In a world of superheroes, it’s tough to be an average citizen stuck at home caring for your superbaby, especially when your mind reading husband is still harboring resentment over the fact that you slept with his partner. All that aside, Janice Parkman does her best to keep her chin up and roll with the punches.

Playing Mrs. Parkman on the hit show Heroes is Lisa Lackey, an Australian actor who has been trying to balance her profession with raising a family of her own. We recently talked to Lackey about working on Heroes, accidentally serenading David Lynch and how being Australian is nothing like what you’ve seen on TV.

How did you get into acting? When did you decide it’s what you wanted to do for a living?

I actually don’t even remember when I got into acting. I was doing it when I was very, very young. The story goes that somebody came up to my mother and said, “Would you like to get your daughter into modeling and TV?” or something. I must have been about six or maybe even younger. That’s the story, I don’t know if it’s true, but that’s what my mother’s told me.

I started doing that kind of stuff. I was modeling underwear at six. I didn’t do very much; nothing that interfered with school or anything like that. I did some commercials and did some print and I was always the lead in the school plays. I just loved it. I absolutely loved it. I was terribly uncoordinated at sports. I was just terrible. I was scared of the ball. So you put me on a stage, ask me to sing a couple of songs, I was happy as Larry.

So that was kind of it. Then we moved away and I didn’t get to do anything for a long time because we lived in the country on a farm. So I was very determined after I left home at 17 and went off to the city to try to do theatre because that’s essentially what I was doing and what I loved. I didn’t really want to be famous or anything like that. This was the late 80s, so I was still just completely mesmerized by the big productions I had seen on stage.

I had to support myself. So, by day, I was doing regular work. By night, I was doing kind of dodgy theatre dinner restaurants and stuff. And then I ended up falling back into whatever I could to pay the bills and then ended up on a TV show in Australia by the time I was in my early 20s. And that launched me off into where I am now. It was a big show in Australia called Home and Away, that I believe is still running. That’s kind of where all of your Australians have come from. We’ve all at some point done a couple years, or a week on these two big shows that ended up very huge in the U.K. and were a little bit of a phenomenon.

Heath Ledger, Simon Baker, Julian McMahon, Melissa George, Isla Fisher, Guy Pearce and Naomi Watts have all worked on Home and Away. What is it about the show? Is it just the biggest show in Australia or is there a law that says you have to work on the show if you want to be a proper actor?

(Laughs.) Well, no, not a proper actor because the shows are for families. They’re essentially primetime shows that are for families to watch. That’s what they were geared to. And that hadn’t really been done in Australia before. The one I did was set around a beach community. So when it was sold to the U.K., that just went crazy because all of these people in the U.K. got a chance to see teenagers going to school and going through the trials and tribulations by the beach. And that was the idea that everyone had of Australia, so it just created this huge following.

And then there was Neighbors, which was the rival show, if you will, on the other network at the same time. That was all set around the suburbs in Melbourne and that created the same buzz. It was like the first time people got to see young kids going to school and everything that was happening around them. It had been done obviously millions of times here before and obviously in the U.K. you had EastEnders and all of these kinds of shows that were just about people in their neighborhood and what they got up to.

So I think that it was kind of the first time it had been done in Australia and it just ended up being hugely popular. Like I said, I think both of them are still going.

That’s quite a run.

Yeah. I mean, it’s half an hour primetime television and it’s that kind of thing where people sit down and watch it while they’re having their dinner and it’s for the whole family. Everybody loves it.

What made you decide to move to the United States to pursue a career? Was it acting that drew you here?

Oh yes, I was obsessed with acting. Absolutely. This was when American television was starting to come out to Australia and set up studios out there. This is way before the days of Star Wars and Fox Studios, this was a studio up in Queensland and they were doing shows like Flipper and they were doing a lot of TV movies, a lot of series that they could say it was Florida because it was the same and just so beautiful up there.

So I ended up on a show called Flipper, which was the remake of the very famous series. They did two different series of that and I was on the first one and I ended up just going in to do a guest spot, which is normally what happens – I go in to do one thing and I end up hanging around.

So I was shooting up there and I became friendly with the crew and the cast, who happened to be little Jessica Alba at the time, which is sort of funny. She was just this adorable little girl. And I became friendly with people like Brian Wimmer and Colleen Flynn and was sort of hinting at the idea of, “What do you guys get paid to do this kind of thing?” When I realized what it was, I couldn’t believe it because what we got paid in Australia – and we thought we were doing really well – was astronomically different.

I was just like, “Wait a minute, something’s wrong with this picture.” Cause I was playing an American. I had really studied my American accent. I watched a lot of Melrose Place or Beverly Hills or whatever was on at the time and I was one of the only ones to come out and be able to go straight into doing this American television because that’s kind of what the work was in Australia at the time, other than a couple of Australian movies that they were making. I tried to perfect this and thought, “This was crazy. I could be in America trying to do this.”

And everyone was like, “No, you can’t.”

At the time, the only people who had gone over were people like Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman. It was all still a very new and kind of scary thing. And it was like you have to be able to get a visa and you have to get an agent. Those guys had kind of gone over there off the back of movies and I hadn’t.

I was trying to go out there on the back of TV, which no one had seen over here. Home and Away and Neighbors are not on here, which actually ended up being a blessing in disguise because it was a way you could kind of start again. I know if you ask Melissa [George] or any of those people, they’d say, “Oh yeah, it’s a really good thing” because that was what we did and now this is who we are now.

And so, that’s what happened to me. I just packed up and I had a couple of episodes of Flipper and came over here and just literally did what I could. I think Simon Baker had come before me because I was living in his house at the time and he came over with his family and was the same, was just like, “Let’s just see what happens.” And this is back in ’95, before Sept. 11, before it became really hard to get a visa. It was still hard to get a green card here, but we all had the same lawyer, I think. It was like this guy must have just opened the door and said, “Yep, in you all come.” It was the beginning of that love affair that everyone seems to have with the Brits and the Australians. I think that’s kind of still hung around a little bit, which is really nice for us, you know.

You mentioned accents. Why is it that all of you Australian actors seem to be able to pick up the American accent really well, but then you see Americans try to do Australian accents and it becomes like a Crocodile Dundee kind of thing?

Well, unfortunately I think that due to Crocodile Dundee and a lot of other movies that have made trillions of dollars is that Americans seem to have an idea of Australia that is very different to what we have of the rest of the world, if that makes sense. I think that they often don’t really know how to do the Australian accent purely because they don’t know anything about Australia, whereas Australia is a lot more familiar with America due to economics and all that kind of stuff. So I think that’s probably the reason.

But I also think that our Australian accent is derived obviously from a British, if you will, or a European accent, so I think possibly we just have a different dialect in the first place, which makes it easier for us to literally get our mouth around some of the sounds we have to find. And I think also the lack of education, no fault of anybody’s, but just because even if people have gone to Australia, they still don’t really know.

People say to me all the time, “G’day mate.” It’s like, never in my entire life have I ever said, “G’day mate,” because no one does unless you go maybe into the middle of Australia where people live on cattle stations and there’s a lot of kangaroos and aboriginals. I grew up in the city for a good majority of time. I did live on a farm, but I still didn’t say “G’day mate.” I think that’s something that has been manufactured purely to sell the Australian product.

So Crocodile Dundee and the Outback Steakhouse commercials are not a good representation of Australia?

Oh, well it’s hilarious. And I’m probably going to get sued for saying this, but I went to an Outback Steakhouse when I came here, thinking, “Oh, you know, this might make me feel really at home.” It’s nothing – it’s not even remotely anything like anything. I went there with my kid once and I had to send the food back because I was just like, “This is not what I was expecting.”

