Playing "Heroes" Catch-Up with Hayden and Masi

With the supernatural drama "Heroes" going into it's 4th Season with a big 2-hour premiere on Monday the 21st, we wanted to get an update on "Claire" and "Hiro" so  we got on the horn with Hayden Panettiere and Masi Oka for a lively chat. Will Claire be in college and have a new love? Will Hiro be.... dead or just keep bouncing back like Kenny on "Southpark"?   If fans are still hooked on the show, why? Get ready for some silliness out of Masi (Claire kisses Sylar? What?) that spreads to Hayden...

TeenTelevision: Going into your 4th season, is there anything new to learn about your characters or do you just have them down as actors?

Hayden: It’s a little tough because even though we are playing the same characters, you really do have the whole writing staff taking us in whichever direction they want to. And on this kind of show, there’s infinite amount of possibilities of where you could go, whether you stay good, whether you turn bad, you know, who you’re working with. So it’s always a surprise. We know our characters so well now that we can figure out what they would do in these situations and go from there. But really you never know what you’re going to be playing.

Masi: Yeah I agree. And I think that’s what keeps it interesting and challenging. There’s definitely something to be said about the familiarity that we want to give the audience with our character portrayals but, you know, the writers put us in very different situations and combinations and I think that’s always the fun part. There’s always a constant change and surprise.

TeenTelevision: Can you catch us up on where you see your characters going this season?

Masi: Hiro’s going through the whole terminal illness. So I think he’s taking life a little bit more seriously and yet at the same time, trying to keep hope alive and it’s that duel and the juxtaposition between life and death and the hope and despair that I think Hiro’s balancing well. So this is kind of a new thing for him.

Hayden: Yeah. I think I’m personally in college and dealing with a new best friend and roommate and we have a very interesting relationship together. But she’s really the first person that Claire's been able to let in on her secret and somebody that’s really a confidant. But that’s a very delicate balance that can easily fall apart. One little misstep and her dad will bring in Rene the Haitian in to wipe their memories and that will be that. And she’s happy that she’s semi-caught up to the normal life that she’s been chasing.  I think there’s going to be some manipulation and just some fun stuff. We really don’t know so that’s why we get so excited to read the scripts every week.

TeenTelevision:  Hayden, why do you think people continue to tune in and watch the show?

Hayden: I think because just like we get excited to read our scripts and see what we get to do next, they get excited to see what adventure we’re going to go on next. And there’s always these little twists and turns that are exciting and it’s just a really fun show to watch. I found myself Tivoing because I was working so much last season, I Tivoed all of the episodes so I could come back and watch them back to back to back and I found I could not put my remote down. I was like, “Just one more episode, please.” And this is a show that I’m on and I don’t generally like to watch myself. But it’s just exciting and it’s smart and I don’t think it belittles the audience and I think it’s just one of those rad shows.

TeenTelevision: It seems like at the end of the day this is going to come down to a battle between Claire and Sylar on some level. So what can we expect on that relationship this season?

Hayden: Wow. You sound like you know more than I do. I actually have no idea. And I’ve not seen anything thus far that has the two of us going at it or even in the vicinity of each other. But I assume there’s going to be something with him ultimately because of the whole Nathan and Sylar thing that’s going on right now and what happened at the end of the third season. Because he’s my dad, our paths are obviously going to cross.

Masi: You don’t want to talk about the Sylar/Claire kiss scene?

Hayden: Masi, they told us not to say anything.

Masi: Oh, shoot. Well actually Sylar says, “Claire, I’m your father,” or something like that.

Hayden: God. Tell them you are kidding!

Masi: Okay.

TeenTelevision: Has the relationship between cast members deepened throughout four years now?

Masi: We’re a big family and we just love working with each other. It’s hard not to ride the highs and the lows of the show together.  We’re always there for each other no matter what happens. We've got people who’ve grown into like amazing stars, you know, like Hayden and Zach and they haven’t changed. You know, they’re just still the same people that we know.

Hayden: Yeah, absolutely. I think our closeness too during seasons also depends on whom we’re working with the most. Some seasons, you know, we haven’t seen me with a lot of people. Masi, lucky duck, got to work with a lot of the cast but some of us just don’t cross paths all the time. It’s exciting when we get that chance, that one scene or that one episode where we get to do that. I just celebrated my fourth birthday on the set, my fourth birthday cake. I grew up with these guys. These are my family and I was 16 years old and now I’m 20 and we’re still loving what we do and enjoying each other.

TeenTelevision: Hayden do your film projects give you a break that energizes you for the new season?

Hayden Panettiere:   Well it does make me excited to go back to Heroes when I do movies. I love to do movies. That’s something that I find so much joy in, in being able to travel around and play new characters. But there is also something settling about coming back to a place where you know where you’re going to go every morning, you know who’s there and who’s waiting for you and you’ve known them for such a long time and you’ve spent so much time with them. It’s like going home. Movies help us be able to spread our wings a little bit

TeenTelevision: Do you guys ever read something in an upcoming script for your characters and go 'Claire, or Hiro wouldn't do that'?

