07/20/2007
This week at NBC’s TCA (Television Critics Association) Press Tour party, tv.ign.com’s staff members were able to speak to Jack Coleman and Hayden Panettiere about their characters, Noah and Claire Bennet, and what’s to come in Season 2.

Here’s the highlights:

About shooting Season 2 so far, and the Bennets’ storyline:

Panettiere: “Wonderful. It’s been really, really, really fun. It’s been great.”

Coleman: “The Bennet family has relocated; I can’t tell you exactly where. It’s a new world. The secrets they keep from each other are new secrets. The old secrets have all been divulged. We’re not repeating old ground, but there’s old ghosts and old habits that are about to rear their ugly head in a very dramatic way.” [The entire family was together again at the start of the season] “in a very difficult, awkward circumstance, that they all have to try to deal with and it gets pretty sticky pretty quickly.”

As for the bigger picture of the Heroes world:

Panettiere: “We find everyone four months from where we left of. We’re not sure who’s alive and who’s dead, and yadda yadda. There’s a lot of things that have happened in those four months, so we’re going to find out about that. But Claire’s trying to be a normal girl again. She’s fighting to find that inner teenager in her.” [Claire will discover that] “the irony of it is no matter where you go, everything is kind of always the same. Everyone kind of looks the same.”

Cheerleader outfit during Season 2:

Panettiere: “Possibly. Possibly! I wouldn’t say goodbye to the cheerleading outfits just yet. She is ‘The Cheerleader.” […] “except maybe this season, she might actually do some cheering! I’ve told the producers ‘We need to talk about this cheering thing!’”

About the success Heroes achieved in the past year:

Coleman: “Taking the whole entirety of the last twelve months, it is pretty staggering. It’s funny because it happens in increments so you don’t see the snowball building the way it has been. But nobody knew the show was going to be what it is. I think everybody suspected it had a chance to be successful, but not on its way to being an international brand. We’re doing great - all around the world it’s doing really well. We’re about to go all over the world to promote it. It’s ridiculously exciting.”

Big special effects and prosthetic makeup scenes in Season 2:

Panettiere: “Oh, I’m sure! She is the indestructible cheerleader, so you assume she’ll be at the front of most of that action stuff.”

Coleman: “I love that my character doesn’t have any superpowers, for two reasons - less prosthetics and less time in a harness! At my age, there’s only so much time in a harness you want to spend. But the other thing is I really like having a character that has to survive by his wits. I mean every time you see Sylar and HRG face each other, Sylar flicks him around like he’s a bug! And he’s not a guy who’s going to be able to handle the dangers of the world that he’s in, physically. He has to do it through his guile… and carrying a really big gun.”

Change in fan reaction towards his character after “Company Man.”:

Coleman: “I think there was a big change after that,” he observed. “I felt different toward the character after that. I kind of knew what it was building to, but until I read the script, I didn’t really know how it was explained. And what a gift to be able to have the arc that my character had! I’m just so grateful to [executive producer] Tim [Kring] and to all the writers and to Bryan Fuller, who wrote that script - to have a chance to go from where I started to that place up on the bridge, with the tearful goodbye with Claire… I just think from episode 1 to episode 17 that was an amazing arc with huge character development.” [at the end of the season Bennet was pointing a gun at Molly]”I loved that! I was so thrilled. Because you don’t want to be defanged. And it makes it very clear in the beginning, in the very first episode [of Season 2], he’s not defanged. He’s still a dangerous guy. I think it’s clear he would move heaven and earth for Claire, but you don’t want to cross him. He is a dangerous guy. And the fact that he would pull a gun on Molly, is because he’s looking at the bigger picture. He’s a big picture guy. He’s a guy with a plan, and certain things may have to be jettisoned in order to make that plan work. He’s a guy you want in the trenches, but you also see how quickly he goes from having the gun pointed at Molly to using Molly to find out where Sylar is or where Peter is, so it turns very quickly.”

About some fan disappointment in the season finale of Heroes:

Coleman: “I don’t know that Tim [Kring] is getting the credit he deserves for tying it all up. Sometimes a finale of a series has nothing to do with its original, and I think he did a masterful job of tying all that stuff together. And you know, you’re not gonna get a Spider-Man, 200 million dollar battle at the end. It just can’t happen. I know some people were a little disappointed that the battle royale didn’t pan out to be as big [as they wanted], but it’s a television show; it’s a weekly television show. Spider-Man spends our money in an hour!”

Tim Kring’s master plan for Season 2:

Coleman: “Yes, he of course has a plan. But all plans are fluid, as in life. If they weren’t fluid, HRG certainly wouldn’t be a series regular at this point. So yeah, they have what they call tent poles which they’ve very much aiming towards. But if you get too obsessed with where we’re going to be at a certain point, you tend to eat up story really quickly. And I have to say, judging from these first three scripts, I think they’ve really gotten a great handle on how to pick it up in a place that people can join it if they’re just seeing it for the first time, but you’re not bored if you’ve been with it from the very beginning. I think it does a really good job of including newcomers while rewarding the longtime viewers.”

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