Ella Ventic

Company Man transcript, part one

2007-05-24T04:40:26Z

All righty. Back in the transcribing groove.

(main video: “Previously, on Heroes…”
Allan Arkush: So what’s interesting, when I got told about the idea of the episode, was that it was going to be centered on one family. And it was going to be their story, and it was to be somewhat of a genre piece, a thriller, as opposed to one of our regular episodes, where there’s four or five stories interlocking, and that it was going to be based on a movie called Desperate Hours. Which was a well-known thriller that William Wyler had directed, and had been re-made.

Bryan Fuller: We had actually planned on doing this episode much earlier in the season, it was originally going to come after “Homecoming,” which I believe was episode ten, and it was going to take place when Claire and HRG came home from after, after Claire’s attempted murder, and discovered Matt and Ted waiting for them there and then taking them hostage then, but in terms of how the stories played out for the rest of the season, it just kept on getting pushed off, and it felt more organic to come later in the season as opposed to immediately after such an intense episode.

Allan Arkush: So we give you in this just what you needed to understand for this episode, uh, as opposed to arcing the whole season in the recap.
Jack Coleman: Right. One thing I think has worked out really well is having all these episodes where Claire and HRG are not getting along and she’s totally at his throat…
Allan Arkush: Yeah.
Jack Coleman: That to start this episode there, as opposed to clean, where they were still in pretty, you know, good graces with each other, is a much more interesting, and, and loaded way to begin.

Allan Arkush: And we started with the shot of the family, which was sort of to set the place,
Jack Coleman: Right.
Allan Arkush: And the shot of the dog was, actually served two purposes, was, one was to give you the playing field of the whole episode.
Jack Coleman: Right.
Allan Arkush: So you knew the parameters of the rooms that it was going to take place in.
Jack Coleman: Yeah.
Allan Arkush: ‘Cause the place is really important.
Jack Coleman: Have a road map. Did you use the Muggles-Cam? (all laugh)
Allan Arkush: We used the Muggles-Cam. A low-angle cam. And, um, when Bryan and I started talking about it, I started watching thrillers. So I watched Desperate Hours, and I watched, uh, Scorcese’s, uh, Cape Fear, uh, a couple of film noirs, called, uh, Out of-- uh, Out of the Past, which really influenced the stuff at the bridge,
Jack Coleman: Right, right, right.
Adam Armus: Uh, a movie called G-Men--no, T-Men-- and, uh, a bunch of sort of heavily black-and-white movies with really strong framing, in places where people were in claustrophobic settings. Just to get ideas, ‘cause we’re basically going to be in four rooms for a lot of it.
Jack Coleman: Yeah. And it was claustrophobic.
Allan Arkush: Yeah. It was.
Jack Coleman: In the best way.
Allan Arkush: Yeah. And the playing field is the faces, you know.
Bryan Fuller: Absolutely. One of the things that we love to do on the show is, between episodes is to sort of rewind back to see what we had seen in the previous episode from another character’s point of view.
Allan Arkush: Should we tell them the little trick here? The shot through the window?
Bryan Fuller: Oh, yes.
Allan Arkush: That window is not a working window. We actually that, those shots through the window were, uh, through a wall set up on the lawn, outside the house.
Jack Coleman: ‘Cause I remember doing those drive-ups, and then when I looked at that shot, I went, “Wait, I don’t remember a camera being inside the house!” (unintelligible)
Allan Arkush: No, that actually was a wall that we took out to the set.
Jack Coleman: That’s on the lawn.
Allan Arkush: Just a little in-- inside stuff. But you were saying.
Bryan Fuller: Oh, well, one of the notes that we kept on getting on this episode from the network was to protect the Matt Parkman character,
Allan Arkush: Yeah.
Bryan Fuller: Because up until this point he’d been a really upstanding guy, and for him to get to the point where he’s taking a family hostage a gunpoint, we sort of had to back up a little bit and give, give him some motivation, and really see how he’s been painted into this corner.
Jack Coleman: Yeah. And he, and Greg does a brilliant job of trying to get to the bottom of something while being sucked into something much bigger and much more deadly than he had any intention…
Allan Arkush: And he’s trying to be reasonable!
Jack Coleman: Right. With everyone.
Allan Arkush: He’s trying to serve all these masters.
Jack Coleman: Right.
Allan Arkush: And a movie that was an influence on that and the sort of, the whole thing, was Dog Day Afternoon.
Jack Coleman: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Allan Arkush: ‘Cause Al Pacino, even though he’s doing the bank robbery, is trying to help Sonny. He’s trying to help him, one, at the same time, he’s trying to get away with the robbery.
Jack Coleman: Right. And one of the things, Bryan, when I first read your script, the thing that I was so impressed with, that I just loved, was the constant shifting of allegiances, in this. You think you know who’s aligned with whom, and then by the next act it’s completely changed, and, and it’s just, and it’s all logical, but it’s completely, uh… just ever-, ever-shifting.
Allan Arkush: I tried to do that in the staging. To bring that out in how we staged the scenes.
Jack Coleman: Right, exactly. Yeah. How you see people framed together, and then apart from each other…
Allan Arkush: Right. And who’s in the center of the scene, so they’re pivoting…
Jack Coleman: Right.
Allan Arkush: …in both directions, off of them. In this case, it’s you and Claire.
Bryan Fuller: One of the things, going back to what you were saying earlier about, uh, Claire’s relationship with HRG in this, we really wanted to put it to the audience to… to wonder, which side is she going to fall on. So if her allegiances are really thrown into question throughout the episode, you don’t know if she’s going to sell her family out, or her father out. Or not.
Jack Coleman: Yeah.

(main video: HRG gets hired by Thompson)
Allan Arkush: And this was the fun part, shooting in black-and-white, for me, is really fun. (Jack laughs) Hey, look how young Jack looks.
Jack Coleman: Wow, that’s a lot of face.
Bryan Fuller: If you notice, right above the “15 years ago” sign, there’s one of our little hidden half-helixes in the model of the, uh, Primatech Paper.
Jack Coleman: Ooh!
Allan Arkush: Yeah.
Jack Coleman: I never saw that!
Allan Arkush: Our fantastic production designer brings this model into the set, and we said, well, that’s what the paper company’s plans were to look like in the future.
Jack Coleman: Oh, right…
Allan Arkush: ‘Course, they never, it… but it was a nice thing to frame it on.
Jack Coleman: And here’s our first introduction to Eric Roberts, on our show.
Allan Arkush: Yeah.
Jack Coleman: He had a hysterical line to me, I was saying, “Boy, you-- that’s some incredible ominous backlighting you’ve got there,” and he goes, “And it follows me from movie to movie.”
Allan Arkush: Well, part of the staging was, was to keep him in backlight and mysterious,
Jack Coleman: Mm-hm.
Allan Arkush: And to have the light shine on you.
Jack Coleman: Right.
Allan Arkush: Which helped the fact that when you chose to play the scene… now, I could be wr… there’s a naïveté to him in this scene.
Jack Coleman: Yes. Yeah.
Allan Arkush: And there’s, um, ingenuousness. Which the line, “Morally grey,” kind of undercuts.
Jack Coleman: Right.
Allan Arkush: And the front light helps sell that.
Jack Coleman: Right.
Allan Arkush: As well as the fact that making it black and white helped us do the aging. You know, effectively earlier. You kind of accept it. Aging down.
Jack Coleman: Yeah. Well, I just wanted, I wanted him to, obviously… oh, there, and here it comes.
(main video: Claude appears, sitting on the desk in Thompson’s office)
Allan Arkush: Doesn’t he look like, like that English actor Robert Donat? (laughter) Was in the early Hitchcock movies. When he doesn’t have his beard, Claude looked completely different.
Jack Coleman: He looks like the English actor Christopher Eccleston.
Allan Arkush: I do like, too, the way you jumped when you saw him. Really well.
Jack Coleman: Oh. (laughs) Well, you figure for the first time, this is the first time…
Allan Arkush: Yeah.
Jack Coleman: …HRG has seen anybody’s… with, with abilities, with powers, and, I mean, think about someone just materializing…
Allan Arkush: Oh, yeah.
Jack Coleman: …in front of you, jumping would be the least of the…

(main video returns to the present)
Allan Arkush: And so we come back to the same staging, and the same thing, so basically you have two polarities. Matt’s on one end, and at the other end you have Ted, and in the middle, you have HRG and Claire. But in this case, I switched to hand-held. ‘Cause I wanted to up the stakes and the tension. And so it was a conscious choice, to move into, into it, make it more jittery, kind of be looking through things…
Jack Coleman: Right, right, right. Yeah, it does, it feels a lot more jittery than the previous scene did.
Allan Arkush: Yeah. And also, to play the faces bigger and closer to the lens,
Jack Coleman: Mm-hm.
Allan Arkush: …so they’re more, literally, in your face more.
Bryan Fuller: One of the things I was… that has been such a pleasure to do on this show is that our supporting cast-- Ashley Crow, who plays, uh, Claire’s adopted mother, has consistently done so much with actually very little…
Jack Coleman: Mm-hm.
Bryan Fuller: …and she’s really carved out a character with, with, with not a lot.
Jack Coleman: Yeah.
Bryan Fuller: And it just illustrates what a fantastic actress she is.
Jack Coleman: And for those who don’t know, Nuclear Ted is Ashley Crow’s actual husband.
Allan Arkush: In real life.
Jack Coleman: Which makes this whole thing twisted in ways that you can’t even begin to try to figure out.
Allan Arkush: We’re also getting better on a technique for the mind-reading. The stuff we used to do editorially, we’re doing more editorially and with the camera.
Jack Coleman: Right…
Allan Arkush: To, to come up with a visual vocabulary of when Matt can read people’s minds.
Jack Coleman: Right, right, right.
Allan Arkush: And this, of course, is headed toward the great line for the act-out.
Bryan Fuller: And Hayden is one of those actresses that we could literally give her dialogue from a dog food commercial, and… (Jack chuckles) she would knock it out of the park.
Allan Arkush: Yeah.
Jack Coleman: I’m happy to say that you didn’t. (all laugh)
Bryan Fuller: Right.
Jack Coleman: There’s, uh…
Allan Arkush: And there’s great chemistry between you and Hayden, and that really helps make it (unintelligible).
Jack Coleman: Yeah, she, she’s, she just amazes me-- we’re out, aren’t we-- she, every time I see her she amazes me.

---END PART ONE---

Unexpected commentary, part six

2007-05-21T01:28:52Z

(main video: police clean up after the gunfight)
Jeph Loeb: And we’re back.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Who’s this actor?
Zachary Quinto: Bill Fagerbakke.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: That’s right.
Zachary Quinto: Yeah. Dawber.
Jeph Loeb: That’s a great name. You could have a lot of fun with that name.
Zachary Quinto: I know. I say it all the time.
Jeph Loeb: Yes.
Zachary Quinto: I was so excited to see that he was going to be on the show.
Jeph Loeb: You know, he’s Patrick, the, uh, starfish?
Zachary Quinto: Yeah, we covered that.
Jeph Loeb: Did we do that already?
Zachary Quinto: Greg did. Beeman did. Beeman, excited that he’s Patrick on SpongeBob.
Jeph Loeb: He is. That’s pretty great.
Zachary Quinto: I’m excited about…
Jeph Loeb: Are we allowed to talk about SpongeBob, or are they just gonna go (sings “bum-bum” as a censoring noise)
Zachary Quinto: Oh, yeah.

Sendhil Ramamurthy: Hiro and Ando making up. Sort of.
Jeph Loeb: Actually, Hiro and Ando, this is the big good-bye.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Jeph Loeb: Uh…
Zachary Quinto: That’s unexpected.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: That’s very unexpected.
Jeph Loeb: All of the, all of the, uh, outs are, in act five, are unexpected. Thus the title. It wasn’t just that Peter previously said, “do something unexpected.”
Sendhil Ramamurthy: You know what would have been unexpected, if it wasn’t a Nissan Versa. You know?
Zachary Quinto: If they weren’t driving a Nissan?
Jeph Loeb: Uh, that would have been really unexpected. And also kind of stupid.
Zachary Quinto: Illegal, on some level, I’m sure, somewhere.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Would’ve caused…
Jeph Loeb: There, “Life isn’t a comic book,” which is one of my favorite lines. Uh, and made only better by the fact that, how great Greg had bringing the bus up.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Jeph Loeb: And wait ‘til you see the bus driver.
Zachary Quinto: Who’s the bus driver?
Jeph Loeb: This is gonna surprise you guys.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Who’s the bus driver?
Jeph Loeb: This is kind of a surprise. And there’s the “live long and prosper,” that we do all the time.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: This is certainly unexpected.
Jeph Loeb: Very unexpected.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: The bus driver.
Jeph Loeb: Very emotional moment, and then we…
Zachary Quinto: You guys, who’s gonna be the bus driver, bus driver… (keeps chanting “bus driver”)
Jeph Loeb: Bus driver.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Who’s the bus driver?
Jeph Loeb: All I can tell you is, she’s really hot. She’s really hot.

(main video: Stan Lee appears) (all the guys-- including Sendhil-- make appreciative noises)
Jeph Loeb: There you go.
Zachary Quinto: Oh, yeah! Stan Lee.
Jeph Loeb: Stan the Man.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Oh, is it Stan Lee?
Zachary Quinto: Yeah.
Jeph Loeb: That’s Stan Lee, the father of Marvel Comics.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Oh! I didn’t… I didn’t know!
Jeph Loeb: Okay. It was unexpected!
Sendhil Ramamurthy: All right! I was just playing along.
Jeph Loeb: What was great was that, he, he had only three words, he was very upset, so he-- only Stan could turn it into six. (Sendhil laughs) He added, “Hey, young man.” Uh…
Sendhil Ramamurthy (whispering to Zach): Who’s Stan Lee?
Zachary Quinto: He created Marvel Comics.
Jeph Loeb: He created everything.
Sendhil Ramamurthy (whispering): Oh. I own stock in them.
Jeph Loeb: We’re all here because of him. (Zach gives Sendhil a “Stock? WTF?” look) (Jeph laughs) You own stock…?
Sendhil Ramamurthy (still whispering): Thought I’d share that.
Jeph Loeb: Why is that interesting?

(main video: Bennet house; Ted comes around the corner, surprising HRG and Claire)
Jeph Loeb: Uh-oh.
Zachary Quinto (gasps): Dude.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Oh, this is not gonna end well. But this is what I like, here. Right…
(main video: Matt cocks his gun behind HRG and Claire; they spin around)
Sendhil Ramamurthy: …now. That. I didn’t…
Zachary Quinto: That was…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: You don’t expect this.
Jeph Loeb: No. This is, and this is now, of course, the end of the show.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Jeph Loeb: We’re gonna push in on, on, uh, Matt’s character, Greg, and uh, we all do, and, out! Oh, look! An unexpected extra scene!

(main video: Isaac, painting)
Sendhil Ramamurthy: And more unexpected.
Jeph Loeb: What’s gonna go on here? Uh, artwork of course by Tim Sale,
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yes.
Zachary Quinto: Yeah.
Jeph Loeb: Uh…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: White contacts by… somebody.
Zachary Quinto: Doctor…
Jeph Loeb: Dr. Evil.
(Sendhil laughs)
Zachary Quinto: No, I just went to… oh… no I didn’t.
(main video: Peter appears behind Isaac)
Jeph Loeb: Uh-oh.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Uh-oh. Look out. That’s a great line. “What’s a Judas get these days.” I like that.
Jeph Loeb: Thank you very much. Now, see whether or not you guys can find the continuity error in this. It’s one of my favorite moments. I actually was on set, missed it completely, and then I had somebody make fun of me when they saw it in dailies.
(main video: Peter TKs Isaac across the room)
Jeph Loeb: Uh-oh. Ooh. Uh, that’s, Santiago actually flew across the room, uh, because the character that Milo plays actually has telekinetic powers, so, as I said, we hire actors that can actually do these things-- you’re a serial killer. Just tell them all.
Zachary Quinto: Wait, are we still looking for the-- are we still looking for the continuity error?
Jeph Loeb: Uh, you can if you’d like.
Zachary Quinto: Is it still there?
Jeph Loeb: Uh, you’ll see it. It’s pretty obvious at some point.
(main video: Isaac pulls a gun on Peter)
Jeph Loeb: Uh-oh. Now, if you know, that gun,
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah. (laughs)
Jeph Loeb: …is the gun that you’ll see all the way back in episode two.
Zachary Quinto: That’s the continuity error?
Jeph Loeb: No.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Nah.
Jeph Loeb: No. There-- you just missed it.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: The-- the painting, there?
Jeph Loeb: There it is. No, right there.
Zachary Quinto: Oh, it’s the dinosaur painting that shows the man like that.
Jeph Loeb: Yes. So where would the, where would the dinosaur painting actually be, if you’re following the show?
Zachary Quinto: Oh, with Hiro, in his thing, rolled up…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: I’ve never watched the show.
Jeph Loeb: Yes, it would be. It would be ripped up in a tube.
Zachary Quinto: Ohh!
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Oh, yeah!
Jeph Loeb: So, fortunately, he painted an extra one. That’s actually the extra one, there.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Here it goes.
(main video: Isaac shoots Simone)
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Oh, god!
Zachary Quinto: Ooh, right in the chest! Dude! Oh, that’s gotta smart.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: That… that was unexpected.
Zachary Quinto: Hmm. A beautiful thing, how she falls back in his arms.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: I love that! Yeah.
Jeph Loeb: Oh, and, you know, what a great scene for Tawny to go out on. Simone…
Zachary Quinto: I got the.. I got the (shows the goosebumps on his arm)
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Aww.
Jeph Loeb: And the key…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Mm. I love it how, like, when Simone dies, the key falls out of her hand like that.
Zachary Quinto: Well, ‘cause she tried to, she was trying to give it back to him.
Jeph Loeb: ‘Cause the key was something they talked about in the very first scene.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah, exactly.
Zachary Quinto: So well done, you guys.
Jeph Loeb: And there’s your “to be continued.”
Zachary Quinto: Great episode.
Jeph Loeb: Fantastic.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Really cool.
Jeph Loeb: Thank you for joining us.
(fade out)

(fade in)
Sendhil Ramamurthy: I’m Sendhil Ramamurthy, thanks for watching.

