Less than a month after being crowned Miss Universe, Riyo Mori is hoping to land another job â?? a role on the NBC sci-fi series Heroes.

â??As soon as I won Miss Universe I had this big chance,â?? Mori said in an interview last week. â??Iâ??ve never acted before. I went to the casting audition and read a script in English and Japanese, and they said it was really good. So I hope I can be in the show.â??

Mori said the role of Yaeko, which she read for, would be a love interest for one of the main characters on Heroes. Itâ??s safe to assume that would be Hiro Nakamura.

The 20-year-old dancer won the 2007 Miss Universe contest in Mexico City last month. The only other time Japan has won the pageant was in 1959, when Akiko Kojima became the first Miss Universe from Asia.

E! Online posted a brief interview with Hayden Panettiere last week.

When commenting on season two of Heroes, the faux cheerleader said the following about a possible love interest:

"This show has been so broad, and it's been such an incredible thing that it seems like it can go anywhere and that she can go anywhere, so I'd like to see a change of location maybe.

Toward the end of the season, I'd like to see her get a little bit of a change of style—more sophisticated, growing into her own. I'd like to see a boy in the horizon somewhere, which I've heard rumors of."

While Heroes fans have been wondering what will become of the show's resident evil-doer Sylar, Access Hollywood breaks some news on the super-powered villain's future on the show.

Zachary Quinto, who plays Sylar on the hit NBC drama, will return as a series regular next season, a rep for the actor confirmed to Access.

As season one ended, it appeared everyone's favorite group of mutants might have finally thwarted Sylar's plans for destruction once and for all as Hiro Nakamura (Masi Oka) thrust his samurai sword into Sylar's chest.

However as the show ended, a quick pan back to the scene of the attack revealed a blood trail leading from where Sylar's body lay into the sewer, suggesting our villain wasn't quite done yet.

Before he stepped into the breakthrough role as the power-sucking hero, Quinto appeared in guest spots on CSI, Touched By An Angel, Charmed and Six Feet Under.

According to his bio, Quinto "would next love to play a young Spock in a the new 'Star Trek' movie."

Before Heroes, Ali Larter was That Girl From Varsity Blues in the Whipped Cream Bikini.

And she still is. But she's also Niki Sanders. Below are highlights from an interview the actress gave a few months ago, just as Heroes was taking off:

How did you become involved with the Heroes project? TV was something that I wasn't initially attracted to, because of the schedule and that it pretty much demands that you live in Los Angeles for a set amount of months of the year. When I moved back here [to L.A.] this January, I was ready to base myself here for a little while, and I thought it was a good time to entertain the possibility. I always thought that, especially now, TV has some of the best writers working, and amazing roles that you can play. So this pilot season, I just started reading. Some of the things I thought were interesting, but I didn't feel like, if we were lucky enough to go for many years, that it would be able to hold my interest for that long, and then Heroes came around. It was the first pilot that I actually auditioned for.

When I read the script, I just thought it was amazing. I think that Tim must have locked this little bit of genius somewhere in him, and once it was able to come out, he just ran with it. I think that he created such an extraordinary world. I think that Niki is such a complicated and interesting character, so it was like "This is the one, I'm gonna go in and play ball," and I did the auditioning process like every other blonde in Hollywood. I went in, worked with Dave Semel and the producers.

Then they brought me in for studio, then they brought me in for network, which is one of the hardest things I've ever been asked to do as an actor, to be honest.

Do you feel that Niki might be one of the more difficult roles in the series to play because of the hardships that she has to go through? You know what? I don't look at any of the other characters and compare myself to them. The reason I love playing her is because she is so conflicted. I just think that she's a great multi-faceted dramatic character, and it's within an ensemble of equally conflicted characters. So I can't imagine any of the roles being more difficult than any of the other ones. I just think everyone's so thrilled at the depth and the potential of each of the characters.

Do you think Niki's "ability" may stem from a personal fear that she has of herself? I think that the gift that she has and the sources of all of her anxieties are more complex than we actually know yet, and I think that's an interesting question. If we look into ourselves, are we scared of our own light? I think that's a human question that we can all relate to. But what's happening with her and the powers, and what they've hinted at so far, I think, is leading us into the question of the duality that can live in everybody.

I'm really excited to see where they're going to take her. Where I hope that she's going and what I think would be interesting to explore as an actor is the social conscience, someone who can live without a social conscience versus someone who has to live in the confines of present day society.

Does Niki think that she's crazy? As I've been working all along is, if I don't understand it, and I was in these situations, I would absolutely think that my world is crumbling around me, and I don't know if her mind is trying to protect her from things ... I personally would believe that I was going to crazy, but I would snap myself out of it. She doesn't have the luxury in life to indulge in those things.

Is there anyone in your life that inspired your performance in playing a single mother? There wasn't anybody that inspired it. One of the reasons I was excited to play this mother is that she treats her son like an equal. She doesn't have everything perfectly in order in life, and she sometimes goes left when she should go right, but she is so driven by her love with her son. I think that their relationship is so interesting, because she doesn't have the luxury of going out on dates or having a romantic relationship, so for her, she's up watching Letterman with her son, or going to the movies with him, and she spends all of her time with him.

I think that they really have an amazing chemistry and an extraordinary bond. So, there wasn't someone that inspired that, but I have a lot of friends and people in my life that were raised by single mothers, and the bond that they have, is so incredible.

