Interview With Adrian Pasdar (Nathan Petrelli In Heroes)

Power: Flying

How do you feel about Nathan? There seems to be some underlying ambiguity about his character?

It’s close to playing a Richard III-type character but in a modern dimension. All I need is a physical kind of abnormality to befall me, like hump or a limp then I would have a really Shakespearian experience!

I don’t think he is necessarily concerned whether he is good or bad. I do think that there is a dark side that has to be dealt with, but the people who think they are good will probably turn out the other way on this show. It wouldn’t do me any good to speculate as to how I’m going to end up. I think there is both good and bad in this character which is interesting to play. I am as much a fan who is along for the ride as the public are with this character and where he ultimately is going to go.

Would you agree that your character is defined more by his relationships than his superhero power?

Yes, I find these relationship dynamics are more interesting to play than the perceived super power, they have written that very well. The relationships that I share with my mum, with Peter (Milo Ventimiglia), with my wife and with Niki (Ali Larter), all those elements are angling together toward defining who Nathan Petrelli is to himself and his potential constituency.

Ultimately, when you’re in the game of politics and you’re a man like Nathan Petrelli, there is only one seat that you want and that’s behind a desk in the Oval Office.

As we take this journey, we may find ourselves in the White House and that should make these relationships even more interesting.

Were you excited by the prospect of flying in the show?
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An Interview with Gareth L Powell: 4 September 2007

Gareth L Powell is a speculative fiction writer from the UK. Critics have likened his work to Richard Morgan and Charles Stross. Recently, he has been published in America, Europe and the Middle East, and his work translated into Polish, Greek, Hebrew, Spanish and Portuguese. Earlier this year, his short story The Last Reef made the long lists for both the BSFA and BFS awards for Best Short Story, and placed highly in the 2006 Interzone Reader’s Poll.

Gareth keeps a blog at: http://garethlynpowell.blogspot.com, with links to online examples of his work.

Well Gareth, it seems like it’s been a very busy year for you since we last spoke. Could you tell us about the books you’ve signed deals for?

Since we last spoke, I’ve been fortunate enough to sign deals with two very cool independent presses, Elastic Press and Pendragon Press. Elastic Press are going to publish my debut short story collection, The Last Reef and Other Stories, in August 2008. This collects together many of the stories I’ve had published in print and online magazines over the last four years, including the two stories that have appeared in Interzone.

Then in 2009, Pendragon Press are going to publish my first novel, Silversands - a breathless cyberpunk yarn, shot through with planetary politics, espionage and subterfuge. I’ve also just released a collection of poetry, entitled: Los Muertos. This is my second poetry collection. It includes around forty poems, new and old, and can be ordered via my website.

I understand you’ve also been busy academically?

That’s right. Somehow I found time to take the Institute of Direct Marketing’s Certificate in Direct and Interactive Marketing, and pass with credit – an achievement I’m still very proud of.

Has that experience helped shape the way you write your fiction?
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Interview With Masi Oka (Hiro Nakamura In Heroes)

Power: Can Bend Time And Space

Can you tell us a little bit about your character and what his powers are?

My character is Hiro Nakamura. He’s an office drone in Japan and he’s a big comic book enthusiast. He learns that he can bend time and space, so teleportation and chronokinesis, and he’s just absolutely exhilarated with the fact that he can do this. It’s been his dream all along and he’s so happy that he’s been chosen.

The character is a big sci-fi and comic book fan. Is this a trait which you relate to?

I believe so. I am definitely a big enthusiast of science fiction and special effects. I grew up with Japanese Manga (Japanese comics), so I know a lot about the Manga world.

I really, really love the character and I believe the writers are doing an amazing job writing Hiro and bringing who I am into the character and extending me in terms of being a big comic book enthusiast. “Heroes” is a big extension of who I am.

There is an online graphic novel which goes hand-in-hand with the series. How important is this to the show? How does it feel to see yourself in cartoon form?

