IGN interviews Malcolm McDowell on Heroes 5/14/07

Heroes: The Generation Gap
by Eric Goldman | IGN 5/14/07
    This week Pasdar, Malcolm McDowell and Rose all took part in a conference call for Heroes that IGN participated in. McDowell confessed that he hadn't seen the series before recently joining the cast, though he recalled his son telling him, "Dad, it's one of the great shows on television. What rock have you been hiding under?" When asked about the fact that Linderman had been spoken about all season before we met him, the veteran actor said, "It made my job actually much easier. Of course they've all been talking about this character and I didn't really know until Adrian actually told me that he'd even had sort of phone calls with me, with nobody on the other line of course. They didn't even know who was going to play the part at the time. I have [played] my fair share of villains, and this is one of the really good ones."
    "Linderman is such a fabulous part for an actor to do, that really I had to do no acting at all," McDowell said. "I think the show is really well written. You're always on the edge of your seat," and laughed, confessing, "But I haven't got a clue what's going on. It is so compelling, it's sort of déjà vu. It's sort of like drugs or something. It's an amazing show. And they do such a great job. And I can say that because I've been on the inside now. I think they've got honestly one of the best jobs in television."
   Rose revealed she had no idea when she was cast what her character's true nature was, and that, "It's like a surprise package every time I open up that script. I got a little bit of a hint of a clue in the fall when it was alluded that I would be a little more interested in Nathan's political career than might normally be expected from a mother. But then I sort of went to the back for a while and I didn't know if I was going to come to the forefront. And then it was terribly exciting to find out that I am in fact in league with Linderman."
    The revelations of Angela and Linderman's alliance, coupled with Linderman speaking about a previous generation of heroes, has made many wonder what sort of abilities Angela herself may have. "At the beginning I was thinking that it was my husband who had the powers, and so it's just been a thrill ride, a real joyride," said the actress, adding that when it came to Linderman and Angela's intentions, "I don't think that we are evil. I really think that we're out to save the world, just a little misguided."
    Commenting on whether Nathan is based on a real life politician, Pasdar noted, "I think it's kind of a conglomerate. I've taken the best and the worst of politicians that have come across me in my personal life and also people that I don't know. We haven't defined whether Nathan is Republican or Democrat. I'm sure an argument can be made for the earlier in many, many ways. But no, I haven't really based this guy on anybody in particular, just a nice mix of the worst and the best that I've seen. The most morally liquid characters that I have run across, I've based this guy on."
    As for Nathan's constant ambiguity, Pasdar remarked, "I think just when you've had your suspicions confirmed one way or the other, he does something that presents the opposite. When you think he's bad he does something that might be called heroic. If he does something that's good, he does something that's not so good. That's the beautiful part of the writers' creation here, is that they've made somebody that can lean on both sides of the fence and still serve his ultimate goal without compromising his ability to be good or bad. It's a joy to play something like this because the writing is so good."
    When Pasdar was asked to comment on the upcoming season finale of Heroes he amusingly noted, "You know, it's so frustrating doing a conference call where they ask you to promote the show and tell you at the same time you can't tell anybody anything. So having said that, questions do get resolved in a huge way. I have a big part in the end, in the final decision making in the last few moments of the finale. All those questions that are posited in the pilot are answered almost to a 'T' in the finale. It's a beautifully structured finale. There are really wonderful moments at the very end. I just looped [episode] 22 and 23 the other day and I got an opportunity to see the final bits. And it's just mind blowing. It's stunning the way it's all put together." Pasdar also offered the intriguing tidbit that, "the finale shows you a good two minutes or so of where [season 2] is going to pick up. And I don't think anybody is going to guess where… In a very, very interesting place."
    The three actors revealed a very amusing sense of humor and obvious affection for each other during the call, especially during an hysterical tangent which began with Pasdar insisting he'd seen a tattoo of "a little villain with a dagger" on McDowell's "left buttock". However, the conversation then got very interesting for Heroes fans, as the topic of Nathan's father came up, and McDowell said of Linderman, "I think I can say this - I knew [Nathan's] father quite well." Pasdar acknowledged that, "It's been posited that Malcolm actually did sire somebody," with Rose noting, "That's what I'd like to think frankly." Rose then added, "I would like to think that Linderman and Angela met at Woodstock and conceived Nathan. And [Linderman] might not remember because we were in a daze of drug filled joy back in the day." McDowell chimed in that he thought, "Joe Cocker was on the stage at the time."
    More seriously, Rose revealed, "I've had a lot of thought put into this as to what really [Angela's] motives are. And there are still a lot of questions that I hope might be answered in the second [season], called "Generations". That title might intimate there will be more news about what has gone on before, what might go on in the future. I've been wondering if indeed Linderman and Angela and others, if these plans have been going on for decades and if Angela might not have borne here children to be part of this whole plan." We've seen Angela show concern for her son Peter when it looked like he'd suffer a fatal injury, but Rose wondered, "Is that concern overwhelming grief? Was it for the son that she loved? Or was it for the demise possibly of a plot or a plan she had been working on with others for so long? These are all questions I don't know. It could be anything. But that is one of the joys of the show. And there are so many questions, so many mysteries that we still don't know."
    On a recent episode of Heroes, we saw Nathan five years in the future, only to discover it was the villain Sylar, mimicking him. "I thought it was just a great opportunity to play another actor," said Pasdar of the episode. "I've always loved to do that. And that morning was the culmination of a lot of work that Zach [Quinto] and I had done up to that point. He came to the set. He wasn't on call but he came to the set and spoke to me in my trailer and just whispered the lines in my ear for about a half an hour. And then I just watched him walk around. I followed him. He blocked the scene. And to be able to take on his mannerisms and such, it was a real joy, a lot of fun. And there is not a lot of ambivalence in his actions and his motions. So to play somebody like that was a lot of fun."
    Pasdar said that the family dynamic on the series was key, adding, "I can't get much more specific, but I think that family as it is structured and as it has begun to unfold in the Petrelli household, between the four of us - myself, Peter, Angela, and Claire - is going to open up a little bit more. You're going to have some more insight into how that all came to pass. We are at the center of the generation of the Petrelli dynasty. And it's going to either start to unfold like a cheap sweater or it's going to be put back together very carefully by some talented people from the outside."
    Asked what Angela Petrelli's super power might be, Rose said she wasn't allowed to say, and couldn't even answer the question of whether we might find out her power this season or next. As Rose apologized for having to maintain the secrecy, Pasdar laughed and remarked, "It's frustrating, I know!"