Masi Oka, the breakout star from this year’s hottest TV show Heroes, took home the Best Supporting Actor on Television Award from the Academy of Science Fiction Fantasy and Horror Films’ 2007 Saturn Awards. Oka picked up the trophy for his portrayal of the time-traveling superhero Hiro Nakamura on the popular show. The show, which is only in its first season, also earned the Best Network Television Series at the 33rd Annual Saturn Awards.
After picking up his trophy, Oka chatted with the press about the show and his work on Get Smart, the Warner Bros Pictures comedy starring Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway.
Working on Get Smart: Oka’s enjoying life right now and had a great time on the Get Smart set. “That's such a fun, fun show. It's different from Heroes. I love my Heroes family but Get Smart was a fun, different experience.”
Even More Get Smart: Masi Oka plays Bruce, a CONTROL techie, in Get Smart and he’ll be revisiting that role in a spin-off of Get Smart alongside Nate Torrence who plays a fellow techie named Lloyd. “[It’s called] Get Smarter right now. We don't know when we're shooting that. It's supposed to be August and September. It's whenever they get the script, I guess, and a director. The writers are still doing [it]. They're very excited for our characters so they're inspired. They want to keep on polishing it and making it better.”
Tying in Get Smarter to Get Smart: “Well, the whole idea is Get Smart the feature is kind of like Hamlet and Get Smarter is going to be Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead.
So to make it kind of a tie-in, I know they're going to try to incorporate some footage from the actual feature into it so it looks like it's seeing what's leading up behind the scenes.”
On Being Named Best Supporting Actor at the Saturn Awards: “It's been an amazing journey and to be part of an amazing ensemble is an honor. This is for us. I don't really see this for myself. It's for our entire show, our writers, our entire crew and all the cast. I'm just so happy that Greg [Grunberg] was also nominated, Ali [Larter], and Hayden [Panettiere] won. This is for us. We're an ensemble. We're family. I'm just glad, I'm so happy to be representing them just for tonight.”
Regular Hiro versus Future Hiro: Asked which is more fun to play, Oka answered very diplomatically. “They're both fun. It depends on the mood, I guess. It's fun going from back and forth because present Hiro's much easier, because I don't have to go in a dark place and I can be more fun. It's much easier to play that, but when you play the same character over and over again for a long time, it's nice to break it up with something like Future Hiro. Hopefully you'll get a nice sprinkling of both.”
So just how many Hiros can there be? “Maybe, middle Hiro you mean? There must be a present, past, future, post-apocalyptic Hiro. Who knows? Saturn Hiro, next thing you know, Space Hiro. Who knows? Every time you jump in time, an alternate universe gets created.”
More Future Hiro in the Future: If the future’s changed, the Future Hiro might also change. No matter what, Oka says we won’t be seeing any more of Future Hiro this season. “Not this season. Well, you'll always have a Future Hiro somehow, if Hiro jumps forward in time. Maybe not that one though. If Hiro is successful, if all the heroes are successful in stopping the bomb, it's possible that we might not see Future Hiro again. But we might see a different version.”
On Shooting the Heroes Season One Finale: “Oh, the big finale has been amazing because we had a lot of overnight, because of the location, we had to shoot overnights. So we would have like 6pm to 6am, day after day after day. It was tough on the crew; it was tough on the cast. … It's going to be fantastic. The finale is going to be the bomb. Literally and metaphorical, double entendre there.” Oka added cryptically, “It's going to be DA bomb - in more ways than one.”
Oka’s pleased with the way the first season wraps up. “I think it's great. The way the finale ends, it's a wrapping up of Volume 1 which is Genesis. It wraps up the whole bomb storyline so it's a nice finale and there's a great cliffhanger with everybody, I would say. And then you do get to see a little bit of Volume 2 which is called Generations. So wow, okay, that's open, it's fair game now.”
The Return of George Takei: Takei’s definitely back as Hiro’s powerful dad. “He might be part of the O.W.I., so we don't know. The whole O.W.I. could be something bigger than we think. As they say, Volume 2 is called Generations. What does that mean? Does that mean the past? There's going to be some more things with generations of the families or is it generation in terms of years, eras? Who knows?”
The Second Year of Heroes: Oka’s Hiro might be one of the most popular characters on the show – if not the most popular – but he knows anything can happen and anyone can be killed off. It’ll be interesting to see who’s still around when Heroes kicks off its second season of production on June 29th. Oka says the writers are currently at work on next year’s scripts. “I don't think anyone's safe. To quote Greg Grunberg, ‘Only Tim Kring survives.’ But they're breaking down the stories right now. I know that Season One: Volume 1 was called Genesis and Volume 2 is going to be called Generations, according to Tim Kring.”