And, he said, “Oh, well you know, it’s nothing to do with Australia really.”

But, you’ve called it the Outback Steakhouse and you’ve got this guy doing this really bad Australian accent in your ads. It’s like what?

I said, “I feel tricked.” I was disappointed because, at the end of the day, it was just this marketing tool that has nothing to do with – none of the food on the menu we eat. And that’s what it is. And I think that started much more from Crocodile Dundee than something like Mad Max.

But then again, we’re just as much to blame because it sold so much, it made so much money. But what a lot of people didn’t realize was that Paul Hogan is a comedian. It was a complete piss-take of what everyone else thought Australia was. So the joke was kind of on everyone else, but it ended up backfiring on us.

I remember doing a job and they cast me and I was going to be American. And they said, “We’d really love you to be Australian. This will be great. We’ll write the role for you.” And it was just really flattering. Then, I did a few episodes and they kept saying to me, “Can you be more Australian?”

I was like, “Well, no. I actually can’t because this is it.” And what they wanted, because it was a comedy, they wanted me to do all of the “G’day” and all the “blimey” that has been made up and has been completely created by this image. So I was a little disappointed by that and I vowed never ever to play an Australian again.

I remember when I auditioned for Heroes and I had the room full of men sitting there saying, “We’d really love to see this just for fun with an Australian accent.”

I just looked at Tim Kring and said, “No.”

And they all started laughing and they’re like, “No?”

I said, “Yeah, no. Sorry. Not doing it.” And I told them the story. And they were laughing hysterically. They thought it was so funny. So I said, “So I’m a little scared.”

And they said, “Come on, just for fun.”

So I did it just for fun.

They were like, “Oh no, that’s bad.”

I said, “Yeah.” It’s like my own accent was bad because it sounds so weird, you know? It just doesn’t sound right.

You worked with David Lynch on Mulholland Drive and Tim Burton on Planet of the Apes. Both are fascinating, iconic and unique directors. What was it like working with them?

Unfortunately, the disappointing news is with Tim Burton it was the very beginning of the film where there was a party scene and they needed a bunch of actors who could improvise and just kind of make it up as they went along. And the casting director – I think a lot of casting directors do that with actors that they really like – if you don’t get the role as one of the monkeys, it’s like, “Okay, we’ve got to find something for her to do in this because we like her” kind of thing. So she called up and said, “Would you be interested in just doing kind of an improvised scene in the beginning with Tim Burton for the day.”

You know, I had just gotten here. I was like, “Yeah, that would be great.” Because when all you want to be is an actor, it doesn’t matter. It’s not even about the money; it’s not even about anything. It’s like, “I’ll do that for free.” Not that I did, of course. It’s just the opportunity to work with these seminal kind of people that is so wonderful.

So it was just literally that. At the end of the day when you see the film, it probably ends up being like five minutes or something like that, but for me it was a day to work with him and just have him kind of treat you like you’re creative just as much as everybody else was. That was a really nice thing. Yeah, a really interesting guy and it was just fun.

The David Lynch thing was a lot more because it was originally a TV pilot that was made for ABC and Disney. So we kind of went through the motions, but he’s a very – I don’t know if he casts all his movies this way, but he’s very unique in the way he finds the people that he likes. It was a very different process from what I’d ever experienced in terms of auditioning.

He kind of picks you off of photographs and he likes your vibe or look and then he decides where he’s going to put you, which is interesting. And then he puts you on tape and you just talk about what you had for breakfast kind of thing and then he still just hasn’t decided where he’s going to put you. Except for obviously Naomi Watts’ role and stuff like that, I’m sure obviously that would have been a lot more in-depth. But his supporting characters, that’s sort of how he did it.

And coincidentally, there ended up being four Australians in the cast and we were all completely unrelated. So that was interesting as well. And we’re all relative – I mean Naomi had been here for a long time really treading the boards, pilot after pilot, really trying to make it. But Melissa and I and Marcus Graham, we’d just arrived.

So here we were all part of this thing. We didn’t really know what we were doing. And then at the very last minute, you get the script, confidential, and I got mine and it said, “Could you please learn these two songs?”

So I was like, “Oh god, this is so David Lynch. This is fantastic.” But I still didn’t know what I was doing. It ended up, obviously, I played an actress who was auditioning in to be in some sort of movie musical or something and then Melissa George was playing the girl and she did a similar thing.

And so, it was amazing because the character was required to lip synch these quite famous songs, which is really hard. So I was on the set practicing. I was in my costume and really going for it because everyone was just setting up. Then he was announced that he was coming, so it’s like 10 minutes and David Lynch will be on set.

I was like, “Okay,” and I kept going and kept going and I had my back to the entrance and I was just going for it, just a capella with these people that they’d given me to support me and then I realized that everything was silent and quiet, and I turned around and he was just standing there watching me sing, like properly sing and I was really going for it.

I was like, “Oh my god.” And there he was in all his glory, just the most sophisticated, debonair, amazing man and I was just like, “Oh, hi.”

And he said, “I didn’t realize that you could sing.” That was the first thing he said to me. He said, “If I had known, we would have recorded this beforehand.”

I was like, “That’s the first thing he says to me?” “Yeah, well, I don’t know. What do you want me to say?” So, that was it. That was my experience with him and it was absolutely wonderful. Then, of course, it just went away. The pilot wasn’t picked up. I think there was some political problems between him and the studio and what have you. Then about a month later we all received a letter saying, “Do you give permission for this to be turned into a film if this should happen?” Yeah, of course.

Then it became this cult, wonderful film that was just wonderful and you couldn’t have asked for anything better to happen to it because he ended up being able to do with it what he wanted to do with it and not compromise, which I think is so inspiring in itself.

And it made Naomi Watts who she is today. That’s inspiring too because I’ve sort of followed her career from then and, I mean, I knew her in Australia and it’s just great. It’s just such a Cinderella story. It just makes you believe that you’ve got to keep trying and it really has nothing to do with anything other than just waiting for your time, waiting for that moment if you are still into it and interested; that it’s all about that role that someone gives you the chance to do and believes in you.

Of course, you now play Janice Parkman on Heroes. You were on the show in season one, then you went away for a little while, before returning last season. How did you end up on the show in the first place and did you know all along you would be returning or was that a surprise?

Well, Heroes came along for me at a time that was just absolutely fantastic for me because I had kind of lost that same feeling I had when I first came over here. I had started to find different interests and the acting had kind of taken somewhat of a backseat for me. I had a couple of other offers around that time. I had actually started on a show and then decided to take, it was just a couple of episodes of Heroes, because I thought it was such a cool show and such a great concept.

As it always happens with me, I ended up being written in a lot more. And then, I think probably halfway through the first season, I found out I was pregnant and so I was like, “Okay, gotta go. I’m going off to do this now,” which was no accident. It was kind of always my plan at that point in my life to do that. And I’d met my husband, who wasn’t my husband at the time, but I’d met that guy. So, I was kind of like, “All right, guys.” You know, I was just assuming because I was a reoccurring character that I probably wouldn’t reoccur anymore because I was pregnant.

So I told Greg Grunberg, “I’m pregnant and I’m going to call Tim Kring and let him know and say thanks for the experience and good luck with everything.” Completely long story short, but basically what happened is they, on the same day, completely coincidentally, had decided that my character should be pregnant. They obviously had these ideas that I didn’t know about involving a superbaby in the future, that would be the ultimate way to go with Greg Grunberg’s character because he was really the only one that would be able to do that because he’s kind of the everyman. His powers are very different to what the other powers were.