Zachary Quinto: You guys, it’s Zachary Quinto-- Sylar-- thank you for watching. Have a good night.

Jeph Loeb: Hi, I’m Jeph Loeb, and thanks for watching, stick around for next week’s show, it’s pretty awesome.

---END COMMENTARY---

And now I'm off to download GIF-animating software.

Unexpected commentary, part five

2007-05-21T01:05:06Z

main video: Claire at her mom’s bedside in the hospital)
Zachary Quinto: Yes, we’re back. We’re back. With Jeph Loeb,
Jeph Loeb: Hi.

Zachary Quinto: No longer Greg Beeman, Jeph Loeb, uh, Executive Producer of the show, and, uh, and author-- no, not… writer.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Writer.
Jeph Loeb: Writer.
Zachary Quinto: Writer.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Author’s a novel.
Jeph Loeb: Yeah.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Writer of this episode.
Zachary Quinto: Writer of this episode. Um, and comic book… author? Comic book?
Jeph Loeb: Sure.
Zachary Quinto: Extraordinaire.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Just stud. Comic book stud.
Zachary Quinto: Stud, all around.
Jeph Loeb: Actually, “graphic novelist.”
Zachary Quinto: Graphic novelist!
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Graphic novelist.
Jeph Loeb: I believe is what the (unintelligible) would say.
Zachary Quinto: World-renowned graphic novelist Jeph Loeb in, in Nikki’s bedroom, which we didn’t establish earlier, we’re… you’ve been here before,
Jeph Loeb: I’ve not only been here before, I’ve actually been in the actual bedroom, ‘cause we’re actually on stage.
Zachary Quinto: Right.
Jeph Loeb: But the actual bedroom itself is in a little town called Arleta, and it was a very difficult place to shoot in, ‘cause it was a really small, little house. So we thought it would be easier if we came and built it here, so that we could shoot it. But somewhere along the line, the thing that got mixed up was, we built this set to the exact same specifications as the little house. (Zach and Sendhil laugh) So we just don’t have to drive as far. There’s no other benefit.
Zachary Quinto: But you can remove the walls and stuff in here, though, can’t you?
Jeph Loeb: Oh, because it’s a thousand degrees, sure. That would be fabulous.
Zachary Quinto: Right… so you can’t?
Jeph Loeb: No, you can. I mean, telekinetically you could.
Zachary Quinto: No, when we’re in his apartment…
Jeph Loeb: You just go (makes moving-walls-by-TK noise) and then it’d be all out of there.
Zachary Quinto: No, when we’re in-- but when we’re in his apartment,
Jeph Loeb: Yeah?
Zachary Quinto: This is one of the interesting things about when they build a set on stage,
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Hayden’s acting her socks off right here.
Zachary Quinto: But this… people want to know about this stuff… oh, my god.
Jeph Loeb: This is actually, this is a great, great scene.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Zachary Quinto: Why can’t I hear? I don’t have my hearing thing in.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: And the woman playing the doctor. I didn’t mean to leave her out.
Zachary Quinto: I’m like, that’s the funniest thing, is I was talking about other things because I didn’t have this in, I couldn’t hear that…
Jeph Loeb: Well, now put it in. ‘Kay?
Zachary Quinto: That’s the funniest.
Jeph Loeb: There you go.
Zachary Quinto: Sorry.

Jeph Loeb: This scene was a real turning point in the writers’ room. We were talking about what would happen in reality, and we were talking about whether or not Claire-- what her reaction would be. I mean, her mother’s lying there, and the doctor comes in and says “We don’t know what to do,” and, and we literally hit on this idea: she would tell the truth.
Zachary Quinto: Yeah.
Jeph Loeb: Should we have this whole big confusing… she had a cover story… and it just worked out that way.
Zachary Quinto: And I love it that it’s just shrugged off. And that woman just stands in the doorway and then just walks out.
Jeph Loeb: Yes. Blows out of there.

(main video: Matt meets Ted at the cemetery)
Jeph Loeb: Uh, I-- we’re at a cemetery that gets used a lot, uh, by our good friends over at Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you’ve also seen it in lots of other scary movies…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Hana Gitelman.
Zachary Quinto: Why you sneaking up on him, Hana? That can’t be good for anybody.
Jeph Loeb: Well, not only is Hana sneaking up, she has a gun that looks like…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Mm-hm.
Jeph Loeb: …a needle. …Actually, it’s a needle that looks like a gun.
Zachary Quinto: Sendhil actually thought it was a gun from the future that shoots lasers when he first saw it.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah, when I first saw the screen, I was like, it’s like a laser gun.
Zachary Quinto: Yeah.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: That’s my overactive imagination.
Jeph Loeb: Okay, Sendhil, Sendhil-- well, that’s why we try to give you a script, so you don’t have those ideas.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Exactly. Yeah.
Zachary Quinto: Did you play laser tag when you were a kid?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Of course.
Zachary Quinto: Yes. Me too.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: She’s hot.
Jeph Loeb: But… how hot is she. Just the greatest.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah. She’s hot.
Jeph Loeb: Uh, we love the character of Wireless because you go to nbc.com, and you can see the graphic novel that’s based on her life.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Exactly.
Jeph Loeb: Very, very cool. And her story continues beyond this. …This is two o’clock in the morning. We are out there freezing our butts off…
Zachary Quinto: Oh, I’m sure. This was during that cold spell that hit L.A…
Jeph Loeb: This was during… yes.
Zachary Quinto: …like a couple weeks ago.
Jeph Loeb: Yeah. And I’m sure there’s people in New York right now that are…
Zachary Quinto: Yeah, that are like…
Jeph Loeb: …in three feet of snow, going, “Oh, yeah, I’m sure it was really cold.”
Zachary Quinto: Upstate New York, ten feet of snow. Literally.
Jeph Loeb: All right. Uh, but this sets up the huge, huge--
Sendhil Ramamurthy: This sets up the next--
Jeph Loeb: --surprise, that’s coming,
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Jeph Loeb: So… stay tuned.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Which is amazing.
Jeph Loeb: Big surprise is coming.
Zachary Quinto: Because what happens is… (Jeph Loeb cuts him off and then mock-shoots him)

Jeph Loeb: I love Matty.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: He is really good, isn’t he.
Jeph Loeb: Uh-- he’s terrific. And it’s also very confusing because his name is Matt and he is acting with someone named, the character’s named Matt.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Exactly.
Jeph Loeb: So every time we’d yell, “Matt,” there would be two Matts.

(main video: back in the hospital, where HRG arrives)
Jeph Loeb: And now we go back to Claire.
Zachary Quinto: This is my… this scene…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Ashley Crow is even good at playing dead.
Jeph Loeb: This, actually, this is a scene that all you can do is just be quiet, because…
Zachary Quinto: Yeah, it’s true.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: More or less.
Jeph Loeb: This is both Hayden, who plays Claire, and Jack, who plays HRG, her father.
(main video: Lyle says, “Shut up, Claire!”)
Jeph Loeb: The great Lyle. “Shut up, Claire.”
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Jeph Loeb: I think he has that line in every show.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: We were talking about that earlier, like people have little phrases that they say, like, it’s their character’s thing.
Jeph Loeb: Yes. What’s yours?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: His is “Shut up,”-- uh, “You murdered my father.”
Jeph Loeb: There you go.
Zachary Quinto: “Braaains.” (Sendhil cracks up)
Sendhil Ramamurthy: I love how Jack plays the, you know, that everybody is staring at him, I mean, it must be so uncomfortable, ‘cause they’re thinking, “Oh, look, he’s attacking this little girl,” or something.
Jeph Loeb: This is… my daughter’s the same age as this character, so… it’s basically a true story.
Zachary Quinto: I feel badly that I did this to them.
Jeph Loeb: Well, I--
Zachary Quinto: Not really.
Jeph Loeb: We actually did this scene about nine times and they both had to get revved up for it, and the amazing thing-- Hayden’s secret power-- over and above the fact that she’s…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Jeph Loeb: She’s actually, can, can, like, heal in real life, ‘cause that’s the only way actors get their parts on the show, they actually have the power. (to Sendhil) Which is why you barely got the part, you don’t have a power.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Just.
Jeph Loeb: Uh…
Zachary Quinto: Wait, this is my favorite moment right here.
(main video: Claire sobs, “You don’t just get to say you’re sorry and make everything go away.”)
Sendhil Ramamurthy: You see that?
Zachary Quinto: She’s so good.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah. She really is.
Zachary Quinto: It’s crazy. Sorry.
Jeph Loeb: Uh, she can, she can make herself cry-- both eyes, one eye, or the other eye. (Zach laughs) Depending on where it is.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Totally serious, she can!
Jeph Loeb: And she is so good that when you’re on Jack, HRG, and she’s off-camera, she’s still doing it for him, so that…
Zachary Quinto: Right. Mm-hm.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Jeph Loeb: Unlike when I’ve seen you guys act, as soon as you walk out, you just keep going.
Zachary Quinto: I don’t even do it. Stand-in.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: I don’t do off lines. I get my stand-in.
Jeph Loeb: You’re not there.

(main video: Mohinder and Sylar drive up to Dale’s garage)
Sendhil Ramamurthy: See, I love this.
Jeph Loeb: This scene was, uh, sort of Greg Beeman’s stroke of genius. We had to figure out how to get really ahead of schedule.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Jeph Loeb: When he always wanted to do a very cinematic, New York, cop story kind of show shot, where he’s behind them and plays the whole thing in one shot through the window. There’s a couple of little jumps to you guys, but for the most part it’s all played like this, in the car.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: He came up with this whole, this was… me puking when I see the body and all that, wasn’t, wasn’t in the script. He just threw it in.
Jeph Loeb: Actually, at one point, it was the other way around. You got sick…
Zachary Quinto: Really? What?
Jeph Loeb: In order to cover your… your deed, and, uh…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Oh, right!
(main video: Mohinder mentions Sylar’s name and Sylar fakes being frightened)
Sendhil Ramamurthy: I love that you look around! That’s so cool.
Jeph Loeb: You looked around. Just terrific.
(main video: Dale's iPod)
Jeph Loeb: This of course is our love of rap music, just wanted to be able to play this song.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Zachary Quinto: Okay, this stuff here, right? ‘Cause what’s happening to me, if it’s not quite clear as we’re talking over it, is that I’ve inherited, uh, uh, uh, her power-- what’s her name?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Uh…
Jeph Loeb: Dale.
Zachary Quinto: Dale.
Jeph Loeb: Dale.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Dale.
Jeph Loeb: Rusty, the actress.
Zachary Quinto: Jesus. I’ve inherited Dale’s power…
Jeph Loeb: And here, it’s going to be relieved… uh, it’s revealed, too.
Zachary Quinto: Revealed.
Jeph Loeb: Relieved, I think is a good word. And watch it… right.
Zachary Quinto: So then, yeah, we go and we see that it’s the music that’s… that I’m reacting to, but just the way they cut it together,
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Zachary Quinto: Made it so much more vivid.
Jeph Loeb: Then we have a (unintelligible).
Zachary Quinto: We’ll be right back.
(laughter)

---END PART FIVE---

This really is Unexpected...

2007-05-21T00:48:39Z

Hoo! Okay, um, first: Hi, everybody. (sheepish wave)

Second: Er, very sorry about all that, you know, not posting. The semester kind of got away from me. But, hey, it's almost over now, so I'm slowly regaining my brain...ial...type...functioning...you know... thingy. Which means that:

Third:
(main video: Claire calls HRG about her mom’s collapse)
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Well… Mohinder’s alive in season five, can I, uh, direct an episode?
Zachary Quinto: Yes.
Greg Beeman: Sure!
Zachary Quinto: Yeah. Definitely.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Awesome. Got it on tape.
Greg Beeman: Um, so remember, this is the episode where somebody flies and somebody dies,
Sendhil Ramamurthy: That’s right.
Greg Beeman: I’m not gonna say who dies, but…
Zachary Quinto: Oh, well, there you have it, right there.
Greg Beeman: Oh! Claire’s mom.
Zachary Quinto: She’s out. Never gonna see her again.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: What happened to her.
Zachary Quinto: You know, I just can’t… I marvel that more people don’t, when people… everybody asks us what power we’d have…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Mm-hm…
Zachary Quinto: You know, a lot of times when we’re out talking to people about the show, very few people say invisibility. But that’s definitely mine.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Really.
Zachary Quinto: Yeah.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: That’s what you would want.
Zachary Quinto: Definitely! Like, absolutely. And, I was talking to Lori Madrigal, our, our makeup artist, and she was saying that it was the same one for her, and we discovered it’s because we’re both nosy.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: I would, I would, I would pick, um, my, uh, my ex’s. I would pick Eden’s. Hands down.
Greg Beeman: Oh, that you could convince anyone to do stuff?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Just make people do what I want! Like…
Greg Beeman: I would want to be able to, like, change the TV, by going like that (clicks imaginary remote control). And make, like, a pizza appear. At the same time!
Zachary Quinto: I’m sure you’ll be able to do that in future…

(main video: Janice confronts Matt about the diamond ring)
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Now here’s a question: why did… she shows up with the ring to get it sized, how come the, um, jeweler automatically assumes she stole it?
Greg Beeman: Well, look at her! (Sendhil laughs)
Zachary Quinto: ‘Cause she didn’t know how much… she didn’t know how much it was worth.
Greg Beeman: She looks suspicious!
Sendhil Ramamurthy: But do you talk about that when you’re getting your ring resized?
Greg Beeman: I know, that is, like, “This is worth forty thousand dollars! Hey…”
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Zachary Quinto: Well maybe he was a sizer/appraiser.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: See, you’re not just a pretty face, Zachary.
Zachary Quinto: Yeah.
Greg Beeman: But… but, right, why shouldn’t she be able to afford a forty-thousand-dollar ring, I never thought about this. I should have brought this up in prep. You know what, she’s a good wife.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: She is, but you know what, this… this conversation that they’re having, is what a real… I mean, my wife yells at me all the time like…
Zachary Quinto: Yeah.
Greg Beeman: When you steal stuff?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: When I steal stuff? Yeah.
Zachary Quinto: I really like their relationship because it’s definitely rooted in that sense of genuine connection.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Totally.
Greg Beeman: I like her. Right here where she goes, “You’re better than this, Matt.”
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Mm-hm.
Greg Beeman: Right on. Challenge him! To be the best you can be, Greg Grunberg!
Sendhil Ramamurthy: See, ‘cause there’s always a little bit of the mom in a wife, like, always like, you know, teaching you, like, trying to teach you something all the time, and… (Greg Beeman makes warning “cut it out” gestures) …this is getting creepy. Getting creepy, isn’t it, yeah.
Zachary Quinto: Married guys. Married guys.
Greg Beeman: Your wife might watch this. Your wife might watch this!
Sendhil Ramamurthy: I’m not married to my mom.
Zachary Quinto: This could take a bad turn, you guys. It could take a bad turn.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: I’m sweating bullets all of a sudden! Whew!
Greg Beeman: How weird was that, when like, she handed him the, oh my god, the phone rang!
Zachary Quinto: Right when the wife comes up, you start sweating.
Greg Beeman: Hoy. Who’s… who’s on the other end? We don’t know. But it’s enough that he’s willing to run out in the middle of a fight with his wife.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: If it’s a phone call, it’s probably me.
Zachary Quinto: I know.
(all laugh)

(main video: Claude comes to in Peter’s apartment)
Sendhil Ramamurthy: That’s cool.
Greg Beeman: All right, now I’m gonna say that I love the way this scene, it was shot, the way that I, you know, shot this scene. Because, and I want to do, I want to tell people to do this more. What it is, is, we got back on long lenses and shot it from, like, usually, there’s this thing called “stage line,” which means, like, there’s an invisible line between you and me, and you’re always supposed to be looking right to left and I’m always supposed to be looking left to right…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Right. Yeah. Crossing the line.
Greg Beeman: I didn’t pay any attention to that in this scene. I’m jumping around, jumping around, it’s a long lens, it’s like somebody’s watching ‘em, it’s a very frantic scene. So we’re on really long lenses for all the wide shots, and then got in the super tight-- like, super wide lenses in the close-ups. So it has, like, really good vibes. Plus we let the color timing go a little greener than usual. So it feels a little…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Greg Beeman: …like, unsettling. The whole idea of this scene was to make it feel tense and unsettling, like somebody’s watching them.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Just for the rec-- I look awful in green lighting.
Greg Beeman: Keep you in sort of a warm lighting?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: If we can, if we can file that away somewhere?
Greg Beeman: Well, I’ll try to have a warm light on you…
Zachary Quinto: Sendhil’s not pretty enough, he needs to make sure that…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Stop it, you’re making me blush!

