Masi Oka News (Page 3)

We know Masi Oka and Hayden Panettiere possess unique powers on Heroes, but now we might know what contributes to these special skills: milk.

Each actor is a new spokesperson for the Body By Milk campaign, which was created to encourage teens to eat properly and drink three glasses of lowfat or fat free milk everyday to stay lean and healthy.

In Oka's ad, he says: "My hero? Think hard. It's milk. Some studies suggest teens who choose it instead of sugary drinks tend to be leaner, plus the protein helps build muscle. So grab a glass. Then you can change the future, too."

Panettiere, meanwhile, credits protein for her strong bones and recommends it for all Heroes fans:

"You don't have to be a hero to feel invincible. That's why I drink milk. The protein helps build muscle and some studies suggest teens who choose it tend to be leaner. Cheers to that."

Masi Oka is a natural born Hiro.

As we all know, but The Boston Herald recently detailed, The Japan-born, California-raised actor nabbed an Emmy nomination for his role as Hiro Nakamura, a computer programmer turned time-traveling protagonist on the NBC hit drama Heroes.

The series, which begins its second season Sept. 24, also earned an Emmy nod in the best show category.

"Personally, it is definitely an honor," Oka said of his nomination. "To be part of this ensemble is just a gift. To have an Emmy nom is a cherry on top. We're all proud of it."

Heroes -  the standout hit of last season, also stars Ali Larter ("Final Destination"), Milo Ventimiglia ("Gilmore Girls") and Hayden Panettiere ("Ice Princess") as everyday people with superhuman abilities. But the show's moral compass, Hiro, almost wasn't part of the show, creator Tim Kring said during a recent conference call with reporters.

"When I read the first draft of the script, the character (Hiro) didn't actually exist. There were a preponderance of characters that felt these powers were an affliction. The character was created to lighten up the initial script," said Kring, whose writing credits also include "Crossing Jordan" and "Providence."

Luckily, for Oka and for viewers, Kring opted for a positive presence.

"He embodies the sense of the Everyman. He kept his dream. To be able to live vicariously, to live my dreams through his dreams, is fantastic," said Oka, 32.

Oka and Hiro share some similarities - Oka is trained in Kendo, Japanese sword fighting, and Hiro battled the heroes' nemesis Sylar (Zachary Quinto) with an ancient Kensei sword - but Oka turns to real-life heroes for inspiration, not anime comic books as Hiro does.

"My real-life hero is my mother. Growing up, being raised by a single mom who came from Japan to America (to give me a better life) and gave up her entire life for me, I will never be able to repay what my mom has done for me," Oka said.

The Brown University graduate also works for George Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic special effects company when not acting.

With the season one DVD release scheduled for Aug. 28 and the Emmy Awards on Sept. 16, Oka and Kring hope to maintain the show's momentum throughout the fall.

"It's not pressure to top it, it's pressure to keep it going. A show like this or this particular show has been defined by its ability to defy your expectations. People want to watch it because they don't know where it is going to take them. We have extraordinary staff and cast," said Kring. "We are on a big roll right now."

We love Masi Oka at Heroes Fanatic.

So do the folks at UnderGroundOnline, as that site recently chatted with the actor...

On his first reaction to reading Hiro Nakamura:
"I thought it was phenomenal because it wasn't one note. Tim Kring created an amazing, beautiful world with such rich characters. Hiro embodied the sense of the everyman, in many ways, and how we all dreamed as a kid of wanting to be a superhero. And he's someone who kept his dream. He believed in it, believed in it, believed in it, and finally his dreams came true.

To be able to live vicariously my dreams of becoming a superhero through his dreams, it's just fantastic. And I'm just very fortunate to have been part, and having Tim entrust me with the character."

Oka on working with George Takei:
"George Takei was phenomenal to work with. He's not only a generous actor, but a generous person. He's an icon in every aspect of Asian-American TV and American cinema. You have your Star Trek, everything, you learn so much from him. And if you were to ask George Takei he would say, [using the best George Takei impersonation ever] 'Well, I found working with Masi to be quite an experience. He's quite a young and talented individual. And it's nice to see the sci-fi generation get passed on from the older to the younger and the legacy being kept alive.'"

On whether we will see George Takei again:
"Yes. The season premiere you will see George Takei, as well as the rest - Masi and everybody else."

