Heroes

• When you auditioned for Claire, what did they tell you they were looking for, as far as what she was like?

• Well, she was a normal teenage girl. She was a cheerleader. What makes her interesting is that she is a normal teenage girl going through normal teenage things, going through what every girl goes through in high school, but she has these powers that make it even harder to grow up – it makes it scary and of course she thinks something's wrong with her. And it's what every teenage girl can relate to – up to the fact of
  being able to heal herself. I describe it as tissue regeneration.

• What's it like doing the scenes when Claire has been mutilated and hasn't recovered yet, like when she's on the autopsy table?

• Oh, yeah. I had to go do body scanning afterwards and it took about five or six hours to put on. The [fake] blood would run down. Can you imagine what blood starts to look like on your body after 10-and-a-half hours?

• Is part of the appeal of playing Claire doing some of your own stuntwork?

• Yeah. Actually, a lot of the fire stuff [in the premiere episode], that was me. My cheerleading outfit was actually flame-retardant material, so it wouldn't catch on fire, and there were times when I had to put on long underwear underneath my outfit and [flame-retardant] socks when I had to go into the train.

• How was going into the second season different than going into the first season?

• You don't know how well the show is going to do when you first go on. You just cross your fingers and hope for the best, because you really don't know how something like that is going to be received by the audience. Now we know that people generally like it and it was received well. We know the characters and we know each other. This show is probably unlike any show that anyone shoots, because we shoot it like a movie, and it's like we're doing a full-length feature film every day. In that respect, my past feature film career has definitely prepared me for this. But there's no place I'd rather be. I love my cast, I love my crew.

• How is Claire different in the second season than she was in the first season?

• She is a young girl, she has this beautiful naïvety about her. I think she lost a lot of it since the first season. I think she really grew up. I definitely was getting sick of crying. I don't know about anyone else who was watching the show, but I was tired of seeing her cry. If you don't have kids, or if you haven't noticed, teenagers are selfish – I will vouch for that. She wanted what any teenager would want. She wanted to be normal, she wanted to be popular, she wanted to date the quarterback of the football team. Over time, she realized that by dismissing her powers, she was risking a lot of people's lives, that there was so much more she could do if she just came to terms with that. So she evolved, she learned to stand on her own two feet and stick up for herself. Hopefully, she'll continue doing that. I think she's just constantly growing and changing and discovering new things about herself. In season two, she's really looking to figure out more about her powers, more about what she can do, how far she can push it, what happens when she does it. There are still some unanswered questions for her about her ability, how far her pain tolerance can go, whether she can actually die if something happens. We saw Peter in the first season – he had a shard of glass in his head and not until we pulled it out did he come back to life. But the question is, how long could he survive with that piece of glass in his head before he couldn't regenerate anymore? So I think she's just really pushing to find answers – on that level, she's just trying to figure out who she is and what she's doing and what she wants to do with her life and her ability. It's almost a metaphor [about] teenagers – they're always trying to push their parents away, they're constantly trying to test the limits of their freedom and how far they can push things. It's sort of the same thing with Claire, she's just doing it in a different way – it is to have her freedom, but not to go to the mall with her friends or go on vacations, it's more to learn about herself and this ability. All teenagers will understand that one. But I think it will continue to be a battle for her until she's an adult, and even then, her dad's going to want to protect her.

• Is it a hard making someone so physically durable seem so emotionally vulnerable?

• Well, she is vulnerable. That's the interesting thing about her, the fact that she's a physically indestructible girl, but she's not emotionally or mentally indestructible. And that vulnerability is what makes people like her. When you approach it as an actress, it's just like playing any other character – you know, are they vulnerable, are they mean, are they nice, are they disturbed or happy? You make her like a normal teenage girl, and I actually am a teenage girl. When I'm acting, I forget about [Claire's] abilities. She has no idea how to handle it – that's the honest truth – so neither do I.

• Have you ever felt invulnerable in real life?