Greg Beeman: I like the way Eccleston just spun around like that. I don’t think Milo knew he was going to do it.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: If I blushed, you wouldn’t be able to tell.
Greg Beeman: No, not with the green light on you.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Not with the green light on.
Zachary Quinto: Why, ‘cause you have so much makeup on?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Well, that too.
Zachary Quinto (laughing): I was kidding. (Hits Sendhil on the shoulder, and the priceless bit here is Sendhil’s reaction, a totally fake affronted thing… oh, just look at the pictures)

Greg Beeman: (laughs, then makes “going invisible” sound effect) Dude, I think it’s so cool the way he goes invisible!
Zachary Quinto: I’m telling you, that’s what I want to be able to do, dude! Just… “I’m done with you!” (makes different “going invisible” sound effect) “And now you can’t do anything about it!”
Sendhil Ramamurthy: I’m still with persuasion. I like how you went slo-mo on his turnaround.
Greg Beeman: It’s called step-printing.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Is that what it is.
Greg Beeman: Well, ‘cause we didn’t shoot it slo-mo. But yeah, it looked kinda groovy! And it made Milo’s moment, like, very intense.
Zachary Quinto: That’s what I like about working with Greg-- one of the many things that I like about working with Greg Beeman, is that, uh, there’s such an enthusiasm about what you bring to every different scene, you know, and you talk about it, you get really… I like that. ‘Cause it’s fun, ‘cause it’s like, it’s like…
Greg Beeman: Oh look we’re shooting a close-up now!!!!!
Sendhil Ramamurthy: You already have the job, dude, you don’t have to kiss butt.
Zachary Quinto: …Are you serious?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: No. (laughs)
Zachary Quinto: Oh, really?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah, dude! Didn’t you get the memo?
Greg Beeman: Say whatever you want!
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah!

Zachary Quinto (laughing, makes a dismissive gesture that accidentally dislodges his microphone): But no, seriously,
Greg Beeman: You just pulled your thing out!
Zachary Quinto: Oh, I did?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: I’m working with such pros.
Zachary Quinto: All right, it’s good, we’re back.

(main video: Simone confronts Nathan in his office)
Greg Beeman: Flat space! …I like to just yell “flat space” every once in a while. It’s like a Tourette’s thing. (Zach laughs)
Sendhil Ramamurthy: That’s, um, one of Nathan’s kind of… we all have lines that we say quite a bit. His, his thing is “if anyone knew what we were capable of.”
Greg Beeman: What do you say?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Um, “My father died,” “My father was murdered,” “Who murdered my father…” It’s one of my catchphrases.
Greg Beeman (to Zachary): What do you say?
Zachary Quinto: “Braaains.”
(Greg laughs hysterically)
Greg Beeman: Okay, check this out…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Moving swiftly along…
Greg Beeman: Don’t go… no. And Simone is like, defiant.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: He can be really menacing.
Greg Beeman: She doesn’t care. So I’m thinking, he’s thinking “I gotta kill her.”
Zachary Quinto: I looove Adrian there.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: He can be really menacing.
Greg Beeman: Right now, he’s like…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Like, he does nothing, but he does everything…
Zachary Quinto: Everything happens… everything happens, you know what I mean?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Exactly.

(main video: Hope holds Ando at gunpoint)
Sendhil Ramamurthy: …I was really psyched for James in this episode. He got, like, a really, you know, he got a really good crack at it. And, uh, and did a great job.
Zachary Quinto: And knocked it out of the park, too, he’s great.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah. He did it really really well.
Zachary Quinto: Now, tell, talk about… are we allowed to talk about the thing with the buses? We might not be…
Greg Beeman: No.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Is that Bill… that’s Bill Fagerbakke!
Greg Beeman: Yeah, he’s the voice of Patrick!
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Greg Beeman: Ooh! Ando got shot! All right, so… this is…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: That’s a rad little car, that she’s driving. What is that?
Greg Beeman: Okay, yeah, yes sir. Okay, so…
Zachary Quinto: I was, I was, um, I was impressed by the amount of gunplay that actually ensues in this scene.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: I know.
Zachary Quinto: Like, they’re not fooling around here, this is some serious gunplay.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: And they clearly have very poor aim. ‘Cause…
Greg Beeman: Yeah. You don’t think it’s a little too much?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: I mean, he’s got…he’s got like a sawed-off shotgun!
Greg Beeman: I know, they’re dreadful shots. Well… I might have gone a little overboard here.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: No, I think it’s cool!
Zachary Quinto: Oh, I don’t, no, I don’t think that…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Gun… gunfire is cool. Always.
Zachary Quinto: He got to shoot a gun!
Greg Beeman: Yeah, well, in America.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah. In America. I love how their faces lit up by the gunfire, too. That’s cool.
Zachary Quinto: No, something exploded.
Greg Beeman: That was by the car exploding.
Zachary Quinto (laughing): That was not a gunfire, dude, that was an explosion.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Oh. There you go.
Greg Beeman: And look at… look at this…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: This is cool.
Greg Grunberg: He doesn’t know it, but he freezes time… look how the bullet’s coming out in slow motion.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah. So, what, did they assume that it misfired?
Greg Beeman: Yeah.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Okay.
Greg Beeman: What do they know?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Well, yeah, ‘cause their eyes are closed, right?
Greg Beeman: Lookit, this is all one… I’m sort of happy with this shot. Not this one… well, I’m happy with this shot, ‘cause the two guys are doing a good job--
Zachary Quinto: Flat space!!!
Sendhil Ramamurthy: How come the police always show up right as the gunfight ends? Always. Like, always. It’s like, it’s the TV thing. Like, it’d be great if they showed up in the middle of it.
Zachary Quinto: I think you just answered your own question.
Greg Beeman: Then they’d end up shooting.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah, then they’d, you know, then they could stop it, or something.
Greg Beeman: This is all one long take…
Zachary Quinto: Ando got clipped in the arm, dude, that’s not… I mean, he’s like…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: That’s hard-core.
Greg Beeman: I know! Ando took it.
Zachary Quinto: And he’s got… yeah.
Greg Beeman: The Nissan Versa is fine.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: See that? Nissan Versa rockin’ out.

(main video: Dale is fixing a car at night)
Greg Beeman: Okay, come on, this scene is cool.
Zachary Quinto: I love how you did this.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: This is very cool.
Zachary Quinto: So, so, you know, they crane over the, the car, which everything is removed from, she’s underneath it, and then we had to time this out,
Sendhil Ramamurthy: But what car, it’s a ’65 Mustang.
Zachary Quinto: …my aunt has one, actually.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Awesome.
Zachary Quinto: Then…
Greg Beeman: Look, look at this shot, I’m so happy with it, where she (unintelligible)
Zachary Quinto: Yeah, this is what I’m talking about… I had to hide,
Greg Beeman: What were you doing?
Zachary Quinto: I had to step in, ‘member?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: How cool is this, though. Watch this.
Greg Beeman: And I put you in complete darkness, like you’re, the first six episodes, you were in.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Best line of the episode, right here, coming up.
Zachary Quinto (laughing): Yeah, totally. Other than…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: What?
Zachary Quinto: Thirteen.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Here it is.
(main video: Dale says, “what is it?”)
Zachary Quinto: I’ll tell you right now.
(main video: “Murder.”)
Zachary Quinto: Yeah, baby.
Greg Beeman: Yeah, baby!
Sendhil Ramamurthy: You’re-- you are, you’re really scary. (Zach laughs) Seriously.

---END PART FOUR---

...See, I told you that it was unexpected. (And, okay, kind of pointless, too, since I understand the whole thing is up on YouTube now anyway... but hey, I've got a whole nearly Heroes-less summer to fill, so what harm in being a completist, say I.)

And fourth: Parts five and six are all transcribed and screen-capped and ready to go, so they should be up in very very short order. No, really. I promise.

Unexpected commentary transcript, part three

2007-03-01T07:39:57Z

Well, bust it is, I guess. Darn it. I was going to finish both parts and then post, but I'm only in the middle of part four and am having trouble keeping my eyes open. (Hence the lack of screen caps in this section as well; maybe I'll put them in later?)
I REALLY REALLY want to catch up before Monday's episode but, well, I guess we'll have to see.

So part three: (main video: Simone visits Isaac)
Zachary Quinto: It has… oh. (laughs)
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Zachary.
Greg Beeman: This guy should just give up with Simone. She’s al-- she’s, she’s not yours anymore.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Oh, yeah.
Greg Beeman: She’s with Milo now.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: She’s with Milo now…
Greg Beeman: Have you met her yet? (Zach shakes his head) Your character has not met Simone?
Zachary Quinto: No.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Nope.
Greg Beeman: Well, uh, do you think you’ll put the moves on her when and if you meet her?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: I’m putting the moves on her in my mind.
Greg Beeman: The gun. Under the rag.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: That’s it?
Greg Beeman: Remember the gun is there. Comes back later.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yes, that comes back later. It’s very important.
Greg Beeman: That’s dramatic!
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Very important.
Greg Beeman: You know what they say, basic, uh, play writing, you know, introduce the gun in Act One, it goes off in Act Three, it’s a law.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Absolutely.
Zachary Quinto: It’s a what?
Greg Beeman: A law. Of writing.
Zachary Quinto: Oh, I thought you said a lie. I needed to be clear.
Greg Beeman: No, it’s a law.
Zachary Quinto: Right.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Tawny’s gorgeous.
Zachary Quinto: Stunning.
Greg Beeman: So gorgeous. What about those eyes?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: I know. They’re contacts.
Greg Beeman: (laughs) Oh.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: They’re not. Those are her real eyes.
Zachary Quinto: She has the same contact lenses specialist as David Schwimmer.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: I have a problem with lying. (unintelligible)

(main video: Hiro and the gaming commissioner)
Greg Beeman: You know what’s really interesting? Shooting in a picture car. Actually, you want to know how we shot this?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Can you tell us about that?
Greg Beeman: I can.
Zachary Quinto: Is that Bill Fagerbakke?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: It’s Bill Fagerbakke.
Zachary Quinto: That’s, that’s how you say it. Fagerbakke.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Fagerbakke.
Greg Beeman: I know that. I worked with him two times. He played a elf for me, one of Santa’s elves,
Zachary Quinto: For what?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Can we make a pact, me and you, right now, at some point,
Zachary Quinto: You’ll never play--
Sendhil Ramamurthy: … I will play an elf for you in something?
Zachary Quinto: You will?
Greg Beeman: Would you guys both play elves for me, I’ve got a little independent movie I’m doing over the summer.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Absolutely! Yes. I will play an elf.
Zachary Quinto: Elves Go to Vegas? What’s the movie?
Greg Beeman: Yeah. Elves Go to Vegas.
Zachary Quinto: Yeah. I’ve just been looking for reasons to go to Vegas.
Greg Beeman: You know how we did this scene? We parked the car in a dark road,
Zachary Quinto: Shook it and shone lights in it?
Greg Beeman: …at night, had a couple of big fat grips shaking it,
Sendhil Ramamurthy: And you had two guys, like, shaking it?
Greg Beeman: And we, like, did this (moves back and forth) with the camera.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Movie magic, ladies and gentlemen.
Greg Beeman: Oh, yeah. Lookit, you’re totally there.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: You see, it’s high-tech here at Heroes.
Greg Beeman: You’re just like, “Oh my god, I’m driving in the desert at night!”
Zachary Quinto: Except that Bill Fagerbakke’s staring at Masi the entire time as he’s, like, driving down the road.
Greg Beeman: It’s a straight road in the desert in the middle of the night.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: (laughs)
Greg Beeman: Swooping crane shot.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Ando and Hope.
Greg Beeman: And you know what? James did an awesome job of driving the car himself. That’s not easy to do, guys.
Zachary Quinto: No. But Sendhil had to do it in this episode.
Greg Beeman: Y’ever done that? Drive up (at this point all three are talking at once and it gets very very confusing)
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Hello, I did. And by the way, when I was driving, I overslept and I didn’t put my contacts on, soI just drove in with glasses and I got there and got in the car and I couldn’t see.
Zachary Quinto: Couldn’t see?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: That’s why I kept missing my mark, by the way…
Zachary Quinto: Now you tell me, I was your passenger and I noticed.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: ‘Cause I was completely blind.
Greg Beeman: Nice.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah. I couldn’t drive. I mean, with my contacts on I can barely drive, so…
(main video: Hope pulls a gun on Ando)
Greg Beeman: Oh!
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Oh, man.
Zachary Quinto: Missy Pyle, Missy Pyle played Hope. Fantastic.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: But these guys al-- (main video: Mohinder and Sylar at the motel) here we go, here we go, this is the motel in Monrovia.
Greg Beeman: See the mountains.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Look at the mountains. Amazing.
Greg Beeman: Okay, so here, when we showed up, there’s a gigantic truck, a truck, full of ice,
Zachary Quinto: Right. There were three or four of them, big giant eighteen-wheelers.
Greg Beeman: …and big guys, like, jamming hundred-foot… hundred-pound blocks of ice into this giant ice chipper,
Zachary Quinto: Right. Right.
Greg Beeman: Oh, ya.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: And the (makes spraying noise) spraying the ceiling and everything.
Zachary Quinto: And they did the whole entire-- wait, here comes that moment that I was telling you about, that I think--
Greg Beeman: Yeah, right.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Zachary Quinto: He gives me the key,
Greg Beeman: Yeah…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: I, I just added in “Here’s your key.”
Zachary Quinto: And then I back up.
Greg Beeman: (makes scary whooshing noise again) It’s like, I go, “Zach, could you just be evil for, like, two seconds? Then right back to nice?”
Zachary Quinto: Yeah. Yeah.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: We need to talk about the lighting at the doors.
Zachary Quinto: Yes, we do. True.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: It’s amazing.
Greg Beeman: Well, I told the DP, Nate Goodman…
Zachary Quinto: Nate Goodman.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yes. Nate Goodman. He’s a genius.
Zachary Quinto: Genius.
Greg Beeman: I’m vibing Robbie Mueller here. I’m seeing this as a, like, a Robbie Mueller thing. Like, uh, and so we did, like, alternating pink and blue lights--
Zachary Quinto: Yeah, so I’m in, I’m in a pink light,
Greg Beeman: You’re in pink! That’s ironic!
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah, and I’m in blue light.
Greg Beeman: And you’re in blue. Ironic!
Zachary Quinto: He’s in blue, and then as soon as I say the name…
Greg Beeman: As soon as he says his name, look at this, look at this…
Zachary Quinto: Oh, we have a ways to go.
Greg Beeman: Dude, that’s awesome. Flat space. Flat space.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah, that’s great.
Zachary Quinto: But look how it’s continued down the way, the lights behind us, blue, pink, blue, pink, all the way down.
Greg Beeman: We plan these things out!
Zachary Quinto: So well done.
Greg Beeman: Pink, pink, pink…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: How cold were our feet at this point?
Zachary Quinto: That’s when I had the bags over my feet.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: I thought I had frostbite.
Greg Beeman: He steps into the blue light when he says the name “Sylar”!
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Greg Beeman: Come on. We plan this out!
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Are we becoming one here? Is that why we’re both blue?
Zachary Quinto: Yeah.
Greg Beeman: Well, I didn’t plan it out that much.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Well, okay. We just ADRed this entire scene.
Greg Beeman: (unintelligible) You guys are both doing good acting right here.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Oh, thank you.
Zachary Quinto: Thanks, Greg. This was my favorite scene to do in the entire show that I worked on so far.
Greg Beeman: Check out this shot! I’m so proud of this. People probably hate it, but I’m like, “Oh! Dude.” We wrap around you, we throw focus forward, your eyes are completely dark,
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Greg Beeman: Meanwhile, Sendhil’s in the background, going like,
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Blue.
Greg Beeman: Ah-- yeah, but you’re acting.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: I’m acting, clearly. Just out of focus.
Greg Beeman: Out-of-focus acting is underrated.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Are you kidding me? It’s the hardest thing to do. It’s my best class at drama school. (to Zach) You are creepy, dude.
Greg Beeman: I know.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: You’re just creepy.
Greg Beeman: In a sweet way. But handsome.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah. In a, in a handsome but creepy way.
Greg Beeman: Like, after this, I would double-bolt the door once you get in there.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: By the way, how come the keys-- the keys, I couldn’t ever open the door. I’m glad that we cut away there, ‘cause I could never open the door to the hotel. Or motel, in this case.
Zachary Quinto: That was a classy joint, though.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Man, I thought I got syphigonoherpes walking in to the place. It was disgusting.
Greg Beeman: I walked in at lunch, ready to, like, work on my laptop, and I was like, (makes horrified sound)
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah, I know.
Zachary Quinto: Guys, what if the hotel owners are watching this commentary on (mumbles and trails off).
Greg Beeman: We never said the name of the hotel.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: We never said the name of the hotel.
Zachary Quinto: Yeah, but they’ll know.
Greg Beeman: Well… they should clean up.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Well, maybe they’ll clean up their act.
Zachary Quinto: (laughs)
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
Greg Beeman (at the same time): They should get a little-- they should get a little Lysol and take a pass.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah-- they’re gonna need a lot more than Lysol.
Zachary Quinto: I’ll stay there any time. (mild snooty accent) I thought it was a four-star joint.
Greg Beeman: I hate to say this, but I think a couple of our drivers did stay there.
Zachary Quinto: They did, I think you’re right.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: I think everybody on our show-- wonderful actors, the whole bunch, but Hayden Panettiere…
Zachary Quinto: Hayden Panettiere, dude.
Greg Beeman: Props.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yes. From me, special special props. That girl is--
Zachary Quinto: Seriously. Because she’s seventeen.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
(short spate of all three talking at once)
Zachary Quinto: I look at her, like, what are you doing, like how is that happening…?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: I look at her resume, and it’s, like, thirty times longer than mine.
Greg Beeman: She rocked the house in Remember the Titans when she was, like, three.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Exactly.
Zachary Quinto: It is pretty mind-blowing, I agree.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: When she did Remember the Titans I hadn’t started acting yet.
Greg Beeman: So she’s, like… huh.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Like, that’s crazy.
Greg Beeman: So when you’re in scenes with her, did she go like, “That’s what you’re going to do?”
Sendhil Ramamurthy: I haven’t done a scene with her yet.
Greg Beeman: “You’re not going to do that, are you?”
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah, I’m gonna be like, “Teach me.” I’m just gonna take notes.
Greg Beeman: The funny thing about her is, like, she’s a kid! Right?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Oh, yeah, totally.
Greg Beeman: So, like, so, like, in between takes, she’s on her, like, you know, unnamed, uh, unnamed device to do e-mailing…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: …that ends with “-kick.” (Greg glares at Sendhil) What?
Greg Beeman: And then you’re like, she’s like, talking on the phone, and listening to that, and you go, “Action!” and she’s like (breaks down into fake crying).
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Now do wardrobe get upset because milk got on her…
Zachary Quinto: Don’t cry over spilt milk!
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Oh my god, I literally was thinking that and I was like, nobody would say that.
Zachary Quinto: I went there. I went there. I went there!
Sendhil Ramamurthy: No, and you went there, straight away.
Zachary Quinto: I went there, for my people.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: You didn’t even need to be baited.
Zachary Quinto: For you guys.
Greg Beeman: I was doing one scene with Hayden, and, and I’m like, going-- it wasn’t this show, but that doesn’t matter-- and she, and I’m going, like, “Okay, you’re really upset, and your parents are grounding you and, like, you want to cry but you don’t want to give them the satisfaction. So, like, pull it back.” I was sort of being metaphorical. So in her close-up, every single take, her eyes fill with tears…
Zachary Quinto: (laughing) …and then they go back up…
Greg Beeman: …and then it goes back in. (laughs)
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Unbelievable.
Greg Beeman: And she did it-- well, we’ll get there in a minute, she did this scene with Jack in this episode,
Zachary Quinto: Oh, that scene…
Greg Beeman: She wept and wept, every take, and then it’s, like, on his close-up, and she’s weeping!
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah. I know.
Greg Beeman: For him.
Zachary Quinto: She just walks that line of, I mean, it’s that-- seriously, that kind of emotional connection is, like, …oh.
(main video: HRG and the Haitian watch Peter and Claude)
Sendhil Ramamurthy: That’s cool. This is really cool.
Greg Beeman: Okay, what-- this is very…
Zachary Quinto: Can we talk about that? ‘Cause it’s a night scope all of a sudden, what… oh, ‘cause they were watching,
Greg Beeman: Well, they, well, they’re invisible.
Zachary Quinto: Right, right, right.
Greg Beeman: Okay, this-- this is one of my favorite shots,
Sendhil Ramamurthy: And how much does the Haitian rock, by the way.
Greg Beeman: Haitian is mysterious.
Zachary Quinto: Jimmy Jean.
Greg Beeman: Jimmy Jean.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Jimmy Jean-Louis.
Greg Beeman: Oh, lookit, he froze it right in midair!
Zachary Quinto: Right.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: But the music, check it out.
Greg Beeman: He’s starting to access his powers.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: This music’s awesome.
Zachary Quinto: Yeah, Peter’s tapping into something, Sylar better look out.
Greg Beeman: Now look at this, you guys, he looks like Batman here. You’re gonna (screams!).
Sendhil Ramamurthy: This, quite frankly, just awesome.
Greg Beeman: I love that so much.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: I was here…
Greg Beeman: He just jumped! (unintelligible)
Sendhil Ramamurthy: I was here that day when you guys… this is the day we were going to the Golden Globes.
Greg Beeman: Yeah, we weren’t.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Well, yeah, sorry to bring that up.
Greg Beeman: We had to work.
Zachary Quinto: Wait, you had to… they were shooting this on the Golden Globes day?
Greg Beeman: Yes! We had to work!
Zachary Quinto: It was a Monday.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: They worked, and then we split.
Zachary Quinto: Four… three… you guys, we’ll be right back.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Look at that, so Superman.