Hayden Panettiere is hardly going to have a kid. And Ali Larter’s character already had a kid and she was a bit confused, so I don’t think she’d be having another kid. So it was brilliant because I was able to have my pregnancy and enjoy my pregnancy on the show and be pregnant at the same time. So I didn’t have to hide it, I didn’t have to worry about getting fat; I didn’t have to worry about any of that because I was essentially a character actor anyway. I didn’t have to look sexy all the time or anything like the other girls had to.

And so, season two, it’s weird because no one ever said goodbye to me. You know, we finished the year of season one and they were like, “Okay, see you guys later.” And we’re like, “Okay.” Because as a reoccurring, you never know what is going to happen to you. You only know by the script. Or you only know if they call up and say, “Are you available for these dates?”

So I went off and then came back for the second season and hadn’t heard from them and was like, “All right.” I’d had an affair on the show and so we broke up. I was still pregnant, hadn’t had the kid, but we’d broken up because I’d had the affair, so we assumed the baby was the product of the affair and I sort of forgot all about it and went off and had my baby in real life. I got to have the first couple of months at least completely, exclusively with him. To be honest, I kind of didn’t really want to lug him around. I didn’t want to have to get a nanny. I just wanted to completely just be with him.

Then I got a call saying, “Okay, you are in a scene.”

I was like, “Oh,” and I walked back on. “Hi, welcome back.” And it was just so like I’d never left. And that was kind of a dream sequence in the middle of season two where the question came up – is it his baby? So that was the first time they started to ask that question. I’m like, “Wait a minute, something’s going on here.”

So by season three, I’d gone off and kind of done a couple of other things here and there with my kid. Then by season three, it was like, “Oh yeah, you’re getting back together with your family because it turns out the baby has a power, so it had to have been his.” So I was literally finding out the storyline as I was working, as I’d turn up on set and read the script.

Then, it became very clear by the end of season three, the way we left it was we’re going to try to make a go of this. So we wrote up our contracts and did all that kind of stuff, but I’m really lucky in that my son’s two now and I think there’s a pro and a con to being a series regular. Obviously, the pro is the money. And the con is the fact that you sign on to a show for seven years or their options.

And I’ve done that before and I had no life. So I know what that feels like and I think that if you’re very ambitious and you want to be that famous movie star or that famous TV star and that’s your goal, then that’s fantastic because you can make an amazing living. I think because I’d experienced that so young, now my priorities are very, very different because I’m no longer a single girl that can travel all around the world and do TV shows and movies because I want to be in one spot.

The last couple of years, I’ve said no to so many auditions because of the economy and because of the nature of the union and what’s happened with the strikes and the pending strikes and so much stuff isn’t even shooting here anymore. So once you take out the stuff that’s not shooting here, you take out the stuff like horror and comedy, which I have no interest in, there’s not a lot of work left.

Heroes came at such an amazing time for me because it showed me that I was still able to be an actress, which I love, and really not compromise at all. So I’m very grateful to Heroes and I’m very grateful to still be around in the capacity that I’m around because I get the best of both worlds, if you know what I mean. My son doesn’t even know I’ve gone to work half the time because I don’t really go that often and yet I get to maintain everything else that is a priority to me, if you know what I mean.

So are you a series regular now? How much will we see your character next season?

I’m not a series regular. I’m still reoccurring, so I can still come and go as I please, which is great. And yeah, I don’t know because they don’t know. The series regulars don’t even know. Literally, nobody knows until the writers know and they’re changing stuff the day of. So all I know is what we’ve shot already and where it looks like it’s going to go and we’re very much back together. So I have no idea what’s going to happen. That’s what’s exciting about Heroes is that we’re a family now, we have a kid who has powers and we’re trying to make a go of it. So who knows what’s going to happen?

But I do know that it’s a very different feeling this season because everybody knows that the ratings kind of fell a little. I think that what happened to Heroes is it became this phenomenon very early on, but it also sort of became this phenomenon interactively and it was very Internet-based. I think it’s like the biggest show in the world that’s downloaded. It’s something ridiculous like one of the biggest.

So while all of these ratings from people watching it on a Monday night kind of fell, I don’t think what people were taking into consideration was this was the show that people didn’t sit down on Monday nights and watch, they downloaded it or they got all the DVDs. That was huge in itself that that lead the way in that kind of interactive capacity.

And I think that a lot of people became a little confused by season two and season three because they kind of felt that it was not going in the same direction as season one was. And I think what’s going to happen now is you’re going to see season four kind of go back to where season one was in that we’re going to be a lot more connected to the characters again. I think that’s what people kind of wanted. I think that’s what people loved about season one is that you were getting an insight into somebody’s life who had these powers who were really reluctant Heroes.

Then, all of the sudden season two and season three was all about just how many powers they had and how powerful they were. It was kind of like the sky is the limit here. There was no journey to go on because there was nothing they couldn’t do. So there was no conflict, really. You know what I mean?

There has to be a point where you have a conflict and you can’t do it. If you can and your powers are limitless, then it’s kind of like well, we need to go back to what it feels like to have these powers. And I think that’s where they are going to go. It’s going to be much more about relationships and what it means to these people.

Do you like the fact that your character doesn’t have any powers, which sets her apart, or is there a part of you that wishes that your character got to have an ability?

Well no, I really like the fact that I don’t have a power because I think it does set me apart and what I’d really like to see happen, and I must mention this to the writers, is that I really want to see her more involved in what’s going on with Matt Parkman.

Right now, at the end of season three, we saw him do something that I think he’s going to regret for the rest of his life in terms of what he did with Sylar and Nathan Petrelli and he finds it very hard to communicate any of that to his wife yet again. So, while they’re back together and while they’re trying to make it work, there’s still all of these secrets that he has from her. Personally, just from being in a marriage, I don’t think that’s going to work. I think you can’t have any secrets.

So I’d really like to see her say, “Enough is enough. You need to let me help you.” And I’d like to see her get involved with these people. And that I think is going to be a great way for the audience to get to know her because right now all they know about her is that she went off and had an affair on her husband. And I think that’s really unfair because there was never enough time to kind of look at that and it’s like, I think, unfortunately, no disrespect meant at all but, I think for men, as soon as a woman goes and does that, it’s like, “I can’t even look at you because how could you do that?”

I think if a man does it, it’s the same, but it’s almost somewhat forgivable because women tend to forgive. That’s sort of our nature. I’d really like a chance for my character to redeem herself in terms of you didn’t hear my side of the story. I’ve got a husband who never is home and I’m getting no attention and I’m feeling like the marriage is falling apart and I suddenly get attention from someone.

Now, albeit, it shouldn’t have been his partner, but it’s like the thing about these two people is they love each other completely. They’ve been together for a very long time and their love for each other has brought them back. And the fact that they have a child. So I want to see her get involved and go out and try to help him. I think she’s a lawyer or something, so I’m sure there’s something that she’s got to be able to do. She’s clever and she’s a strong woman and I think that you’ve got Hayden and you’ve got Ali and you’ve got people who come in and out of the show, but I think they could do with a strong brunette. That’s kind of my vibe about the whole thing, quite frankly.

What does the future hold for you?

