HEROES-HYPE.COM

 Yahoo UK have been talking to Adrian Pasdar who plays Nathan Petrelli in the Hit NBC show:

As Heroes: Season One – Part One comes to DVD, we put the best of your questions to Adrian Pasdar, who plays Nathan Petrelli in the hit series…

What did you think when you first heard the concept of the series?
I thought it was a very interesting concept that hadn’t been done before, combining fantasy with a sense of reality and the pressures of the world that people live in. If that could be done I thought it would be an interesting moderately successful show. We didn’t have any idea it would become this big, though we all thought it would be successful. It was an interesting approach – on TV there’s not much that’s new. You’re either a doctor or a lawyer or a policeman and that’s it. It was a new approach and that was the main thing that drew all of us to it.

How did you feel when you got the part?
Generally when you get something there’s never enough time to reflect about how good the opportunity might be. You jump in so quickly and start working. That was the case with this one. It was exciting and I was very happy to be working with the people I was working with.

Would you like to be able to fly like your character on the series?
Yes, sure. When I first started getting that question I thought ‘oh god’ but then when people like Barbara Walters were asking me that question I realised that it was something that people wanted to know. It came to be the big question. I keep trying to come up with a clever answer and the only thing I can come up with is yes, I would like to be able to fly.

If you could have any special power, what would it be?
It would be the power to come up with a better answer than that.

If you could play any other part in the show, who would you like to be?
I’m very happy with what I’m doing. Everybody is so well suited to their roles – we’ve become such a good family. Hayden Panettiere (who plays Claire Benet in the show) just turned 18 – she had a birthday party and we were all there. It was like a family celebration as opposed to being at the birthday of a cast member.

Did you expect Heroes to be such a success, especially in countries outside the US?
We thought it was going to be moderately successful. We had no idea it would take on a life of its own.

Why do you think shows like Heroes and Lost have become so popular?
I think it combines a sense of reality with fantasy. It reflects the world that we live in – there may be some bad things around the corner. It also combines that with hope and fantastic elements. Ultimately that’s what the show’s about – hope. We’re all hoping for a better tomorrow.

How does it feel to be in such a popular show? Has it changed your life or can you still go to the supermarket?
It’s exactly what you’d think it will be like – you get recognised a lot more. People come up to you. I was late for a flight recently at the baggage counter and someone came up to me wanting to talk about the show and you don’t want to be rude in that situation. It’s made me more recognisable. Everything else is the same – my family life is the same. It’s very enjoyable.

In the series your character is trying to keep his superpowers secret so that it doesn’t affect his chances of a political career. If you had a superpower in real life would you also try to keep it a secret?
Yes, I think everybody would if they really thought about it because you’d be perceived as a freak. You’d be put in a lab somewhere and the government would monitor you. A lot of people would want to see you celebrate that power and use it but if you had a power you’d want to keep it really quiet.

What would you like to see happen to your character in the second series?
I think the writers’ collective imagination is a bit broader than mine could ever be so I never bother trying to think about what I’d like to happen. I concentrate on what they want to happen. They’re not doing anything that I wouldn’t want them to do.

Are we going to find out more about your background in the show? Do you parents have special powers?
The second series is entitled Generations. I’m the middle generation with my mother and daughter so I have that going on. The second season goes more to explaining the hows and why.

Are you going to stay with heroes?
I will ride it out as long as it lasts. The star of the show is the series itsself and not the individuals. My gut feeling is that it will roll over to a new cast by season three or season four. Obviously it’s a huge hit and that’s what you are looking for – great work tied with a great hit.

Heroes: Season One – Part One is released on DVD in the UK on 1 October

Source

Ryan over at Heroes Wiki has interviewed Mark Sable and Jason Badower, the writer and artist of the “Blackout” series of graphic novels. In the interview they talk about their process, collaboration, and are really open about their thoughts on the work.
Jason even tells about a little Easter Egg he hid in the second part, and
Mark lets spill a spoiler about a unique connection he has with a certain set of twins coming up in the second season.

Here’s a snippet:

Ryan Stewart: So you two haven’t actually talked yet.

