I'm the Invisible Man. I can walk around the corner and disappear forever.
Guess who's back on our TV's screens?
But this time, instead of traveling through dimensions and space,
Christopher Eccleston is firmly back on terraferma,
walking within the streets of New York.
But with the ability of invisibility,
Christopher's character Claude is a somewhat reluctant Hero.
You stay away from me.
Transcript: Sparrowrulez
Synch: Fed.
::Italian Subs Addicted:: [www.italiansubs.net]
One of the major challenges faced during the production of Heroes,
was this search for a cast full of new as well as established talent.
For the role of the Invisible Man, Heroes creator Tim Kring,
was keen to choose someone from the East side of the Atlantic.
For whatever reason in my mind I saw this character's British end,
living in the streets of New York.
His main role is as a mentor for Peter and a reluctant mentor,
and of kind of misanthropic character
who lived among people but wasn't one of them.
So I went to the casting directors with the idea
of looking for a British actor and they said:
"Well, lo and behold, Christopher Eccleston has moved to the United States,
and he's looking to dip his toe into American television."
The fact that he happened of have this genre pedigree,
only enhanced our desire to cast him, but he was presented to us,
basically on the bases that he was British and available.
What's happening to me?
Claude's first reaction to discovering
that Peter has superpowers is the reaction: "Fantastic!"
And then turns from camera and walks away.
Fantastic. One of those!
One of those.
What do you mean, you know someone else like me?
I'd loved to say that he was a nod to the Doctor Who reference,
but I have a feeling that Christopher may have ad-lib that line.
Rose
before I go, I just wanna tell you: you were fantastic.
Absolutely fantastic.
And you know what? So was I.
Christopher Eccleston's character is the first introduction
of the Claude character to the show.
And it was brilliant working with Christopher, 'cause I knew him fromÂ…
I didn't know him personally, but I knew his work from
from living in England, and it was a real thrill to be working with, you know, Doctor Who.
The first time we see the Invisible Man
is during Peter Petrelli's dream of New York about to explode.
Each of these quick flashes of New York in the bomb,
and his hands glowing and I'm actually, physically, exploding.
And then he drops into a coma for two weeks,
where he's living this nightmare over and over and over again.
And when he finally comes out of the coma to understand
that you are what destroys a city and kills millions of people.
And he just gotta run. He's gotta get as far away as he can, but
he gets pulled back in, pretty quickly, When he does bump into Claude.
Nobody can see me!
For the last thing in Heroes that Christopher Eccleston's character
needs is a companion dragging their heels behind them.
I can kill you myself right now. Don't bother looking for me.
You won't find me here again.
Peter is a character at this time that needs to find somebody
to instruct him how to deal with all this craziness that's happening to him.
Yeah, I need the, uh, first flight out of New York into the desert.
Uh, I-I don't know. Nevada, maybe?
He's in need of a mentor and stumbles upon this invisible man
because he happens to be able to see him.
Hey!
You can see me.
What I loved about this idea is if you could be invisible,
to be able to be completely offline the wall,
would allow you to see the darker sides of people?
The ultimate evolution that would be that you would evolve
in a somebody who has the solution, and
so we've landed on a character who also for the first time represents
a character who has had this powers for a very long time.
You don't know what you're asking, what you have to go through.
You might want to reconsider dying. Hell of a lot easier.
- I can handle it. - Yeah, that's what they all say.
Christopher comes walking through the door and he's got the beard
and he's got a tremendous amount of powerhouse person,
which allow us to write him in a slightly more intimidating way than
we had originally concept the character, which I really like.
Come on, mate, I'll steal us a cab.
You coming or not?
Peter needs Claude because he needs
to figure out how to handle these abilities, not to let them overtake.
Wherever he is, what situation is in, he needs Claude to show him.
I need to learn how to control this. Like you do.
What are you talking about? It can't be controlled.
There has to be some way. If If I don't, New York explodes.
Okay? I explode.
An exploding man, where'd you get that idea?
I think Claude is reluctant because
he understands the world that Peter is now in,
that he's really removed himself from for years.
I found you for a reason.
I think you're the one that has to teach me how to stop this.
There's no such thing. No teaching.
No Sunday school for the special. What I can do, you can't learn.
You wake up in the morning, and it's there.
It's kind of a Yoda to Skywalker.
I saw you in my dream. Who are you?
Me? I'm no one. I'm the Invisible Man.
I'm Claude Rains. Now get away from me.
Forget you ever saw me.
Christopher Eccleston's character Claude Rains
is named after the actor who played the Invisible Man in 1933.
Throughout Heroes, the program paid homage to other films and TV shows.
The references to Rain Man, Back To The Future
Great Scott.
And Star Trek.
Funny, I've seen all the Star Treks.
I don't remember you from the show.
And it's from Star Trek where an old favor boldly goes
where no Hero has gone before.
My introduction to the show was like science fiction and,
I got a call from my agent that said:
"You know, there's this Japanese speaking role."
And he didn't tell me it was Heroes.
Then the following day the phone rings,
my agent tells me that I got the part.
I flied to San Francisco, I mean it happened all so fast,
it really was like science fiction,
but I'm delighted to be working on the show, and yes, there is a good fit there.
Science fiction of today as well as science fiction of the twenty-third century,
coming together. Beaming back and forth and I'm beaming!