Probably another baby. (Laughs.) I’m the reluctant actor at these moments in time. I’m really loving my family and the idea of adding to my family. Like I said, if I can just stay with Heroes long enough for it to be interesting and then continue in that way or do another show in that vein, I would be perfectly happy. Because like I said, there’s just not a lot of interesting stuff out there and I think that Heroes is still one of the most interesting shows on primetime TV and it’s really great to be a part of that. So I’m like perfectly content right now to be doing what I’m doing, I have to say.

Interviewed by Joel Murphy. Season four of Heroes begins on Monday, September 21.

You can listen to audio highlights of our interview with Lisa Lackey by clicking on the play button below or by subscribing to our Hobo Radio podcast:

After tormenting Claire Bennet, along with her biological and adopted mothers last season on Heroes, it was quite a surprise to see Eric Doyle reemerge and ask Claire for help. Even more surprising was the fact that Claire did indeed help him.

But then again, maybe we shouldn’t have been too surprised. While Doyle can certainly be a very creepy and unsettling character, there is something likeable about the puppetmaster who controls other humans with the flick of his wrists. Perhaps that likeability comes from David H. Lawrence, XVII, the charismatic actor who portrays Doyle on the show.

We had a chance to talk to Lawrence about Heroes, his work on Saints Row and his short film My Name Is Wallace.

How did you get into acting? When did you decide it’s what you wanted to do for a living?

If we’re going back to when I was a kid, my first acting experience was sitting on the counter at the pharmacy at age three or four reading the stock market stories to the passersby from the Cleveland Plain Dealer and enjoying immensely the applause and the smiles and all that sort of thing. I was hooked.

So you were always a naturally outgoing person?

Yeah, absolutely. Someone who wanted to perform, someone who wanted to please. Incredibly, incredibly intelligent, enormously cute, all the things that have served me well as an adult.

When did you decide acting was something you actually wanted to do for a living?

About 10 minutes after I got back home to my place in DC after being shut out in 2003 in February by a snowstorm. I lived in Washington, DC for probably 14 years doing morning radio and midday radio for ABC and then my own radio show that I owned for a decade or so. And I traveled to Florida in February of 2003 for a funeral and coming back on Sunday, I thought, “You know what? I better check the Weather Chanel just to be sure” because there’s this condition in Washington, DC about the weather where they think they’re in the Keys.

Seriously, they think they’re in the Deep South and they completely ignore the fact that they’re situated on the Chesapeake Bay. And having grown up in Cleveland, any time you’re on a big body of water, it amplifies the weather. And DC has never had the temerity to actually budget enough money for true snow removal. They just sort of assume it never happens, even though it does every year. And there’s lots and lots of snow and it’s worse because they are on the Chesapeake and it just paralyzes the city. Their whole budget for snow removal is some guy named Joe with a plow.

So I’m watching this and I’m seeing that snow is moving in and I said to myself, “You know what? They’re going to shut down the airports.” And they did, even before it started snowing. Because there was a rule when I used to do radio in DC – we were not allowed to say the word “snow” in our weather forecast until it was actually snowing because people would panic. They would abandon their cars; they would clear the shelves off at the Safeway and the Giant. It was not pleasant. And it was because they knew the city could be shut down for a week at a time. And that’s exactly what happened when I was in Florida. I was actually stuck in Tampa for three days because it just dumped massive amounts of snow.

And I got home and the homeowner’s association had followed the rules to the letter. They had dutifully cleared the sidewalks and the stairs leading up to our townhouse and they had done it by shoving all the snow up against my front window. If I had slammed my door, my front window was bowed in about six inches, it would have shattered. And I’m like, “This sucks. I’ve always wanted to be on-camera. I want to move.” I hated this area at this point. And it was only because of the weather thing. Everything else about DC is awesome. Except August. August is horrifying because it’s built on a swamp, so the weather is just disgusting. But all the rest of the year is great.

But I’d always wanted to see if this goofy face could do well in front of the camera. I had a very successful career as a voiceover artist, as a narrator, I performed at the Kennedy Center. But, the occasional stage work and the occasional bit part in a film that’s shot in the area or ensemble work in Cleveland or news reporting that I had done over my career, I’d never actually put it to the test. I thought, “You know what? I’m going to come out and I’m going to put it to the test. I’m going to try it.” So I did.

You were a writer, producer and voice actor for the video game Saints Row. What was it like making a video game?

It was awesome. It was a life-changing experience. It was very akin to what’s happened to me with Heroes in terms of the change in direction of my life. I worked on that game for a year and a half with the people at Volition, which is one of the studios that THQ develops their games at. And I worked with some really, really great guys who really let me go crazy.

They very proudly say that they are a Grand Theft Auto clone. But the difference is, when you play Grand Theft Auto you can turn the radio on in the car while you’re running over hookers and shooting cops and whatnot, but in the case of Saints Row, we created an entire cluster of radio stations modeled after a typical major market Clear Channel cluster, where all of the same economies of scale were in place.

All of the stations are in the same building, they are served by the same news department – Jack Armstrong. The weather reports are absolutely as accurate as they are on the radio. They’re accurate, but they’re randomized to be inaccurate. So most of the time, if the DJs or the announcers on all of the radio stations give you a weather report and it’s “partly cloudy tonight with a chance of rain in the morning,” there’s probably a 70 to 80 percent that that’s what will happen. The exteriors will start to cloud over and by morning there will be rain falling. That’s how precise this stuff is.

And what they let me do was create a bunch of different formats from rock to world music to classical. You can actually go about your missions wreaking havoc in Stilwater, which is the city in the game, while listening to classical music and a very pompous classical music announcer who does all of the same things you would hear on a regular radio station, but this station is so exclusive, you can’t find it on your dial unless you’ve been invited.

Your classical music DJ sounds like Thurston Howell from Gilligan’s Island.

Yes. “Lovey.” And I did 64 voices in the game. Everything for a former rock jock who was doing beautiful music like Mantovani and Frank Chacksfield all the way up to an elderly black woman who was doing mornings at a soul station. Then, of course, in the game there’s all these different places where you can take your car to get it blinged out. You can go and buy music. You can buy gun, clothes. And all of those places advertised on all of these radio stations. So we also created over 100 different radio commercials that would play various versions. If you did really well in the game, the store where you would buy your clothes or your guns may be offering you a 20 percent discount for a while.

And the best part is I wrote, with my writing partner Mike Schmidt, and produced every single one of those 11,000 some odd assets that the game calls upon, including callers calling in and requesting songs, different intros for all of the music that was licensed in the game by the DJS. I got to go out and hire DJs like Bubba the Love Sponge from Sirius and from Tampa, Kat Corbett from KROQ here in Los Angeles and have them record different intros for the song. You could play this game for three and a half years and never hear the same content in the same order twice. That’s how many different options there are for the game.

There are people who write me to this day and they say, “I take Saints Row and I drive the car out to the outskirts of Stilwater where it takes a while for the zombie public and the criminals to find me and just listen to the radio stations because they’re hilarious.” We even had a conservative talk station. It was an amazing experience. It was a year and a half that was fantastic.

Were you involved with Saints Row 2 at all?

I was not. They saved a lot of money on Saints Row 2.

So it wasn’t as complex as the first one?

I don’t know if it was as complex. I haven’t been able to find anybody writing about what’s going on with the radio stations in Saints Row 2. I know that the guy who produced Saints Row called me the day that Saints Row 2 came out and said that he thinks they kind of cheaped out on it because they had other things they wanted to put their money towards, which is fine. And I don’t know that the person that actually did the radio stations had any radio background. Maybe, I don’t know. I heard his name once and I was like, “I don’t know him.” I don’t think they went as high profile with it.

Are you a big gamer?