---END PART THREE---

Unexpected commentary transcript, part two!

2007-02-28T05:54:05Z

(main video: Matt looks at the diamonds in his sock drawer)
Greg Beeman: All right, so one of the things that, that all the directors have to think of when they do, uh, episodes is how to put the cool title on. We’re always sort of trying to top each other.
Zachary Quinto: (unintelligible due to people talking over him) Yeah, you just…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: And you figure, put ‘em in socks.
Greg Beeman: (laughs) Well, we’d never taken one out of a drawer. The other one that I did that I was really happy about was the ti-- on the ground, and the cheerleaders walked over it, that was pretty good.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: I love that.
Greg Beeman: But it all came from the pilot, where, where Milo was standing on the roof and the camera swooped over him and they put it, they put the title… so all (unintelligible) the titles have to be on a flat surface.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: How… how do we feel about Matt actually stealing the diamonds?
Greg Beeman: I think we feel that it’s a character challenge.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Greg Beeman: I don’t think it’s good. I think it’s a…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: ‘Cause, ‘cause, you know, you always think cops, you know, they’re good, they’re inherently…
Greg Beeman: That first step of a slippery slope.
Zachary Quinto: But that’s what’s so… that’s what’s so cool, is that no one is defined by what you know of them already, you know what I mean,
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Exactly.
Zachary Quinto: …that they’re presented with a circumstance or situation that changes, radically changes their entire perspective, and he’s a perfect example of that in this episode. And plays it so well; I love watching Greg do that.
Greg Beeman: I think Greg is torn up by the fact he did this. Well, Matt is. Greg, probably, too.
Zachary Quinto: Yeah, Greg.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Totally. And what comes across actually in this scene, is like, the-- he, he’s really ashamed. Like, and you can tell, he’s, like, ashamed in front of his wife, he’s about to have a baby, and…
Zachary Quinto (obviously well aware that this has been mentioned in every commentary so far): Do you know she’s pregnant in real life?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: (laughs)
Greg Beeman: No way! Mr. Muggles is the father.
Zachary Quinto (laughing) Mr. Muggles…
Greg Beeman: What he’s really bummed about is it’s a bag of cubic zirconiums.
(main video: Parkman tells his wife, “You look so beautiful to me.”)
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Aww. That was very sweet.
Greg Beeman: Aw. (whispers) I’ve got to say that to my wife soon.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: (laughs) Valentine’s Day tomorrow.
(main video: Janice says, “a man called yesterday”)
Sendhil Ramamurthy: See, when men call… Professor… especially named “Professor Suresh,” it’s…
Greg Beeman: I would not want my wife getting calls from you. I’ll tell you that right now.
Zachary Quinto: Did you and Lisa Lackey… did you and Lisa Lackey, like, improvise that phone call at all ever, did you go off and have a little, like…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Well, actually…
Zachary Quinto: …Stanislavsky work about whether the phone call happened?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: No, because I love what they did with it. They cut it so that it was like ten different phone calls.
Zachary Quinto: Oh, that montage?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah, yeah.
Greg Beeman: That’s what I thought. They took, like, three shots and turned it into, like,
Zachary Quinto: Was that all supposed to be the same phone call?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: That was all one phone call.
Zachary Quinto: Oh, that’s brilliant.
Greg Beeman (at the same time): No, that was all… it was supposed to be her-- him calling her.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Zachary Quinto: In the last ep. Last week.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah.
Greg Beeman: And they do that-- that was in post.
Zachary Quinto: That’s great.
Greg Beeman: But we’re not talking about that.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah. That’s the wrong episode.
Zachary Quinto: All right.
Greg Beeman: That was-- that’s the past. We’re looking at the future here.

(main video: Mohinder and Sylar visit Dale)
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Ah, here we go, here we go…
Greg Beeman: Whoa! Now here’s where the show begins to really shine.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Now, this is, this is a Nissan, um, car. Apparently.
Greg Beeman: Yeah, that’s a, that’s all you drive.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah, that’s all I drive, it’s contractual. (laughs)
Zachary Quinto: Yeah, that’s all.
(main video: Sylar suddenly pops into screen)
Greg Beeman: Dude!
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Greg Beeman: Yeah! You’re the best at being evil. I know you’re really sweet in real life.
Zachary Quinto: I try.
Greg Beeman: Look at that snow. We brought that snow.
Zachary Quinto: That snow was something else.
Greg Beeman: We brought that snow down.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: I just ADRed this whole bit. I-- it wasn’t necessary…
(commentary video: Zach stops Sendhil so he can watch the next line)
(main video: “I’m not just saying that ‘cause you’re Indian”)
(all the guys laugh)
Zachary Quinto: My favorite line. I love that so much, favorite (trails off)
Sendhil Ramamurthy: I love that line! “Because you’re Indian.” I give this, like, chuckle, I don’t know if they’re…
Greg Beeman: Now, look at this, all hand-held, one big loong take,
Zachary Quinto: Yeah, all hand-held, one big track us into the
Greg Beeman: Ya.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: This right here, my accent went completely American.
Zachary Quinto: Did it?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah. And I just ADRed it and made it…
Zachary Quinto: British again.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: English again. Yeah. Yeah.
Greg Beeman: Very sweet. Why…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Now this actress’s name is Rusty Schwimmer, and she’s brilliant, and she’s also David Schwimmer’s sister.
Zachary Quinto: And best friends with Virginia… is she really?
Greg Beeman: Get out!
Sendhil Ramamurthy: No, she’s not. I just thought I’d make that up.
Zachary Quinto: But she is in fact best friends with Vir--
Sendhil Ramamurthy: She is absolutely no relation whatsoever to David Schwimmer. But…
Zachary Quinto: She is, however, in real life, best friends with Virginia Madsen.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yes, she is. Virginia Madsen of Sideways fame.
Greg Beeman: And she does, in fact… rock the house in this episode.
Zachary Quinto: She does.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: She is very good. Very good.
Greg Beeman (to Zach): Now, dude, you know what you rock the house doing?
Zachary Quinto: What do I…
Greg Beeman: Is shifting back and forth between Zane, who’s really a fictitious character that you’re manifesting,
Zachary Quinto: Right.
Greg Beeman: …who’s sort of all shy and humble, and thinks Suresh is the greatest, and then every couple seconds you get to go, like, (makes scary hissing noise).
How do you feel when we put that (same scary hissing noise) sound effect under you?
Zachary Quinto: I love that, that (scary hissing noise) with that (clock ticking noise)

Sendhil Ramamurthy: That, I caught on to. I didn’t get the (scary hissing noise).
Greg Beeman: Well, any time he goes from, like, Zane, to, like, Sylar,
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Ah.
Greg Beeman: We go (scary hissing noise).
Zachary Quinto: There’s a-- there’s a good moment of it coming up. When we’re outside closing the trunk of the car, I notice that you, you found… that there was one there.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: I had to add in-- well, we’ll get to that in a minute.
(main video: Sylar prepares to melt the wrench)
Greg Beeman: Check out this. This is, like, one of the dopiest powers ever, but…
Zachary Quinto: “Look out, ‘cause I’ll melt you.”
Sendhil Ramamurthy: But listen, what I love though, is the, the light, swinging, throughout the whole scene,
Greg Beeman: Look at that.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: I love that.
(main video: Sylar melts the wrench)
Greg Beeman: Oh! Okay, that’s a useful power. “Honey,…”
Sendhil Ramamurthy: There, see?
Zachary Quinto: Remember when that happened?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah. It was awesome.
Zachary Quinto: Yeah, and then I kept forgetting to do it.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Before each take, had to do it.
Greg Beeman: Before every take, you had to swing…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Had to swing the thing.
Greg Beeman: And then get right in character.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: It was actually really cold. Like, for real. In Monrovia.
Zachary Quinto: It was such a weird couple of days. We spent two days in Monrovia, which is… far away,
Greg Beeman: Near Pasadena.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Zachary Quinto: And, uh, and, and it was really hot,
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Hang on, she’s, she’s… sorry to cut you off, she’s amazing in this. The way that she…
Zachary Quinto: Yeah. She is, it’s true.
Greg Beeman: This is not an easy speech to get through, is it. (all agree) It’s a big chunk of dialogue with lots of changes…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: It could be super cheesy, and she does it really well.
Greg Beeman: Thank God for Rusty Schwimmer.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Greg Beeman: She rocked the house.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Zachary Quinto: She really does.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Did I mention that she’s David Schwimmer’s sister?
Greg Beeman: Yeah, but you lied.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: No.
Zachary Quinto: Best friend’s Virginia Madsen.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Best friends.
Greg Beeman: Oh, oh! That’s a close-up. (Zach and Sendhil laugh) Here’s where the swing-and-tilt comes in.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah. Here it comes.
Zachary Quinto: I love that light. Look at that light.
Greg Beeman: We sped the film up a little bit there, and added a “whoosh.” There, good. Good recovery. Now, are you at all concerned about the trout that’s eating your ear?
(guys laugh)
Zachary Quinto: Trout ear is never a bad thing. …Yeah, swing-and-tilt right there, right?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Great swing-and-tilt.
Greg Beeman: Swing-and-tilt is a lens we use sometimes on the show.
Zachary Quinto: Yeah, I was about to say, maybe people would like to know what that is. Swing-and-tilt is a… take it, Greg, please… (buzz)!
Greg Beeman: It was in vogue in the rock videos of the, of the early 2000’s. It’s a special lens, it goes in front of the camera, so usually, with most lenses,
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Greg Beeman: …you know, the plane of focus is flat, so everything on a certain plane is in focus, and then away and in front of it, everything’s out of focus. But the swing-and-tilt swings the focus, so your eye’s in focus and the trout eating your ear--

Zachary Quinto: Is not.
Greg Beeman: No, is also in focus.
Zachary Quinto: Oh. (laughs)
Greg Beeman: But your other eye is not in focus.
(all laugh)

(main video: Masi tries to break the props closet door down)
Zachary Quinto: I love that part.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Poor old Masi, how long did he spend in this closet?
Greg Beeman: A day.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: A full day?
Greg Beeman: Well, we all went to lunch and we forgot.
Zachary Quinto: Wait, I want to talk really fast about the snow, ‘cause I was… you interrupted me…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Oh, yeah, I know…
Zachary Quinto: In service of Rusty Schwimmer, who…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Zachary Quinto: …who’s David Schwimmer’s sister… (laughs) …not really. Um, but it was hot, it would get really hot, but they would lay all the snow out and it was alternately really cold,
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Zachary Quinto: …’cause there was snow all around us, and it was melting, and the water was cold,
Sendhil Ramamurthy: And our feet were soaked.
Zachary Quinto: And I was wearing those, those Converse All-Stars, which it soaked right through.
Greg Beeman: And they tried to talk you out of it.
Zachary Quinto: They did. And I said, I talked about that last week too.
Greg Beeman: Like, he’s like, “No, I really want these Converse All-Stars.”
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Zach had the plastic bags wrapped around, on your feet.
Zachary Quinto: I did. I put them, it was very Pittsburgh of me, where I’m from, (in Pittsburgh accent) down Pittsburgh and that, (normal voice) but I put, I put the plastic bag and then the shoe over it,
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Zachary Quinto: So I didn’t get my feet wet. But it… they were still freezing cold,
Sendhil Ramamurthy: You looked styling.
Zachary Quinto: That was styling.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: That was styling.
Zachary Quinto: One was red, one was white.

(main video: Hiro calls the gaming commissioner “pal”)
Sendhil Ramamurthy: “Pal.”
Greg Beeman: “Pal.” Dude, dude, guess what he is!
Sendhil Ramamurthy: That’s Bill… Bill Fagerbakke.
Greg Beeman: Guess what he is.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Fabergakke.
Zachary Quinto: No, Fa…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Fagerb…
Greg Beeman: Faber…
Zachary Quinto: (laughs) Fagerbakke, you got it the first time. Bill Fagerbakke.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Fagerbakke.
Greg Beeman: It’s my third time working with him. He’s the voice of Patrick on SpongeBob!
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Nuh-uh.
Greg Beeman: That’s true, unlike your lie about David Schwimmer, that is true. He’s the voice of Patrick. (main video: Ted at his wife’s grave) Look at these, look at the flowers rot. That is so awesome. I love our visual effects guys.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: I know.
Greg Beeman: Oh, look at the grass rot!
Sendhil Ramamurthy: That’s great.
Zachary Quinto: And then it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Can I just say, as a little teaser, in the next episode, Matt Armstrong rocks.
Zachary Quinto: Have you seen it already?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: I saw a tiny bit of it. They… I “accidentally” walked into the editing room the other day.
Greg Beeman: Do you guys always do that?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Zachary Quinto: I accidentally got a copy of episode twenty.

