I finally have a bit of a breather and some time to get back to posting Sci-Fi Blasts From The Past. Again, these are interviews that previously appeared in print only and never on-line. Today, stage and screen actor Jack Coleman talks about playing his bespectacled TV alter ego Mr. Bennet a.k.a. HRG in Heroes. Enjoy!
Some people say that the clothes make the man, but as far as Heroes’ mysterious Mr. Bennet, or HRG (Horn-Rimmed Glasses), it’s the glasses that have definitely helped define who he is. “The glasses are a very big part of how my character was first conceived,” notes Jack Coleman, the actor behind HRGs specs. “He’s kind of a 50s throwback to the movie studio’s image of a guy who’s plotting a revolution in some South American country. The glasses are like a curtain or wall between him and those around him.
"We probably went through 100 or so pairs of glasses trying to choose just the right ones. And when I say we, I mean the executive producers, including Tim Kring [series creator], Dennis Hammer and Dave Semel as well as the props people and myself. Everybody had an opinion. As soon as I put the glasses on it was HRG. Actually, when I first saw myself in the mirror I had an epiphany that I looked exactly like my dad when he was my age, which was shocking,” jokes the actor. “Beyond that, it’s amazing how much something like glasses can to a certain extent become the character for you.”
Living in Odessa, Texas with his wife and two children, Mr. Bennet is a paper salesman who works for the Primatech Paper Company, or is he? In fact, it’s all a front. The company and its employees have spent the past 15 years investigating, capturing and experimenting on people with superhuman powers. Bennet claims he only wants help them learn to control their abilities, but his bosses have other plans. The character is first seen in the Heroes season one opener Genesis, where he meets Mohinder Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy), who is investigating the murder of his father Chandra (Erick Avari) and his connection to these superheroes. As debuts go it was a modest one, but nonetheless attractive for Coleman.
“I first became aware of Heroes through a friend of mine who’s a writer on another series,” he recalls. “He told me, ‘There’s this wonderful pilot script called Heroes that I’ve heard great things about.’ Then I discovered that it was being produced by Tim Kring as well as Dennis Hammer and Dave Semel, who directed the pilot, both of whom I know. I subsequently went in to read for the role knowing it was a very small one. It was basically a one-page audition from the pilot where Bennet is sitting in the backseat of the cab and is being rather threatening towards Mohinder. That was the extent of it.
“Then, however, I found out at the very end of the episode that Bennet is Claire’s father. I thought to myself, ‘This [character] definitely has the potential to grow.’ Of course, back then I had no idea that the role would become what it has, or that the show would become the juggernaut that it has.”
Claire (Hayden Panettiere) is the Bennets’ adopted daughter. She is also an extraordinary teenage girl with the ability to self-regenerate from injuries that would be fatal to other humans, and even most of her fellow superhumans. As a baby, she was given into the care of Mr. Bennet and his unsuspecting wife by Primatech with the understanding that Claire would one day be returned to them for further study. What began as just another assignment, though, has become something more for Bennet. Much to his surprise, he has developed real feelings for Claire, and as the first season of Heroes continues to unfold, the bond shared by father and daughter is further complicated when Claire begins to discover who Bennet really is.
“Things between HRG and Claire are without question strained, and there’s a crisis situation in a later episode that brings it to a head. There’s a resolution as well, albeit a temporary one,” explains Coleman. “I suspect that the relationship between Claire and HRG is one of the core values so to speak of this show, as twisted as that relationship may or may not be.
“As we know, they’ve both lied to one another on more than one occasion. Ultimately, though, I feel they really do love each other and there’s a tremendous bond there. Towards the end of the season you’ll see without a doubt that HRG’s and Claire’s feelings are truly genuine, but they’re also feelings that my character has often tried to sublimate. After all, in his line of work you don’t want to be beholden to your emotions or your loved ones. At the same time, as a human being, it’s hard not to do that.”
Despite all the morally questionable things he’s done, HRG is still very much human, which makes the character believable, and that’s how Coleman wants to keep him. “If you’re just walking around twirling your mustache and cackling like a villain then it’s really not that interesting, and audiences will soon tire of it, and you,” says the actor.
“Like anyone else, my character justifies himself,” continues Coleman. “I think HRG sees himself working for the greater good and taking on a job which is dirty but has to be done. He’s certainly been set up as the bad guy for the first two-thirds of this season, but there are going to be revelations regarding both his motivation and his loyalty. That will broaden everyone’s understanding of who HRG is, where he came from and what he’s been trying to do.
“I have to say that I love the ambiguity of my character. The question I’m asked most often by people is if HRG is good or bad. They’re perplexed and they want to be able to figure him out and know exactly who he is. The fact, though, that my character is both good and bad is what makes him so fascinating. Suddenly you realize that people can do horrible things and still come home and love their family. It’s a perfectly human way to behave in the world, both real and fictional, because I think most of us have a grey area or two in our lives, and that’s what makes HRG interesting and fun for me to play.”
Heroes producers have been so pleased with Coleman’s work that they made him a series regular starting with episode 11, Fallout. “I honestly don’t believe that was originally their intention, but rather something that came about gradually,” muses the actor. “A lot of it probably had to do with the fact that HRG serves so many different stories. Here are a group of people who in a lot of ways are struggling to get a handle on these abilities that they one day found themselves with, and you need an antagonist who’s driving them into crisis.
“I think, too, that they like the onscreen chemistry between me and Hayden. It has a nice emotional resonance, which adds to the creepiness of what HRG does at his day job.”
Coleman takes center stage in episode 17, Company Man, which sheds a great deal of light on his bespectacled alter ego. “This story is very much set in the present, but we also flashback to see how my character got his start at Primatech as well as how he came to be in possession of Claire and how a lot of other things happened,” he says. “HRG finally reaches a point in the present where he has to take a stand and it results in an extremely dramatic conclusion.
“I had a great time working with Greg Grunberg in this episode. His character of Matt Parkman and HRG form an alliance out of necessity, and one of the things I really like about Company Man is that just when you’re sure you know who’s on whose side and who knows what, the land shifts beneath you and all of a sudden things are decidedly different.”
As season one of Heroes moves towards its conclusion, Coleman, like the show’s audience, remains in the dark as to what the future holds for HRG and the other characters. “I’m not trying to be a killjoy when I say I have absolutely no idea what’s going to happen next year,” says Coleman. “I do think that there are some relatively profound changes in store for HRG and I’m sure my character will be on a very different kind of mission from the one he’s on this year. The question, however, is for how long and at what cost.”
Although he performed onstage throughout high school, it wasn’t until his freshman year at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, that Jack Coleman decided to pursue an acting career. “I was a jock and I love playing sports,” says the actor, “but I don’t think I was under the allusion that I would ever make it as a pro athlete. Also, I’m the youngest of seven children and all the other professions were taken by the time I came of age,” he chuckles, “so I chose acting.”
A graduate of Duke as well as the National Theatre Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Center in Connecticut and the Writers’ Boot Camp in Santa Monica, California, Coleman has performed on Broadway, off-Broadway, in feature films and on TV. Long before Heroes, the actor was a household name thanks to his role as Steven Carrington in the ABC nighttime soap opera Dynasty. Besides Heroes, his other recent TV work includes Nip/Tuck, Without a Trace and CSI: Miami. At times it (acting) has been a hard road, but also one that Coleman has never given up on.
“You have to believe in yourself and believe that you’re good at what you do,” says the actor. “Heroes is the second really big TV hit I’ve been on. It’s like lightning in a bottle, meaning that it’s very hard to come by, and I’m extremely grateful for this opportunity.”
Steve Eramo
Comments