SciFiAndTvTalk

Star Trek's Leonard Nimoy Talks About Fringe

Leonard Nimoy as Fringe's Dr. William Bell. Photo by Craig Blankenhorn and copyright of Fox.

In part two of Fringe's second season finale, Over There, Part 2 (airing Thursday, May 20th @ 9:00 p.m. EST/PST on Fox), sacrifices will be made and both universes may never be the same again after Walter (John Noble) and Olivia (Anna Torv) visit the "other side." Leonard Nimoy reprises his recurring role as Dr. William Bell in this episode. The actor, who has announced his retirement from both acting and directing, recently spoke with myself along with other journalists about his work on the episode as well as other topics. The following is an edited version of that Q & A. Enjoy!

I’m wondering what it is that brought you to appear on Fringe. Are you watching this show? Did somebody approach you about being on there? Was there a specific role set up for you?

LEONARD NIMOY - I had a wonderful time working on the new Star Trek movie with J.J. Abrams, who directed it.  When it was done, he asked me to look into the possibility of playing William Bell on Fringe. I was frankly not terribly aware of what it was all about. I began looking at some episodes that William Bell, the character, had been talked about rather frequently, but had never been seen. I felt that I owed J.J. a favor. He did a great job on the Star Trek movie and treated me extremely well. I’m very happy I did it. The work on Fringe has turned out to be exciting and interesting. It’s a terribly well produced series. The character was a wide open canvas for me to work with. I had a great time doing it. This week’s episode is particularly special for the William Bell character.  Your character has been a mysterious one; we’re never quite clear of his motives. How much did they tell you beforehand about what he was up to, and if you weren’t quite clear, how did you approach playing him? Is he evil? Is he good?  LEONARD NIMOY - The ambiguity is the draw of the character. I think all of those questions will be answered this week in the final episode. We are still not quite clear, as of last week, about what his intentions are. He keeps telling Olivia [Anna Torv] that she should trust him, and maybe she has to. I don’t know if she has any choice really, but there will be very strong involvement with Olivia as well as Peter [Joshua Jackson] and particularly Walter [John Noble], which will, I think, answer the questions that you’re asking. Those are the questions that everybody’s asking.  So, what’s it all about with William Bell? We’ll find out this Thursday.

You’ve talked recently about how you’re retiring from acting.  After William Bell on Fringe, did you feel like you'd played every character you wanted to play, or is it just a time and place that you just don’t feel like acting is going to open any more opportunities for you? Some thoughts on why this show is going to be your last?

LEONARD NIMOY - It’s really coincidental. It wasn’t anything about the Fringe job or the character of William Bell that made me decide I didn’t want to do this anymore. It’s a coincidence. I’ve been at this for 60 years. My first professional work in film was in 1950.  So 60 years, I think, is long enough. I had decided several years ago not to do anymore acting or directing.  In the meantime, I was called back to work to do the Star Trek movie, which was very attractive. I thought it was going to be a wonderful film. I read the script and it did a great job of handling the Spock character and introducing a wonderful new actor to play him. Then, J.J. Abrams, who is the executive producer of Fringe,asked me to do the William Bell character. I thought I owed him that, and I’m very glad that I did it because it was an exciting project. It’s just coincidental that I decided some time ago that I really didn’t want to do this [acting]anymore. I just did this last job as a favor to J.J. I think we’ll see an exciting episode this week; it’s a very good note to go out on.

Even though you’ve had a lot of exotic material over the years that you’ve done, it seems like Fringe takes us to another level here because we’re into things like alternate existences and people being in two different places at the same time, etc.  Are there times where it takes you a while to wrap your head around some of the Fringe material, or that make you stop and think, “Whoa!  This is stronger than anything in Star Trek”?

LEONARD NIMOY - The best answer I can give you is that the Fringe television series is extremely well produced. The production is far more sophisticated than anything I was ever involved with [before] in television. That previous work was much more simplistic, production-wise, and these [Fringe] scripts are extremely complicated, very nuanced and intelligent. I’m intrigued with how well they do these shows, not only in the concept, but in the execution, particularly this week's episode. I had a chance to be involved in some major production scenes, the likes of which I had never experienced in television. You’re right. The stories are unusually complex, but fascinating for an audience. I’ve become a great fan of the show.

I just wanted to follow-up a little more on the announcement of your retirement; there were some online reports that you might actually be in the next Star Trek film. Doesn’t sound like that’s going to happen, but any word on maybe whether or not your good friend, William Shatner, might be?

LEONARD NIMOY - I have no idea about the next film regarding Bill Shatner, but I think I can be definitive about the fact that I will not be in it. I have said that I think it’s time for me to get off the stage and make some room for Zachary Quinto, who's the new Spock and a wonderful actor who looks a lot like me. I’m very flattered that the character will be continued by an actor of that caliber. He’s very well-trained and very talented. I have no expectations whatsoever even being asked to be in the next Star Trek film. I cannot speak for J.J. Abrams or Bill Shatner. If they have a common interest, I hope it works out.

Obviously, you can’t reveal too much about the Fringe season finale, but can you give us maybe a few more hints?  Also, can you tell us do you expect to be on next season at all?

LEONARD NIMOY - No, I don’t expect to be on next season. I have announced my retirement. I will not be doing anymore television or movie acting or directing. I can tell you that I feel very fulfilled with the work that was given to me to do in this final episode, coming up next week. I admire all of the people on this show: Anna Torv, Josh Jackson, John Noble and all the rest. I had some wonderful scenes to play with John Noble who I think is a wonderful actor. I’m excited and looking forward to seeing it [the episode] edited. I have not seen the edited version, but the work that we did on the soundstage and on the streets of Vancouver felt really creative and productive. I’m happy that I did it.

Tell me a little bit about what you’re doing after acting.  I understand you do a lot of photography these days and have other interests.  Is it hard to say goodbye?  What’s next?

LEONARD NIMOY - No, it’s not hard to say goodbye. I’ve had 60 years of working in films and television; I’m very grateful for all the great opportunities that I’ve had and all the people who I’ve met and worked with, including the Fringe company. I said on my final day of shooting that they were as good as any company I’ve ever worked with in my 60 years of experience. What I'm working on now is making the prints for an exhibition of my photography, which will open on July 31st as the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. I'm excited about it because it's my first solo exhibition in a major museum. It's a show called "Secret Selves," which is about lost, hidden or secret identities and I’m excited about it. If one cares to see what some of the images look like, you can go to my website, which is leonardnimoyphotography.com and go to “Secret Selves.”

I was wondering what you could tell me about this week’s episode in terms of your scenes with John Noble.  I assume there will be some Walter-William showdowns I can look forward to?

LEONARD NIMOY - Yes, there will be some very strong scenes between Walter and William. I'd say that’s at the heart of the episode. It was a great pleasure for me to do those scenes. I admire John; I call him, “Noble John.” His name is John Noble, of course, but I call him, “Noble John.”  He’s a wonderful actor. I'm also am an admirer of the rest of the Fringe cast. I got to do some interesting work with Anna Torv, who I think is a wonderful actress, too.  Yes, there’s a very strong relationship resolution between Walter and William this Thursday night.

What do you think is the most interesting aspect of William Bell’s character?

LEONARD NIMOY - I think it’s the fact that he’s disarmingly unpredictable. He keeps saying, “Trust me,” but then you’re not quite sure if you should. That is probably the most interesting thing about him. He’s obviously a man of great intelligence and a powerful figure, but most intriguing is what his intentions are. What is his agenda? What is he really after? What’s he trying to accomplish? We’ll find out more about that on Thursday.

Could you perhaps tell us what has made a career in this industry rewarding for you after all these years?

LEONARD NIMOY - Well, I set out to be an actor when I was 17 or 18 years old. I left Boston and traveled to California to try to build a career. My very first efforts were very humble. I worked in a Saturday afternoon serial called Zombies of the Stratosphere. It was very primitive and very crude, but I was eager to do the work and happy to get it. It’s been exciting to me to work on soundstages and on locations all around the world. I’ve worked with some great, great talents. I worked with a number of Academy Award winners and a number of Emmy winners, with wonderful, talented people. The Star Trek character, Mr. Spock, has been a blessing to me because I find it a very dignified and a positive character and a great role model for a lot of people. I am one very, very grateful guy.  Ever since Star Trek went on the air 1966, I have never even had to concern myself with whether or not I'd work again. There was always work available to me. So it’s all about gratitude for me these days. Thanks for the question.

What was it like for you on the last day of filming on the set of Fringe since this was the season finale?