On Season Two being independent of Season One:
"Season Two is about new storylines. The whole idea, it's a new beginning for everyone, so that people who haven't watched the Season One can also catch up through the DVD, but you also just jump in to Season Two and watch it from there as well."

On his real-life hero:
"Well, my real life hero, as sappy as it makes me sound, is definitely my mother. Growing up, being raised by a single mother who came from Japan to America to provide for our entire family and give me a better life in America. She gave up pretty much her entire life for me. So it's going to take not only my lifetime but my lifetime after that to repay. I'll never be able to repay what my mom has done for me."

On mixing acting with his special effects background:
"Well, definitely it's really nice to be able go back. I have a lot of respect for what goes on, not only in front of the camera, but what goes on behind the camera. I remember spending months and months just to get about 200 frames out, and what it takes. A show is as good as its weakest link. And whether it's from the caterers, the effects folks, we have fantastic people all around.

Our effects folks are doing a bang up job. It's great to be able to talk to them on set and just say, "Hey, why don't we try to -- how do we (hot) archive this matte process?" or "Where do we need to put particles to work?" or "Where's the 3-D virtual..." You know, it's really cool to be able to talk that on the set and have kind of a camaraderie there."

On his first acting job:
"Recalling my first TV job in Los Angeles was actually for a pilot called Straight White Male. It was for the FX Channel. And it was a pilot that didn't get picked up. But I recall it pretty well, because that job allowed me to fulfill the contract I had with ILM at that time, and allow them to agree for me to stay in Los Angeles and continue working for ILM in a telecommuting capacity while pursuing acting down in Los Angeles. So that was definitely a memorable role for me."

On the production of Season Two:
"We're deep into production. We're moving at a really fast pace. We're almost starting Episode 5, I believe -- or we may have started. The filming has been fantastic. The location looks phenomenal. It looks great. It looks like feudal Japan. You wouldn't have guessed that it's Ventura County. But it looks like feudal Japan. And the scout people found an amazing place.

It's been so fun working with David Anders and Eriko Tamura. They are the main focus in Hiro's feudal Japan storyline. And we've been having lots of fun, lots of action and drama. So it's been great. And I know Hiro will be in feudal Japan for a handful of episodes."

On the Season One DVD:
"DVDs are great because it gives us an opportunity to give fans more as well. Not only to just recap the episodes they've seen, but there's like 50 extended and deleted scenes, [and] we even have the 72-minute premiere of our pilot episode... it's like a huge seven box set, but you get to see the behind the scenes things, the making of, Tim Kring's commentary on the 72-minute pilot that we premiered at Comic-Con.

Yesterday, actually, I got a chance to see the DVD content and there's some really cool stuff in there with the special effects, in particular, the scoring."

Perhaps more than any other show on TV, Heroes does a tremendous job of selling itself.

Therefore, it comes as no shock that - fresh off a popular panel discussion at Comic-Con - two main influences behind Heroes sat in on a conference call with journalists this morning.

Masi Oka and Tim Kring talked about the second season, while also revealing intriguing details about the initial few episodes.

One interesting detail revealed right away was that Masi's character, Hiro Nakamura, did NOT exist in the original script for the Heroes pilot. When Kring looked at the bulk of dark and conflicted characters, though, he felt the show needed someone who really wanted to be a hero.

The creator also indicated there will be more fan-friendly casting in season two, similar to the choice to use George Takei as Hiro's father. Kring didn't wanna give away too many Heroes spoilers, but promised that the next special actor's appearance would evoke a similar response.

The stars were then asked about their real-life heroes. Oka talked about his mother who raised him as a single parents and brought him to America; for Kring, it's the people who work mostly anonymously in small charity organizations, as opposed to those that seek celebrity through their efforts.

When reported brought up the chance that Heroes would win the Best Drama prize at the Emmys, Kring made it clear that The Sopranos will be difficult to beat. And he's right. There's no chance any other program wins that trophy this year.

Oka, who is nominated for Best Supporting Actor, was quite humble in discussing his odds, focusing instead on the validation that comes with just being nominated.

On the brand expansion side of things, Kring detailed a new project waiting in the wings that will be a hard-covered graphic novel that collects the online comics that covered events between episodes. Sounds great to us.