I think it’s just absolutely wonderful. When we went to the comic convention, we had a screening of the pilot episode and we knew we had something absolutely special and magical when we saw the fans’ reaction. We knew we hit it right on the head and that we had served the comic book community really well. And you know, in particular with Hiro being the comic book enthusiast as he is, he’s somewhat the representative for that voice of comic book fans. To have him as part of a comic book too is just absolutely thrilling, both in support of the character and for myself.

You worked on special effects before becoming an actor. Do you find yourself looking over people’s shoulders as the effects are produced for the show?
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Interview With Ali Larter (Niki Sanders In Heroes)

Power: Has A Protective Alter Ego

What were your first thoughts on your character when you first came across the part?

When I read the pilot I didn’t actually know what direction it was going other than the fact that you’ve got a really complicated woman who’s just trying to get by. She’s trying to be a great mother to her son and her world’s really crumbling around her. So, it wasn’t about what kind of power she was getting, it was just about her dealing with her life and wondering if she’s going crazy and what’s happening to her.

Where we’re leading to is that there’s going to be duality within my personality. So there’s one side that has to conform to society’s roles and laws and the shadow side that can actually live out the dark fantasies that, you know, are repressed within all of us.

But we’re going to get a little romance, we’ll get a little bit of cheekiness in it and the amazing thing about this writing is that it really pushes me.

You have a son in the show, how did you find it playing a mother?

Noah’s incredible. He makes my job easy. Watching his relationship with his mother has been a huge inspiration for me. She’s so open and so giving, we discussed the scenes before and hang out whenever we have a chance. They have an incredible connection. Noah and I use as much as we can from that to inspire us within our roles.

I think that as a woman, there’s a side in all of us that really has this desire and this need to protect a child. Watching my nephews there’s definitely that side within me that would do anything to protect them. So I guess I understand that.

I’ve just been around kids my whole life. So it really hasn’t been a struggle for me at all. It’s been a natural transition and I just think it’s a really interesting unique relationship.

Your character has an inherent sexuality, do you think it is important to stay in shape? How uncomfortable are the more risqué scenes?
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Interview With Greg Grunberg (Matt In Heroes)

Power: Can Read People’s Minds

Can you tell us about your character Matt?

He’s an LAPD cop, he’s got dyslexia, he can’t advance and become what he really thinks he should be, which is a detective or something more important, be where the action is. He can’t do this because he has dyslexia and can’t pass the tests and now suddenly, he’s hearing voices. He gets the one ability that a cop needs to solve crimes as quickly as possible and be the best he can be. But this then changes the rest of his life.

Your character can read minds, how does he feel about keeping his mental powers a secret?

It’s going to be a constant struggle for my character. He’s having issues with his wife. They’ve not been at each other’s throat, but there’s a conversation they always have where she says, “Hey, why can’t you be satisfied with our lives?” And he wants more.

What I love is that it’s not as simple as telling people, “Hey, this is what’s happened.” People aren’t going to believe you, they’re going to think you’re nuts, how do you handle it. When my character first realizes that he can’t control it, it’s an amazing thing.

The scripts are so great. When I read them, I get an idea of what a cool idea it would be to read people’s minds. I’m like, “Oh, this would be great.” It’s on such a simple level, I read and it’s just like, “Wow, that’s the greatest way to use it.” I’ve already shot a little bit where I’m using it to satisfy my wife.

What does the future hold for the characters? Do they become a team of superheroes?
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Marg Helgenberger Talks About CSI 6 And Her Role As Catherine Willows

Following on from the information on the CSI 6 DVD release, Marg Helgenberger gives us the lowdown on the show, amongst other things.

Do you feel proud when people tell you they are big fans of the show?
I always love it when people say (assumes self-important mock voice) “it’s the only one we watch, none of them can compare to you guys, blah blah blah”.