I’ve been a gamer ever since the eight-bit days. I had an Atari 400 and 800, a GameCube, I have a PS3 now and an Xbox 360. I try not to spend too much time playing games. More than that, I covered games for a long time. I used to be the anchor for GameSpy and IGN at E3. We did a daily three-hour show from E3 for the last five or six years before E3 kind of imploded and became a suit meeting.

In 2006, you were the lead in My Name is Wallace, which seems like it would be a fun film to do. How did you end up making that film?

It was a character that I had been doing on radio since the late 70s – just this really socially-challenged guy who in the very first – in fact, one of the extras on the DVD is the morning show bit where Wallace was first heard across the country, called “The Personals.” The Personals were basically a collection of outtakes from dating service personal tapes, you know where you go in and say, “Hi, I’m 35-years-old, I’m a plumber and I’m looking for a good woman that I can settle down with.” Well, you know, sometimes these tapes don’t necessarily lead to a match. And it’s because the people who are making the tapes are goofballs.

Wallace was a guy who, just in audio, we didn’t actually see him; just in audio for decades he’s been on radio stations across the country. He basically in his very first appearance was like, “Hello, my name is Wallace and I would very much like to meet you. I promise I will take a shower before I go out on our date. Although this morning I was in the shower and I cut my torso actually while I was shaving my chest hairs, but that will be completely healed by the time you call the dating company and say yes. So I hope you do.” He was just that kind of a goofy, socially-stunted kind of guy. And my buddy Bob, who is one of my best friends, he’s the reason I’m in radio, wrote a script around that character.

So we did this film and it got into I think 108 film festivals and won 30 or so of them and won awards in over half of them. I think that people really relate to the character. He’s this sort of vulnerable guy who tries to make sense of the world.

Do you think you’ll do anything else with Wallace?

We’re actually working on a feature version of the script. We think Wallace could meet the Wolfman and go to space and go to camp and that kind of stuff.

You are perhaps best known for your role as Eric Doyle on Heroes. What was it like to come in to the show during season three and get to play such a creepy villain on the show?

Creepy villain is just one of the attributes of this character and this experience. Just to be recurring on the show, to be involved with Jessalyn Gilsig’s character Meredith, to have his own lair – because let me point out that Eric is the only villain on the show with his own lair, Doyle’s Marionette Theatre in Los Angeles, California. It’s been fantastic.

I tell my friends who are actors – they ask the same questions. It’s one of those things, like one of my friends is Drew Carey and I asked him at one point, “What’s it like to have this amazing, very successful television show when I know you? You were living in your car for 12 years and everybody thinks you were this overnight success, but you worked your butt off to get to that point, to get on the Tonight Show to have that happen and have that be a turning point. What is that like?”

And he’s like, “Dude, I never have to work again. What do you think it’s like?” He’s just loving life.

And I can tell you, since June 12, 2008, when I found out I was casting’s pick – I went in for the audition that day and then that afternoon I found out I was casting’s pick and production’s pick and Tim’s pick and then it was just the network – my life has been completely different. And I’m not even a series regular. I can only imagine what life is – well, I don’t have to imagine, I can read it in the trades or the tabloids what life is like for people like Hayden Panettiere and Milo Ventimiglia and the series regulars.

It has been like a little person sitting on my shoulder with a checklist – pages and pages on this clipboard – and the front page, the title of this checklist is “Things to do to make David’s life spectacular.” And just check, check, check, check, check. Every time I turn around, there’s something new about this experience that is just really, really amazing to me and so much fun and not the least bit expected. If you’d told me I would be in London, England signing autographs for fans and traveling over to the BBC to do some work while I was there because I was there for Heroes and that I would be playing a villain on this show that when I first watched it I thought, “Well, that’s not going to be on my target list. These people are the prettiest people in the world. Even the villain is hot. I’m never going to get on this show. Sylar is like, Zachary Quinto is a beautiful man. There’s nobody on this show that doesn’t have chiseled features. Even the extras are hot.” Then, all of the sudden, I’m on this show.

It’s been absolutely amazing. The whole experience has been so fantastic. And to have been given a part that you really get to sink your teeth into. Eric Doyle is so in love with Meredith and has so many dimensions to him. And really, he’s creepy in the process, but there’s a logic to what he does. Everybody operates in their lives by a set of rules and Eric’s set of rules is just a little bit different from everybody else’s. And his choices are different.

Claire was quite surprised to find you standing in the Bennet kitchen eating popcorn two weeks ago, as were the viewers at home. Were you surprised to be invited back to the show this season or did you know all along that the writers would be bringing Doyle back?

Somewhere in between – we’d filmed that episode (at the microwave) during the time that episode 13 was airing, so I knew. I just didn’t know what they further had in store for me.

Your character definitely seemed very upset this season when telling Claire that the government burned down his puppet theatre. How sad were you to learn that Doyle’s “lair” had been destroyed?

It can always be rebuilt, can’t it?

Eric Doyle tried to convince Claire that he had changed his evil ways, but you gave a knowing smile at the end of last week’s episode that seemed to indicate that Doyle hadn’t changed one bit. Do you think that Doyle could ever be one of the good guys?

Absolutely. I think Eric Doyle is one of those guys who, when he’s pissed off, he does things impetuously. In fact, that’s sort of a recurring theme that we’ve seen from most of the villains is that they had their powers manifest either during the eclipse or when they got pissed off, when somebody provoked them or when they were really, really sad or when they were frustrated or when they were angry or when they were frightened. I think some of that was sort of involuntary. And I think Eric Doyle, he’d have been in jail a long time ago if he was constantly doing shows for kids and was a real creep.

He’s not a pedophile, he’s not a common criminal, he’s the guy who in high school was picked on because he wasn’t a jock, he wasn’t a cheerleader. He was probably a drama geek, hence the puppets. He kept to himself.

You can read the Attribute Tracker over at NBC.com at Primatech. NBC has done some really great work filling in the backstories of all of these characters. They filled in the backstory of Eric Doyle’s character after I had shot the scenes. You can actually find out when his power first manifested when his uncle that he was sent to live with made him go to the beach and he didn’t want to go to the beach. He just wanted to play with his puppets. The uncle thought, “I’m not going to have any kid I’m taking care of playing with puppets.” So they went to the beach, he hated it there and he so hated it that he forced his uncle to swim out to the ocean and not come back. And that was his first kill. I had no idea. I had my own backstory. I had my own backstory about how Meredith and I met and it turns out we met in a flea market and I became smitten.

So I think Eric Doyle has the potential and has shown in the past kindness and love and strength and camaraderie and his own personal brand of heroics.

Will we see more of Eric Doyle this season or should we assume that once Claire rescued him, he is off living his new life in peace?

You should pay attention to the webisode series coming up on the site called “Nowhere Man” – it’s going to be just that, a look at what happens to Eric … er … Jason, after he walks off from Claire. It’s going to be awesome.

What would you be doing for a living if you never got into broadcasting or acting?

Probably what I did in addition to broadcasting and acting, which is working with technology. Way back in the 70s when I was in high school, I was working on mainframe computers with teletypes and then card readers and then DEC PDP-8’s and 11’s with the terminals that actually had dot matrix printers and daisy wheel printers. I’ve been working with computers forever.

What does the future hold for you?

I think I can carry a show. I’d love to do sitcom work. I’d love to carry a show or be a series regular and I’d also like to do feature work. That’s what I’d love to do. And I will do that.

