SET VISIT: NBC's "Heroes" part 2

by: Average Joe 2 years, 9 months, 2 weeks, 6 days, 2 hours, 3 minutes ago 5

*Ok so first off I have to apologize because I am WAY behind on this column so you’ll have to forgive me as I back track a few weeks and go thru my notes on what transpired on the actual set visit day.

After I had done my homework on Greg Grunberg , and mapped out my course to the set I was ready to go. I left my house pretty early expecting I might hit traffic along the way, and knowing that since I am terrible at directions it’s not uncommon for me to get lost and lose time trying to figure out where exactly I am.

Luckily I found the location fairly easily, and once I got thru security I parked my car, and made my way over to the meeting location. After standing around for a few minutes I was greeted by two young women, one of which had an extremely familiar voice. “Are you here for the HEROES visit?” one of them asked. “Yeah, I’m Joe from Komikazee,” “oh hey! I’m Kristy and this is Chandler it’s so nice to meet you.” It was a nice meeting because I finally had a face to put with the voice I had heard over the past few weeks.

I remember thinking to myself “Nice work, first one here…” which meant absolutely nothing, but hey, I was proud of it. Once everyone else had arrived we were told that we’d be taking a van over to the actual location which was just a few miles from Sunset Gower Studios where we all met up.

After about a 15min ride we arrived in a very nice residential area where it was pretty obvious to see which house was being used for the location. We arrived to a beautiful 1920’s ranch style home that was swarming with people running in and out of the house. When we first got to the front they were shooting so we had to be quiet and out of the way. Kristy and Chandler directed us to the back yard area where the 5 of us sat for over an hour chatting about TV, movies, award ceremonies and the latest gossip in Hollywood. Now for a lot of this conversation I just sat and listened because I’ve never attended any of these awards shows, and I’m not really up to date on who’s really dating who from what show. I will say that it was interesting to say the least, and hopefully I’ll be able to attend one of these things and be better prepared next time a conversation like this is brought up.

Finally we were allowed to move over to the front of the house where they had set up “video village” which basically consists of all of the monitors used by the crew during the actual shooting of the scene.

In this particular scene Matt Parkman (Greg Grunberg) uses his new abilities to read his wife’s mind and prepare an amazing spread of dinner and drinks as a way to apologize for a recent argument they had just had. I have to say, whoever came up with this particular scene is just genius because what man or woman wouldn’t do the EXACT same thing given those abilities? It’s scenes like this that really cement my faith in the show and it’s attempt at realism because this is exactly what any of us would do given the chance.

Around 5:30pm we were invited in the house to meet actor Greg Grunberg. Now before I go over exactly what was said let me start by saying that Greg is honestly one of the nicest people I have ever met. Although I am not super familiar with his work, I have seen him on TV before, and it was a pleasure to meet him, especially once you got a feel for what kind of guy he really is. At the risk of sounding lame, or like I am kissing up to anyone I will say that Greg is like the best friend everyone wishes they had. He’s extremely funny, and very willing to help out in any way he can…if only more people in Hollywood were like him it’d be a much better place to work in.

Now, having said that let’s move on to what exactly was said in our little “rountable” interview.

- Greg was never really a comic book fan as a kid, but knew the basics like Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, etc.

- Originally auditioned for the role of Peter Petrelli (which later went to Milo Ventigmilia) and was told he was totally wrong for the part.

- The character of Matt Parkman is the investigative side of the show since he is on the trail of a serial killer. Greg said that he hopes Matt will become the “eyes” of the audience since he’s able to hear people’s thoughts.

- Said he loved the script for the pilot because it read like an actual show and not just a single pilot episode.

- Greg doesn’t really have a preference between TV and film. Says he’s cool with either as long as he can play a relatable character.

- Wants to be in the new Star Trek film being directed with JJ Abrams. Wants a large role, but admitted he’ll take anything just to get to work with JJ again.

- They’re currently (as of my visit) 5 episodes in and his character still can’t control his powers. Says that Hiro is everyone’s favorite character because he embraces his powers right off the bat while everyone else struggles with them.

- Says he wasn’t sure how to look when he’s using his powers. “I really don’t want to look stupid, but how do you convey mind reading? Hopefully they’ll use some kind of sound effect or something.” Says he REALLY wants to do a scene where Matt encounters a palm reader. “How cool would it be to go in to one of those places and start telling them what they’re thinking. I mean they’ll sit there and tell you all of this stuff and I’d just be like (shakes his head).”

After our Q&A with Greg we were told that they needed to start shooting again so we’d have to get out of the way. Greg thanked everyone for coming and said “if you guys need anything else let me know”…again, super nice guy all around.

Once that was done we walked to the front of the house and waited for the van to pick us up. We were taken back to Sunset Gower Studios where Kristy and Chandler gave us a REAL treat by taking us onto the one of the soundstages of the show where a lot of the interior locations are shot.

We got to see Isaac’s (the painter/prophet) loft which was amazing for the simple fact that legendary artist Tim Sale had done all of the artwork including an interesting mural on the floor depicting an explosion of some sort (sorry, I’m not going to go into detail). Another thing that was interesting was a specific symbol that appeared in Isaac’s loft, and in various other locations throughout the other cast members home’s. We were told that this symbol would play a key part in the show, but we weren’t given specifics as to what it was.

After seeing a few more locations which were as equally impressive, it was time for our set visit to come to an end. Kristy and Chandler thanked us all for coming down (like they really have to thank me right?) and told us they’d keep us posted with at the latest on the show.

Honestly, I can’t thank them enough for setting this up. Both Kristy and Chandler are amazing at what they do, very professional, but also very easy to get along with. I am grateful that Komikazee has been able to establish a relationship with NBC and Heroes in particular, and I only hope it gets better from here. The set visit is something I will remember for a long time, and hopefully just the first of more to come.

Heroes debuts on Monday, September 25th on NBC.