LEONARD NIMOY - It was very moving. I had the same experience on the last day of filming on the Star Trek movie about a year-and-a-half ago. This was a very moving experience. It was a night scene, a very brief scene. In fact, the last night, the last work that I did was the scene that was on last week between myself and Anna Torv. I had mixed feelings about it. I didn’t want it to end because the experience had been such a positive one, but of course, we had to get it done. When it was done, the entire company gathered around. There was a lot of love exchanged. I said to them, “I’ve been at this for 60 years. I have never worked with a better company.” I meant it. They do an amazing job on the Fringe series. It just feels really good to know that I’m saying goodbye to the work on a very positive, good note. I feel very good about the work that was done. I’m looking forward to it being on the air next Thursday. That’s a lovely question. I appreciate your thought. Thank you.

As you’ve said, you’ve spent 60 years in film and TV.  How has the job changed for you from Zombies of the Stratosphere to Fringe, or has it been all the same once the cameras began rolling?

LEONARD NIMOY - The work is the work, of course. When they yell, “Action,” it’s time to deliver the goods. My position in the industry, of course, has changed drastically. When I came on the set of Fringe, I got a sense that people who said, “Uh, oh, here he comes, the old timer is coming.” When I first started out, I was in awe of the people who had great stories to tell about different locations they’d been to and different directors they’d worked with, different actors they’ve worked with and so forth. Now, I discovered I was the guy doing that, telling the stories about directors I worked with 40 years ago. It’s time to get off the stage; I think we’ve had our run. Thank you very much.

What excited you the most about how William Bell has developed over the season?

LEONARD NIMOY - Well, there’s always been the question of what are his intentions. The writers have done a very good job of keeping the answer to that rather obscure. I’ve tried to make him disarming. I’ve tried to play him ambiguously so that, although he keeps saying, “Trust me,” you’re still not quite sure if you should. Even in last week's episode, he said to Olivia, “I know that you have reason not to trust me, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to.” I think we’ll find out whether or not he’s telling her the truth in this week’s episode. It’s going to be a very exciting one and extremely well-produced. The performances by all of the actors that I got to work with are wonderful. I had a great time doing it. I’m looking forward to seeing it air on Thursday.

As noted above, photo is by Craig Blankenhorn and copyright of Fox Television, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!

Heroes Season Finale on NBC - 02 - 08 - 10

Samuel (Robert Knepper) moves ahead with his plan in Heroes' fourth season finale. Photo copyright of NBC.

SPOILER ALERT!! - In Heroes' climactic season finale, everyone bands together in an effort to stop Samuel (Robert Knepper) from taking the lives of thousands. Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) joins forces with his most unexpected ally to save Emma (guest-star Deanna Bray). Meanwhile, H.R.G.'s (Jack Coleman) life hangs in the balance as he and Claire (Hayden Panettiere) find themselves trapped underground with oxygen quickly running out. Elsewhere, Hiro (Masi Oka) starts to come to grips with the decisions he has made and is called into action to help stop a disaster. Greg Grunberg, Ali Larter, Zachary Quinto and James Kyson Lee also star, with Ray Park, Elizabeth Rohm, David H. Lawrence XVII, Harry Perry and Todd Stashwick also guest-starring. Brave New World airs Monday, February 8th @ 9:oo p.m. EST on NBC.

As noted above, photo courtesy of and copyright of NBC, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!

Heroes' Robert Knepper - Mover And Shaker

Robert Knepper as Heroes' Samuel Sullivan. Photo by Chris Huston and copyright of NBC.

Murder, kidnapping and rape are among the most heinous crimes committed by racist and pedophile Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell. Once described by TV Guide magazine as "one of the creepiest characters on television," T-Bag became a very familiar face to Prison Break fans around the world thanks to the talented Robert Knepper. For four seasons, he kept viewers guessing as to what his character would get up to next, and when the show ended last year, the actor began looking for a new creative outlet. He was soon cast as Samuel Sullivan in season four of Heroes. The leader of Sullivan Bros. Carnival, Samuel has the ability to control earth and other minerals with his mind. Playing someone with super powers could not have been more different from T-Bag, but Knepper was determined to make this character just as memorable for audiences.

"When I first met with Dennis Hammer [executive producer] we talked about Samuel not being a stereotypical character," says Knepper. "I learned a long time ago from a great acting teacher of mine in New York to always play the opposite. Don't play a bad guy like a bad guy, don't play a doctor like a doctor, don't play a cop like a cop, etc. The stereotypical carnival barker is someone who is kind of oily and sleazy and is like, 'Step right up, step right up, see him walk, see him talk.' That type of thing, you know?

"At this point I didn't even have any ideas yet visually about Samuel, but Dennis and I talked about him being charismatic, magnetic and magnanimous, like a rock star. Samuel has to entice these people with powers to get them to come over to his side because he realizes that he's more powerful with them around him. His abilities increase exponentially as a result of that. I suppose he could have just coerced them in obvious ways - hey, you're going to join me or I'll kill you - but then you would have had half a season of Heroes and not a full one," jokes the actor. "But I think Samuel is smart enough to realize that it's better to entice these people and get them to say, 'Hey, thank you, Samuel, for helping me realize something in my redemptive path that I really need to look at. Now, how can I pay you back?'

Samuel welcomes you into his world in "Hysterical Blindness." Photo by Trae Patton and copyright of NBC.

"So Dennis and I talked about all this in our initial meeting and I realized that this was a really interesting character. From there, I began thinking about what Samuel would look like, and Keith Richards kept coming to mind. Why do rock-'n'-roll musicians sometimes wear facial make-up onstage? When you're, say, an accountant, you don't do that when you go to work. I come from the theater where you want the audience to see your eyes in the back row, but some of these guys go over the top. KISS wore all this make-up and created a certain look for themselves, so I thought, 'Well, it may or may not be explained why Samuel does this,' like the nail polish thing that I came up with, but these guys [the Heroes producers] were great. They let me experiment and would pull me back if they felt I was going a bit overboard with the make-up, but it was always a collaborative effort from the get-go.

"I think they knew and know that I'm a team player and a true storyteller. I love being part of telling a story, and when you're in the theater or on television, at least the kind of television that I like to work on, that's a true collaboration. And I have to say that the people on Heroes took a lot of my ideas and ran with them. When we were shooting the last [season four] episode, Tim Kring [series creator/executive producer] came up to me and said, 'I just want to thank you because we have such a great time writing for you.' And I said to him, 'I had a great time saying your words, buddy.' When you have that kind of collaboration, the writers love writing for you. Also, on Heroes, they know I don't look ahead. I'm right there in the moment with the scripts. What's right there on the page is what I'm concerned with and nothing more. So it really was such a terrific start with these guys, and by the time we got to the end of filming, there were a lot of good feelings bubbling around."

Making his debut in Heroes' fourth season opener, Orientation, Samuel Sullivan is seen giving a speech at his brother's funeral. He tells his fellow carnival workers - who also have special powers - that they are his true family and that the outside world does not understand them. Using his power to cover his brother's grave with dirt, Samuel later goes to see Lydia (Dawn Olivieri), an empath who can sense the wishes and desires of others. In this and in later episodes, he uses her abilities to show him others with powers who can help him expand his family. Although Knepper had made some decisions on how to play Samuel, there were still one or two aspects of the character he needed to tweak.

Samuel consults Lydia (Dawn Olivieri) as fellow carnie, Edgar (Ray Park), looks on. Photo by Chris Huston and copyright of NBC.

"My challenge with this character, as with any character, was to make him believable so as not to look so damn silly as you're standing there causing an earthquake with your clenched fists," he says. "Samuel's accent was a huge challenge for me. I always work with Tim Monich [dialect coach] and try to make the time to prepare and get it [the accent] down. I remember when I did [the feature film] Hitman in Bulgaria during one of the hiatuses from Prison Break. I worked for a bit over here with Tim and then I studied with a guy in Bulgaria for a couple of weeks before we began filming. I thought, 'People know me all over the world as T-Bag from Prison Break, and now I want to be Russian. I want to be as freakin' Russian as I can.' When I did press for that movie, I met a French journalist in New York, and his first comment was, 'Where did they get that Russian guy who looks a lot like T-Bag.' I thought, 'Yes!'