Remember: The Heroes season 1 DVD comes out August 28; and the second season premieres Monday, September 24.

Yesterday, we reported on Hayden Panettiere kindly leading reporters around the set of Heroes.

Today, it's time for Masi Oka to lead us around. As relayed by The Chicago Tribune, the Heroes star took members of the Television Critics Association on a field trip of the set Tuesday. Here's what went down:

The bus load of writers was divided into two smaller groups, and we had as our guide a charming young man who cheerfully ushered us through various sets and kept us moving and laughing with various jokes and friendly directives.

Our guide? Masi Oka, who plays Hiro Nakamura on the NBC show.

He didn't shuffle along aimlessly, clickety-clacking on his Blackberry or Sidekick and mumbling distractedly when forced to interact with members of the press. In other words, he didn't act like a bored, over-it star of a hit show.

Frankly, he couldn't have been more fun.

One minute he was imitating a chipper "We're walking! We're walking!" tour guide, the next minute he was doling out hints about the upcoming season of the show. At one point he even had a few reporters in stitches with his imitations of both Larry King and "Star Trek's" George Takei, who plays Hiro's father on the show.

"‘Masi, if I ever get sick, you could do the interviews for me,'" Oka said, imitating Takei's booming baritone.

"I dare not copy his Sulu stuff [from Star Trek]. Not in front of him," Oka said with a laugh, before rendering a pitch-perfect. "Aye aye, Captain."

The funniest thing about the whole experience was that Oka was a very efficient tour guide. When he told our group to stand behind a yellow line and "allow the other tour group to exit," we all did as we were told unquestioningly.But can you blame the reporters? Everyone has seen what Hiro can do with a sword.

Heroes is currently rolling out worldwide – and soon NBC will be shutting down production on the show down for a week so the cast can travel abroad and do foreign press. The end result is, for about a year now, Oka, like the rest of the cast, has been answering the same questions over and over again, which must be oodles of fun.

"The biggest [question] I know everyone in the cast is sick of is, ‘If you had a super power what would it be?' Especially now, with the show launching in foreign territories, we're part of that launch, so we're being asked that again and again," Oka said.

"The funny thing was, on Larry King Live, when the cast did it, we were like, ‘Oh cool, he didn't ask that question.' Then it was [imitating King's deep voice], ‘OK, for the final question, this is the question that everybody in the world wants to know – if you had a super power what would it be?'"

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Guess those Emmy Award rumors held true:

Heroes has been nominated for Best Drama. It faces some stiff competition, but you know what everyone says: it's an honor just to be nominated.

Here are the five shows up for this trophy:

1. Heroes
2. The Sopranos
3. Grey's Anatomy
4. Boston Legal
5. House

Meanwhile, congratulations to Masi Oka for his nomination in the category of Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series.Here are those nominations:

1. Masi Oka
2. Michael Emerson
3. William Shatner
4. T.R. Knight
5. Terry O'Quinn
6. Michael Imperioli

None of the Heroes ended season one on more of an obscure note than Hiro himself: the character played by Masi Oka was somehow whisked back to 16th century Japan.

How long will he stay there? Oka recently spoke with SCI FI Wire and said his character will remain in Japan for a while. He'll enjoy have a parallel story separate from the rest of the show when the second season kicks off in the fall.

"Season two is going to begin with two parallel timelines going on," Oka said in an interview at the Television Critics Association press tour in Beverly Hills, Calif., on July 17. "One starting four months after the explosion and another-mainly Hiro's storyline-starting 400 years in the past. And we'll see how they kind of affect each other."

According to Oka, Hiro will spend at least eight episodes in old-day Japan before returning to the present.

There, he will encounter some of the characters from the stories of his childhood, including the legendary samurai Takezo Kensei, who will be played by David Anders. The show is currently finishing the third episode of the upcoming season.

"There's a princess," Oka said. "Princess Iako, played by [Japanese pop star] Eriko Tamura, who's going to be in that world, as well as David Anders, who plays Takezo Kensei. That was Hiro's childhood hero that he's always heard about these stories.

But David Anders, last time we checked, he was Caucasian. So there's a mystery there."

Masi Oka recently spoke with TV Guide in Canada.