(main video: Claude attacks Peter)
Sendhil Ramamurthy: The wonderful Chris Eccleston.
Zachary Quinto: You’ll never see it.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: The puddles, what is that? Just throwing little pebbles, or…?
Greg Beeman: This is a hard shot to do! No, this was, this… you know, how do you show, as a director, like, people are invisible and then they turn visible.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Greg Beeman: We put a puddle and we had to-- they painted this painting of puddles, so we had to, uh, we had, like, air mortars over the the puddles…
Zachary Quinto: But the puddles are gone.
Greg Beeman: This is a pretty gnarly fight, guys.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Milo did, Milo did a lot of his stunts, correct? Of his, of his own?
Greg Beeman: Milo was completely into it, and he, no, act--
Zachary Quinto: He was in Rocky, I mean…
Greg Beeman: The problem was that Chris didn’t want to hit him hard enough. So he-- we kept everything…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: See, if I was doing it, I would have just hit him. (unintelligible)
Greg Beeman: Yeah, Milo was always like, “Hit me! Hit me!” He was fully Raging Bull.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: How did these coffee cups just appear?

Greg Beeman: You know what,…
Zachary Quinto: From Black Label Coffee Company. It’s really exciting.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Oh, yeah. We don’t endorse…
Greg Beeman: I drink Black Label or I drink nothing at all.
(all laugh)
Sendhil Ramamurthy: It’s Nissan coffee.
Greg Beeman: Come on, how cool was that, when he froze the bowstick in midair.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Very cool.
Zachary Quinto: That was amazing, and I missed it.
Greg Beeman: Both these guys had, like, several days of training,
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Greg Beeman: …for this fight. I think it turned out pretty well.
(main video: “you pulled that little trick out in the here-and-now.”)
Sendhil Ramamurthy (imitating Chris’s accent): “The here-and-now.”
Zachary Quinto (ditto): “In the here-and-now.”
Sendhil Ramamurthy: He’s from North England.
Greg Beeman: Now, when you’re having your… when you’re having your final battle, underwater, getting pounded by that squid…
(fades out)

---END PART TWO---

I was really hoping to get part three up tonight also, but it's nearing one a.m. and I'm *tired*. Two parts tomorrow or bust, though!

Unexpected commentary transcript, part one

2007-02-27T05:36:37Z

And only a week behind schedule! (main video: Somewhere in the Nevada desert)
Greg Beeman: Somewhere in the Nevada desert.
Zachary Quinto: I should have brought my (unintelligible)
Greg Beeman: Do you guys know what this is, this is a-- this is the secret scene that was seen with Deal Or No Deal.

Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yes. Exactly.
Zachary Quinto: Oh. With that.
Greg Beeman: And it introduces Hana Gitelman.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Hana Gitelman.
Greg Beeman: Hana’s in the comic book, and she’s the one who, uh, talks to the online fans when they’re trying to-- when they, when they type in the Primatech code.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: That’s right.
Zachary Quinto: Wasn’t she a model on Deal Or No Deal? No? That was someone else.

Sendhil Ramamurthy: I mean, she could be. She’s hot.
Greg Beeman: No. She, she probably was a model, because…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: This guy’s great. Um, uh, what’s his name, Matt?
Zachary Quinto: Matthew.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Matthew. Matthew Armstrong.

Zachary Quinto: Married to Ashley Crow in real life…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Married to Ashley Crow.
Zachary Quinto: …which I’m sure is established every time…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yes.
Zachary Quinto: …that these commentaries…

Greg Beeman: How weird is that, though?
Zachary Quinto: I know.
Greg Beeman: He’s married to Claire’s mom.
Zachary Quinto: Wouldn’t it be neat if they had scenes together…? At some point in the future…?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: (laughs) I know.
Greg Beeman: Can you make that happen? Can you use your powers?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: With your people?
Zachary Quinto: I’m gonna-- I’m gonna see what I can do. Yeah, stay tuned.
Greg Beeman: What’s he doing? (main video: picture of injector gun pops up on Ted’s computer) What’s that?
Zachary Quinto: (unintelligible, he’s very quiet and the others are talking over him)
Sendhil Ramamurthy: See, that’s the thing, like, that gun, with the thing-- I thought it was an actual gun, it took me a while to figure out that it was…
Greg Beeman: It’s a pneumatic device…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah, it’s a pneumatic device. I’m not that clever, though, so…
Greg Beeman: Well, you’ll find out more about that later. Where the heck is Hana Gitelman? Oh!
Zachary Quinto: Did you think it was a… that… laser gun?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Greg Beeman: Dude. That’s Hana Gitelman. She just said so.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Hana Gitelman’s… hot.
Greg Beeman: I know.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Is that leather, that she’s wearing? A leather one-piece?
Greg Beeman: You know, we don’t really talk about this that much but it is somewhat odd that, that all the genetically mutated people who are, you know, starting to change the earth, are hot.
Zachary Quinto: (laughs)
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Are hot.
Greg Beeman: It’s convenient.
(main video: Hana shows her hash marks)
Greg Beeman: That’s the mark.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: That’s the mark.
Greg Beeman: (to Sendhil) You don’t have one yet. (to Zach) You’ll never have one.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: No, I have a rash.
(Zach pulls his collar out to show his neck)
Greg Beeman: (to Zach) Oh, do you have one?
Zachary Quinto (laughing): A rash.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: I think it’s, I think it’s-- well, we won’t go there.

(main video: “Previously, on Heroes…”)
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Who’s that… is that Ali, saying “Previously on Heroes”?
Zachary Quinto: Yeah. That was Ali.
Greg Beeman: That sounded like Ali. Remember this was the Hiro and Ando story in Vegas?
(main video: Missy Pyle as Hope)
Sendhil Ramamurthy: See, my poor mom thought that, that, you know, thinks that she is, uh, Ali.
Zachary Quinto: Oh.
Greg Beeman: Oh. Your poor mom.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah. She…
Greg Beeman: So she was confused.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: She was confu-sed.
Zachary Quinto: Interesting.
Greg Beeman: (main video: Jessica) That’s Ali. (main video: Claude) Look at him going invisible.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Eccleston.
Greg Beeman: Awesome Christopher Eccleston. You guys get to work with him yet?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah, I did.
Zachary Quinto: I don’t-- I didn’t. I talked to him about motorcycles one time.
(main video: Peter falls)
Sendhil Ramamurthy: I love this--
Greg Beeman: Blue screen, backplate…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Oh! That was my cab, dude.

(main video: Mohinder meets Sylar)
Greg Beeman: That’s you, previously. You guys are together now. What will happen.
Zachary Quinto: …the sun was going down, remember, we had to race against the light.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Zachary Quinto (whispers dramatically): Race against the light.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Why don’t I recognize that your voice is different?
Greg Beeman: Than Zane Taylor?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: From the…
Greg Beeman: You were in a frantic pell-mell race against time to get people on the phone!
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Okay. I thought about--
Zachary Quinto: Wait, say this again, why don’t you what?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: ‘Cause I hear your message on, on, on the answering machine-- I mean, it’s a short message, fair enough, but, I mean, it’s not…
Zachary Quinto: You mean why don’t you recognize my voice when you have---
Sendhil Ramamurthy: When, when you’re, like, you know, “Dr. Suresh?” You know, like, when I meet you.
Greg Beeman: But Zane was all like (makes panicked noises) “You got to call me right back!”
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah, that’s true, he was in a heightened state.
Zachary Quinto: Oh, I see what you’re asking. It literally just took me that long to figure out what you were talking about.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah. Okay, I’m glad that somebody’s a little slower than me.
Zachary Quinto: I am slow.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: (laughs)
Zachary Quinto: I thought you were talking about the message that Sylar left your dad.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Oh, no no no.
Zachary Quinto: That’s what I thought.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: No no. Actually, that’s a good point too, though.
Greg Beeman: I think that it’s remarkable that Claire hangs on to--
Zachary Quinto: Mr. Muggles?
Greg Beeman: …sanity as well as she does.
Zachary Quinto: Hangs on to sanity? (laughs) I thought you were talking about Mr. Muggles in the scene, that she’s hanging on to him the whole time.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Is that the real Mr. Muggles, or the fake Mr. Muggles?
Zachary Quinto: That’s the real one, that’s Lestat.
Greg Beeman: You know, there was-- not that many people know this, but, uh, there was a contract dispute, and in episode, I think it was episode nine, or maybe it was ten, we got a--
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Well, he got a movie.
Zachary Quinto: Wore a sweater.
Greg Beeman: --we did try to replace Mr. Muggles, we had a strike Muggles…
Zachary Quinto: (laughs) Strike Muggles.
Greg Beeman: …but, you know, we worked out the negotiations and Muggles is very happy now. He’s got the full trailer…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: His trailer’s bigger than mine.
Greg Beeman: The pop-outs.
Zachary Quinto: See, this is nice full-circle business right here, because last time Isaac and HRG were together, Isaac was in that captivity, and now HRG’s come to see him in his own space, on his own turf… the, the layers never end.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Mm-hm. Nice picture of, of New York blowing up on the floor…
Greg Beeman: I don’t dig that Isaac’s working for HRG now. You can’t use anybody…
Zachary Quinto: You’re not into that? (cracks his knuckles, then realizes that he cracked his knuckles) Oh, I cracked my knuckles last time I did this, it was so gross and rude, I was sitting with Milo, and it was totally…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Well, I’m glad you brought it up, ‘cause I thought it was disgusting.
Zachary Quinto: Did you?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Zachary Quinto: Wow. But it did, when I, when I watched it back, it-- I was like, that was just classless, I’m sorry.
Greg Beeman: Guys, guys, there’s important story points just flying by…
Sendhil Ramamurthy: There’s, like, brilliant acting… you’re talking about cracking your knuckles,
Zachary Quinto: Part of the magic is what we have together in the room!
Sendhil Ramamurthy: …Jack is rockin’ it,…
Zachary Quinto: Sorry.
Greg Beeman: Yeah.
Zachary Quinto: All deference to Jack.
(main video: HRG gives Isaac his gun)
Greg Beeman: I dug that! That, Jack came up with that, too, like, he’s going to hand him the gun, and Isaac would be scared,
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Now, is that…
Greg Beeman: And what’s he going to do, what’s he going to do?
(main video: “Save the world.”)
Greg Beeman: Save the world.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Save the world.
Greg Beeman: Save the world.
Sendhil Ramamurthy: But that is, that is the gun, that gun travels everywhere, doesn’t it!
Greg Beeman: How organized are the writers, and the creators, of this show?
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Unbelievable.
Greg Beeman: The gun is introduced in episode two,
Sendhil Ramamurthy: Yeah.
Greg Beeman: It’s the only gun HRG has…
(fades out)

---END PART ONE---

Whoo-hoo!

2007-02-26T23:12:14Z

Hurrah! My internet is fixed! So I'll be back in my commentary-transcribing groove and posting starting tonight! (Though it'll be late tonight; I seem to recall that I've already got something on the schedule between the hours of 9 and 10...)

In the meantime, how about this post that I had been working up before the Great Blackout and can now finish:

Stupid internets.

2007-02-22T19:33:31Z

Hello all: I'm at work currently because my home internet has been unbelievably slow for the last three days-- that is, when it hasn't gone missing entirely. I am hoping to get something worked out (be it getting my own proper internet back or going with an alternate plan) soon, but until then... well, I'm kind of stuck. It sucks, 'cause I understand this week's commentary is really good (Sendhil's back! And snarky! Hooray!) but all I can say is that I'll try to get it up as quickly as possible when I can, and thanks for your patience!

Run! commentary transcripts, parts five and six

2007-02-19T22:12:13Z

In just under the wire!

Note: these were definitely the most difficult transcripts to date, as they have a LOT of overtalking and also much repetitiveness *cough*ADAM*cough*. I tried to improve readability by limiting a word to three repeats in a row (Adam in particular was fond of "and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and it's, and it's, and it's great"-type constructions) but there are still a lot of (unintelligible)s, which I do apologize for.

(main video: Matt regains consciousness)
Kevin Chamberlin: Greg had to be called back to the set, but, uh we’ve been joined by, by, uh, the writers.
Adam Armus: Yes. Adam Armus here,
Kay Foster: …and Kay Foster here.
Adam Armus: Yeah, we’re back with, uh, Matt,
Kay Foster: Greg hanging from a sign.
Adam Armus: Greg Grunberg hanging from a sign, yeah. Yeah,
Kevin Chamberlin: That’s actually all blue-screen, right?
Adam Armus: Right. It was basically set, uh, shot, uh, shot on our soundstage, and, uh…
Kay Foster: He said he was about eight feet over a pile of bagels (unintelligible)
(laughter)
Adam Armus: Yeah.
Kay Foster: Whoa!
Kevin Chamberlin: Right into a schmear of cream cheese.
(laughter)
Adam Armus: But, uh, actually, it’s, it’s amazing what they can do, because this is all, you know, just…
Kay Foster: Looks pretty darn real.
Adam Armus: …just, just-- just there. That sign, and everything.

(main video: Claire at Meredith’s)
And, uh, this, this, we, uh, went to the trailer park out in…
Kay Foster: Santa Clarita.
Adam Armus: Somewhere in Santa Clarita.
Kay Foster: Yeah.
Adam Armus: Even further out than that, but, but, uh, great trailer park where, uh, the great Jessalyn Gilsig is living, plays mother Meredith.
Kevin Chamberlin: Now when we were shooting this episode, your parents came and visited the set, didn’t they.
Adam Armus: (laughs) Yeah. Yes, they did.
Kevin Chamberlin: And they’re from Jersey, and I’m from Jersey, we kind of bonded, there.
Adam Armus: Right. (laughs) Yeah. That was a lot of fun, actually. You were very very sweet to them,
Kevin Chamberlin: I think your mom has a crush on Greg.
Adam Armus: Yes, she might. I think, I think that’s quite the understatement, actually.
Kay Foster: Why, when she calls him every day, asks if he’s left his wife yet?
Adam Armus: She, uh… she had a great time, and he was very very sweet to her, and you were very sweet to her as well, I might-- Thank you for that, and, uh, yes, that’s…
Kay Foster: And they will be back.
Adam Armus: They’ll be back, they’ll be back. And they’ll be hunting you down wherever you go in your career.
Kay Foster: Wherever you are.
Adam Armus: “We know him, he’s from Jersey!”
Kevin Chamberlin: Do they have Heroes parties?
Adam Armus: Oh, they do! Actually, when, especially when their son’s episode is on.
Kevin Chamberlin: Yes.
Adam Armus: Um…
Kevin Chamberlin: Oh, this week, this… this one is going to be a big one.
Adam Armus: Yeah. So they, they…
Kay Foster: Yes. Next Monday.
Adam Armus: They come, and they, they, uh, invite their friends in the retirement community over to their house, and they all… they all have a great time watching Heroes. Many of them, of course, aren’t quite sure what’s happening…
Kevin Chamberlin: No.
Adam Armus: Moves a little too fast…but, uh…
Kevin Chamberlin: No.
Kay Foster: (laughs) They have a flowchart, that they work with…
Kevin Chamberlin: “Will there be blood?”
Kay Foster: Blood.
Adam Armus: Yes. “Tell me when to avert my eyes.” But, uh… no. They’re very proud of their son. And his writing partner. So, so, uh… yeah.
Kay Foster: Whoever she might be.
(both writers laugh)
This is a great scene, set out in Santa Clarita at the trailer park, I guess we mentioned that, but, uh… quiet little duck pond that we liked, and asked for them to shoot an angle that we could see that.
Adam Armus: The fifty thousand dollars she mentions, of course, Nathan offered her a hundred thousand, but…
Kevin Chamberlin: Oh.
Kay Foster: But who’s quibbling about fifty thousand dollars.
Kevin Chamberlin: That’s right. The… it’s amazing the color palettes, ‘cause I like… like, the city is all very blue, and then anything with, that’s in Texas is always, has an amber kind of quality…
Adam Armus: Yes. That’s right.
Kay Foster: Right. Right.
Kevin Chamberlin: Beautiful beautiful design concept.
Adam Armus: It’s really, it was really about creating a different look for every place that we went, you know, and…
Kevin Chamberlin: It’s all about the light.
Adam Armus: Mm-hm. It, it really is! And see, that beautiful shot of the ducks and the lake, and…
Kevin Chamberlin: It looks like autumn…
Adam Armus: Yeah.
Kay Foster: Yeah.
Kevin Chamberlin: Even though we don’t have an autumn.
Adam Armus: We don’t have autumn here, but we found a spot where it, that looks sort of like autumn. Um, and, uh…
Kay Foster: Oh, look at that shot. Close-up is fabulous. She moves away.
Kevin Chamberlin: You totally believe they’re mother and daughter.
Adam Armus: Absolutely.
Kay Foster: You really do.
Kevin Chamberlin: It’s really good casting.
Kay Foster: We have to have her back, I love her.
Adam Armus: She-- yeah. We love her. Jessalyn’s wonderful at this.
Kay Foster: Really great.