"With Hitman I had time to study the accent, but with Samuel it was frustrating because I had to jump in right away. Early on I had this crazy idea of making him Irish, or not necessarily Irish but coming from someplace in the British Isles, maybe a little Scottish, maybe a little of Northern England. There's kind of an Old World feeling to Samuel because he's not your average guy walking down the street. This is someone with powers who is suddenly discovering them over the years. If, when he was a child, Samuel had known about his abilities, he probably would have destroyed half the world, but if his brother had told him about it, then maybe he wouldn't have been so destructive. Who knows?

"Anyway, the fact that my character had these powers made him seem timeless, and there's something timeless about British accents, but I didn't have any time to call Tim [Kring] about it. I actually phoned him after we began filming and apologized to him, saying, 'I'm just kind of winging it [the accent].' I've done quite a few English dialects over the years in the theater, but never Irish.

The charismatic, magnetic and magnanimous Samuel. Photo by Adam Taylor and copyright of NBC.

"I remember going down to Comic-Con and telling the people there, 'You're going to watch me discover Samuel as we go along. This is not a fully fleshed-out character, especially dialect-wise.' And the thing is, a lot of these fans are the same fans who watched Prison Break, so I just hoped that they'd forgive me for that because I was experimenting. But at least I had the guts to experiment in front of them, almost like it was theater. I'd say that by about a third of the way through the season, I found my footing. So Samuel's look didn't change, but his dialect did.'

What did the actor think about his character's powers and filming scenes where Samuel uses them? "I like how the writers wrote about the power of moving earth," notes Knepper. "That's how it was described to me. What's Samuel's power? He can move earth. Then, of course, it went from this nice sweet simple act of Samuel moving his arms and covering up his brother's coffin, to covering up seeds he planted in the ground [Hysterical Blindness], and then, [in Strange Attractors] him saying, 'I can't believe you've hurt one of my own. I'm going to bring down the police station.' And before that [in Ink] when Samuel destroys the house where he and Joseph grew up and later became its caretakers, all because the owner wouldn't let him into the backyard.

"So you don't want to upset this guy because he will do something destructive, and as the season goes on, Samuel becomes angrier and angrier as more and more things are revealed to him. When it comes to shooting the scenes where he uses his powers, you've just got to pretend. You have to stand there and think, 'I'm believing all this is real.' It's described to you [in the script] how to look, but even then you don't know for sure. It's more about a feeling you have as opposed to what you're really seeing."

Samuel Sullivan - one man who literally can make the earth move! Photo by Adam Taylor and copyright of NBC.

Among the heroes (and villains) that Samuel tries to lure into his carnival family are Claire Bennet (Hayden Panetterie), Hiro Nakamura (Masi Oka) and the psychotic Sylar (Zachary Quinto), who, while suffering from amnesia, stumbles upon Samuel's carnival in Hysterical Blindness. "The thing with Sylar is that Zach and I first met when I was doing Prison Break," says Knepper. "We were in this issue of Entertainment Weekly as some of TV's best villains, along with people like Vanessa Williams from Ugly Betty and James Callis from Battlestar Galactica. We were all brought together for this photo shoot, and because I don't watch TV I didn't know who any of these other actors were, but it was just nice to be included in this group.

"I did, however, know that Zach was in Heroes, and then later when I came on the show, I thought, 'This is kind of fun. Here are these two heavyweights [Sylar and T-Bag] going up against each other.' So it was a little surreal. Our characters were famous from our [respective] TV shows, but now we were together. It was like a big-time wrestling match; in this corner is Sylar, and in the other corner, Samuel," chuckles the actor. "Zach is a cool guy, and even though people go nuts for him because of the Star Trek film [in which Quinto plays Mr. Spock] as well as Heroes, he's totally unpretentious about the whole thing.

"As far as the storyline with Sylar and Samuel, I'm not sure the writers knew exactly where they wanted to take that. Sometimes he would get Sylar in his clutches, and then Sylar would disappear and then come back. I think that's still got to be fleshed out as far as what happens with it. Ultimately, though, I feel that Sylar will become as much a hero as he can be and be part of taking down Samuel. However, I'm not sure yet if they [the writers] know whether they want to do that or not. It would be kind of nice to leave it hanging as far as, oh, you thought you saw that bad boy [Sylar]. Well, take a look at this bad boy [Samuel], and you've got them both on the same show. At the same time, I don't know if Sylar and Samuel could ever come together because they might be a bit too narcissistic."

Sylar (Zachary Quinto) and Samuel. Photo by Trae Patton and copyright of NBC.

In the fourth season Heroes episode Thanksgiving, viewers are given further glimpses into Samuel's and his brother Joseph's (Andrew Connolly) past. Since childhood, Joseph, who was also an evolved human with the power to cause others to lose control of their abilities and render them unconscious, had kept his younger brother from ever fully realizing his abilities in order to prevent him from wreaking havoc. When Samuel discovered that Joseph lied to him, it led to the fight where he accidentally murdered him.

"It's funny, after I was cast as Samuel, I found out that it had been between me and another actor, and the next thing I heard was that this other actor [Andrew Connolly] would be playing Joseph," recalls Knepper. "I thought, 'Oh, this is going to be awkward,' but Andrew turned out to be really cool. He's the real McCoy, meaning he's Irish, and just the sweetest man. On our first day working together, Andrew came up to me and said, 'They gave me a few episodes to watch and your Irish is terrific. You're an amazing actor and I'm just really honored to work with you.'

"So Andrew was incredible, and I learned so much from him about Samuel. We had that great scene together where our two characters go out in the field and they fight. Samuel is so upset and he throws a rock and hits Joseph in the neck. But he didn't throw that rock to kill him. Samuel threw it because he was so angry, and then it was like, 'Oh, crap, I killed him.' That scene was so well done in how it was filmed and written to say, no, no, no, it was not the intention to kill him. Damn you, Joseph, I hate you so much that I feel like killing you, but I don't really want to kill you. I just want to let you know how mad I am.

In an effort to discover his true self, Samuel inadvertently kills the one person he ever truly cared about. Photo by Justin Lubin and copyright of NBC.

"Joseph was everything to Samuel. He was his world, he was his mentor, he was his father, and he was his leader. At the same time, Samuel couldn't believe that his brother kept this information from him. How dare Joseph hold this back from him and not let Samuel reach his full potential. How could he not have found a way to tell his brother? All this stuff is fantastic in Shakespearean-like or Greek tragedy-like proportions, and really neat to play. And Andrew was terrific to work with from start to finish."

In last week's Heroes episode, The Act of Deception, Claire returns to the carnival to try to talk Samuel into surrendering to her father, Noah (Jack Coleman), who is coming for him. Samuel agrees, but unknown to Claire or Noah, he betrays them and uses Noah's attempt to capture him as a ploy to further convince the other carnies that they must help him create a new world where all evolved humans will be accepted. Filming this episode as well as the final few season four Heroes stories was especially satisfying for Knepper.

"The best thing about working on an ensemble show is that most shows shoot around eight days [per episode], but Heroes shoots 10 or 11 days as well as shoots simultaneously with other episodes," explains the actor. "When I was on Prison Break I'd work three or four days out of eight, so I got a lot of time to spend with my family. These last three or four episodes of Heroes were over two months worth of work. I swear I worked every day, sometimes all night long, but as a result, I got to feel what it's like to be number one on the call sheet, and it didn't feel like an ensemble. It was like I had this weight on my shoulders, and I proudly took it. I thought, 'I'm going to take this season to the finish line,' and I loved it.

Samuel and Edgar in the Heroes fourth season finale "Brave New World." Photo by Trae Patton and copyright of NBC.

"Probably my biggest challenge was finding the energy as well as time to memorize my lines and just stay afloat. But I was like a boxer in the ring and thinking, 'Come on, come on, bring it on. What else have you got for me?' In these last few episodes everything comes to a climax in regard to Samuel's powers along with his anger, frustration and revenge. It boils over the top and is very intense."

Born in Fremont, Ohio, Knepper was nine years old when he joined a community children's theatre group, the Back Alley Kids and performed in plays during the summertime. At home, the actor's parents both played piano, and rather than television, their nightly entertainment was standing around the piano and singing. Knepper's father is a veterinarian, and the actor always thought that he would one day take over his dad's practice.

"But I never stopped having fun [performing onstage]," says Knepper. "Luckily, my parents didn't discourage me from having fun, and they didn't encourage me, either. When I was in high school I was auditioning and doing college plays, so it just seemed like a natural conclusion that I would go into the theater.

"When I was studying at Northwestern University I did an English play called The Ruling Class, which my mom and dad came to see. This particular night just happened to be amazing; it was the first time I ever got a standing ovation. And my dad was so sweet. Before he and my mom came backstage, he sent me a note that read, 'I think you're doing the right thing.' So they were always supportive of my decision."