We see a different side of you in Season 6 than we saw in Season 4. What do you think about that?
Oh yeah, well I think that’s how they, not run out of things to do, not that they’ve run out of crimes to solve because god knows there’s plenty of them around, or run out of ways to solve it, there seems to always come up with more techniques and instruments that are being made available. Of course, this show being state of the art in terms of what we receive and what’s out there in terms of forensic labs because it’s so costly that many of them don’t have the resources to have these, which is too bad, it’s really sad because crimes could get solved faster if they had the money. As far as the character development goes there’s a deep pool there, every character, mine probably more than anybody’s, we go home with my character more. I think there’s a well of opportunity there for the characters.

Do you get excited about character driven stories?
I do get a little spring in my step when it’s some character stuff because it involves usually a lot of history with that particular character, especially with a family member or a romantic interest, but she’s a family member because my father’s been on a few times and that stuff’s, it’s such a complicated relationship and in as little as six lines there’s a lot that goes on between the two of us: threats, weird stuff that happens and I always look forward to that and to working with Scott Wilson who plays my dad.

How do you feel about being demoted this season?
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Interview With Tim Kring (Executive Producer Of Heroes)

Where did you get the inspiration for this series?

The germ of this idea came about a year ago now. I was supposed to develop a show for NBC and I became fascinated with this idea of a new paradigm of the serialized large ensemble show. I happened to see two movies that sort of moulded together in my mind. One of them was The Incredibles. And the other was the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind by Charlie Kaufman. I started to blend those two things in my mind over the next few days because I loved both of them. Mixing the idea of people who had superpowers trying to struggle with their everyday lives with these people that you could pass on the street and never think twice about. In my mind, those two things started to come together and that was the genesis of where the idea came from.

How does this show differ from other serialized dramas?

With this show I wanted to start from the very, very beginning. Looking at when people would discover these abilities. It’s very much a journey of the hero in the classic sense of the term. We watch their growth and their journey through the course of the show and ultimately, gain this kind of wish fulfillment that you or I could be these people. This is their journey from very ordinary to extraordinary people.

The show has some fantastic cliffhangers. Have you found it hard to maintain the suspense and intrigue with so many different plotlines?
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Artemis Fowl and the Lost Colony

Published by Puffin Books in paperback 3rd May 2007.

Ten millennia ago, the fairy people were defeated in a great battle with mankind, forcing them to move underground. Only the 8th family of fairies remained undefeated: the demons. But now one demon has discovered the secrets of the fairy world, and if humans get hold of this information, the fairies are in BIG trouble. Only one person can prevent this disaster - teenage criminal mastermind Artemis Fowl.

Eoin Colfer’s world is one where fairies say ‘lock and load’ and the ancient magic of Eire is blended with weapons-grade hardware and high-level technology.

‘I love the old stories and I haven’t cheapened them,’ he says in an interview with the Times newspaper. ‘I was once taken to task at the Celtic Club in Australia, where an irate member turned on me and said: ‘Do you realise your books are ridiculous? There are no female leprechauns.’ But I quickly realised that if I wanted to write in this fairy genre I would have to bring something new to the table. What I brought was James Bond, Men in Black and Star Wars.’

Acclaim for the Artemis Fowl series:

‘Best described as Hans Christian Andersen meets Miami Vice’ - Anthony Horowitz, Independent

‘A hugely entertaining romp mixing folklore, fantasy and hi-tech wizardry’ - Observer

‘It reads like the fastest, punchiest comic strip you’ve ever come across’ – Daily Telegraph

In only five short years since Artemis Fowl, dubbed ‘Die Hard with fairies’, cast a spell on the book world, Eoin Colfer has become one of the UK’s best-selling children’s authors, with UK sales topping 1.7 million copies and over 7 million copies sold worldwide. His explosive blend of action, comedy and fast-paced adventure has won the former primary school teacher millions of adoring fans the world over. Eoin lives in Wexford, Ireland with his wife and two sons.

