer for it. It’s not anybody’s fault, it’s just a really unfortunate situation.
Indirectly, it’s their fight, too. While we’re fighting for residuals and whatnot, the crew members’ health coverage is basically paid for by the studio the same way our residuals are paid for by the studio. If we don’t get the same residuals from the internet and downloads, etc., then they wouldn’t get that percentage that they would normally earn from the internet for their health coverage either.
It’s really affecting more than just the writers.
It is! We’re kind of the first group that is facing this. The actors are going to face this and the directors are going to face this. Basically, any other guild that has money tied into the studio that’s paid that way (whether it’s health coverage or anything like that), it will affect them as well.
Well, I certainly hope the strike finds a resolution quickly. I’m sure you want to get back to work soon.
…Yeah. [laughs] You know, this is just a really great group of people to work with and it’s so much fun. Planning out what happens to these characters is a dream come true. I’ve been trying to get into television writing for years, and it still surpasses any of my expectations.
That’s great. And you wrote a really terrific episode with .07%—what a fantastic episode! It was a great comeback from the break, it had a nice tribute to Isaac in the beginning with showing all his artwork, it had that terrific fight between Sylar and Peter—
Oh yeah, that was amazing! That scene started with Chris Zatta’s episode, which was eighteen, and went into my episode, which was nineteen. Shooting that scene where we show Mohinder on the ceiling and we show Peter being choked against the wall and his head being cut open—just that was a day’s worth of shooting. I mean, what was on screen for maybe a minute, oh my God! Normally, we can’t take that kind of luxury in shooting it. And we had two directors, and two writers on set because it was a crossover scene. It was a lot of work. [laughs]
I’m sure it was technically difficult too, with all the special effects, and keeping Mohinder up on the ceiling and Peter on the wall, and then there’s a great clash of powers.
I wish you could see it. It’s very interesting, actually, even just getting Mohinder on the ceiling. There’s sort of a tray that he lies on top of. Then that’s pulled up to the ceiling, sort of like the platform that Frankenstein’s monster gets raised up on to with the lightning. It’s sort of like that. He’s raised up to the ceiling. Then when he’s there, they put on something like doll’s clothing with snaps on the back, so they actually put that around the tray (which is molded to his body), and then snap the clothes on that way when he’s on the ceiling. It’s really quite cool. So much work goes into this, I never realized.
Now, you wrote that episode after you had written quite a few graphic novels. How did that feel to write an episode after writing some graphic novels?
It was pretty amazing. I mean, I basically have been in comic books since I was 22 or 23, so this really was the perfect fit. Honestly, I never thought I’d be able to get involved with something so closely related to comic book as this, and actually writing comic books again. I think as far as this season’s graphic novels have gone, since I’m kind of used to the medium, I’ve actually tried to go a little more experimental with the ones this season. I read the posts on these pretty religiously, and some of the comments, I’m like, “Oh, ouch!”
What do you read, 9th Wonders?
Yeah, 9th Wonders, and I’ll go to the NBC site.
Yeah, people can be pretty brutal in chat forums.
They’re pretty brutal; I think it’s funny because I did a Takezo Kensei story—
The Trial of the Black Bear. That was a really neat one.
Oh thanks!
I liked it, but I know a lot of people didn’t.
Well, I think it was a little misunderstood because I tried to make it clear that it wasn’t a Heroes webcomic, but it was a 9th Wonders! manga comic…
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