While attending Northwestern, Knepper worked professionally onstage, and after two years he moved to New York City where he continued performing in the theater. The actor was around 25 years old when he relocated again, this time to Los Angeles, to pursue feature film and eventually TV work. That's Life!, Wild Thing, Species III and The Day the Earth Stood Still are among his movie credits, while on the small screen Knepper has guest-starred on such shows as Star Trek: The Next Generation, ER, Law and Order: Criminal Intent and CSI: Miami as well as played recurring characters on Presidio Med and Carnivale.

Robert Knepper's Prison Break alter ego - Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell. Photo by Greg Gayne and copyright of Fox.

"Prison Break is what put me on the map, though, and I haven't looked back since," says the actor. "T-Bag had so much in his past as well as so much he was fighting against and wanted. Of course, there was the need to cover all that up because he was a wanted criminal. He had escaped from prison, so he needed to be charming. Some of the funniest damn lines I've ever said acting-wise came with that role, too. T-Bag was kind of like the show's Don Rickles," he jokes, " and that was a hell of a lot of fun. It's the same sort of thing with Samuel. Again, you peel the layers of the onion away, but you don't wear it on your sleeve. You don't walk around saying, 'Look at me, I'm a wounded guy. Oh, forgive me.' Samuel would kick T-Bag's butt, except for the fact that he's just as wounded."

Steve Eramo

As noted above, photos by Adam Taylor, Trae Patton, Justin Lubin, Chris Huston or Greg Gayne and copyright of NBC or Fox, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!

Heroes' Greg Grunberg - Man On A Trapeze

Greg Grunberg as Matt Parkman in Heroes. Photo copyright of NBC.

Do you know the old saying, "No good deed goes unpunished?" It is one that Matt Parkman perhaps should have heeded at the end of Heroes' third year. The good-natured and often put-upon law enforcement officer, who also happens to possess telepathic powers, thought he finally had the chance to start a normal life with his wife Janice and baby son, Matt Jr. Then, however, Noah Bennet and Angela Petrelli talked Matt into using his ability to help them get rid of Sylar. As a result, Matt not only wound up with a guilty conscience, but, at the start of season four, Sylar's psychotic consciousness stuck inside his head as well. Yes, it was yet more angst for our reluctant hero to contend with, but Greg Grunberg, who plays Matt, readily embraced the new acting challenge.

"Well, first of all, the end of season three was exciting for me because suddenly Matt was the one who they turned to in order to level Sylar, which was awesome," enthuses Grunberg. "I love how we play things on this show, in that most of the time they're character-driven and we try to keep it that way. So going into this particular story arc, I knew it would be good. However, Matt wasn't happy about doing this. It was something he had never done before and he knew there would be repercussions. Although he was thrown into this, it was also something he chose to do. And, of course, when we're burning the body [in the third season finale An Invisible Thread], Matt knows it's not really Sylar, and he's carrying that secret with him.

"Then at the beginning of season four, when Angela [Christine Rose] calls Matt and says, 'Things didn't go as planned; we need your help again,' it's like, crap! He's not happy about it and doesn't want to go back. Once again, all Matt wants to do is try to lead a normal life, which is exactly what inspired Tim Kring [Heroes executive producer] to create this show after he saw [the feature film] The Incredibles. The thing is, no matter what you try to do, when you're 'special' and have these powers, you're going to get called upon, and when push comes to shove, you're going to have to step up to the plate. As much as Matt tries to go back to that normal life, he can't. He always gets pulled back into this one.

"There are themes in Heroes that are very consistent and, as this season has gone on, the focus for my character is that he will do whatever necessary to protect his family. This goes back to season two and what happened with Matt's father [Maury Parkman, played by Alan Blumfeld], which was a powerful moment for my character. Matt realized that his father had all this power and did whatever it took in order to save their family. But then Matt had to take him down. This year, it's another powerful moment for Matt when he realizes, 'By killing myself, I'll kill Sylar [Zachary Quinto], because if I don't, he's going to go on killing people, maybe even my own family.' So towards the end of this season you're going to see Matt do some really dark things that you wouldn't expect from him."

With Matt's (Greg Grunberg) help, Noah (Jack Coleman) and Angela (Christine Rose) prepare to carry out their plan to deal with Sylar in "An Invisible Thread." Photo by Trae Patton and copyright of NBC.

Turning down Angela Petrelli's request for additional help in the season four Heroes opener Orientation, Matt is shocked when Sylar appears, but only he can see him. In the following episode, Jump, Push, Fall, Sylar tells Matt that he is part of his mind and has no intentions of leaving until he is reunited with his body. Matt tries to ignore Sylar, but the psychopath's relentless taunting starts to adversely affect him. Sylar's hold on Matt strengthens when, in Ink, he uses Matt's powers against him, causing the detective to almost beat a suspected drug dealer to death.

"What I love about this story is that Sylar consciously or subconsciously tapped into Matt's darkest and biggest fear, which goes back to my character discovering Molly," explains Grunberg. "It really mirrored what happened back in season one when he found the little girl under the stairs, but this time when Matt found her, she was dead. That was something Sylar tricked him into seeing. For a second, Matt let his guard down when he and Sylar are in the bathroom and Sylar says to him, 'Look at this house. I mean, you're a cop. I don't know any kid who you would raise in a house like this.' Then he shows Matt the doll and he's like, 'Put it all together.'

"There are so many moments of huge suspension of disbelief in our show, but this is not one of them. Here's a cop trying to do his job and being nagged by an image and a person only he can see and hear and who's giving him clues he can't ignore. Matt has to deal with this, which was really great for me acting-wise, and it was hard, too. The stuff I do on the show is difficult because I always try to play it as real as possible. However, if you were talking to someone and suddenly they tilted their head and looked at you funny, you couldn't help but comment on it and ask, 'What's the matter?' So there's that fine line of Matt talking to Sylar and at the same time trying to keep other people from noticing he's doing so. Those sorts of complex scenes are always so interesting as well as fun to do."

Matt contemplates his next move in "Ink." Photo by Chris Haston and copyright of NBC.

Matt is about to lose his cool with Jimmy Keppler (Daniel Newman) as Sylar (Zachary Quinto) looks on in "Ink." Photo by Chris Haston and copyright of NBC.

Was it hard for the actor to shoot the scenes in which Matt physically abuses his suspect, Jimmy Keppler (Daniel Newman)? "Yes and no," says the actor. "I mean, we all have our rage, and if I want I can get to a dark place pretty quickly. Years ago I did an episode of NYPD Blue and I learned something from Dennis Franz [Detective Andy Sipowicz]. He drowned my character in a bar sink, and when we did the scene, he was getting super-physical with it. I remember saying, 'Dennis, I've got it. I'll go down and you can just put your hand on my head.' He said to me, 'Look, man, when they roll the cameras, I bring the evil.' I thought, 'Wow, what a great line.' Obviously, Dennis did it in a way that he wasn't hurting me, but he was just saying that he really embodied his character.

"So in Heroes it ended up not being too tough for me to take everything I had out on this guy. For Matt to come in, realize, oh, my God, she's dead, and then just ramp it up as he's walking towards this guy and yelling, 'What did you do to her!' was terrific to play. From the camera angles, what's interesting is that the slaps and punches were a foot-and-a-half away from the other actor's [Daniel Newman] head, but it still really looked violent. In-between scenes, they [the make-up artists] came in, added [fake] blood and then we carried on, so it turned out great."

Along with Ink, another favorite episode for the actor to have worked on this season is Strange Attractors in which Matt thinks he has found a way to suppress Sylar's influence on him. "There's one scene, in particular, where Matt is packing to leave and Sylar is in the room with him, but Matt's wife Janice [Lisa Lackey] doesn't know Sylar is there," says Grunberg. "She asks Matt, 'Where are you going?' He tells her, 'I've got to get out of here.' Matt then explains to Janice what he did [with regard to Sylar]. Janice offers, instead, to leave and take the baby somewhere safe, and Matt says, 'Sssh, he'll hear you. Don't tell me where you're going so he [Sylar] won't know.' Here's a guy who is about to go crazy and his wife who loves him seeing that craziness building inside him. I love that scene.

Fighting to be your typical, average family - Matt, Matt Jr. and Janice (Lisa Lackey). Photo by Chris Haston and copyright of NBC.