Rare videoed interview with Eoin Colfer.

28 Weeks Later

“Warning! Maintain the quarantine. Deadly force will be used to protect this area.”

This article contains background information on 28 Weeks Later, including Cast, Crew and production notes, and interviews with Robert Carlyle, Danny Boyle (Executive Producer), Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (Director) and a whole host of other people involved in the project.

Play 28 Weeks Later: Infected online game!

Synopsis

28 Weeks Later, the follow up to the hugely successful 28 Days Later, picks up six months after the rage virus has annihilated the Mainland Britain. The US army declares that the war against infection has been won, and that the reconstruction of the country can begin. As the first wave of refugees return, a family is reunited - but one of them unwittingly carries a terrible secret. The virus is not yet dead, and this time, it is more dangerous than ever.

How It All Started

28 Weeks Later is directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (Intacto) and produced by Enrique López-Lavigne, Andrew Macdonald and Allon Reich. 28 Weeks Later is an original screenplay by Rowan Joffe, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, Enrique López-Lavigne, and Jesus Olmo; with Danny Boyle and Alex Garland serving as executive producers. The cast is led by Robert Carlyle (The Full Monty, Trainspotting); Rose Byrne (Sunshine, Troy); Jeremy Renner (The Assassination of Jesse James, Dahmer); Harold Perrineau (The Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions, Lost); Catherine McCormack (Braveheart, Spy Game); Imogen Poots (V For Vendetta) and Idris Elba (The Wire). Also joining the cast is a talented young newcomer, twelve year old Mackintosh Muggleton making his feature film debut.

Four years after the enormous international success of 28 Days Later, the director/producer/writer team of Danny Boyle, Andrew Macdonald and Alex Garland felt the time was right to make a sequel. “We were quite taken aback by the phenomenal success of the first film, particularly in America,” recalls producer Andrew Macdonald. “We saw an opportunity to make a second film that already had a built in audience. We thought it would be a great idea to try and satisfy that audience again. The hard bit was to try and find a story which would live up to the power and depth that Danny and Alex brought to the first film.”

The first decision the filmmakers had to make was when should the sequel be set. Should the film involve the original cast? Should it go further into the future? Should it be a prequel? 28 Days Later told the story of when the virus was first unleashed following a raid on a primate research facility by animal rights activists. Transmittable in a single drop of blood, the virus locks those infected into a permanent state of murderous rage. Within 28 days the country was overwhelmed and a handful of survivors desperately struggled to salvage a future.

“Alex came up with a lot of ideas and eventually we agreed upon a concept about what would happen to the UK after the disease had been eradicated and the quarantine was lifted,” explains Macdonald. “What would happen if there were only 500 people populating the UK? Who would be there to organize the survivors and refugees coming back from overseas, and what would happen to the Brits who survived? All those questions seemed interesting to us and it was out of them that the story evolved”.

Screenwriter Rowan Joffe, who had previously written Gas Attack and Last Resort, was hired to craft a first draft of the script. The search then began for a talented young director who would have the flare to follow in Boyle’s footsteps as well as be able to bring a fresh new perspective and their own unique vision to the film. “We were looking for a filmmaker of some individuality who could bring something different to the film,” says Boyle. “London was such a big part of the first film we thought that getting somebody from outside the UK to come in and direct would be an interesting approach as they would give the Capital a fresh look.”

Boyle had recently seen the provocative thriller Intacto, the feature film debut from Spanish director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo which had been a huge international and critical success. “I thought Intacto was amazing,” recalls Boyle. “A terrific thriller with tremendous flare and energy, as well as being a highly individual piece of filmmaking. I recommended [Producer] Andrew Macdonald and [Executive Producer] Alex Garland go and see it with Juan Carlos in mind for taking the helm on 28 Weeks Later.”

After seeing Intacto Macdonald and Garland were also convinced that Fresnadillo was the director they were looking for, and the filmmakers approached him to direct 28 Weeks Later.