• Yeah. When I was younger, I always had that thought in my head for some reason. I could never imagine dying. It was impossible for me to die when I was younger. I wasn't indestructible in a way that I could heal myself, but when you're younger, death isn't something that clicks in your head. Now it does, now I don't feel so indestructible – even though I'm playing someone indestructible.

• Would you ever want to see Claire tip into ‘the dark side'?

• I wish I could – I'd turn bad in a second! I doubt it will happen, but in the show, anything is possible, so there's always that chance.

• Why would you like to play a villain?

• I think I've sometimes been typecast because I'm blonde. You don't get to play villains if you're blonde, unless you're Sharon Stone. It would just be exciting for me. People look at me as very sweet sometimes, and I would never in a million years describe myself as sweet – never! I think it would be a blast. It's more fun to be bad – at least on the screen.

• What are your fellow Heroes actors like?

• Adrian [Pasdar], we've always said, is like the big brother. He always wants to take you here, take you there – he's the leader when [cast-members are on tour together]. Greg [Grunberg] is a goofball, Milo [Ventimiglia] is more of a flirt, Sendhil [Ramamurthy] and Masi [Oka] are great. Ali [Larter] and I are girls, we stick together. Jack Coleman I'm very close to. I get to work with him a lot, and he's so much fun. He's so funny and he's such a bright man. It's fun to be around somebody like that who is bright, but funny at the same time. Zach [Quinto], who plays Sylar, is funny as anything, and he's a good friend, too. And Ashley Crow, who plays my mom – they all have their own personalities, and it's a hoot when we get together. Everyone has a crush on either Milo or Sendhil, but then I look at Greg and Adrian and Masi, and I see that everyone has crushes on them, too. We have a cast full of heartthrobs, what can I say? It's not only a large cast, but it's
  a large cast of really good actors. When you're around such good actors, you want to bring yourself up to their level and strive to do your best. At the same time, in this show, we don't always get the chance to work with each other, so it's almost like showing off every time you get to work with [any cast-mate]. You're so excited, because it's like, “Ooh, I've got to be really good, because I'm working with so-and-so today.”

• What's it been like with the addition of new cast-members?

• I haven't really gotten a chance to be around them a whole lot, other than a few cast [get-togethers] on set. But it seems everyone is pretty excited and thrilled to be a part of the show. It's an already-established show and it's been doing great and it's wonderful. Most of the people who have joined the cast have seen it and are just psyched to be here.

• How do you feel about what's going on with Jack Coleman's Mr. Bennet this season?

• Well, I think we all have proven in this show that [the characters] all have our dirty little secrets. I think him becoming the ‘house dad,' the ‘good dad,' wouldn't be very exciting. People like watching good-bad people, and you sometimes want to hate Jack's character and sometimes you love him. It's kind of a toss-up, depending on which side you're on. I think it's exciting for him – I'm excited to see what happens with everyone.

• Do you find a lot of people you meet have a reaction to your portrayal of Claire?

• Yeah. All the time – at the moment, I think it's meeting your peers [other actors who watch Heroes]. And you don't consider yourself one of the peers yet, because I've just gotten into it with the show and there are other people on the network who are huge stars and they know who you are and you're like, “Whoa! I'm used to watching you on TV, you're not supposed to know me.”

• How do you feel about the ardent fan reaction to Heroes?

• It's very cool that they like it so much – it's like a pat on our backs every time they say something about it and love it. We're filming in the studio and it doesn't always click that 15 million people are watching the show, so it's cool to hear from them.

• What can you tell us about the in-the-works Heroes video-game?

• I don't know anything about the layout. I'm ecstatic. My cousin actually made me my first action figure – it's not ‘real', obviously, but he did a really cool job. It's sitting on my shelf. It's always fun to see what they do with your characters [in terms of merchandising, comics, etc.] and in the video-game, to see what kind of animation they use. I would love to be involved with it. Other than that, I have no idea.

• Is there anything else you'd like to say about Heroes?

• I'm just really excited about it!

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