The guest stars that they've brought on have been amazing,
and with the fact that you can get Christopher Eccleston and George Takei
to come on and do this cameos,
was great for the show and I think it's great for the audience
to know that they're gonna be able to see this well known actors
doing something that they've never seen them doing before.
Listen casting it's all a leap of faith,
they cast of co-material that they're given,
and you work of looking at their previous work,
but mainly it's just a... casting is a kind of strange outcome it
to it and it's about a vibe before anything else.
We have colonized the four corners of our tiny planet.
But we are not the pinnacle of so-called evolution.
That honor belongs to the lowly cockroach.
The original character of Mohinder Suresh was as written in the script,
I think the description was in his late fifties,
and he was a rumpled professor from, you know,
Madras, who had toiled in obscurity as a genetic's professor all this years,
with some crazy theories that started to become true, clearly.
And the casting directors said there is this young guy named Sendhil Ramamurthy,
he's from London, he'll just be here for a week, and you should see him.
You know, I was like: "Why? He's wrong.
I mean, we saw the picture, and
you know, I'm not sure what you're getting at here."
And so he came in, and then I was like:
"No, I will set a casting session with him."
I saw instantly in this younger version, I've been thinking about this all long:
why not make the character that was scripted the father of this character,
and create an early back-story of the father's death.
What is it?
It's your father he's dead.
How?
Where does it come from?
This quest, this need to solve life's mysteries.
When the simplest of question can never be answered.
As soon as I got the script I knew: "This thing is going to be huge."
Why we are here? What is the soul?
Why do we dream? Perhaps we'd be better off not looking at all.
And I read it, and I said: "I'm Peter Petrelli."
I'm not going anywhere.
He has this very large personality.
I wanna be Peter, that's it, they wrote it for me, I'm perfect as Peter Petrelli.
He wanted so badly to come in a read for the show,
and he was sort of pathetic watching him read this part,
it was just couldn't it been more wrong?
You are not supposed to be in here.
I was so, so wanna be a part of the show in anyway I could,
so went in, ready for the role of Peter Petrelli, and Tim was warming in his seat.
He was so winning and so charming, and
has this quality that I knew that I wanted that to be on the show in some form.
At the time, the Matt Parkman character had not even been written,
but I was thinking about it at the time.
See me doing this role he felt: this is the everyman.
Look, I'm a cop. I'm one of the good guys, ok?
He instantly became that character in my mind.
Serial killer strikes in the middle of Los Angeles,
abducts a little girl, and here I am.
A hundred feet away. Might as well be in Siberia.
And as the list of Heroes is worldwide,
the actors are drown from all corners of the globe.
They're bringing in people of all different cities.
You can't have everybody developing a power being American,
that's ridiculous.
Hello, New York!
These are very international characters,
various at necessities and a wide range of even age,
and backgrounds, so you know, a lot of people say this show
has something for everybody, and I agree.
I will bet $1,000.
Sorry. Beg pardon.
So bringing in British actors, and, you know, Japanese actors and...
African actors, whatever, is going to be fun,
and it just gives it a more rounded... view.
I think it's a very universal show,
in that sense that you have characters from everywhere.
You can identify with them wherever you are,
so I think that's something very unique about the show that will attract
an audience, because you'll have different stories
that can grab you and that you can go to.
I definitely think it was a huge chance that the network took
by adding these characters well from their foreign lands,
and it has paid of greatly, you know.
Basically the script comes out in English,
and we actually go through the translation process together,
where we talk about the Americanism versus Japanesism,
why we say the sort of things that we do.
But the challenge for James is even greater,
because he's not from Japan, but he's South Korean.
And he has taken the harrowing step of learning Japanese for the series.
English grammar and Japanese grammar are also almost opposite,
so you have to learn have to fit that according,
and then on top of that Japanese has a cadence in the rhythm
that's completely different from any of the other languages.
Learning all that and also trying to be able to connect to
the emotional life of the character and being able to
relate to the world that's going around you
it's a huge challenge, and a lot of work.
So when I'm not filming on set I'm studying Japanese.
You don't believe me? I bend time and space.
Oh yeah, of course you do.
We definitely bring a lot of ourselves into the character,
you know, Hiro is a very exaggerate version of who I am.
The writers started to see that, and they said:
"Oh, you know, oh Masi is great at this, so let's try to build that into Hiro."
Or let's try to show it from that, you know,
so what it got away from Hiro are things like that,
so they started writing toward the script.
And we started learning and understanding each other
on how we work, creatively.
Give me ride-o, please.
Ride-o. Boo boo.
There's a nice chemistry between writers and the actors,
and in terms of developing and growing a character.
I think we definitively all bring something different to the characters,
everyone was casted for a reason, and as the show develops, you know
you know, the writers start to get a sense of who you are, and you get a sense
of who the writers are and how they work.
And it becomes, you know, a very symbiotic process.
You are in luck. We have one left.
It combines the comic book and the Sci-Fi's aroma,
which is always gonna have that strong fan base,
but at the core of it, it's about human relationships,
and even there, we live in this supernatural world in the show.
It's sort of rooted in reality, in this sense.
The fun thing about playing Ando is that, in our storyline,
we get to had a lot of committee calamitous into the show,
which really separates us from anything else that's on television right now.
You better back off! My friend has very big power.
Can take you all out. Make you wish you never been born!
The next time on Heroes, Peter Petrelli learns the hard way that pride goes before a fall.
You are afraid of the world.
You have to listen to me.
And I am tired of you telling me what I have to do!
I don't have to do anything!
Except fly.
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