A friend of mine said, “You know, you’re the only guy in Los Angeles who declares, ‘I’m going to be an actor!’ and then actually goes and does it.” Everybody else is like, “I’m giving it a shot. I’m trying my best. I’m working as a waiter or a waitress, but I’m living the dream. I’m going for the brass ring.” For me, it’s like this is just another thing that I want to do, I will prepare as much as I can for doing it well – intern at places and take classes and give workshops and take workshops and just really continue to fire on all cylinders in my career.

I don’t know what the future holds and even if this is it – even if this is the pinnacle, this has been insane cool. I just have a feeling there’s more in store for me and I really am looking forward to finding out what that is.

Interviewed by Joel Murphy. Heroes airs Monday nights on NBC. For more information on David H. Lawrence, XVII, visit his official site.

After 40 years in the business and more than 100 films under his belt, to say that Malcolm McDowell has had a long and successful career would be an understatement. The charismatic star of classic films like A Clockwork Orange and Caligula now finds himself doing voiceover work for shows like Metalocalypse and playing Daniel Linderman on the hit series Heroes.

We recently caught up with McDowell to discuss his distinguished career, his golf game and how it feels to play the role of the villain.

You are originally from Leeds, England.

I was born there. I spent all of six weeks of my life there before being carted off with my father who was in the RAF [Royal Air Force] to the east coast of Yorkshire where he was flying bombers over Germany.

Where do you call home now?

California.

How long have you lived there?

Almost 30 years.

How exactly did you get into acting, and when did you decide this is what you wanted to do for a living?

I acted at school. I went to quite a progressive school which was an all-male boarding school – I guess you’d call it a private school; we called it a public school – and had a good education. Part of the education required you to do plays – musicals and Shakespeare. We had a musical production at Christmas time and then a Shakespeare production in the summer.

That’s how I started. I guess I played all of the great parts in Shakespeare before I left school and then I always thought, “Well, I guess I could find my way into acting somehow,” which I did.

Once you made the decision to pursue acting, was it fairly easy to break into the business? Did you ever think about giving it up and pursuing something else?

You know, the decision was made for me. I was offered a job and I leapt at it to go into weekly rep. That’s where all young actors started in those days, in repertory theatre – one play ever week. I mean, it seems crazy now because how good could that be, you know?

It was pretty awful, but it really gave me a chance to play a great spectrum of parts and to learn how to act at somebody else’s expense. That’s what it did and it was actually tremendous to get out before the public working as an actor, even if it wasn’t in very good quality stuff because at least you were doing it. And so that became my drama school, really. That’s how I started. It was really bizarre.

When did you start getting comfortable with acting?

By the time I came to do my first film, after four years of being a theatre actor and doing television. I did a series, which was a really good learning experience – you get a lot of time before a camera. Doing stuff like that. By the time I came to do my first lead in a movie, which coincided with being my first, I was very lucky, I was ready for it or as ready as you ever can be.

Also, I happened to get cast by a brilliant director, Lindsay Anderson, so working with him was eye-opening and extraordinary and we became friends for the rest of his life.

I’ve just done a film about him, called Never Apologize. It’s opened in England and it was played at the Cannes Film Festival. It showed in New York about a month ago at the Lincoln Center, it opened for a week. And it will find its way onto DVD or it may even get a few theatrical engagements, we hope.

What else can you tell us about Never Apologize?

I’m very proud of this one man show that is now a film. There is a website called NeverApologize.com. My good friend and collaborator Mike Kaplan directed the piece and did a beautiful job putting it all together. And it was something that I could give back to my dear friend who died; it was 14 years ago that he died.

It was something that I could do to make people aware of who he was and to hopefully inspire people to go find the movies. And since I did it, I have to tell you that Criterion put out a beautiful copy of If…., which is fabulous, and then Warner’s put out an incredibly beautiful copy of O Lucky Man!, which were two of the great films I did with Lindsay Anderson, so they are available. I think it only was because of me doing this show about him. So everything that I tried to accomplish with that I think panned out pretty well. In fact, as we speak, the film is playing in a theater in the West End of London. I think it’s just one performance a day, but still people are getting to see it and I’m very excited by that.

It’s something that I did really just for love of doing it. I had no idea that a) they would ever film it or b) that anyone really would ever see it outside of the Edinburgh Festival, which is where I started it. In Edinburgh they have this incredible festival every year and I said I would do it for the festival and it just sort of mushroomed out from there.

Obviously, people remember you from your iconic work as Alex in A Clockwork Orange. What did you take away from that experience and what stands out to you about the film all these years later?

Well, what tremendous staying power it has. I mean, I made a classic movie. I didn’t know it at the time that it was going to be so iconoclastic. But who knew? I knew it was a good film – that I knew – but you never know quite how good.

Was there ever a point where you started to realize, “Wow, this thing is going to be around for a while”?

No, you never feel that. That’s something that comes much later. But you do feel “this is an amazing film” and what a great director, I’m doing some good work – that’s what I felt. Of course, I didn’t think we’d be discussing it 37 years later.

Why do you think it has endured for so long?

Because I think the themes are universal and Kubrick was so brilliant that he set it in the future, so it doesn’t really date. And the theme is a universal theme – the freedom of man to choose how he decides to lead his life without government interference. That’s basically the bottom line of what it’s about. That’s still very pertinent, in fact more so today.

You were also the lead in the infamous Caligula. What made you decide to be a part of that movie and to be a part of what we would imagine was a rather unique filming experience?

It was. The reason that I got involved was because of Gore Vidal, who wrote the script. And Gore Vidal was a man of letters, one of the best novelists in America. And when Gore called me up, I was very excited because Gore Vidal’s Caligula, it could have been a lot of fun.

Now subsequent to that, we started shooting and Gore had a big row with I guess the producers, I don’t know who, I wasn’t really a party to it, I was just the actor who was trying to make it work. But he decided to withdrawal his name and that was the end of it. Honestly I don’t know quite what happened, but he withdrew. Of course, by that time, it was too late for me to do anything because I was already set and we were shooting.

So was it chaotic filming it at that point?

It was. I mean, I’d say it was chaotic. We did some good work in that film, believe it or not. There are still sequences of it that are incredible. It doesn’t really hold together brilliantly I think as a terrific film, it’s sort of very flawed. The cuts are a bit weird and I don’t know what happened with the editing. It went through many processes and many editors and Guccione had his cut and I don’t know what happened afterward. It was a bit of a mess.

But there are still pieces in it that I think are very good. And, you know, it’s sort of amazing to find these great actors – Helen Mirren, John Gielgud, Peter O’Toole – in this film of debauchery. But that’s what it was about and historians of that particular era say it’s a very accurate rendition of what was going on in Rome. It’s history.

And Gore did his research from this book by a historian called Suetonius and it sort of like William Shakespeare writing about Richard III. It’s very biased because of the reigning monarch so everything’s biased towards her family and I think in Suetonius it’s all very biased against people like Caligula because that was the other side. And so you’ve got him portrayed as a mad man and all of the rest of it, but I really don’t know whether he was mad. I mean, some of his actions were kind of ludicrous. Who knows? He may have been bipolar for all I know.

In 1994, you played Dr. Tolian Soran in Star Trek: Generations. What is it like to be the man who killed Captain Kirk? Star Trek fans are a loyal and devoted group – do Trekkies recognize you when you are out in public and have they given you a lot of grief over the years for killing Kirk?

They do and, you know what, I have to say they don’t give me any grief at all. They shake my hand and pat me on the back. I went to one of these conventions just this year in Vegas and I was kind of interested to see what reception I would get, but it was fantastic. I think everyone had sort of realized that some great things come to an end and they go on in another direction. He’s a great guy and I like to think I freed him up to get on to Boston Legal.