They were thrilled when Fresnadillo and his Spanish producing partner Enrique López-Lavigne agreed to come on board. Producer Allon Reich explains, “Juan Carlos and López-Lavigne, they’re a fantastic double act. Juan Carlos is very thoughtful, very much about the detail… While Enrique is a ball of energy, a film geek, and he’s seen every film of this type. And I think there’s definitely a yin and yang in their energy, and the way they approach life that leads to a very kind of a creative whole.”

Fresnadillo recalls being approached by DNA, “I’m a big fan of 28 Days Later. It was such a big honor to receive the invitation to direct the second film, but at the same time it was something really scary. I didn’t understand what I could do, you know, to improve on the first one or to follow that landscape. But DNA chased me for one or two months… And from the first time we met I was very comfortable with them, because they were open to my ideas.”

Fresnadillo and López-Lavigne began working on the script with the help of Spanish screenwriter Jesus Olmo, developing the story around a family and what happened to them in the aftermath of the original film.

López-Lavigne explains, “The family was a good idea for us, and we wanted to develop this into something. But there is always a problem with this kind of structure in which you are looking at the new world through four different eyes, instead of one. That’s why we had to find a really strong concept for the actual storyline. And what we came up with is a storyline, that we really believe; it’s about the idea that no one is unaffected from his past.”

Fresnadillo tells about the process of writing the script, “We worked on the screenplay for almost one year, and at the end we reached a screenplay that I really love. But I was concerned about if the producers were going to like it because it was very special and different from the first one. Obviously following the same landscape and the same situation about this apocalyptic vision of the world, but to my surprise they liked it a lot.”

Boyle elaborates on working with Fresnadillo, “He’s got one foot in two cultures, so he was an interesting guy to get, you know, rather than just get another Brit who probably would [have made] it much as I’d made the first one. So you need a kind of different eye on it, really. And there’s a great tradition at the moment in our cinema of Latin American and Spanish directors, and it’s, I think, great to be able to be part of it.”

An Interview With The Closet SciFi Geek: 28 August 2006

Stephanie Brail has been putting her thoughts up on Science Fiction (.. News And Reviews For Cool Nerds) for a while now, which is always an interesting read; I thought I’d get to the bottom of just why she’s a Closet SciFi Geek.

What gave you the idea of setting up your blog on Science Fiction?

I had gotten one of those online movie rental accounts, and started catching up on a lot of science fiction shows and movies. The problem was, once I was done watching something, I was itching to discuss it, but I didn’t have anyone to talk to about it. My friends are mostly not interested in this stuff, with a few exceptions. So I started Closet Sci-Fi Geek so I could decompress and debrief after viewing something that interested or intrigued me.

How would you sum up your attraction to Science Fiction?

I am a very imaginative, creative person, and science fiction (as well as fantasy) brings you to whole other worlds. Sci-fi expands the brain. It shows you what is possible. It helps us to reach for new horizons, as well as warns of potential pitfalls in our current path.

It’s also just plain fun.

From reading your blog, I came to the conclusion you are very much a watcher of scifi, rather than a reader or listener - is this true?
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An Interview With Gareth Lyn Powell: 24 August 2006

Gareth Lyn Powell is one of the new generation of British SF writers currently making their mark in Interzone, the UK’s longest-running SF&F magazine. He lives in the West Country with his wife and two daughters. His fiction has been published in America, Europe and the Middle East, and has been translated into Portuguese, Hebrew, Greek and Polish. He made his first professional fiction sale to Interzone in 2005.

His novella The Last Reef appeared in Interzone #202, and a short story - with the intriguing title Ack-Ack Macaque - will appear in a forthcoming issue.

In 2006, Gareth won the Firebrand Great Fiction Award from SFReader.com for his short story Sunsets and Hamburgers.

He keeps a blog a http://garethlynpowell.blogspot.com: , where you can find links to online stories and reviews.

