TV Guide caught up with Heroes director Tim Kring and asked him for thoughts on the winter finale to the chapter entitled “Generations.”

Here are highlights of what Kring had to say:

On Elle clearly sparking when Mohinder called her a hero: “Kristen Bell gave us the perfect reaction in that scene. For a moment there, Elle sees she’s been given an opportunity to use her powers in a good way. And she absolutely likes the sound of that word ‘hero.’”

On the next chapter’s villains: “We’ve introduced a cadre of them over the course of the show and we’re going to see them rise up. Just as the heroes have found each other to save the world, the villains will do the same with the opposite intent… The Company has catalogued many of these people over the years. There may be more of them down in that basement than we have alluded to so far.”

On the one upside to the writer’s stirke: “Sylar getting his power back does not bode well for our heroes. Originally, Zachary Quinto was not going to be available for much of Volume 3 because of his commitment to the new Star Trek film. Now, with the strike dragging on, he’ll likely be done playing young Spock by the time Heroes returns to production.”

Good news, fans, that photo of the older generation of Heroes won’t be the last we see of these characters and actors.

“We will be seeing the people… in the photo,” Tim Kring said during an October 16 conference call with reporters. “I think all of them will be [played by the actors in the photo]. I just have to tell you, the photo has got a life of its own, because, logistically, it was so difficult to actually come up with this photograph that’s used now and refers to things that are shot well in the future here.

It was very difficult to get that all lined up. But, yes, the photo is as accurate as we can make it.”

For now, the most important new character in the photo is the father of Matt Parkman (Greg Grunberg), who will be tracked down in tonight’s new episode.

The photo also featured the by-now familiar faces of Daniel Linderman (Malcolm McDowell), Charles Deveaux (Richard Roundtree), Angela Petrelli (Cristine Rose), Bob (Stephen Tobolowsky) and Kaito Nakamura (George Takei).

Do you love Heroes for the characters or rather unique talents of these characters?

When Tim Kring created the show, he barely even focused on the latter. This isn’t exactly a man familiar with the world of science fiction.

 ”I have very little knowledge of the sci-fi world — and almost none of the comic book world,” Kring said in a recent conference call. “So, my influences … came from just the idea of basic storytelling and character development.”

Kring said his 22-year background in television provided him with training in character development and allowed him to approach a superpowers show from a different perspective. The journey of each individual is more of a focus for him than how far each can fly, time travel, etc.

“I chose to approach this material almost entirely from the idea of who these characters were,” Kring said. “I created the powers to reflect who the characters were, and not the other way around.

“So, I didn’t start off by saying I want a guy who can teleport. I started off by saying I wanted a guy who felt trapped in a life that was not his dream and what could be a power that would be most wish-fulfilling for that character? And that was the ability to teleport out of that life. So, that’s how I sort of approached it.”

Masi Oka, the man whose character can teleport, isn’t shy about his love of science fiction, however. He lets his geek flag fly as he portrays Hiro, a somewhat geeky computer and anime fan from Tokyo.

“If I can represent the geeks, I’m very fortunate to be able to do that. For me, the notion of a geek has always been someone who’s passionate about something — whether it’s computers, ant farms or musicals, or storytelling or paperweights — whatever it is,” he said.

“That’s what makes us human. It defines us as individuals. It gives us our uniqueness. And I think it’s more human, it’s more us. It’s more commendable to be a geek — and be passionate about something — than be apathetic about everything.”

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.”

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.

Tim Kring, creator of Heroes, recently sat down with Superherohype.com. Here’s what the writer had to say:

Q: Is everyone coming back for Season Two?
Kring: Well, I don’t want to spoil that for the fans. Clearly we left things up in the air with several of the characters and we want to make sure that the fans don’t know what’s going to happen so that it doesn’t spoil their [enjoyment].

Q: You said 24 episodes. Does that mean no one really died?
Kring: Again, you really just have to wait.

Q: But you’re keeping them available so you can bring them back?
Kring: Exactly, they’re all on retainer just in case they’re needed. [joking]

Q: You have at least eight new or recurring characters. How has it been integrating them in the writing?
Kring: A lot of it was planned for and felt fairly natural. So it’s a big cast. One of the things that we are doing this year, because we’re not asking the audience to start absolutely from scratch, we’re not so concerned about every episode having every single character in it. So we’re able to sort of pull back in the ebb and flow and let certain characters come to the surface for an episode and sit out an episode.

Q: Are you talking more about episodes like “Company Man” where it’s focused on one story?
Kring: Yes, exactly. The idea of being able to focus on a couple of characters is something that we really learned last year as a very valuable thing to do, but you had to have earned enough interest in those characters to be able to then focus on them.