But, you know, he has a great sense of humor and he can laugh about it. I like him; I’m very fond of Bill and I think he’s a very charismatic actor. A lot of the success of Star Trek is down to him. Well, the two of them [William Shatner and Patrick Stewart], they were fantastic actors really and in sort of a cheesy thing that sort of had cardboard sets in the beginning. The great thing was – and I think a bit like Heroes that I’m in now, which is sort of a modern-day version of it in a way – is that they are moral tales that they tell, which is I think what makes it last.

There have been rumors of a sequel to the Rob Zombie Halloween movie without Zombie’s involvement. Has anyone approached you about playing Loomis in a Halloween sequel? And if another movie is made, would you be interested in reprising your role?

Well, of course it would depend on the script. I’m sure it would be good though because the Weinsteins are nobody’s fool and they know the business like nobody knows the business. So they know that there are certain things you have to have. They also know to get a young, interesting director and Rob certainly is more than that. He’s a terrific director and has a real style, a definite style. That was a very shrewd move on their part and they’ll have to find a director that’s waiting in the wings to make his debut on the world – somebody really interesting like Rob was. And, you know, there are people out there like that just waiting to get a chance. It’s a franchise that’s there for the taking, as it were, to be reinvented.

Have you heard any talk of a sequel? Has anyone approached you?

I heard that they’re getting down to scripting the next one, but I know nothing about it. They, of course, don’t consult me. Why should they? I may not even be in it. I don’t know.

We would hope that they would bring you back. You were so great in the first film.

I would have thought that they would, but who knows? They may just decide, “Nah, forget it. Let’s go in another direction.” But, you know, the franchise is really Dr. Loomis and a mask. That’s the bottom line. But we’ll see. It’s quite a lovely character to play because he’s a very bad doctor; he’s really not the best.

And definitely a bad ass. He doesn’t let himself get pushed around.

Oh no. That’s what makes him so much fun.

As an actor, we would imagine that that role is a lot of fun to play.

Oh great, we had such a great time. Working with Rob is so relaxed and he’s such a gentleman. And Sheri Moon, she’s great too. I don’t know how I kept a straight face any day we worked. It was always fun to go to work and that’s how you want it.

You played Ari Gold’s former boss Terrance on Entourage. What was it like squaring off with Jeremy Piven?

I loved it. It was fun and beautifully written. I think the kids are fantastic. They never get any credit; it’s all Piven. But actually, they’re terrific. All of them, the four of them. And they have some great guest stars coming in – Debi Mazar is fabulous, what a great actress. Besides Piven, there’s a lot of really hugely talented people doing it and it’s a great show. Of course, it’s a chance of a lifetime for Piven; it’s one of those parts that define your career. He’ll always be remembered for it. And he does it; he’s great.

How did I enjoy it? I loved every minute of it. I had so much fun torturing him. It was great.

Is there any chance you will be returning to that show?

Probably not.

You voice the character Vater Orlaag on Metalocalypse and you have done voiceover work for Justice League, Batman: The Animated Series and many other animated shows. Do you enjoy the voiceover work as much as acting in front of the camera?

Oh, I love doing it. I love radio, for starters. I’ve always loved doing radio. And I just love doing voices. It’s fun and it doesn’t take long, so it appeals to me because of that. And you can get some really cool characters.

I’ve been doing quite a few videogames lately and they’re fun. I’ve had a lot of fun with those. And I’ve done this new Disney film called Bolt, which is coming out, about this superstar dog who is the superstar of a TV series and he can’t differentiate between real life and television. That’s been a lot of fun and Disney did an enormously great job on it, as they always do with those things. It’s fun to do. I really do enjoy that part of my career. I don’t do that much of it really, but I enjoy it.

Are you normally just alone in a room recording your lines?

With the Disney one, Bolt, actually the director was sitting right by the mic with me, which was absolutely fantastic because he would give little nuanced direction. Instead of it being through a two-way microphone thing in a booth, he was right there. So that was really nice. And I think he got the best out of the actors by doing that. I think that was a really great move.

We would imagine it’s tough to be there all alone delivering your lines with a director talking to you from outside the booth and without any other actors to play off of.

You’d be surprised. You just dive in and you do something that’s approximate and it works. You just dive in and do it. And amazingly, it usually works out pretty well. I don’t think I’ve had an instance where we all went, “Ooh, that’s terrible.”

Do you ever actually play the videogames that you are in?

No, I don’t like videogames. I keep them out of my house. I don’t want my young kids getting involved in videogames. It’s just a decision. I just don’t want kids to be sitting there like automatons playing these damn games for hours on end.

Actually, it’s my wife’s decision and she’s the boss. So I go along with that. But I enjoy doing them. In one of them recently I played the President of the United States and it was a lot of fun. Speeches like, “My fellow Americans, we are in a time of crisis …” Yeah, right. Turn on the TV, bud. We’re in a real time of crisis.

You are back as Daniel Linderman on season three of Heroes. It was surprising to see you resurface on that show.

Oh Danny boy. He’s back. Yes, it was a surprise to me too. But, you know, that’s the show, isn’t it? It’s full of surprises. I mean, my God, I watched it [on Monday] – I wasn’t in it, but I thought, I wasn’t sure whether I was in it or not. I just loved it. I think it’s terrific. They’re wonderful actors. What’s going on? I have no idea. But I’m hooked on it. It’s one of those things that you can’t put down.

In the season premiere, we learned that only Nathan Petrelli can see Linderman. Did the writers sit you down and explain what is going on with Linderman ahead of time or are they really secretive?

Yeah, I wish. Nobody does any explaining. I was doing a scene with Nathan. I noticed he had a speck on his beautiful black suit. I went over to flick it off his shoulder. They went, “Cut, what are you doing? No, no, you can’t touch him; you’re dead,” which made me roll about with laughter.

I went, “Oh, well do tell me next time.”

But it doesn’t really make any difference. I’m not the kind of actor that has to know. It doesn’t worry me. I just play what’s put in front of me – the scene. What we have to do in the scene to move it forward. I don’t really care if I’m a spirit or if I’m Daniel Linderman himself. Actually, I’ve come back as a very different character this year. It’s not really the one I played in the first season. In fact, there is a line coming up where I say, “I have to get back to you. I have to talk to my boss about that.”

And she goes: “Talk to your boss? I thought you were the guy.”

And he goes: “Well, I’m not that man I once was.”

Can you tell us anything else that’s in store for season three?

No, they won’t let you because they’ll rip my tongue out and feed it to the sea lions that are down in Monterey Aquarium. So I better not say anything. All I will say is I think it’s back to its very best this year. I’ve seen three shows, they have been terrific.

It’s unbelievable, they’re making full-blown movies every week and I don’t know how – well, I do know how they do it, money and hiring the best talent available in Hollywood. That’s how they do it. The best special effects people; amazing effects for a weekly show. It’s staggering. I think it’s absolutely amazing. And it’s just great to be part of that because everybody in the world watches the thing and that’s why I said I likened it in a sense to Star Trek in that it has a hardcore base fan who is obsessed with it.

They do the downloads, they play all those damn games, downloading stuff – all that which I’ve never done, but I understand it. It gives people a sort of secretive life. It’s something to do and we can really get into it. And actually, it’s really their own imagination. You give them just the broad strokes and then they take it over. And you go, “My god.” I’ve had people ask me stuff about Linderman and I haven’t got a clue what they’re talking about.