Hayden: With the changes we’ve had and all these different places that they’ve taken our characters, it would be a little difficult if we were territorial. I’m not saying that there aren’t story lines that you go, “Wait hold on, she really wouldn’t do that.” Or ones that you're not such a fan of and you might read something and go “I just can’t figure out how to say that the way Claire would say it. I don’t feel like that’s something maybe that she would say.” But, we’ve gone to the future and back again. We’ve gone to the past. We’ve gone all over the world. We’ve become good and bad and I just think there’s nothing but excitement that we all get from that, especially being on a show for four years, you want nothing but spontaneity and change.

Masi: Well I mean you definitely care about your character because you wear it and you’re associated to it by all means and I love the change and spontaneity. At the same time, acting is a profession and you realize that this character is not necessarily your property. It is the property of Tim Kring and, you know, of NBC Universal and of the audience as well. It’s a character that’s shared by everybody. The writers have such a bigger picture towards the whole thing, of where each character’s arc will go. I think it’s our job as professionals to kind of go with the flow. It’s important to fight for your character but at the same time realize there’s a bigger picture. The character is not just purely your own.

TeenTelevision: Hayden, what’s it like for you playing a character going to college when you haven’t had that experience yourself? Would you go some day?

Hayden:  I love to learn. But, in college, there are subjects which are necessary to learn but you don’t really want to learn on top of those ones that you do want to learn. But, to take a class or two on subjects that I’m really, really interested in and curious about would be awesome. I spend so much time with the brightest and most talented and well-rounded people. I’ve had the privilege of having long and very intellectual conversations with people and sometimes I just sit there and listen. It’s like a better version of a class. So, even though I’m not sitting at a desk and in school, I’m still learning all the time.

TeenTelevision: Hayden, I know that Claire’s been pretty unlucky with love up to this point. What’s going to happen with her this season?

Hayden: She has a roommate who is the biggest relationship in this season thus far; a confidante and somebody who she can tell her secrets to, who would be there for her and who she could trust. And she hasn’t had anyone like that since Season one. This new character, Gretchen, who becomes my roommate comes along, and she becomes that person for me. And it’s a very interesting relationship because there’s a little bit of a flirting.

Masi: The two key words is flirting and roommates.

Hayden: (Bad) girls.

TeenTelevision: Oooo, interesting. Masi, can you talk about how important the Hiro/Ando bromance is to the show?

Masi: I think the bromance is there. Unfortunately it’s going to get broken up because Ando goes and gets married, so....

Hayden: Ando gets married? What'd I miss?

Masi: Yeah, Ando gets married to Hiro’s sister.  I think it’s important to have that duo. The kind of relationship that progresses from being a friend, like partners, like brothers in a sense and literally they become brothers, at least brothers in law for real.  once Ando got his powers, it’s more on equal footing that they became partners so it wasn’t more of the Batman and Robin, they became more of a Batman and Superman. But, we also want the characters to grow and relationships to grow as they do real life.

TeenTelevision: So Hiro is dying....for good?

Masi: We really don’t know which direction we want to take it. It’s a terminal illness and  it’s something that we’re going to be asking the audience to go on a real emotional ride on. Whatever that’s decided, you know, I want to make sure that it’s going to be something that won’t betray the audience. We’re asking them to take this really emotional, sincere and sweet ride with Hiro, and we don’t want to just pull the rug and say, oops! It’s not that. Or just kill him silently.

TeenTelevision: Hayden, Claire didn't use her powers too much in the third season. Are we going to see more of her using them?

Hayden: I hope so. I mean my power does come into play. There’s an episode that we just shot that’s pretty action packed. Just changing it up/ Yeah, you’ll see it. Maybe not quite as much as in other pockets of time in different seasons, but I'll definitely use it.

TeenTelevision: Any new, wacky fan encounters you two can talk about?

Hayden: I’m just afraid somebody’s going to stab me one day and think that my power is real and they expect me to start healing. I’ve been thinking about that since the first season, I’m like what if somebody really thought I was indestructible. Because I’ve heard some wacky things come out of people’s mouths that you go, 'guys, it’s not real'.

Masi: Definitely don’t give people ideas. At fan conventions, I’m actually kind of more adventurous. I like to go out on the floors and try to be incognito. But when people do recognize you it’s a little bit scarier. I’ve had someone chase me down the hall. You walk slow, you know they recognize you so it’s like then you kind of start brisking it up. And then they start to match your exact rhythm, pace per pace, and then you start running.

Hayden: I just got a box at my house for my birthday from this girl who writes all the time; just like body lotions and this little box of dog toys in there. There’s candles, it’s like this little box that she put together for my birthday. But she wrote in it things like 'I’m so glad to be able to call you friend and I tell you everyday what an amazing person you are' basically saying that she knew me and I have no idea who it is. When it gets that close to home then it gets a little nerve wracking.