"Also in this episode is Matt out-drinking Sylar, which is kind of cool. Some people made the comment, 'It's that easy. You just go and get drunk,' but if you stop and think about it, no, it wasn't that easy. Matt got inside Sylar's head and found a weakness. He discovered what really meant something to him and took advantage of it. So it had layers to it, but on the surface it was like, oh, that's all it takes to get Sylar to disappear from your head. Just drink until you pass out.

"So I thought that was interesting, but the scene with Matt and Janice, going into it, I didn't see it being as deep as it turned out to be. When, however, she looked at me, and it was her looking into her husband's eyes and [reassuringly] going, 'Ok, ok,' but meanwhile thinking, 'Dear God, I'm losing him,' that was wonderful to play.

"With this show I feel like I'm working on a trapeze with the strongest, safest, softest and most comfortable net below me because Tim Kring, Dennis Hammer [executive producer] and all the writers and editors are just so good. I can do something and know, OK, it's on film and, yes, perhaps the network will see a take that I'm not thrilled about, but you've got to be willing to take chances to come up with some great stuff. You can't second-guess yourself and think, 'Maybe I should try this, but if I do it might not work.' Who cares? Just do it. It's only film, and with film they're only going to use what works. But you've got to trust the people making those decisions, and I do."

Matt and Sylar are confronted by the police outside the Burnt Toast Diner in "Shadowboxing." Photo by Trae Patton and copyright of NBC.

Unfortunately, Matt's drinking is only a temporary solution to his problem. At the end of Strange Attractors, Sylar retaliates by taking over Matt's body, and in the following episode, Shadowboxing, Sylar goes off in search of his own body. He ends up at the Burnt Toast Diner, where Matt reveals to Sylar that he, Noah (Jack Coleman) and Angela "transformed" him into Nathan Petrelli (Adrian Pasdar). While at the diner, Matt uses his power to make Sylar unwittingly write down on a napkin that he has a gun and he's going to use it to kill everyone. Sylar then hands the napkin to a waitress, and when he eventually walks outside, the police are waiting. Matt tricks Sylar into pretending that he is taking a gun out of his jacket, forcing the police to shoot him.

Matt uses his powers to "persuade" Sylar to act in a threatening manner towards the police in "Shadowboxing." Photo by Trae Patton and copyright of NBC.

"For that scene, Zach and I each had 12 squibs on us," recalls Grunberg. "I'd never had that many squibs on me before. I've been shot on Alias as well as in movies and the most I've ever had is four squibs, which is a lot of explosive charges to have on your chest. So we did the scene and Zach gets shot, then I step in and get shot, but they never showed Matt getting hit. They only showed my character lying on the ground with blood around him. Sylar was the only one who you actually see taking the bullets. In my mind I thought they were going to do a fade-across dissolve [shot] where it would show Sylar getting shot and then, as it fades, it's Matt being shot, but they didn't do that.

Matt intends to sacrifice his own life by goading the police into shooting Sylar in "Shadowboxing." Photo by Trae Patton and copyright of NBC.

"I remember watching the scene when I was doing [audio] looping for the episode, and I called Tim and asked him, 'What happened? I'm not getting shot.' And he said, 'What are you talking about? Sure you are.' In fact, they had made a decision in the editing room, which Tim had forgotten about, and that was they wanted to make it seem like Sylar was really gone. Had they shown me being shot, there might have been a question in some peoples' minds that, oh, maybe it was just Matt who got shot and Sylar didn't die. I thought, 'I went through all those squibs and they didn't even show it,'" chuckles the actor. "Stuff like that, though, is like playing cowboys and Indians. It's a dream for anybody, let alone an actor, to do something like that, and I had a ball."

Poor Matt is down for the count in "Shadowboxing," but only temporarily. Photo by Trae Patton and copyright of NBC.

Peter (Milo Ventimiglia), Matt, Nathan (Adrian Pasdar) and Sylar have an unexpected reunion in "Brother's Keeper." Photo by Chris Haston and copyright of NBC.

Lucky for Matt, Peter Petrelli (Milo Ventimiglia) comes to the hospital in Brother's Keeper and uses his replicated power to heal Matt. However, his "brother" Nathan (a.k.a. the transformed Sylar) is with him and, during a fight between him and Peter, Nathan brushes Matt's hand. Matt suddenly finds himself back in his body and, apparently, Sylar has returned to his own body as well. Despite his character's life and death struggle, Grunberg did not mind having Matt share his mind with Sylar.

"Knowing I was going to be working with Zach as much as I did was a treat," he says. "He's the greatest. Zach and I have known each other for a long time and we're very close, so right away I knew that this was going to be fantastic. And we have a shorthand with each other where we step on each other's lines. I do the same thing with Adrian and a bunch of other actors on the show because we're so familiar with one another.

"At the same time, Zach has a really specific quality to his character and I wanted to try to embody that in certain things I did. In the airport scene [in Shadowboxing] where Sylar takes over Matt's body, I suddenly kind of bring my brow down. There's this look that Zach has about him and a very intense quality that he brings to his character that I wanted to try to copy, even in little moments like that, but in doing so I didn't want to go over the top."

Matt's journey could have ended in "Shadowboxing," but he lives to fight another day, beginning in "Close to You." Photo by Trae Patton and copyright of NBC.

With Sylar finally out of his mind, Matt is reunited with his wife and son, but in Close to You, Noah comes to Matt's house and asks him for help to find Samuel (Robert Knepper), who is bringing together heroes for his own private agenda. At first, Matt refuses, but when Noah plants the seed that Samuel could one day come for Parkman's son, Matt realizes that, once again, he has no choice but to lend a hand. Having worked with Zachary Quinto for much of the season, Grunberg looked forward to sharing some screen time now with Jack Coleman.

"Jack is an amazing actor and it's always great working with him. On the flip side, though, his character is someone who I strapped to a chair in a motel room, and now Matt is trusting him again, just like he trusted Peter, just like he trusted whoever," says the actor. "These alliances keep getting to toxic levels and then suddenly we're like, well, OK, it's all fine with these guys. So it's been a little crazy, but at the same time we're all fighting for ourselves. It's dog-eat-dog, and after a while a pack of dogs is more powerful than any single dog, so you've kind of got to go with it.

"So at the beginning of the episode, Noah is pulling Matt out of his house, and then at the end, my character tells him, 'Look, that's it. Go home. I'm done with this.' But like I said before, it gets very dark from here on in, not only with Matt, and I think people are going to like what's coming up."

Having been a series regular before on Alias and Felicity, the actor has once again enjoyed the opportunity to walk for an extended period of time in Matt Parkman's shoes and seeing his character grow and develop on Heroes. "When we first met Matt, he was quite lonely," notes Grunberg. "His relationship at home was falling apart; he sort of had a clue as to why, but not really. Then, however,  he found out that his wife was cheating on him, so he couldn't have been more alone at that moment.

Father and son - Matt and Matt Jr. Photo by Chris Haston and copyright of NBC.

"From there, Matt just wanted to figure out who did this to him [gave him his telepathic abilities], and in doing so, he discovered these other people who are very much like him. All of a sudden my character realized what it was he truly wanted, but then it was a case of be careful what you wish for. Matt became a John McClane [referring to Bruce Wills' Die Hard character] and has been thrust into something he's really not prepared for. He's learning how to control his abilities, while at the same time discovering just how huge a deal this superhero stuff is.

"So my character has basically gone from being alone, to going on this journey of discovery, and then finding his dad and realizing that all this is part of his destiny and there's no turning back. Matt is now at the point where he can't trust anyone, and the way I've tended to play it - and the writers haven't really written to it in a while - is that this is a vicious cycle and he sees it happening all over again. Matt has powers and look what's happened to his life, and now his son has powers, so what's going to happen to him? Matt just wants to break this cycle and live that normal life, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen."

Besides his heroic endeavors as Matt Parkman in Heroes, Grunberg has also been busy with various other projects, including two films, one of which is called Group Sex.

"Group Sex is something I co-wrote and co-produced with Laurence Trilling, who is working on [the TV series] Parenthood at the moment and who I worked with on Alias as well as Felicity," says the actor. "He's a good friend of mine and a really talented guy and we made this movie independently. I'm starring in it along with Henry Winkler, Tom Arnold, Josh Cooke, Odette Yustman, Kym Whitley, Robbie Benedict and James Denton. Hayden Panettiere [Clare Bennet in Heroes] has a part in it, too, and so does Dania Ramirez [Maya Herrera in Heroes].

A rockin' Greg Grunberg! Photo courtesy of and copyright of The Lippin Group.