He arrived at Global's fall launch event after a red-eye flight, along with fellow Heroes star Adrian Pasdar. Check out the interview below:

TV Guide: Congratulations on the success of Heroes. Contrary to what some of the other media said, I really enjoyed the season finale. What did you think of it?
Masi Oka: I loved it. I liked the way that the final five or so episodes all came together in the finale. But it was also weird, because we shot a lot and the editors ended up cutting out a lot of stuff – those will be on the extended scenes on the DVD – and some scenes looked a little rough. Other than that, I thought it was a fantastic ending. Every storyline had a beginning, middle and end. And then the very end starts into the next season.

TVG: You mentioned the DVDs. Will you be doing commentary on them?
MO: We did the commentary as we went along. The day after the episode aired we would go in and do the commentary tracks.

TVG: Was that fun to do?
MO: It's pretty cool. I only did one commentary, and it was with Matthew Armstrong [Ted Sprague] and George Takei. It was more riffing. George would say things like [takes on George Takei's deep voice], ‘That color is… peach. Why would anyone choose to use the color peach?' And then Matthew would argue that the color wasn't peach… and we weren't even talking about what was happening in the episode anymore. But it was really fun.

TVG: I know you guys haven't seen any scripts yet, but do you have any inkling as to what's in store for Hiro in Season 2?
MO: I have an idea of what most of the characters are doing, but those tend to change. It's funny, I find out more stuff about my character on the Internet than from the writers. My friends send me the stuff that they find.

TVG: Is it weird to get information about your character from that source?
MO: Yeah, it is. Sometimes it's rumours that were based on fact, and sometimes it's because the writer has a relationship with a producer. We don't see the producers every day because they don't visit the set every day when we're shooting. It's not like I can walk up to them and say, ‘Hey guys, how's it going? Got any scoop for me?'

TVG: One of the rumors is that the cast will take on an international flavor – can you confirm that?
MO: Oh yeah. One of the heroes will be traveling a lot this upcoming season – maybe like an Indiana Jones-type, that goes around the world.

TVG: If you – Masi Oka – could adopt a superpower that one of the characters on Heroes has, which would it be?
MO: Flying is always fun. The idea of having a cape, and being able to fly around would be cool.

The official Emmy Award nominations don't come out until July 19.

But there's been a leak!

TheEnvelope.com has apparently managed to track down the Academy's top 10 choices worthy of Emmy nomination in a few categories. These are unconfirmed, but should make fans of Heroes excited:

Drama Series/Episode being screened
Boston Legal/"Angel of Death"
Dexter/"Born Free"
Friday Night Lights/"Pilot"
Grey's Anatomy/"From a Whisper to a Scream"
Heroes/"Genesis"
House/"Half-Wit"
Lost/"Through the Looking Glass"
Rome/"De Patre Vostro"

Drama - Supporting Actor
Masi Oka/Heroes

We hope these come true. Meanwhile, we know for a fact that certain actors, such as Zachary Quinto, have been nominated for Teen Choice Awards.

On August 26, FOX will air the Teen Choice Awards.

And young fans of Heroes will have plenty of chances to vote for their favorite show and cast members. Here are the categories within which various actors are up for awards:

Drama series: "Grey's Anatomy," "Heroes," "House," "Lost," "Kyle XY."

Dramatic actor: Hugh Laurie of "House," Jared Padalecki of "Supernatural," Matthew Fox of "Lost," Milo Ventimiglia of "Heroes," Wentworth Miller of "Prison Break."

Dramatic actress: Emily Deschanel of "Bones," Evangeline Lilly of "Lost," Hayden Panettiere of "Heroes," Jennifer Love Hewitt of "Ghost Whisperer," Katherine Heigl of "Grey's Anatomy."

Choice breakout show: "Ugly Betty," "Friday Night Lights," "October Road," "Heroes," "South of Nowhere."

Choice breakout: America Ferrera of "Ugly Betty," Matt Dallas of "Kyle XY," Taylor Kitsch of "Friday Night Lights," Hayden Panettiere of "Heroes," Masi Oka of "Heroes."

Choice villain: Michael Rosenbaum as Lex on "Smallville," Vanessa Williams as Wilhelmina on "Ugly Betty," Zachary Quinto as Sylar on "Heroes," Michael Emerson as Ben on "Lost," Robert Knepper as Theodore Bagwell on "Prison Break.