Q: How are you creating feudal Japan in modern day Los Angeles?
Kring: Well, as we know, Los Angeles has doubled for many, many things. On this show it’s doubled for a lot of things. So it’s a fairly, I will say, rural view of feudal Japan which allows us to use a lot of the outlying areas like the Santa Monica Mountains and north of here.

Q: Are you going to do anything this season for fans who didn’t watch last season to be able to jump in and understand what’s happening?
Kring: Yes, that is a big part of what we’re doing. I mean, one of the things that I sort of learned in the first season was that we called season one Volume One and it was entitled “Genesis.” It just happened to be twenty three episodes long. Volume II is entitled “Generations” and it by no means has to be an entire season long. I wouldn’t expect it to be an entire season long.

In fact we’re looking at that volume to end in the middle of the season which allows us to wrap up certain stories and allows us to have new stories begin. So you don’t get a sense that if you jump on the train that you’re aggressively being pushed off of the train because you don’t know what’s going on. That’s a big concern with us.

Q: Do you see the second season as being two big archs or do you not know yet about the second half?
Kring: Well, it’s designed to be three. We’ll see how that works out.

Q: So will there be some kind of recap for people who didn’t see last season?
Kring: Only slightly because the actual episode itself, it’s an episode entitled “Four Months Later” and so we pick up the stories four months after we left off at the end of the season. There is tremendous mystery in what happened during those four months and that’s part of why you’re watching these first few episodes. They’re revealing what actually happened. So the recap, in a way, is sort of built into the story.

Q: How do you feel about the mixed fan reaction to the finale?
Kring: I didn’t really experience the mixed fan reaction. I heard anecdotally that people loved it and clearly on a show like this, again this is one of the problems with a big serialized show which is that by the time you get to twenty three episodes in you’re dragging a tremendous amount of story behind you. So when people wait that long for answers it gets very hard to satisfy people.

This is another reason why I think these volumes are really the way to go because it allows us to not have people build up expectations for so long as to how things are going to be resolved. When you build up for a whole year with a show like this it has an addictive quality to it and so it has to really pay off. Sometimes those expectations are too high for a mere television show.

To read the entire interview, click here.

According to Heroes creator Tim Kring, the character of Mr. Bennet changed a lot over the course of season one.

On an NBC blog, he talks about this character’s evolution, while Hayden Panettiere chimes in with how Claire also overcame obstacles on her way to heroics:

Tim: The character that went through the most change for me was Jack Coleman’s character - Claire’s father. Because if you paid close attention to the pilot, he only had about 8 lines of dialog. While I always imagined he’d have a presence on the show, I never imaged the big role he had and a lot of that is because of the chemistry between him and Claire. And in many ways, the most central relationship of the entire season was that between Claire and her father.

Hayden: You know, I think that in the beginning she was a normal girl dealing with normal things who wanted to date the quarterback and just fit in. I think it was a fabulous idea to make her a cheerleader cause it made her relatable to people - it reminded people of normal adolescent behavior.

And she discovers this thing she has and she looks at it as the worst thing in the world. To a teenager, it was completely dramatic, but over the course of the season she’s evolved into a young woman with a beautiful naiveté who is still a young girl but who has come into her own, who has learned to embrace who she is and the ability that she’s been given.

Tim: She literally became a hero. She went through the hero’s journey: from reluctant and unwilling to someone who is willing to make the ultimate sacrifices. So in some ways, she’s the most heroic character on the show.

On a live blog hosted by NBC.com, Heroes creator Tim Kring recently answered fans’ questions, one of them being about the upcoming spin-off Heroes: Origins.

“The idea was to try to do about half a dozen episodes that are stand-alone episodes dealing with the origin stories of characters all around the world who are waking up with the discovery of these unique abilities,” said Kring. “They are not connected necessarily to the show Heroes, but if you do watch or are a fan of Heroes, you’ll see tiny little clues that tie into the show.”

Moreover, there’s good news for fans who grew up watching old sci-fi shows. Kring wants the storytelling to be similar to that of The Twilight Zone’s Rod Serling.

“[Origins will feature] cautionary tales and morality tales,” said Kring. “Dealing with these people with unique abilities. So they’re completely stand-alone episodes that don’t follow a serialized formula.”

When the spin-off was first announced, NBC said that one of the new characters featured would become a member of the Heroes cast, but that doesn’t seem etched in stone yet.

“Some of the stories in Origins can be similar to characters currently on Heroes and one of the people on Origins may be involved on Heroes, eventually…”

Guess we’ll have to tune in and find out.

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 couldn�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.

�NBC Studios has grown and changed as I have grown, and Tim has too - he�s grown to show more of the absolute diversity of his talent,� Pope said. �The reason this deal is so important to us is because of Tim�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.