How long would you say you’ve been writing?

GLP: I’ve been writing stories my whole life, in notebooks and on scraps of paper. When I got my first typewriter at the age of 12, the first thing I wrote was a science fiction story called A Long Way From Home. I studied creative writing for 3 years at university, but I only started writing seriously a few years ago, when I turned thirty. I wrote a fifty thousand word novel, and then I started writing short stories. I wrote a story called Catch A Burning Star and submitted it to a webzine called Aphelion. They printed it, and that encouraged me to write another, which I sent to Quantum Muse. That got printed too, so I wrote another. And another… And I tried to make each one better than the last.

Which authors do you regard as being an influence on your writing content and style?
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An Interview With Trudi Canavan: 9 August 2006

Trudi Canavan broke onto the fantasy scene with the Black Magician Trilogy’s first book, The Magician’s Guild, which was well received, followed by The Novice and The High Lord. She has recently completed the Priestess of The White.

Back in 2001, as The Magician’s Guild was being released, did you expect such praise and utimately for it to sell so well?

Everyone hopes their work will sell well, but few expect it. It surprised me that it sold at all, and then the degree of surprise I felt kept getting greater. I was surprised by the success in Australia, then astonished by how well it did in the UK.

Prior to completing The Magician’s Guild, did you have the continuation of the story in mind, or did that come later?

I worked and reworked that trilogy so many times over so many years that by the time I was nearly finished I was sure I didn’t want to write anything further in the same world with those characters again. But as I came close to finishing the last polish of The High Lord a sequel idea began to form. It didn’t have an ending, however, and I was content to work on another story and world and let the idea develop in the back of my mind. By the time I neared the end of writing the Age of the Five I knew I was ready to return to the world of Kyralia, and by then another idea – for a prequel – had also come to me.

I first caught sight of The Black Magician Trilogy in 2005 in a bookshop; it was the simplistic, yet eye catching front covers which originally drew me to them. This design, as I understand it, was not the original. Which do you prefer?

I like each of the three cover designs for different reasons. The graphic designer in me loves the UK design for it’s striking customer-attracting simplicity. The writer in me loves the Australian covers, because I worked closely with the artist to get the details as accurate as possible. The artist in me loves the US covers for the sheer skill in the illustrations (even while the author in me shakes her head at the flying horse on The Novice).

Was there a commercial reason for changing the covers, for example, different covers for different countries?
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An Interview With Greg Bear: 27 July 2006

I believe that Blood Music was originally a short story which was expanded into a novel and, in turn, was your first major break through. Where do you get your ideas from, in terms of the science side, and also the characterisation?

GB: Ideas come from all over–we swim in them. Characters are partly from inner voices, mostly from observing other people with critical affection. The idea for Blood Music was originally sparked by an article on biochips in a 1982 issue of New Scientist. That led to a cascade of thoughts, and the conclusion that DNA must be in some sense computational–a fairly radical idea at the time, old hat today. Blood Music as a short story won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards in 1984, and my novella, Hardfought, one a Nebula that year as well.

Could you tell us a bit about who influences your work and have they changed over time?

GB: That’s a book-length essay in itself! Not at all answerable in the length of this interview. I read widely– nonfiction, journals, and fiction–watch lots of movies, a fair amount of the very best television (plus news on all the news channels) and even play a few games now and then on the computer. Every novel, as I write, I refer to one or more exemplars–novels that I really admire. They give me the energy to keep plowing on, whatever mood I may be in day to day.

The Forge Of God and Anvil Of Stars, The Movies: Do you have any upto date news on these?

GB: Warner Bros. still has them under option. No news at the moment.

How did this movie project come about?
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An interview with Gerald Libonati, author of Blue Nights In Atlantis

Q. In Blue Nights in Atlantis you are saying that modern man was created by a race from another planet who came here during man’s infancy, is that right?

A. Basically, yes, although I’m not neces