Jack Coleman Interview - Aka HRG

PirateShampoo

It's been a tough couple of years for Heroes. After a phenomenally successful first season, its shortened second year came in for criticism for being slowly paced. The current season has been panned for the opposite reasons, after a series of complicated and punchy plotlines left many a viewer confused. But in recent episodes, with season one writer Bryan Fuller back on board, its fortunes have begun to turn. I caught up with Jack Coleman - aka goodie-baddie Noah Bennet/HRG - at last weekend's Memorabilia convention in Birmingham to get the inside scoop.

So what do you make of events like this?

"This is really only the second one like this that I've done. The first one was London Comic Con. This is very much in the mould of Comic Con [in San Diego] with the combination of signing, and doing pictures, a little Q&A and things like that. London Comic Con was crazy – there were way too many people - I was there with Hayden, Milo and Adrian and I think because there were four of us it created a kind of mob mentality. It actually got a little scary at times! So this is very, very low key because no-one's that interested in me."

How does it compare to the one in San Diego?

"Oh, for the one in San Diego they whisk us in and they whisk us out and we don't do any of this – that would be mayhem! I don't remember how many people were in the auditorium when we were there last year but it was six thousand or something. There were literally people camping out the night before! That could have been carnage, because we were all there – the more of you that are there, the more it whips up a frenzy."

What sort of things do people say to you when they come up and see you at the table?

"Oh, mostly it's just that they like the show and they like the character and they'll ask a question about the character. 'Are you ever going to get a power?', that kind of thing."

Damn, that's one of my questions out then.

"Haha! Yeah, cross out number four!"

So how does doing this convention fit into your schedule, filming-wise?

"Well, we just finished for the season. That was 25 episodes – almost ten months straight of filming, so when this came up I took the chance to come here. It really is the first time that my break coincided with my daughter's school break. I usually go back to work right as she's about to get off from school and it's a terrible disconnect between our schedules! We just can't ever go anywhere. We're turning this into a two-week vacation, which is perfect with my daughter's Spring break. We're going to go up to Liverpool tomorrow do a little Beatles tour and then we're going to go to Paris for a few days and then we'll be in London for eight days – I'm very excited."

So what did you make of the reveal of who Rebel was? Did you know all along?

"Oh yeah, I mean we knew who it was a long time ago. What's interesting is that originally there was going to be a storyline where I was going to be the one who rescues Rebel. They were going to do a whole story, sort of like The Professional [aka Léon], where Noah mentors the young protegé and he would have been living in my apartment. But between episode 20 and 25 there was just too much story. There were a couple of really great storylines they had to drop and that was one of the ones that got dropped. The last five episodes of the year I think are really strong."

What's it been like having Bryan Fuller back?

"It's great to have Bryan back – he's such a good storyteller. Everything comes from character and he writes funny, ironic dialogue. Masi and James are great together again, they're funny – it's funny but with a purpose and with heart and you see how Hiro relates to little baby Matt Parkman and how he connects that back to the loss of his mother, so it's all connected in character. It's not catalysts and formulas and all the sci-fi things that I think the show got carried away with. I think that in having Bryan back, everyone has realised this is what we need to get back to. We're telling fewer stories, they're more connected to character, they're much more heartfelt and I think that from the rest of this volume it really pays off in a nice way."

The show has had a bit of a tough time this year. What's been your take on that from the inside?

"Well, very much what I just said – I think that a lot of what happened was it got too genre-fied - it got too sci-fi. I think what people loved about it in the first season, it was a drama with a sci-fi backdrop. I think that got lost. I think there were too many characters and there was too much story. But we shoot so far in advance, because the show takes forever – it's 10 to 12 days of shooting, then the post-production on the show is enormous, so we're 6 to 8 months out ahead of the audience – it does not turn on a dime, so slowly but surely. I mean even Bryan Fuller coming in, it's not like he can come in and go 'OK, these are the stories I'm going to tell'. They may be the stories he's going to tell eventually, but you've got to pick up the playbook where it is and start aiming it in the direction! Everybody's on the same page now which is good. There's less stories now per episode – you're not going to see six different stories in an episode."

That's true. It felt like at the start of the season, it was just becoming too complicated. I'd watch it one week and then not really remember what had happened the previous week, but recently it has just been pared down to three or four stories that you really can follow.

"And people's motivations need to be clear. It needs to be consistent and it needs to be compelling and I feel very hopeful about the direction we're moving in now. I think that it's really getting back to that. I think that this entire volume has been really good, and particularly from the middle of it on is really strong."

What can we expect from the rest of the season? How does it build towards the finale?

"Well, obviously without being spoilerific – that's one of those words that you see isn't it, online? – I think that there's definitely a build to a climax with Sylar, with the Bennets and the Petrellis, and it focuses a lot on those two families and how they relate to Sylar. So it's familiar people, familiar stories – when I say familiar stories, the stories will not be familiar; they won't be stories you've seen or heard or would predict - but it's building on those characters and those stories that we have told about those characters to something which is.... I'm trying to figure out a way to give you some sort of direction without spoiling it... but it ends in a very unexpected way, which is a great catapult into the next season."

How much do you know about the next season and how much are you told? How much do you want to know, even?

"We always want to know everything! But from what they tell us now to what we're going to end up doing in three months' time, a lot changes. So I have an idea of what's happening next season but whatever idea I have will be quite a bit different. They haven't started writing scripts yet. The writers get a week off and then they're right back at it. I think one of the things that is good is that it's slowing down a little bit and when you watch an episode – at the end of the episode, as you said before, you know what you've just watched. You know what happened and you know who it was about, as opposed to a frenzy of story and effects and things blowing up. It's much more focused."

Greg caused a bit of chaos on the internet, on his Twitter, a couple of weeks ago suggesting that the show might not be back...

"He didn't suggest that, he said 'We're saying goodbye at the end of the season and we don't know who's back – we don't know who of us is back'. He was referring mostly to crew. The actors are one of 200 people on the set and these are people we work with every day. I mean I'll work with James from Props and Wendy from Makeup more than I'm going to work with any of the other actors! So when he said 'we're saying goodbye to everybody' I really think that's what he meant and when I read the comment – what he literally said – I think it was much more about the crew. Some crew members take other jobs, some come back, some don't and I think that's really more what it was. But it seems like it maybe forced NBC's hand to come out and say 'no no no no!'"

And they've picked you up for 18 episodes next year, haven't they?

"Eighteen to twenty, yeah. But it's also partly because we're going to start early enough that we can finish by Christmas without an interruption. Then they have the Olympics so we would be pre-empted a month centrally anyway, and I think that's why we're talking about a slightly shorter run."

Do you reckon that'll be one volume or two?

"Probably two, but I don't know – I'm just guessing. If it's twenty episodes I'm almost sure it'll be two volumes, but if it's eighteen episodes it might be one – I don't know. It'll depend on when they sit down to figure out exactly what stories and what amount of time they want to tell in the first say, ten episodes. But if it's twenty episodes it'll probably be two volumes."

Richard Dower

What does HRG stand for?

PirateShampoo

High Rimmed Glass's

I think

He plays Noah Bennet.

Baldie

Horned Rimmed Glasses. That's his name in the online comic books.