Did your personal interaction with the young actor who played Micah inspire your performance or chemistry on-screen? Absolutely. He is such a little genius, that one. He's a musical prodigy. I mean, I say that he's a musical prodigy, and he'll say "No, Ali, I work really, really, really hard. I work a lot of hours." He's so sweet.

And he is a hard worker. He does have an amazing head on his shoulders. He listens, he's so prescient; and he also has an incredible mother and an amazing relationship with her. I think that why he is so right for this role, is because of that. He has such an incredible relationship with his mom Whitney.

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Heroes creator/executive producer Tim Kring, has inked a new deal with NBC Universal Television Studio, the studio behind the hit smash show.

Under the two-year pact, said to be one of the biggest in television, Kring will continue as the showrunner on Heroes and will shepherd its upcoming spinoff, Heroes: Origins, as well as the various offshoots in print and digital media. Kring also is expected to develop new projects for the studio.

This marks the first major talent deal to close since Katherine Pope took the reins of NBC TV as president several days ago. That couldnâ??t be more fitting as Kring and Pope are close friends going back to the early days of NBC Studios, which the two joined within months from each other in 1999-2000.

Kring came to the studio to work as co-executive producer on the family drama Providence and soon became one of the first writers signed by the studio in an overall deal. He went on to create and run the long-running procedural drama Crossing Jordan.

Pope, who has been rising through the ranks of the studio and NBC, has been involved in all three NBC series on which Kring has worked.

â??NBC Studios has grown and changed as I have grown, and Tim has too - heâ??s grown to show more of the absolute diversity of his talent,â?? Pope said. â??The reason this deal is so important to us is because of Timâ??s absolutely extraordinary ability to write all types of characters with such authenticity. He can find the humanity in the characters and everything he writes.â??

As the summer draws to a close, fans of Heroes won't even notice the weather turning cooler. How come?

Because season one of our favorite show will hit stores on August 28. We can't wait!

This interview may be a bit old, but it's still worth noting. TV Guide spoke with Adrian Pasdar following the episode in which Ali Larter's Jessica is asked to rub his character, Nathan, out...

TVGuide.com: So last we tuned in, Jessica had just gotten her assignment to snuff Nathan. Why do I have the feeling that when the moment of truth comes, those two will end up having torrid sex instead?
Pasdar: Well, we do end up in bed... but not like you think. I can't tell you any more than that, but we do end up on a bed.

 TVGuide.com: Are you surprised by the amount of support for that couple, based on just that one early-season encounter?
Pasdar: No. I mean, it's a logical extension of the physical things that we bring to the show. But it does take an interesting turn in Episode 20.

TVGuide.com: Of course, Nathan has that other great pairing, with Masi Oka's Hiro. Do you enjoy having those lighter moments to play?
Pasdar: Yeah, it's fun. Every time there's a script where we have a scene together, they leave a little blank space for us to improvise. It's become a kind of tradition that we get to do that. It's great doing stuff with him, because I think he embodies the unbridled enthusiasm of a child, where I, of course, am saddled with the responsibility of an adult. So the two characters, when we get together, it's interesting.

TVGuide.com: Even before Heroes premiered, we here were making much of the last moments of the pilot, where Nathan swoops in to save Peter. Take us back to when you first read that scene in the script.
Pasdar: I still get goose bumps talking about it. It read just like it played, and that's one thing about the show they have been able to consistently maintain: What they write is exactly what we film.

TVGuide.com: Enigmatic characters, good buzz, ardent fans — you've been down this road before, with the short-lived Profit. Did that temper your reaction to the reception Heroes was met with?
Pasdar: A little bit, yeah. I'm old enough to have been through this a few times, where you're excited and happy, but you also realize it could all go away [snaps fingers] just as quickly as it came. But I'm enjoying it.

TVGuide.com: Do you think your spring 2006 Housewives drop-by played a small but undeniable role in reestablishing your profile and getting you this plum role?
Pasdar: Oh, I don't know... maybe. I'm the last person to ask about that. You'd have to ask my manager. That's the thing, I don't do a lot of press, so people go, "Oh, you went away and came back," but I'm like, "No, I just decided to stop talking to the media for a while. That's all."

TVGuide.com: Could the Housewives role have been longer term, or was it stymied by the fact that your lawyer was macking on a pregnant Gabrielle?
Pasdar: No, I couldn't have done any more than I did, three episodes.

TVGuide.com: Back to Heroes, was there one particularly difficult moment in safeguarding the secret of Claire's paternity all these months?
Pasdar: No, you just can't talk about it. But I had to tell somebody, so I told my 5-year-old. The day I read the script, I said, "Do you want to know a secret?" He goes, "What?!" I told him, and he held the secret the entire time.

TVGuide.com: We've only seen Nathan's wife (played by Rena Sofer) in dribs and drabs. Might we get more of her before the season is up?
Pasdar: I think so. Rena's been busy working on 24, but I believe she'll be back.

TVGuide.com: The Dixie Chicks documentary Shut Up & Sing comes out on DVD Tuesday. Can fans look for any additional coverage of you? [Pasdar's wife is lead singer Natalie Maines.]
Pasdar: I don't know.... They took maybe three years' worth of B-roll, so... I went to great lengths not to be a part of that because that was my wife's thing and not mine, but I was in it. And I know I'm in a lot more than they used, so maybe.