"It's a romantic comedy that takes place in a sexaholic recovery group, and I play this guy who belongs in this group, but is the best friend of a guy who wanders into the group. My character's friend follows a girl who he finds attractive into the back room of a church and, all of a sudden, he's in the middle of this group being led by Henry Winkler, who's standing there saying, 'I'm addicted to sex.' The film really turned out well and we're currently working out a distribution deal. I cannot wait for it to get out there because the title alone should intrigue people enough to want to see it, but the movie really does deliver.

"I also did Kill Speed, which is another independent movie but it was financed by a group of fighter pilots, so we got to use all their jets as well as received cooperation from the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] and airports. We also got military cooperation, which you normally can't get. It's the first film since Top Gun that actually has practical filming of air-to-air combat. The shots in the movie are unbelievable and they're all real, like planes screaming between buildings in downtown Los Angeles, and a jet fighter following one of the these fiberglass planes that are used to transport drugs.

"I play a government agent who's calling the shots from underground and trying to get these drug runners. So for me it was coming in for two or three intense days of shooting where I was looking at monitors and yelling, 'Come on, get 'em! Get 'em!' It was more like a callback to my Alias days than anything else, but I had a really fun time doing the movie and I think people are going to enjoy it.

"I've also got this iPhone application out there that's been exploding and doing really well. It's called Yowza!! and the website for it is getyowza.com. It's a free application, and you just press Yowza!! on your iPhone, iPod Touch, Palm Pre, Android, Blackberry, etc., and it knows your location and brings up all the stores, restaurants and businesses around you along with all their coupons and deals. So you never have to clip coupons again or look for the best deal by walking the mall. When you're in a mall, press Yowza!! and it'll show you, closest to farthest away, where the best deals are."

Husband, dad, talented actor and all-around nice guy, Greg Grunberg. Photo courtesy of and copyright of The Lippin Group.

While there has been no official announcement yet whether or not Heroes will return for a fifth year, Grunberg remains optimistic. "I definitely think we're going to get the opportunity to properly end the series in one year, two years, whatever it may be," he says. "A show like this is successful all over the world and on DVD, and in today's TV business you've got to have that. If a program isn't a hit around the world or if it doesn't take advantage of ancillary markets out there, then it's not going to survive.

"When the time does come, I hope the characters can all band together - those who are still standing - and have some satisfaction that they're doing the right thing. Ultimately, that's what everyone wants to do, even the characters who do something bad. I mean, Ali Larter's character [Niki/Jessica Sanders/Tracy Strauss] feels terrible when she does something bad, but she can't help herself. So I hope we can all see that ultimate redemption - no pun intended. It's a tall order to wrap it all up, but we'll see how they [the producers/writers] do it. Like I said, though, hopefully it'll be a couple of seasons from now."

Steve Eramo

As noted above, photos by Chris Haston or Trae Patton and copyright of NBC or The Lippin Group, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!

Sneak Peek At Next Week ' s Heroes - 11 - 30 - 09

[caption id="attachment_4542" align="aligncenter" width="200" caption="Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) gives his brother "Nathan" (Adrian Pasdar) a much-needed hand next week on Heroes. Photo copyright of NBC TV"][/caption] SPOILER ALERT!! - H.R.G. (Jack Coleman) is greeted by some unexpected visitors and Samuel's (Robert Knepper) grand plan begins to come to fruition. Meanwhile, Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) struggles to accept the truth and takes extreme measures to get what he wants. Elsewhere, Claire's (Hayden Panettiere) journey leads her to an unexpected destination. Adrian Pasdar, Zachary Quinto and Cristine Rose also star, while Jimmy Jean-Louis, David H. Lawrence XVII, Madeline Zima, Dawn Olivieri, Todd Stashwick and Elisabeth Rohm guest-star. The Fifth Stage airs Monday, November 30th @ 8 p.m. EST on NBC. As noted above, photo courtesy of and copyright of NBC TV, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!

Lost Loves Reunited On NBC ' s Heroes

SPOILER ALERT!! - When Hiro (Masi Oka) travels three years into the past, he has a second chance to save Charlie (guest-star Jayma Mays from Glee) from the hands of Sylar (Zachary Quinto). However, Samuel's (Robert Knepper) presence serves to complicate Hiro's mission even further. Elsewhere, H.R.G.'s (Jack Coleman) past is revealed. Once Upon A Time In Texas airs Monday, November 2nd @ 8 p.m. EST on NBC. [caption id="attachment_3860" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Charlie (Jayma Mays) and Hiro (Masi Oka) are reunited next week on Heroes. Photo copyright of NBC"][/caption] Says Masi Oka, "This was one of my favorite episodes of the series. I had the opportunity to explore the many layers of Hiro. It was truly wonderful working with Jayma again, and I even got to play against a younger me. Ah, how naive we were. It's an episode full of joy and tears. It's Hiro's Company Man and our homage to episode 8 of Season One. This scene is where Hiro finally gets his long-awaited kiss. His dream upon the thousand cranes, the origami in his left hand, came true. But is there a happy ending? It's Heroes after all. I hope you enjoy watching the episode as much as I had making it. Thank you!" As noted above, photo is courtesy of and copyright of NBC-TV, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!