(main video: the crime scene)
Oh, this is your part!
Adam Armus: And here we are again, back in the diamond district,
Kay Foster: Officer Parkman.
Adam Armus: The real building in the diamond district--
(main video pans up the two separate halves of Malsky’s body)
Kay Foster: Uh-oh!
Adam Armus: Uh-oh.
Kay Foster: This is not a good moment for you.
Adam Armus: No.
Kevin Chamberlin: (disappointed moan) Oh…
Kay Foster: (echoes the moan) Oh.
Adam Armus: And your glasses fell off, too, I noticed.
Kevin Chamberlin: Yeah. Speckled perfectly with blood.
Adam Armus: You’re gonna…
Kevin Chamberlin: Now, as you notice, that is me bending over backwards…
Kay Foster: Yeah, in half. Which you can do, I understand.
Kevin Chamberlin: Pilates.
Adam Armus: Yes, and you can also… yes.
Kevin Chamberlin: Pilates,
Kay Foster: Right. (unintelligible) shape.
Adam Armus (at the same time): (unintelligible) kind of fold you over like a sandwich.
Kay Foster: Right.
Kevin Chamberlin: Very flexible.

(main video: Mohinder arrives at Zane Taylor’s house)
Kay Foster: And this is a really tense storyline, and these two meet each other face-to-face.
Adam Armus: Yeah. Suresh and Sylar, together again. Now, what’s interesting enough is that, you know, Suresh is so… uh, fixated on finding Sylar, and knowing Sylar, and this is the first time that they actually meet, ever, in our show.
Kevin Chamberlin: Oh, right!
Adam Armus: And it’s all the way in episode fifteen, so that’s what’s so wonderful about it, the fact that we can introduce them, and their lives can be so intertwined, and they don’t even know it…
Kevin Chamberlin: Don’t even know.
Adam Armus: Don’t… don’t even know it, when Suresh meets him. So…
Kevin Chamberlin: And look at that, Ramones…
Kay Foster: Ramones shirt.
Adam Armus: Ramones t-shirt, yes.
Kay Foster: Now off of Zane Taylor.
Kevin Chamberlin: Was that actually in the script, or was that something the wardrobe people came up with?
Adam Armus: Actually, we put in “Ramones t-shirt,” because Allan Arkush, one of the executive producers of our show, um, directed Rock and Roll High School,
Kevin Chamberlin: Right.
Adam Armus: which is, big Ramones movie, and, uh, he’s, uh, you know, he’s just a huge Ramones fan, and we thought, “Let’s honor him by making Zane Taylor a Ramones fan.” Zane Taylor, by the way, is my nephew’s name.
Kevin Chamberlin: (laughs)
Adam Armus: Which is the reason why Zane, uh, the character’s named Zane. But, uh… and so great, because, um, uh, Zach Quinto, the actor here, he actually pulled down his sleeves to mimic the way the actor, Zane, who was playing Zane, was playing the character. So, I mean, it was just all about, you know, the fact that, really getting into this new character that he gets to play.
Kevin Chamberlin: Wow. He takes on their powers and all their, their characteristics.
Adam Armus: Yeah, and their affectations! It’s great!
Kay Foster: Right. Our location scout fell in love with this location ‘cause of the windows there,
Adam Armus: Yeah.
Kay Foster: So we had the plastic up while Zane Taylor was there, but we pulled it down…
Adam Armus: Pulled it down so we could actually see the view
Kay Foster: …so we could actually see the view.
Adam Armus: Yeah. It’s in, actually, San Pedro. Doubling for Virginia Beach, Virginia. And here is his ability, the ability to melt…
Kay Foster: …toasters.
Adam Armus: Toasters.
Kay Foster: It’s a very-- it’s a very specific talent that he has.
Adam Armus: The ability to change molecules and create liquid goo out of solid objects.
Kevin Chamberlin: So it’s actually not just melting metals.
Adam Armus: No! It’s melting any object that you find.
Kay Foster: Right.
Kevin Chamberlin: Wow.
Adam Armus: You’ll see later that the, he melts all kinds of stuff.
Kay Foster: Yeah.
Adam Armus: So now Sylar, because he has taken Zane Taylor’s ability, has got to take that ability wherever he goes.
Kay Foster: Right.

(main video: Nathan arrives at Meredith’s)
Adam Armus: Back at the trailer park, with Nathan… the big reunion between Nathan and Meredith. And this shot is just a wonderful shot, this coming up right here, there’s a long shot, right here, I just love it. It’s just so… iconic. Her waving him into the trailer.
Kay Foster: Yeah.
Kevin Chamberlin: You realize how lighting shapes, uh, um, characters and scenes, and, and defines…
Kay Foster: Mm-hm.
Adam Armus: The thing that Roxann, our director, was going for here was this sort of, uh, innocent but intimate moment.
Kay Foster: Right.
Adam Armus: You know, there’s this… this sort of… there’s a sadness about Meredith, that’s sort of laid in all of this…
Kay Foster: Right. Right.
Adam Armus: And, you know,
Kay Foster: How inappropriate he looks in a trailer park.
Adam Armus: Right.
Kevin Chamberlin: Yeah.
Kay Foster: With his suit on, and tie, and his limousine,
Adam Armus: In a big limo, driving… yeah, yeah.
Kay Foster: Just, the juxtaposition of these two people who, whose lives, you know, intersected, and… then were torn apart.
Kevin Chamberlin: Seventeen years ago? Is that it…? She’s seventeen?
Adam Armus: Yeah, well, I mean…
Kay Foster: Well, let’s see.
Adam Armus: Claire’s sixteen, they got together seventeen years ago. Yeah. And, um,
Kay Foster: Of course, he thought she was dead for fourteen years.
Adam Armus: Yeah. Yeah. So the time frame involved, he knew Claire was a little baby, but, uh, not Claire, who she is.
Kay Foster: ???
Adam Armus: And here is the wonderful Hayden Panettiere. She’s just…
Kay Foster: That Hayden is a scene-stealer here. She is so fantastic.
Kevin Chamberlin: You can tell the monologue that’s going on in her head…
Kay Foster: Right.
Adam Armus: Yeah.
Kevin Chamberlin: There’s so much subtext
Kay Foster: She plays it, looks so hopeful.
Kevin Chamberlin: Not a peep out of her mouth. Just all there in the eyes.
Kay Foster: Yeah. Right. Possible.
Adam Armus: She, uh…
Kay Foster: She just got nominated for another award. Right?
Adam Armus: Yeah, Young Actors.
Kay Foster: Yeah, Young Actor Award.
Adam Armus: Yeah. Phenomenal.
Kay Foster: She’s so good.
Kevin Chamberlin: (unintelligible)
Adam Armus: She’s a freight train, is what she is.
Kay Foster: Yes. She is. She does get, she does get annoyed with the writers, though, because now that we realize that she, uh…
Adam Armus: Can emote…
Kay Foster: Can cry, and emote,
Kevin Chamberlin: Ah…
Kay Foster: …on a dime…
Adam Armus: We’re like,
Kay Foster: Boy, do we like that.
Adam Armus: “Maybe we should have Claire cry.”
Kevin Chamberlin: You know, you know, it’s actually harder to laugh realistically than cry.
Kay Foster: Than cry.
Adam Armus: It is, it is, it is.
Kevin Chamberlin: It’s always so fakey when you see
Adam Armus: Laughter comes across as sort of, “oh, that’s a fake laugh.”
Kevin Chamberlin: Yeah.
Adam Armus: Absolutely.
Kay Foster: Right. Yeah. This… just great. Very nuanced performance. So great.
Adam Armus: Yes, the hope, the hope in her eyes, the hope for having a real family.
Kay Foster: Her mouth turns up a little…
Adam Armus: We know her adopted family falling apart, her real family right in front of her, can she get it, you know, can, can she belong somewhere? And then the rejection.
Kevin Chamberlin: I hadn’t thought about that juxtaposition. It’s great.
Adam Armus: Yeah. Yeah. And you know what I love about it, is the fact that he snaps the-- I love this moment. He snaps the cell phone closed the same way Angela snapped her compact closed in that earlier scene, when she said “Nip it in the bud, Nathan,”
Kevin Chamberlin: Uh-huh…
Adam Armus: You know, “You’re a glorified sperm donor,” it’s her… mother’s son, coming out in that moment.
Kay Foster: Right.
Kevin Chamberlin: Wow.
Adam Armus: So.
Kay Foster: And of course for all our fans, they know that Claire’s now, has, uh, Peter’s her uncle.
Kevin Chamberlin: Right.
Adam Armus: Peter’s her uncle, Nathan’s her daddy, it’s, it’s just, the world gets smaller as it gets bigger.
Kay Foster: So… yes.
Adam Armus: And here’s…
Kay Foster: This is a beautiful moment pitched by Tim, to us in the room, that we wanted to build to.
Adam Armus: Yeah. Throwing the rock at the, at the, at the car. Just so great.
Kay Foster: It just was a great, great idea.
Adam Armus: And my, my, my, my final advice to Hayden before, uh, the scene started, I was like, “Don’t throw like a girl!”
Kevin Chamberlin: (laughs)
Adam Armus: She’s like, “Are you kidding me?!”
Kay Foster: She’s really athletic, Hayden.
Adam Armus: Oh, my gosh, is she athletic.
Kay Foster: That’s the other thing that she can do that’s brilliant, is run. Just run and run and run.
Adam Armus: This moment, uh, which is, is just such a classic moment, of Nathan putting on his sunglasses…
Kay Foster: Yeah. Fabulous.

---END PART FIVE---

(main video: Mohinder and Sylar have a chat)
Adam Armus: And here we are. See, and you can see the various objects.
Kay Foster: Right.
Adam Armus: That, uh, he can melt.
Kay Foster: There’s a coffeemaker there.
Adam Armus: Not just metal, it’s whatever he wants to melt.
Kevin Chamberlin: You know, at, uh, one of the Heroes parties that a friend of mine had at a bar, this guy came up and he was like, “Dude. They drop some mad bombs on this show.” (all laugh) I love that.
Adam Armus: It’s true!
Kevin Chamberlin: It is true. Every episode. And you’ve really got to parcel them out…
Kay Foster: Mm-hm.
Adam Armus: Mm-hm.
Kevin Chamberlin: …so you don’t… but, that’s what’s great about the show is you do drop enough to keep you.. logged in.
Adam Armus: Yes. I know. It’s, it’s, it’s always, I mean, the fact of the matter is, is that this concept that Tim created, this show, is so ripe with, with, with different possibilities, that it’s almost easy, sitting in the room, saying, “hey, we could do this, we could go here, we can go there,” so many possibilities.
Kay Foster: True.
Kevin Chamberlin: I love when you-- when they go back in time. And go forward in time.
Adam Armus: Yeah! Of course.
Kay Foster: Yes. You’re going to be very happy.
Kevin Chamberlin: Oh, really?
Adam Armus: Yes, we’ve got big stuff coming up.
Kay Foster: Coming up.
Adam Armus: Big stuff coming up.
Kay Foster: Okay, there’s a great moment coming here, Suresh gets up…
Adam Armus: I just love the fact that Sylar uses, uh, telekinetic ability to make the pot boil.
Kay Foster: Right.
Adam Armus: To get out of the room.
Kay Foster: Right.
Adam Armus: I think that’s sort of subtlely down there.
Kay Foster: Sticking little cotton swab in the…
Adam Armus: Ugh… yes.
Kevin Chamberlin: Ooh.
Kay Foster: …dead man’s mouth.
Adam Armus: Yes. ‘Cause, you know, he’s getting DNA samples.
Kay Foster: Getting his DNA…
Kevin Chamberlin: Ohh…
Adam Armus: He doesn’t want Suresh to know that it’s him, so…
Kay Foster: Doesn’t want to expose himself… now here it is, here it is.
(main video: Sylar blocks Mohinder from entering or seeing into the kitchen)
Kevin Chamberlin: Is he gonna catch him? (all react to the close call) That’s brilliant staging, there.
Kay Foster: Brilliant.
Adam Armus: (laughs)
Kevin Chamberlin: It’s strange, though, we don’t know how he actually… he, he takes a piece of the brain? Or, or…
Adam Armus: Well, that’s…
Kay Foster: It’s a mystery that remains unsolved.
Adam Armus: That’s a mystery!
Kevin Chamberlin: Yeah.
Kay Foster: We don’t know.
Adam Armus: The thing, the thing that we have stated, many times, is that, uh, Sylar knows how things work, but he has to sort of see, you know, how it works. Just like the watchmaker that he, that he was regarded as.
Kevin Chamberlin: Oh, right.
Kay Foster: Mm-hm.
Adam Armus: So basically, he opens the head up to at least look… what he does after that is anybody’s guess.
Kevin Chamberlin: Whether he eats the brain…
Adam Armus: Does he eat it? Does he play with it? Who knows.
Kevin Chamberlin: You are what you eat.
Adam Armus: Yeah. And, you know, this, what’s wonderful about this is that this is, this is the son of, um, repeating the father’s mistakes. Chandra Suresh, who is Mohinder Suresh’s father,
Kevin Chamberlin: Right…
Adam Armus: …went with Sylar and found people and brought Sylar to, to, not quite so many victims were there at the beginning of our series. And now Mohinder, his son, is making the same mistake. Is now teaming up with Sylar. So…

(main video: Ando and the showgirl)
Adam Armus: “Your boyfriend is very large!” (laughs)
Kay Foster: That’s an understatement.
Adam Armus: That’s a line that gives a lot of people a lot of fun. (all laugh) Missy Pyle, who is just a kick, she’s, uh, she’s great. And James, James has some (unintelligible), the actor who plays Ando, this was his episode to shine.
Kay Foster: Right.
Adam Armus: This was him at his comic best, so… we were so happy with that, we gave him this opportunity.
(main video: showgirl kisses Ando)
Kay Foster: Uh-oh… he was kind of happy too.
Adam Armus: Oh, yeah, I think he definitely had a little tiny crush on Missy Pyle.
Kevin Chamberlin: I enjoyed his crush on, uh, on Hiro’s sister.
Adam Armus: Yeah, yeah!
Kay Foster: That was cute.
Adam Armus: (unintelligible) Ando has lots of crushes.
(main video: Hiro tries to break out of the storage closet)
And here’s Hiro…
Kay Foster: I love the fact that we have the “one, two, three” before we see what’s happening.
Adam Armus: Hiro’s pratfall. He’s good at them. Boy, is Masi good at them.
Kay Foster: That’s mine, right there.
Adam Armus: Yeah. This was right, uh, in the basement of our soundstage, right here, this little closet here,
Kay Foster: Right, right.
Adam Armus: …and it was just the perfect size for what we wanted.
Kay Foster: And here’s a little bit of improvisation coming from, uh, Masi.
Adam Armus: Well, it wasn’t impr-- it was a line that I gave to him…
Kay Foster: You did?
Adam Armus: Yes, I did.
Kay Foster: Oh, I didn’t know that.
Adam Armus: Yeah. (main video: “I come in peace.”) Yeah, that line. He improvised the, uh, Star Trek, uh, you know, but, uh…
Kay Foster: Right.
Kevin Chamberlin: The Vulcan…
Adam Armus: The Vulcan, the Vulcan… yeah.

(main video: police question Matt)
Adam Armus: And back at the crime scene.
Kay Foster: Right.
Adam Armus: You’d be in a body bag at this point.
Kay Foster: Right, you’re in a body bag.
Kevin Chamberlin: I think specifically they show me going out.
Adam Armus: Yeah.
(main video: Matt recalls Malsky’s last thoughts)
Kevin Chamberlin: The dilemma.
Adam Armus: Dilemma.
Kay Foster: Yeah. This is the tip of the iceberg, as it were.
Adam Armus: Here is Matt, realizing, “Hey, I could be a good cop. I could find the diamonds, the diamonds that no one else could find, the diamonds you hid…”
Kay Foster: There goes Matt.
Adam Armus: “Fourth one over, third one back,” he heard your thoughts, he knows where, uh, eh? “Where’d you hide ‘em, Mr. Malsky?” But, uh…
Kay Foster: Here it is…
Adam Armus: And this, this is funny because this building, this old building that we were in, in the diamond district, didn’t have a dropped ceiling, they actually, actually…
Kevin Chamberlin: Didn’t have the (unintelligible)
Adam Armus: …install that ceiling so that our beat could work, in our story.
Kay Foster: Now here he comes, with good intentions…
Adam Armus: Good intentions!
Kay Foster: Bag in hand…
Adam Armus: To turn over… and yet, and yet…
Kay Foster: Yeah.
Kevin Chamberlin: Everyone always talks bad of him.
Kay Foster: I know.
Adam Armus: Spit on… he gets spit on again, and you know what…
Kay Foster: It’s a horrible power, Matt has.
Adam Armus: Yeah, ‘cause he can hear exactly what everybody thinks of him.
(main video: Matt pockets the diamonds)
Kay Foster: And in they go.
Adam Armus: Yeah. So… it’s a tough choice, and, and, and, it took a lot of…
Kay Foster: (unintelligible)
Adam Armus: it took a lot of crafty writing to make this choice work, because, you know, you don’t want to make Officer Parkman be too unlikeable.
Kevin Chamberlin: Right. No.
Adam Armus: So you have to make the right circumstances for him to… to, to want to… for you to still like him, even though he took some diamonds.
Kevin Chamberlin: How many times have we all found a wallet and, like… “Hmm.”
Adam Armus: Absolutely.
Kevin Chamberlin: It’s a wonderful dialogue.
Adam Armus: And it’s, and it’s, and they’re diamonds that, that no one will ever miss.
Kay Foster: That’s right.
Adam Armus: So, diamonds that…
Kevin Chamberlin: They were hot.
Adam Armus: Stealing from the bad guys… exactly.
Kevin Chamberlin: Laundering… He was laundering money, right?
Adam Armus: Laundering stolen money.