Mark Sable: No, no, only online. So it’s good to meet you, Jason!

Jason Badower: You too, you too, man. Thank you for such a great, fun script.

MS: Well, thank you for what you did with it. Everything I’ve told you online and in our emails has been really true. I’ve been really, really happy with it.

JB: Thanks. It’s just one of those things that’s the nature of our art—I look back on our stuff and think, “Oh, more time! More time!” But there’s never more time, so it is what it is!

MS: Believe me, I look at this stuff the same way. You did a tremendous job, especially considering how short the deadline was.

JB: Yeah, and I just really did a bollocks up job of managing my time this time. I’ve done bigger jobs in shorter time, but this time just eluded me. And you can tell because of the number of photos I used rather than just drawing backgrounds. Ah well, it was fun!

MS: It’s definitely been fun for me. I’m excited, and I’m kind of sad, actually, because at least for now it’s over.

JB: I’m sure there’ll be more opportunities, man. Given the feedback on the boards, which has been great for you. It’s some of the best comments I’m getting from people—that it feels like an in-continuity story, about the tone of what you wrote. Hopefully the people in the production offices will sit up and pay attention to that.

MS: I hope so, and thank you. Anyway, sorry, Ryan.

JB: Oh yeah, Ryan!

RS: Oh no, that’s fine! I had a feeling I was going to sit back and just listen to you two talk most of the time, and that’s just fine with me! [all laugh] You talked about the deadlines. What exactly were the deadlines, and the logistics of getting your work done?

MS: To back up a little, and I mentioned some of this online, Jesse Alexander and Aron Coleite had gotten in touch with me. Months ago, Jesse asked me if I wanted to do something for Heroes. I of course said yes. And then a couple of months went by I didn’t really know what to expect. Aron called me and basically said that it had to be a Suresh story, two parts, ten pages. It gave me a very basic outline. He told me where Suresh was as a character—basically on a Professor X journey to find funding and people to help him with his project. He said Suresh should find somebody who has the same disease, or at least what we think is the same disease as his sister’s, but then manifests to be another power. So that’s sort of the assignment I was given. And then they threw out a power or two—which I won’t say because they may use it again—and then I threw out a couple. I threw out one that I thought was killer and would have worked perfectly, but then they told me, “Oh, we’re actually using it.” It’s actually something for the fans to look forward to. I wish I could say more about it. But they’re going to do a better job with it than I would. So from that point I got frustrated because I thought I had the best power and I couldn’t use it. So I ran this one by them. The story had pretty much been similar for both powers. To me, it was definitely a story about somebody getting sick as a result of their power and having a power that cost other people something and having that choice, and Suresh being in a place to help them. They okayed my next draft—that was a one page treatment. From there, they were like, “Just go right to script.” They gave me basically a week for each 5-page chapter. Then I handed that stuff directly in to Aron and Chuck Kim, another writer who works there. I didn’t have any contact with Jason, so he can take it from there.

JB: Sure. My liaison is Frank Mastromauro. One of the great things about the script is that both parts came in at once. Normally, I’ll just get the first half, like with The Death of Hana Gitelman. With War Buddies, I was getting one installment every week. So it was great to read the whole thing and say, “Okay. What are we going to plan out? What has to work across the entire thing?”

One of the great things about having the whole script is when he pulls the mountain bike out of the car in the end, I think, “It’s gotta be a car you can put a mountain bike into.” So it’s just a little detail like that if I had drawn a sedan in the first one, well how the hell is he going to get a mountain bike in there? So it was great having the whole script. I had about five days to draw the first one and about seven days to draw the second one. I also cut into myself on the first one, coming right off another project. Two gross errors of mismanagement: On the first page in the second panel, you see a picture of Hiro holding the sword and Claire running out of the fire, which Mark wrote in the script. Well, I drew big, poster-size images—I got so carried away! [laughs] And the second thing I did which I miscalculated was—and I’ve never done this before—I miscalculated the time zone difference between Melbourne and L.A., and I came in a day late. But Frank was really cool with that. So both parts at once—it was great!

You can read the rest of the interview here.