Fringe ' s Leonard Nimoy - For Whom The Bell Tolls

[caption id="attachment_3669" align="aligncenter" width="199" caption="Leonard Nimoy as Fringe's William Bell. Photo copyright of Fox Television"][/caption] IN the original Star Trek series, Leonard Nimoy's character of Mr. Spock had to figure out a way to help his fellow crewmates get back from an alternate universe in the second season episode Mirror, Mirror. Now, years later, the actor is playing another character, Fringe's William Bell, who apparently has information about a parallel universe. Introduced in the season one finale, There's More Than One of Everything, Bell returned in the recently telecast year two episode Momentum Deferred, which shed some light on Agent Olivia Dunham's (Anna Torv) past and her alternate-reality encounter. Nimoy has already reprised his role for an upcoming episode, which will hopefully reveal more of Bell's true motives. Earlier this month, Mr. Nimoy joined me and other journalists on a conference call to discuss his work on Fringe as well as his acting career in general. An edited version of that Q & A follows. Enjoy! Did you have any reservations about taking on another role with the potential of such a fanatic following? LEONARD NIMOY - I love this question. I can't help but laugh because you're absolutely right. It's an interesting set of circumstances. What attracted me to it were several things - J.J. Abrams, Bob Orci and Alex Kurtzman, who I worked with on the Star Trek movie. I admire their talents and the work that they do. The series is at the very least to say intriguing. The character of William Bell was somewhat of a blank slate, but we began talking about it, and it was attractive to me because there was an opportunity to build an interesting and unpredictable character. I'm enjoying it a lot. So lately it seems as if you're J.J. Abrams' muse of sorts. Can you tell us a little bit more about your relationship with him? LN - Well, I first met him, I guess about three years ago when he first contacted me about the possibility of working together, and I went to a meeting with him, Bob Orci and Alex Kurtzman as well as some of his production staff. They told me a very good, strong and touching story about their feelings surrounding Star Trek and, specifically, the Spock character. And that gave me a sense of validation after all these years. I had been out of it [Trek] for some time, as you're probably aware. There were several Star Trek TV series and movies in which I was not involved, so this was a re-validation of the work we'd done on the original Star Trek. I felt very good about it and went to work for them. I had a great time doing the [Star Trek X1] movie. I think they did a brilliant job, and the audience response shows that that was the case and has reinvigorated the franchise. So when they contacted me about doing Fringe - with the same creative team and attitude - it was very enticing. Had you seen Fringe? Were you a fan of the show prior to that? LN - I watched it periodically and think it's extremely well-done. It's very nuanced and complex. It's a mixture of Science and Science-Fiction in an interesting and intelligent way. It tells a terribly compelling story, and the character that I was offered was potentially an extremely intriguing, controversial and fascinating one, which is very inviting for an actor. I was wondering how you felt about the current state of Science-Fiction on TV and film? LN - Well, I'm concerned about the positioning of story in terms of importance. When I see a lot of explosions and chases, I'm not terribly impressed. I think there are three important elements that must be given priority in Science-Fiction as well as any other kind of drama. The first is story, the second is story, and the third is story. Story, story, story, story, story. If the story is compelling and interesting, I think the rest will find its place. We have great technology in our industry, and that technology can be overused at the expense of story. That's a problem for me, but when the story is in place, I think the special effects can find their proper place as well. Fringe uses the technology brilliantly and in the service of excellent storytelling. Are there any other projects you're currently involved with? LN - I'm doing a lot of photography work. That's one of my major creative outlets right now. I have an exhibition, Secret Selves, which is opening at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art next year and I'm really excited about that. Check out my website - LeonardNimoyPhotography.com You had not been acting for a while, and then you've done Star Trek and Fringe pretty recently together. Having stepped away for a while and then returned, are your feelings about acting what they were, or have they changed? LN - Well, I'm enjoying it. I'm very comfortable in the two offers that I've accepted. The Star Trek movie was a joy to do. I admire the production team that made the film, and I admire the new cast, too. Zachary Quinto, I thought, was a great choice for the new Spock and it was a pleasure to work with him and all the other people on the project. The Fringe character was intriguing because, as I've mentioned, it was kind of a blank slate and we had some very interesting and intense conversations about what we might or might not learn from him, and what we might or might not trust about him. These are fascinating opportunities for an actor, and they came from a group of people I had respect for. They piqued my interest and I went back to work. Frankly, I did not expect to be acting so much at this time in my life. My concentration was on my photography, but I'm having a wonderful time doing it. After your role on Star Trek, your projects weighed heavily towards the Sci-Fi genre. Were you always a big fan of Sci-Fi? LN - Well, it's a good thing if you can find your niche as an actor and be able to support a family. Very early on - I'm talking many, many years ago, probably 1950 or 51 - I acted in my first Science-Fiction project, and I've since acted in Science-Fiction over the years. That first project is probably not terribly well-know. I thought it was going to rocket me to stardom, if you'll pardon the expression. It didn't quite work. It was a great project called Zombies of the Stratosphere, and I was the third of a group of zombies that came to Earth to take over its orbit. It's funny as I think about it now, but it was a way of making a living. Science-Fiction seems to be a fertile ground for the kind of work that I do, the kind of presence that I offer, and I'm grateful for it and the niche it's given me. Have they mentioned anything about their needs for you on an upcoming Star Trek movie? LN - My understanding is that they're working on a script right now. I expect there's going to be some time before they know exactly who and what they need. I frankly doubt, though, that I will be called upon again. I think I was useful in the last film to help bridge the gap between the original characters, the original actors, and the new cast. They have a wonderful new cast in place now and I'm sure they'll move ahead with them. So I don't see why they would need me in the next film, although if they called me, I'd be happy to have a conversation about it. Your character of William Bell believes the world has "soft spots" - do you believe in this as well? LN - What the show deals with in this wonderfully intriguing way is a question of an alternate universe through which one can slip through from one universe to another. I've been involved in stories of this kind before. I did a series called In Search Of...some years ago in which we dealt with subject matter like this. In terms of whether it's scientifically accurate, I think that's a question you'd have to ask people like Stephen Hawking.I'm not a scientist, and I can't really tell you whether or not there is a soft spot where you could slip through to another world, but I think the Fringe series deals with that idea in a very intriguing way. Do you believe William Bell is good or evil? LN - That's a really wonderful question. Time will tell. What sort of acting challenges have you found playing the William Bell character? LN - Well, the first thing was some wonderful and creative conversations that I had with J. J. Abrams, Bob Orci and Alex Kurtzman as well as Jeff Pinkner, who's the show runner, to try to create from scratch a character that's never been seen before, but only been referred to. There are certain things that were a given, including that he's a power figure and a very wealthy and obviously terribly intelligent man with a scientific background. But in terms of characteristics, we started from scratch, and I think in the episode that recently aired [Momentum Deferred], a lot more of those characteristics were made evident. It's great fun to be building the character from scratch, with certain givens, but so much to be developed as well in terms of the way he talks, walks, idiosyncracies, his tastes, is he difficult, is he gruff, is he charming, is he a nice guy, what are his real intentions? All of these are great exploration for an actor. Can you talk a little bit about your love of photography and where that comes from? LN - I became enamored of photography when I was about 13 or 14 years old and I've been at it ever since. I studied seriously in the 70's and have a Masters degree in photography as a fine art. I would call my work primarily conceptual. I don't carry cameras with me where I go. I get an idea of a subject matter I want to deal with and then I pull out my cameras. I have published two books - one is called Shekhina about the feminine aspect of God, and the second is called The Full Body Project, which deals with body images in our society. You had your scene with Olivia (Anna Torv) in the recent episode; did you get a chance to meet any of the other actors and, if so, did you form an opinion of them? LN - No, I have not worked with the others, only Anna so far. I think she does a wonderful job in the show, they all do, and I'm looking forward to meeting and working with the rest of the cast. They're all very talented people and I admire the work they do. What do you think of Anna Torv as an actor and a person? LN - I think she's really excellent in the role. We spent a bit of time working together and I was impressed with the way she works. I've seen quite a bit of her work on the screen. I think she handles a wide range of activities, from internalized psychological questions to all sorts of physical stuff, quite well. She's extremely competent and interesting to watch. I think she's terrific. Have you found that there's anything different in the way TV is done these days or what it requires of you as an actor, or is that aspect of the work still pretty much the same? LN - I think it's safe to say that what an audience is seeing today onscreen in a TV episode is far more complex than what we were doing when, for example, making the original Star Trek series in the 60's. We were very heavy on pages and pages of dialogue and very little special effects, but because the technology has advanced so greatly, it's possible to do some very complex, exciting and very useful technical stuff on a show these days. So we don't have to rely quite as much on the story being told by the actors speaking. On the other hand, there's a danger, as I mentioned earlier, of going too far with the special effects at the expense of the story. However, if the story is well done, if the story is in place strongly, the special effects can be enormously helpful to the actors, far more so than they were years ago when we were doing Star Trek. Delivering exposition is the toughest part of the job, and if it can be done visually and physically, it's a big help. Looking to the future, do you have any goals in mind, any invisible timeline where you just want to get out of the spotlight and retire, focus on photography, etc. LN - I thought I had reached that point some years ago. I like to think about myself as an oceanliner that's been going full speed for a long distance, and the captain pulls the throttle back all the way to "stop," but the ship doesn't stop immediately, does it? It has its own momentum and keeps on going, and I'm very flattered that people are still finding me useful. I try to pick my spots so that I have a balance between the work and my personal life, which I enjoy very much. I don't know that I would actually any longer say, 'No, I'm going to stop, 10, 12, 15 months or two years from now.' I don't know. I still feel strong and healthy and active, and as long as there's interesting work to do, I'll probably keep on doing it. As noted above, photo is copright of Fox Television, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!

NBC ' s Hit Drama Series Heroes Exclusive At Comic Con 2009

COMIC Con International 2009 fans will be the first to watch an exclusive trailer for Heroes Season 4, titled Volume Five: Redemption, created just for the annual event in San Diego. Following the trailer, creator Tim Kring and cast members Jack Coleman, Masi Oka, Adrian Pasdar and Zachary Quinto, as well as guest-stars Robert Knepper, Dawn Olivieri, Ray Park and Madeline Zima, will participate in a Q & A session. WHEN - Saturday, July 25th @ 3: 15 p.m. - 4:15 p.m. PST. WHERE - Indigo Room @ Hilton San Diego Bayfront ( 1 Park Blvd, San Diego, CA) Heroes - Season 4 will debut with a two-hour premiere on Monday, September 21st from 8 p.m. - 10 p.m. Following the premiere, the series will air on Mondays at 8 p.m.