(main video: Claire arrives home)
Kay Foster: Oh. This is one of my favorite scenes.
Adam Armus: Yeah. Claire comes home, now having lost her real family, knowing that her real family doesn’t want her, she’s back to her adopted family.
Kay Foster: Mom’s a little, uh… a little bats.
Adam Armus: Well, Mr. Muggles is the first one to…
Kevin Chamberlin: She’s just been erased one too many times.
Kay Foster: Yeah.
Adam Armus: Exactly! (unintelligible)
Kay Foster: That’s right.
Adam Armus: And Mr. Muggles, the, the fantastic dog actor. Look at that stunt work he does. Look at that. D’you see that stunt work?!
Kevin Chamberlin: That actually wasn’t him, that was the stunt double, right?
Adam Armus: Well, yes, well, he’s got several.
Kay Foster: Right.
Kevin Chamberlin: Yeah. He wants a raise, I hear. …Is that a painting of Mr. Muggles in the background?
Adam Armus: Yes. Yes, it is.
Kay Foster: Yes.
Kevin Chamberlin: (laughs)
Adam Armus: So Claire is lost and alone, her real family doesn’t want her, her adopted family doesn’t even know her any more, it’s not a, it’s not a good, not a good situation for a young girl to be in.

(main video: Jessica, at home)
Adam Armus: And back with Niki. …er, Jessica.
Kay Foster: Back with Jessica.
Adam Armus: Yeah.
Kevin Chamberlin: I’m looking forward to ???’s powers.
Adam Armus: Oh, yeah! You’ll see some of those in a future episode.
Kevin Chamberlin: I enjoyed that ATM moment.
Adam Armus: And here we go, with Niki getting her next assignment. Jessica getting her next assignment from Mr. Linderman. Killing you wasn’t enough.
Kevin Chamberlin: Wow.
Adam Armus: Who’s she gonna kill next, that’s the big question.
Kevin Chamberlin: They’re gonna have enough money to move, I think.
Adam Armus: Yes…
Kevin Chamberlin: ...from that dumpy house.
Kay Foster: There we go.
Kevin Chamberlin: (sings “dun-dun-DUN” music)
Adam Armus: And there it is! That’s her next assignment.
Kay Foster: Ties our episodes together. Very nice.
Kevin Chamberlin: Wow.
Kay Foster: To be continued.
Adam Armus: Yes. Lotta fun.
(fade out and back in)
Kevin Chamberlin: Hi, I’m Kevin Chamberlin, I’ve just played Aron Malsky, and thanks for watching Heroes.
Adam Armus: I’m Adam Armus, thanks for watching, enjoy the show.
Kay Foster (laughing): Hi! My name is Kay Foster. Thanks for watching. (laughs) …Can’t do it. (laughs)

---END COMMENTARY---

Phew!

Run! commentary transcript, part four

2007-02-17T04:49:56Z

(main video: Hiro eavesdrops on the showgirl)
Greg Grunberg: Uh, there’s some good stuff coming up here, my friend.
Kevin Chamberlin: The day we shot this was the day the Golden Globe nomination came out.
Greg Grunberg: That’s right! That’s right.
Kevin Chamberlin: (laughs) So you were, you were extra jazzed.
Greg Grunberg: Okay, now this was shot in the basement of the building here, in, uh, on the lot, in Hollywood. Fakey McFakey! We fake it better than anybody. (laughs) Come on! All Masi has to do is sit… and breathe feathers…
Kevin Chamberlin: (laughs)
Greg Grunberg: …and I laugh.
Kevin Chamberlin: (main video: the showgirl drops the nicey-nice facade) Ooh. It takes a turn…
Greg Grunberg: Oh. She’s a monster compared to him. I think she played basketball professionally.

(main video: Matt and Malsky run from Jessica)
Kevin Chamberlin: Oh…
Greg Grunberg: Okay, this is hilarious. Now, you had to do a lot of wheezing here.
Kevin Chamberlin: I had… yes. Aron Malsky has, uh, asthma.
Greg Grunberg: Look at that. Look at that shot, that’s so, like, old Hollywood, stairway… this was shot in a building downtown, and I think we were actually in the, the jewelry district.
Kevin Chamberlin: Yep, yep. We’re actually in the…
Greg Grunberg: Look at this, and she’s coming after us… we’re totally screwed, here.
Kevin Chamberlin: (off Niki in the mirror) How’d they do that?
Greg Grunberg: Actually, Ali has a twin sister.
Kevin Chamberlin: Oh, that’s…
Hayden Panettiere: …who’s a little (makes crazy noises)
Kevin Chamberlin: They cut a hole in the wall there and she was on the other side.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah.
Kevin Chamberlin: (laughs) There it is again.
Greg Grunberg: This is cool, come on. This is great. (main video cuts to Matt, hearing both Niki and Jessica) This is so genius!
Kevin Chamberlin: Ooh!
Greg Grunberg: I love the fact that I’m hearing two people,
Kevin Chamberlin: That… you think it’s two people.
Greg Grunberg: It’s so cool!
Kevin Chamberlin: I’m pushing that… (mimes pushing elevator button)
Greg Grunberg: Every time I think my power is, like, simple, and what are they going to do, how can they make it inter-- every episode, there’s something cool like this. I love it.
(main video: Matt and Malsky run. Some more.)
Kevin Chamberlin: Really sweating.
(main video: Jessica appears and shoots at them)
Greg Grunberg: Oh! That was cool. That was really cool.
Kevin Chamberlin: Ah. “Inhaler! I need my inhaler!”
Greg Grunberg: Oh, yeah, remember?
Kevin Chamberlin: I can’t… oh. I didn’t get the inhaler.
Greg Grunberg: The inhaler’s somewhere on the ground.
Kevin Chamberlin: That’s why this episode’s called “Run!” Running.
Greg Grunberg: This is exciting, look at this…
Kevin Chamberlin: Lot of heavy breathing. Lot of heavy breathing.
Greg Grunberg: Hero. That’s the hero shot.
Kevin Chamberlin: Ah, yes.
Greg Grunberg: I remember being told, “This is your hero moment.” Roxann was like,
Kevin Chamberlin: Look at that gun. She… she…
Greg Grunberg: I know, she looks fantastic.
Kevin Chamberlin: She’s like a Bond girl.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah. Yeah. (main video: Jessica sees the stairwell door closing) Whoa! Look at that! The old cop trick. The old cop trick. The old swinging door. This is so great. Watch this.
Kevin Chamberlin: Oh, Hitchcock. Very Hitchcock.
Greg Grunberg: Yep. That’s so hot. Come on! Matt Parkman! (off the gun’s falling through the stairwell) Wow, that was, that was sort of like an old cartoon. They could have put a (makes small explosion gesture) “poof.” I don’t… I don’t even know what to say. That, to me, is…
Kevin Chamberlin: Good and evil.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah.
Kevin Chamberlin: …meet, once again, on Heroes.
Greg Grunberg: Now, this… this was the first time that I got to work with Ali, and… it was sort of a tease, because we didn’t get to work that much together, and that day, there was, there were press and EPK, you know, electronic press kit interviews, and stuff, and I love working with Ali, I want to work with her a lot more.
Kevin Chamberlin: She’s amazing. We had a great time with the, uh…
Greg Grunberg: Look at this, look at this, come on! I’m talking about me, here. Stop talking about you.
Kevin Chamberlin: (unintelligible)
Greg Grunberg: That was a cool shot. Okay, now where, when, when does Greg leave the shot, and his incredible stunt man…
Kevin Chamberlin: No, no, no, there wasn’t a stunt man!
Greg Grunberg: Mark Riccardi,
Kevin Chamberlin: No!
Greg Grunberg: …when does he take over. (main video: Jessica tosses Matt out the window) Oh! Okay, let’s talk about this stunt for a second.
Kevin Chamberlin: You’re dead!
Greg Grunberg: I’m gone.
Kevin Chamberlin: Oh…
Greg Grunberg: Oh, man. (main video: police cars arrive on the street beneath Matt) That looks incredible. That looks incredible!
Kevin Chamberlin: Were you actually there?
Greg Grunberg: Yes I was. (looks around haughtily)
Kevin Chamberlin: (laughs)

---END PART FOUR---

Run! commentary transcript, part three

2007-02-16T03:21:09Z

(main video: Sylar at Zane’s)
Kevin Chamberlin: Creepy and, and, I don’t know if you, you know this, but last year, he was Tori Spelling’s best friend on So NoTORIous. And brilliant. And I got to work with him, I played…
Greg Grunberg: And he…
Kevin Chamberlin: Tori Spelling’s hairdresser.
Greg Grunberg: Oh, you did? And… but he played, on that show, complete, like, a complete… both of you, like,
Kevin Chamberlin: Yeah. Yeah. Totally.
Greg Grunberg: …complete opposites of what you’re playing on this show.
Kevin Chamberlin: (off Zane Taylor, played by Ethan Cohn) I’ve seen him all the time at auditions.
Greg Grunberg: I wonde… it’s… I, I can’t imagine you and that guy in the same room together. Okay, let’s talk about his t-shirt. His t-shirt says “The Ramones.” If anybody knows, Allan Arkush, one of our executive producers and one of our ongoing directors, um, he directed a movie called Rock and Roll High School that was all about the Ramones. It was…
Kevin Chamberlin: Right!
Greg Grunberg: Yeah, and he directed that movie. Um, but, Allan is such an incredible director, I mean, such a creative guy.

(main video: Nathan talks to his mother)
We gotta start turning up Nathan’s dialogue. Am I the only one? I can’t… what did he just say? What did Adrian just say. He’s got such a great voice.
Kevin Chamberlin: Is his, uh, wife going to, uh…
Greg Grunberg: Rena Sofer?
Kevin Chamberlin: Yeah.
Greg Grunberg: Interesting.
Kevin Chamberlin: She gonna make a little, uh,…
Greg Grunberg: She’s making an appearance on a competing show,
Kevin Chamberlin: Oh.
Greg Grunberg: That is on opposite us,…
Kevin Chamberlin: (laughs)
Greg Grunberg: …but a great show nonetheless. But she, yeah, no. Rena is someone who I’ve… it’s funny, Rena, who plays Nathan’s wife, she and I saw each other at, when they were casting my wife, um, I had met Rena because her daughter was taking swimming lessons with my son at this house out in the Valley, and, and I saw her and I said, “Oh! You should really, you gotta come on the show, you gotta.” And she was like, “Eh, yeah, blah blah blah blah.” Then I saw her again at a restaurant when we were ca… recasting my wife, and I said, “Okay, now. You’ve gotta play my wife.” And they didn’t cast her. So let’s talk about this! Now I can finally talk about the fact that my wife is pregnant on the show, and Lisa is very pregnant, she’s now doing really well, and she’s like, I think over six months pregnant, and…
Kevin Chamberlin: Wow.
Greg Grunberg: …just so beautiful. And I think for the next episode we hide… no, no, we don’t hide it any more. But our show is… kind of goes day to day to day, and this is the fastest-growing, uh, fetus in the world.
Kevin Chamberlin: (laughs) Well, it’s a, it’s a hero fetus.
Greg Grunberg: It is!
Kevin Chamberlin: Maybe that’ll be its power.
Greg Grunberg: I think that’s what it is.
Kevin Chamberlin: It can grow to enormous size.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah. Kind of like, “You just gave pound… you just gave birth to a two-hundred-pound baby.”
Kevin Chamberlin: It’ll come out like that… alien.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah.

(main video: HRG scolds Claire)
Greg Grunberg: Wow. Hayden Panettiere. Again, staying with the story.
Kevin Chamberlin: Yeah, it’s really not cutting around at all.
Greg Grunberg: No. And I think it’s great.
Kevin Chamberlin: Yeah.
Greg Grunberg: I think people are going to love it. I hope. They’re certainly… right now, people watching the show, certainly going, “Where is that Kevin Chamberlin?”
Kevin Chamberlin: No, no, no.
Greg Grunberg: “Get me back to Malsky.”
Kevin Chamberlin: But, the, um, the director of this episode, Roxann Dawson, um, I knew from New York ‘cause she was the original Morales in A Chorus Line. Not the original, but she, she, she ran for, for a long time, and she was actually in it when the show closed on Broadway, um, after its longest, it was, it’s the longest-running show on Broadway.
Greg Grunberg: That’s right.
Kevin Chamberlin: She was Morales, the one who sang the song “Nothing,”
Greg Grunberg: Wow.
Kevin Chamberlin: …and, uh, and she’s Broadway royalty to me.
Greg Grunberg: But she’s now tv royalty.
Kevin Chamberlin: Yeah.
Greg Grunberg: She’s been directing tv, she directs Crossing Jordan on a regular basis…
Kevin Chamberlin: And she was on Star Trek.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah. Yeah, she’s, uh… she’s really talented, and her husband is a great casting director, too.

(main video switches to Matt and Malsky)
Who’s that?
Kevin Chamberlin: Oh, here we are. Beautiful downtown.
Greg Grunberg: Here we go! Now, when we shot this, who was standing on the sidewalk but the Mayor of Los Angeles.
Kevin Chamberlin: Antonio Villaraigosa.
Greg Grunberg: Villaraigosa was down there, and he was, he was, he was doing some, uh, some press for, uh, the fact that a lot of work goes outside of L.A., lot of film and tv gets shot outside of L.A., but I remember him being there and we went over and took a picture with him. Did you get-- you got a picture with him, didn’t you?
Kevin Chamberlin: Yeah!
Greg Grunberg: Yeah.
Kevin Chamberlin: Oh, here’s the jeweller. All right, now, I have a lot of cash in a, uh, briefcase, which they call a Halliburton, right?
Greg Grunberg: Right.
Kevin Chamberlin: The briefcase. And this is so hard, to dump the cash out and grab…
Greg Grunberg: I remember that.
Kevin Chamberlin: Uh-oh.
Greg Grunberg: This is cool.
Kevin Chamberlin: You’re hearing…
Greg Grunberg: This is… I love this, this is when it all starts, and we don’t leave this until, unless there’s a commercial cutaway, we don’t leave this until big stuff happens.
Kevin Chamberlin: Okay, here’s the cash dump. (off Malsky’s shaking the money out of the briefcase) “All right, get out of there!”
Greg Grunberg: You’re such a weasel, man. You are such a weasel! Watch this, this is, this is great. Walk and cut-- coming down a hallway.
Kevin Chamberlin: I love hallway shots. Ooh… did you hear my thoughts?
Greg Grunberg: I gotta say, you play that thought stuff (laughs) better than most! It’s hard, sometimes!
Kevin Chamberlin: It is. (off Malsky’s giving Matt the diamond) Ooh.
(main video: Matt hears Jessica) You can hear the elevator doors.
Greg Grunberg: The tilting. The tilting of the head. You know it’s intense. Something’s coming.
Kevin Chamberlin: Total Serpico.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah.
Kevin Chamberlin: You’re very good with that gun.
Greg Grunberg: Thank you. (anticipates elevator doors) Ding! This is good. This is good.
Kevin Chamberlin: What’s going to happen? What’s going to happen? What’s going to happen?
Greg Grunberg (joins in): What’s going to happen? What’s going to happen? OH!
(main video: elevator opens on an empty hallway)
Kevin Chamberlin: Ooh.
Greg Grunberg: And we’re gonna find out… after these messages.
Kevin Chamberlin: That was a good fake-out.
Greg Grunberg: Watch this. She’s…
(main video: Jessica smirks and goes in pursuit of her target)
Kevin Chamberlin: Stunning. Stunning!
Greg Grunberg: Oh. She’s the best!