Somebody said, “You’re one of the original 12.”

And I go, “That’s right, yeah. Am I? Yeah, yeah, I’m one of the original 12.”

It’s a fun thing and it’s great to be part of because it’s just a cool show.

We also don’t think that it’s a coincidence that fans were a bit disappointed with season two, then you’re back for season three and all of the sudden the show is off to a better start.

(Laughs.) It’s nothing to do with my reappearance, but I think that Tim Kring is an amazingly smart guy and all of the producers there are all very, very smart. They knew that they put their main character in a medieval rainforest or whatever in Japan for too many episodes; it’s like they lost their way a little bit. I don’t know. That’s what they said anyway. I’m only paraphrasing what they already said. But the scripts have been fantastic this year. I think they used the writers’ strike to retool, to rethink and they were ready when they came back.

You’ve played a lot of memorable villains in your career. A lot of actors have said that they really enjoy playing bad guys because it’s fun and very freeing as an actor. Is that the case with you?

Oh yeah, they’re fun parts. Listen, they’re great. They’re fun parts. You’ve got six scenes to make everybody hate you and you don’t have to come in every day. That’s the way I look at it now. I’m of a certain age. I don’t want to be grinding it out every day, 16, 18 hours a day. I’m at a time where I want to enjoy my life. So this kind of thing is perfect for me. It works very well.

Do any of your villain roles stand out to you as particularly fun to play?

Well I enjoyed very much a movie called Gangster No. 1, that’s about cockney gangsters from the East End of London, which is a classic movie now. It was made about eight years ago or something like that. It was the first movie that starred Paul Bettany. It’s a terrific film.

And then, I did another film, a small independent film about a serial killer in the Soviet Union called Evilenko. That’s an amazing film and I loved that.

And, of course, Linderman is a great villain.

You have had a long and diverse career, appearing in well over 100 films. Are there any roles left that you haven’t tackled that you have always wanted to play or actors or directors that you have wanted to work with?

You know, I haven’t done a musical and I have a pretty good voice. I did play a rock star in a movie that weirdly enough Allan Arkush directed called Get Crazy in the 80s. It’s a terrific film; it’s a fun film and I got to play kind of a cross between Mick Jagger and Rod Stewart. Funnily enough, that was Allan’s, I think, second film because he’d done Rock ‘n’ Roll High School and weirdly enough, all these years later he is the guy who directed the first Heroes this season. So that was a nice sort of circle for me to work with him again. He’s a terrific guy and I’m very fond of him. It was nice. I loved doing Get Crazy. I got to sing my own rock and roll songs and I loved it. So I guess I’d love to do a singing part.

I’ve done recordings. I did, they had a 25th anniversary album of Pink Floyd’s The Wall and I got to sing “The Trial” on that track and I loved it. It was fantastic and even the Floyd themselves said, “Wow, he did a pretty good job.”

That’s got to feel good to get that kind of validation.

That was great. And actually, that was more fun than almost anything I’ve done.

What do you look for when choosing roles?

Whether it’s near a golf course or not.

No, you know what? The truth is I’m not in a position where I’m getting offered 20 movies a month or a week or whatever. You know, basically, you can only pick what you’re offered. I’m usually offered pretty interesting stuff, so I’m very lucky. But if the phone doesn’t ring then there’s not much you can do about it. I’ve been out there so many years, so people know kind of what to expect. The unexpected, I hope.

So basically, it’s not a question of me going, “I want to do this and I want to do that.” Now, it’s whether they offer it to me then I can choose it. So that’s basically where we’re at.

Perhaps we are biased because we are fans of your work, but we feel like you should be in a position where you can do whatever roles you want to do.

Well, you know what? I actually agree with you, but that’s not the way it works. Because unless they can finance a movie on your name, which they can’t do with mine, then it doesn’t really matter who plays the part, basically.

So you’ve got to have a good agent, good people around you looking out for stuff and they can suggest and they’ll either go, “Oh yes” or “Nah – no, no, his eyes are too blue” or whatever it is it’s down to.

You’ve got to be fairly patient in this business and really you’ve got to have the skin of a rhinoceros. I tell young actors the same thing – you must never really mind rejection because that’s what you’re going to get. You must never take anything in this business personally because it’s like saying, “What do you prefer – an orange or a banana?” It’s a matter of taste.

And you can give the performance of a lifetime and if they are looking for someone five inches taller, you won’t get the part.

Right, exactly. Some of the best performances I’ve ever done, honestly, have never been seen. I did a Russian film called Assassin of the Tsar that’s probably the best performance I gave for 20 years. Nobody ever saw it because it was a Russian-English co-production and it opened at Cannes in Russian, so I was dubbed, and it was never shown in America. And it’s one of the finest movies I’ve made of that period – the 90s, it was the early 90s.

It’s got to be a shame to do something like that and never have it seen.

It is, but you can’t really worry about it. You can’t. It’s sad, but there you go. You figure, “Well, I guess when I’m dead, they’ll get ‘em out.”

Do you go back and watch your old movies?

No. Never!

Even A Clockwork Orange?

Even.

I was just in St. Paul at Lindenwood University where they opened this magnificent complex. They’ve got a $35 million state of the art theater and an amazing media center there. So I went to talk to them and I would tell them the same thing, you know. They showed Clockwork Orange there at Lindenwood and seriously I didn’t even watch a frame of it, even though they showed it on Blu-ray and apparently it was a beautiful print. On Blu-ray, my god, that’s amazing. I heard a bit of it, from the lobby actually. It’s like watching one of my kids.

My god, they appreciate it though. From the reaction of the audience, they really get it. It’s a comedy; a black comedy. It always was. When it opened, it was so far ahead of it’s time that people were outraged by the violence, which is so funny because there’s no blood in the movie. A little bit of ketchup here and there, but nothing. It’s all psychological violence.

Especially compared to movies today, which are filled with graphic violence.

Well, look at it compared to Halloween, it’s like a Disney cartoon.

Tell us something most people don’t know about you.

Well, I’m a passionate golfer and I would rather break 70 on the golf course than win an Academy Award. How about that? Any day of the week. I’m never going to break 70, although I’ve gotten fairly close. I think the best I’ve had is 73. If I could break 70, that would be the pinnacle of my career.

How often do you golf?

When I’m not working, my wife’s very generous and allows me to get out whenever I want. And I’ve got young boys, so I take them with me and they have a ball in the cart. I’ve got a young son of 20-months-old who grips hold of the putter and won’t let go of it. They’re very, very excited by the whole thing. They love going out there.

What would you be doing for a living if you never got into acting?

Oh my god! I have no idea. I think honestly I probably could pick up anything and make a go of it because I’m that kind of person. But what would I do? I really don’t know. I’m good with people, talking to people and stuff. I guess something in that area, but who knows?

What does the future hold for you?

The future is with my family. I have a young family; I’ve got young children and I’ve got to stay upright as long as I possibly can to be there for them. So I told the doctor, “You better keep me alive until they graduate.”

He goes, “Wow, you’ll be 82.”

But, you know, I’ve had a spectacular life, really. I’m very fortunate. Wonderful family, wonderful children. What more can a man ask?

And a great career. Of course, careers are all up and down, but I’ve always felt like I wanted to be an actor like John Gielgud and always be around and just be there, even when you’re not the flavor of the month. And just really concentrate on the work. It’s the work that counts; the rest of it, you don’t care about.

Interviewed by Joel Murphy. Heroes airs Monday nights on NBC. For more information on Never Apologize, visit the official website.