Greg Ellis -Intergalactic Mechanic

[caption id="attachment_782" align="aligncenter" width="200" caption="Greg Ellis treks into the future as Chief Engineer Olson of the U.S.S. Enterprise in STAR TREK. Photo courtesy of and copyright of JSquared Photography"][/caption] Professional jockey or attorney - those are the two careers that Greg Ellis considered pursing while growing up. Then, however, he set his sights on the entertainment industry and never looked back. Born and raised in the small town of Wigan, Lancashire, Northern England, the-then budding young actor joined a children's drama group and, at the age of nine, made his TV debut singing for a very special individual. "I was doing a summer season at a theater in the North of England and me and five other kids sang live on TV for Princess Diana," recalls Ellis. "That's my first memory of performing in front of a camera. It was around 1980 and I remember being amazed by how many cameras there were and how few people were actually in the studio. Everyone was either tucked away in some booth high up or in another room. Talk about an unforgettable experience." Back then, Ellis never imagined that he would one day be soaring through outer space and making his mark on an historic TV and feature film franchise. The actor portrays Yorkshire-born Chief Engineer Olson in the new Star Trek movie. Although he is one of the good guys, it almost turned out to be the exact opposite. "I originally tried out for the part of a Romulan," says the actor. "A couple of weeks went by and I didn't hear anything, so I thought no more about it. At the time I was working on a TV show called The Riches, and one morning I got a call saying that J.J. Abrams [Trek director/producer] wanted to see me about the role of Chief Engineer Olson, the original engineer onboard the Enterprise. So I spoke to the director I was working with and he said it didn't look like I was going to have a full [shooting] day and would make sure I got out on time. When I arrived at Paramount Studios I was given the pages for the scenes I was reading for and had to learn them on the spot. I auditioned and the following day found out I was up for the role. "Not long after that I was on the Star Trek set, and what immediately struck me was how friendly everyone was. I got on really well with John Cho [Sulu] and Chris Pine [Captain James T. Kirk], who I had most of my scenes with, and Bruce Greenwood [Captain Christopher Pike]. He's a big chess player, and my first day on-set, within an hour he had me playing a game with him. So there we were, Captain Pike and Chief Engineer Olson trying to outwit each other on the chess board," chuckles Ellis. "It was all rather surreal. The thing is, I wasn't a huge Star Trek fan growing up, and I've since become educated about as well as respectful of the massive fan base that Star Trek  has. That's something I kept reminding myself of while we were working on the movie." Prior to the film's U.S. release last Friday, Ellis had appeared, albeit briefly, in the main trailer for Star Trek, which features snippets of one of the movie's main action sequences. "Kirk, Sulu and Olson have to go on a skydiving mission down to a Romulan orbital platform that is drilling down into the planet Vulcan, the home of Spock [Zachary Quinto]," explains the actor. "We were wearing these skydiving spacesuits with helmets, and the helmets kept steaming up, so they had to pump oxygen into them to un-steam the visors in order for us to see what we were doing. "I had two costumes, my Enterprise uniform and the skydiving one, which was amazing, particularly the minute details. For example, the gloves we wore were personally fitted by this incredible glove maker. I'd never net a glove maker before. He measured my hands, then made a test pair of gloves, and finally added all the detail and piping to the end product. Again, the attention to detail, even down to the clip to keep our skydiving parachutes on, was so impressive. Michael Kaplan did the costumes, and I'd previously worked with him on another movie. It was as if you took [the designers] Gucci, Prada and Dolce & Gabbana, mixed them all up and then times it by 10. That's what the spacesuits were like." [caption id="attachment_784" align="aligncenter" width="200" caption="Greg Ellis. Photo courtesy of and copyright of JSquared Photography"][/caption] While it may appear as if Engineer Olson and his crewmates are hurtling towards Vulcan at breakneck speed, the actual shooting of the skydiving scene was, in places, rather simple. "Surprisingly, there wasn't too much green screen involved," says Ellis. "J.J. Abrams and his crew were extremely creative insofar as filming. When it came to my character skydiving, they put mirrors on the ground, which reflected the sky. I was then lowered onto the mirrors, while J.J. and the camera operator stood on a raised platform with the camera pointed straight into my face. Imagine that and then invert the whole thing; it looks as if I'm flying through the sky, and it is the real sky, only reflected. So, again, very creative. "Clearly J.J. Abrams is a talented guy. He has the Midas Touch when it comes to movies and TV. The thing is, there are so many people who work with him and for him, and they're fans of his as well and go from project to project to project. They're utterly loyal to J.J. and that's a testament to just how wonderful he is. He's a true collaborator who has a vision, and  it's not only exciting but also fun to work with him every day." It may surprise some Trek fans to discover that Star Trek is not Ellis' first time playing in this particular make-believe universe. Back in 1999, he guest-starred as a Cardassian named Ekoor in the two-hour Star Trek: Deep Space Nine finale What You Leave Behind. "I went into that job looking forward to doing that particular incarnation of Star Trek but having no idea of the seriousness of doing the show's finale," notes the actor. "In one of the scenes I blasted two rebel Cardassians and, as I walked down some steps, said the classic line, 'That's Locarian City.' At the time, I didn't know where or what that was, and I later became quite educated in its history as well as what a Jem'Hadar, Bajoran, Romulan and, indeed, a Cardassian, was. "I remember going through three hours of prosthetics every morning for this role, so when I did the Star Trek movie I was actually quite happy that I was playing a human being and not a Romulan. That said, wearing a 'mask' like that, I think, helps you get into character. It was the same when I did the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. It's just a great ride to be involved with something so iconic." The X-Files, Bones, The Closer and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation are among Ellis' other TV credits. The actor is probably best known, though, for his performance as international arms dealer Michael Armador in season three of 24. "I had a terrific time on that show," he enthuses. "I had worked before with Kiefer Sutherland [Jack Bauer] in a movie called To End All Wars, which was about prisoners in a Japanese POW camp during World War II, and it was great to have the opportunity to work with him again. "The challenge of 24 really comes down to the fact that the story is told in 24 hours. My first day of filming was a night scene on-location. It was a meeting with Nina Meyers [Sarah Clarke] on one side and Jack Bauer and the Mexicans on the other. My character was holding an auction for a biological weapon, and when it's over, Jack was going to walk with the Mexicans to his car. However, we had to rethink the scene because it would have taken longer to do that than we had in real time. [caption id="attachment_790" align="aligncenter" width="200" caption="The dashing Greg Ellis. Photo courtesy of and copyright of JSquared Photography"][/caption] "So it's a matter of thinking in a different mindset, which in this case is real time, and the hurdles involved with that. However, it's good to be challenged in that way and it makes you stay on top of your storytelling because that's what the show's fans expect. Kiefer is very involved and very professional about the details, and it shows. "Originally I was only supposed to be in three episodes, and when I was given the script for my fourth episode it had a scene where my character's throat got slit. I thought, 'That's OK, I had a good time.' Then I got the rewrite and I was suddenly and miraculously alive. They [the producers/writers] had decided to kill off the Nina Meyers character instead. So you never knew from script to script and rewrite to rewrite how long you'd be alive for, and I wound up sticking around for, I believe, nine or ten episodes, which I was thrilled about." Besides his roles in front of the camera, Ellis is also a much sought-after voice artist. His work can be heard on various video games including  SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords and Tomb Raider: Legend, as well as such cartoons as Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Ben 10: Alien Force and Phineas and Ferb. Not surprisingly, this type of work has its own unique set of challenges, some harder than others. "A lot of times it's tough keeping a straight face and staying quiet when someone else is talking about because it's so much fun," says Ellis. "Typically, you're in a room with other like-minded, silly individuals and you all get to act like children, depending, of course, on the project, and enjoy yourselves. Things can move fast, though, and it's a matter of keeping up. Direction and notes are thrown at you and you have to quickly digest and incorporate them into your next take." Does the actor have a favorite character to have voiced? "Growing up I used to read the comic Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future, and years later that was my very first animated TV project, so I was pretty excited about that. As a child I also had an Action Man figure, who was like G.I. Joe, and I got to be the voice of that character, too. I did a few episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars as well and enjoyed being a small part of the Star Wars world. I've also done three of the Pirates of the Caribbean video games and, having done the films, a lot of the actors are my mates, so I've voiced most of their characters in the games. And I'm the voice of the Jack Sparrow doll, which I think is an interesting little piece of trivia." [caption id="attachment_792" align="aligncenter" width="200" caption="Greg Ellis. Photo courtesy of and copyright of JSquared Photography"][/caption]

A couple of years ago, Ellis was one of the musical artists invited by Sir Andrew Lloyd-Webber to perform for Queen Elizabeth and the Royal Family at London's St. Paul's Cathedral as part of The Best of Andrew Lloyd-Webber. "I got to sing two solo songs, which was pretty neat," he says. "First of all, singing at St.Paul's with its acoustics, history, architecture, etc. is just incredible, and to then have the Queen and the Royal Family there to meet afterwards made for a truly unforgettable night.

"It was many years later, but my childhood TV experience of singing for Princess Diana came around full circle as well," adds the actor. "It was, I think, the third preview of the musical Miss Saigon where I got to meet her backstage and found her to be a really lovely person."

Currently, this verstile entertainer is keeping busy with a few new projects, including the recurring role of Simon Cochran on the TNT series Trust Me, and a guest-spot on Nip/Tuck. "I've been back in the prosthetics chair again for that show, but only for a couple of hours," says Ellis. "I have a writing partner in England and we've written a couple of things that seem to be moving forward. So I've been very lucky work-wise and, touch wood, long may it continue."

Steve Eramo

As noted above, all photos courtesy of and copyright of JSquared Photography, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any form. Thanks!