---END PART THREE---

Run! commentary, part two

2007-02-14T22:38:45Z

(main video: Hiro and Ando sneak into the Montecito)
Kevin Chamberlin: (sings some light introductory music)
Greg Grunberg: Yeah, here we are! Las Vegas. You know, what happens in fake Vegas stays in fake Vegas. Stop telling your friends that this is really Vegas, ‘cause it’s not! This is out, actually, in the City of Industry somewhere. This looks like it’s at some, like, fish or, or flower market, but...
Kevin Chamberlin: So I was watching, um, an old, um, uh, Jamie Kennedy Experiment, Masi was one of the actors.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah, and apparently great, in a sushi bar.
Kevin Chamberlin: He was, I saw an episode where he did a fake game show, where there were so many rules that this guy was like, “I don’t know… what…,” he was hitting the buzzer going, “Um… a hundred dollars!” And, uh, Masi, Masi was a fake, uh…
Greg Grunberg: Masi’s brilliant. I’m telling you, he’s like, you know, doesn’t get to do as much of the improv-- that he and I, I know, love to do-- on this show, but he’s just so great. Now you…
Kevin Chamberlin: Now there’s the amazing Missy Pyle…
Greg Grunberg: Missy Pyle.
Kevin Chamberlin: Who I knew in New York. She’s a great New York theatre actress.
Greg Grunberg: And then she came out here and just… rocked the hizzy. Isn’t that what you theatre people call coming out to L.A…
Kevin Chamberlin: “Rock the hizzy.”
Greg Grunberg: Rock the hizzy.
Kevin Chamberlin: I’m not up on that one, no, sorry.
Greg Grunberg: That’s… that’s what we call it. The cool thing about this episode which is different from a lot of the other episodes that we’ve done is that we’ll stay with this story… (main video: Matt driving Malsky around) …and as I say that, we cut to my story. But it’s true. …You know, well, let’s talk about this for a second. Okay, there’s our establishing shot of L.A., I remember Roxann Dawson, who directed the episode, she was like, “We gotta get, uh, palm trees! We gotta show that it’s L.A.!”
Kevin Chamberlin: Oh, there’s a palm tree. …There’s a palm tree. …There’s a palm tree. It was so foggy out that day,
Greg Grunberg: That’s right.
Kevin Chamberlin: …and, and, it was maddening, ’cause this haze came in right as we left the studio.
Greg Grunberg: Well, usually when you shoot a, a, a scene like this, there’s a… yeah, your car is actually attached to another car, and to, on to a truck, and they can control the whole thing. This was… the entire crew-- camera crew, sound, everyone-- was piled into the SUV, remember that?
Kevin Chamberlin: And, and then the, the makeup was following in the car behind.
Greg Grunberg: Right. Two vans, following.
Kevin Chamberlin: Well, trying to follow you.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah. Yeah, I was, I was driving pretty fast, yeah. That was fun, though.
Kevin Chamberlin: It was.
Greg Grunberg: We had a good time. We did this loop, right around the, uh, the 10, and the 110 interchange.
Kevin Chamberlin: Right. The gauntlet, as they call it.
Greg Grunberg: The gauntlet. By Staples Center.
Kevin Chamberlin: Yes.

(main video: Mohinder talks to Zane Taylor)
Greg Grunberg: Once again, a scene where Sendhil is talking into a phone. There, there literally should be, like, a trivia game that people play that, you know, I’m telling you, every time you see him he’s talking to no one, or he’s talking on the phone… Poor Sendhil. He pulls it off, though.
Kevin Chamberlin: Yeah. It’s, it’s a lot of… well, you know, when we were doing, um… I, I commented on how many looks you can use to listen to the voices that you hear.
Greg Grunberg: I have a few of them.
Kevin Chamberlin: You have about six or seven, don’t you. That one...
Greg Grunberg: Yeah. I have, like, this is one of them, I have like the (pushes head forward intently while obviously focusing on something internal)
That’s one of them.
Kevin Chamberlin: I believe I gave you one.
Greg Grunberg: You did give me one.
Kevin Chamberlin: Yes, it was this:

Greg Grunberg: (laughs) That’s right! Touching of the…
Kevin Chamberlin: No, that’s indicating.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah, that was sort of indicating “I have a headache.” You’ll notice I don’t use the one you gave me a lot.
Kevin Chamberlin: Oh. Really?
Greg Grunberg: Yeah.
Kevin Chamberlin: I’ll come up with another one…
Greg Grunberg: Call it the Kay-Chay.

(main video: Missy Pyle’s character explains her problem in squeaks and sobs)
See, they should have subtitles over that. (imitates unintelligible crying) I hope she has a big… huge role. I love Missy Pyle.
Kevin Chamberlin: She’s the, the queen of guest stars. She pops up everywhere.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah, but she… she’s done pilots.
Kevin Chamberlin: Oh yeah. All the time.
Greg Grunberg: Bunch of pilots.
Kevin Chamberlin: I’m the, I’m the king of failed pilots.
Greg Grunberg: You are? How many have you done?
Kevin Chamberlin: Yeah. (mentally tallies) Eight.
Greg Grunberg: Eight?!
Kevin Chamberlin: Eight.
Greg Grunberg: Wow. I don’t want to work with you ever again. (both laugh) You’re sort of the, uh, the jinx!
Kevin Chamberlin: Always the… always the bridesmaid, never the bride.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah. No. I actually have done, um, let’s see, I’ve done four pilots, three of which went to series longer than five years. (pats Kevin on the arm)
Kevin Chamberlin: Wow. Oh, wow. That was good luck.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah.
Kevin Chamberlin: I’ll… I’ll take that. Linderman, now,
Greg Grunberg: I’ve been very lucky.
Kevin Chamberlin: Now, that’s another… at the, at my Heroes parties, you know, when my first episode aired, that, uh, some friends of mine had a, had a party down at the… a bar in San Diego.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah.
Kevin Chamberlin: And the… that was the other big question on everyone’s lips. “Who’s Linderman?”
Greg Grunberg: Well…
Kevin Chamberlin: “I’ll buy you a drink!”
Greg Grunberg: I’d say…
Kevin Chamberlin: Alcohol could have plied me into… but it didn’t.
Greg Grunberg: I don’t want to say whether we’ve met Linderman or not yet. I don’t want to say that, because that’s a huge reveal, but the… I should say, the actor playing Linderman is… people are going to go crazy. Crazy! He is incredible…
Kevin Chamberlin: Don’t tell me.
Greg Grunberg: I’m telling you. It’s just, it’s the greatest. That’s one of the things…
(main video: Ando sneaks into the hotel room)
Kevin Chamberlin: That… there…
Greg Grunberg: Talk about great guest stars!
Kevin Chamberlin: Bill Fagerbakke.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah. Bill Fagerbakke from Coach.
Kevin Chamberlin: Coach. And also the voice on SpongeBob… he’s, uh, the voice of, um, SpongeBob’s friend.
Greg Grunberg: Right! And, and he was sweet enough to bring in pictures, and, and sign pictures…
Kevin Chamberlin: Yeah.
Greg Grunberg: I don’t know if we all necessarily need to see him naked, but, um…
Kevin Chamberlin: No. No.
Greg Grunberg: You know…
Kevin Chamberlin: Oh, come on.
Greg Grunberg: It’s more bang for your buck.
Kevin Chamberlin: That’s right. People like that.
Greg Grunberg: More bang for your Fagerbakke.
Kevin Chamberlin: (laughs) Isn’t that…
Greg Grunberg: He is the sweetest guy, and he’s so, like, towers over WHOA!!! (main video: er, yeah, that would be when Bill Fagerbakke’s character leaves the room, and the towel separates as he walks, revealing quite a bit more inner thigh than anyone was really expecting… :) ) Boy!
Kevin Chamberlin: Wow! (mutters various towel-related comments)
Greg Grunberg: TMI! Too much… information? Too much Fagerbakke.
Kevin Chamberlin: What I wanted to talk about this, this is like classic farce. Hiding under the, uh… the busboy table.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah. (sings) Wah-wah-wah. That’s true.
Kevin Chamberlin: Like Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite.
Greg Grunberg: (laughs) That’s right.
Kevin Chamberlin: That’s a theatre reference, for those theatre lovers out there.
Greg Grunberg: So… why, if he… why did he have to hide? He could have just… (trails off)
Kevin Chamberlin: It’s the only way to get into the room.
Greg Grunberg: That’s true. And let his buddy in. You’re right.
Kevin Chamberlin: Yeah. Look at that view of Vegas out there. How do they do that?
Greg Grunberg: I alw… I want, I want to ask, like, a Japanese friend of mine if they’re actually saying the lines that are on-screen. I wonder if we do any fact-checking to see if, like, you know.
Kevin Chamberlin: Well, I met, I met the, their coach.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah, but I’m talking about, like, if Masi slips in a little, you know, “Hi, Mom!” You know, like, every so often. No one’s gonna know.
Kevin Chamberlin: Just never know. Well, I’m sure the show’s playing in Japan now, so.
Greg Grunberg: We actually are global now.
Kevin Chamberlin: Wow.
Greg Grunberg: I went to Vegas, and they, they sent a few of us to Vegas to, to this big show where, where, uh, internationally, the show’s been sold internationally, and… tremendous response, it’s great.
Kevin Chamberlin: Yeah, I have friends in London, who, uh, download it off of i-Tunes.
Greg Grunberg: It starts in London next week!
Kevin Chamberlin: Yeah.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah. This is an example of what I was talking about earlier, where we stay with the storyline, because the suspense is building and you want to know what’s happening, you don’t want to cut away. This is the first time that we’ve really done this on the show, and, um, Adam and Kay will talk about that in a second, but I, I, it’s… I just think it’s, it’s great, because you stay with the story. And I think people are going to be satisfied. It just mixes it up, once again.
Kevin Chamberlin: ‘Cause every episode has its own character.
(main video: Ando almost gets caught and crawls under the bed)
Greg Grunberg: Look at this.
Kevin Chamberlin: (laughs) This is classic! This is like a Billy Wilder film.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah. (laughs) All of a sudden, it’s, uh… Jerry Lewis, and, uh, The Bellhop! Oh, no.
Kevin Chamberlin: The Bellhop! (a la Jerry Lewis) “Lady!” (Transcriber's note, just for accuracy's sake: that film was actually called The Bellboy.) …ooh.
Greg Grunberg: Uh-oh.
Kevin Chamberlin: That was… Fagerbakke feet.
Greg Grunberg: That was Fagerbakke feet.

(main video: at Zane Taylor’s house)
‘Kay, this is great. See, now, people are going, “Who? Zane Tay… who is this?”
Kevin Chamberlin: Yeah.
Greg Grunberg: This is just the nature of Heroes. Introduce a cool new character.
Kevin Chamberlin: What’s on the floor?
Greg Grunberg: This is awesome.
(main video: Sylar lies his way into Zane’s house)
Aaand we’re out! Come on, greatest way to end an act.
Kevin Chamberlin: Ooh! Bum-bum-bum! Now, now...
Greg Grunberg: This guy’s like, “Dude! What’s up!” (laughs)
(fade out)

---END PART TWO---

Run! commentary transcript, part one

2007-02-14T04:33:00Z

(main video: previouslys)
Greg Grunberg: Okay, welcome back to another commentary! This episode is, uh, (yells) “Run!” …”RUN!” I’m Greg Grunberg, I’m here with, uh, Kevin Chamberlin, who, uh, wanna introduce yourself…
Kevin Chamberlin: I am Kevin Chamberlin. I played Aron… oh, there I am! Aron Malsky.
Greg Grunberg: Aron Malsky.
Kevin Chamberlin: Or, as one of the, um, erm, uh, writers who… after coming back from auditions said, one guy came in and said “Ah-RON Mal-SKIGH.”
Greg Grunberg: Ah-RON Mal-SKIGH. Very nice. On the international poster, that’s what it’ll say. Oh, look at this.
Kevin Chamberlin: The Haitian.
Greg Grunberg: (off his costume in the commentary video) Don’t ask why I’m in all white, or why I’m in a Primatech Paper jacket, because I’m not allowed to say. And…
Kevin Chamberlin: You’ve signed disclosures.
Greg Grunberg: We have signed disclosures. And I want to stay on the job. I want to keep my job. All right, here we go. (main video: camera pans over Nathan’s office) Chapter fifteen.
Kevin Chamberlin: Bird’s eye view.
Greg Grunberg: This was, okay, so, in all the things that I’ve ever done, my kids have never been able to watch the shows I’ve been on, it’s just not been appropriate, right? They’re watching the shows now, and at this moment, when it was revealed that Nathan Petrelli was Claire’s father, I looked at my kids, instead of at the tv, and they were both like, “AHHH!” They were so excited, I gotta tell you, it’s like one of the best moments I’ve ever had. It was so great, and my wife, too, they were just, you know, blown away by it. I don’t think anyone saw it coming.
Kevin Chamberlin: I’ve been having Heroes parties, and everyone, you know, trying to get information from me, and I’m just tight-lipped,
Greg Grunberg: Right.
Kevin Chamberlin: And, but, you know, they were like, “What-- does he have a power?” “…Can he fly?”
Greg Grunberg: (laughs) Exactly!
Kevin Chamberlin: I was like, “Sorry.”
Greg Grunberg: “He’s got a fancy watch, and a nice pink shirt. I know that.” Like, people were guessing all week long.

(main video: Meredith talks with Nathan)
She’s fantastic.
Kevin Chamberlin: Amazing actress.
Greg Grunberg: And what a great casting choice. I mean, I think they look… they really do look like mother and daughter.
Kevin Chamberlin: It’s apropos that she smokes, too.
Greg Grunberg: That’s true. When she comes on the screen, they… they should play some song that has the word “fire” in it, don’t you think? (…quiet laughter and nodding from Kevin Chamberlin) I knew you would agree. Let’s, let’s talk about your theatre background. In your musical theatre…
Kevin Chamberlin: No, no, it’s, no… okay.
Greg Grunberg: Please, you’re two-time Tony-nominated…
Kevin Chamberlin: …-robbed.
Greg Grunberg: Robbed. Two-time Tony-robbed…
Kevin Chamberlin: Yeah. Lost to Nathan Lane,
Greg Grunberg: (exasperated sigh)
Kevin Chamberlin: in The Producers…
Greg Grunberg: That (Greg is bleeped! “Bastard” being the word in question, I believe.)
Kevin Chamberlin: Yeah, well, that show, you know, it was a juggernaut that season. Yes, Seussical was the show that I was nominated for that year, and it’s the most-produced musical now.
Greg Grunberg: Wow, you’re getting checks like crazy, right?
Kevin Chamberlin: (laughs) I wish. (laughs)
Greg Grunberg: ‘Cause once you establish a character, uh, on Broadway, don’t you get, like, five cents a year or something? I think, ten cents a year? No?
Kevin Chamberlin: Uh, no. Sadly enough. There’s no profit-sharing.
Greg Grunberg: (laughs)

Kevin Chamberlin: Yes, I moved here five years ago, and, uh, and, but this is the first time I’ve ever been on a hit show. Like…
Greg Grunberg: Yeah, but you’ve done a… you’ve done a ton of stuff, I’ve seen movies, a bunch of movies, a Christmas movie you were in…
Kevin Chamberlin: Yeah, movies…
Greg Grunberg: What about, uh, guest stars on tv, I mean, is this…
Kevin Chamberlin: Yeah, well, um, actually the casting director for this, Natalie Hart, uh, um, we knew each other ‘cause she was a, uh, she worked at the Public Theater in New York, and, uh, she also cast Crossing Jordan, which I did, uh epsiodes for…
Greg Grunberg: Oh, yeah, you did, yeah.
Kevin Chamberlin: which Tim, the producer, Tim Kring…
Greg Grunberg: Creator of the show.
Kevin Chamberlin: Creator. And so they knew me from that.
Greg Grunberg: Can you imagine Tim Kring is doing this show, Allan Arkush and Tim Kring, executive producing, and Dennis Hammer, all three of them are putting this huge monster show on, and at the same time, they have to-- which they are delighted to, I’m sure-- continue to do that show…
Kevin Chamberlin: Approve scripts… yeah…
Greg Grunberg: It’s crazy.
Kevin Chamberlin: Yeah, I don’t know how they do it.
Greg Grunberg: Allan sits in the editing room and they, Tim, and they cut this, and then they look at cuts of the other.
(main video: Mrs. Bennet sits dazedly in a chair, staring straight ahead and petting Mr. Muggles)
Kevin Chamberlin: She does great wiped-out mind. The mother.
Greg Grunberg: She does, actually. Ashley’s incredible at that.
Kevin Chamberlin: It’s a hard thing to do.
Greg Grunberg: I do it all the time when my wife talks to me, I’m just like, “You know what…” and I, and I’ve been blaming the Haitian. I used to blame the dog when I farted, the Haitian is sorta like the dog farting for me and my memory. I’m like, “Sorry. Haitian.”
Kevin Chamberlin: You know, there’s a lot of, um, New York theater actors in this… (main video: Matt Parkman dresses for work) oh, here you are.
Greg Grunberg: Can we talk about how good I look?! Most actors don’t like to watch themselves. (moves up to the very edge of his seat and stares at the screen)
Kevin Chamberlin: The diet’s paying off.
Greg Grunberg: It is, right?
Kevin Chamberlin: Really is.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah. Yeah.
Kevin Chamberlin: It’s a continuity problem, though. (laughs)
Greg Grunberg: Why? What’s the continuity problem?
Kevin Chamberlin: How much time has passed since…?
Greg Grunberg: Okay, let me talk about this for a second,
Kevin Chamberlin: Okay.
Greg Grunberg: This was the hardest thing… oh, now they, they cut away, but… when I put the holster on?
Kevin Chamberlin: Yeah.
Greg Grunberg: That holster is, like,
Kevin Chamberlin: I always wondered that.
Greg Grunberg: …a dainty little piece of lingerie, and to get a hols… first of all, to get a gun looking cool, you know, slam a gun, cocking it, and all that stuff, but to get the holster on…
Kevin Chamberlin: You kept missing it.
Greg Grunberg: It was ridiculous! And I even said, at the top of the scene, I was like, “You know what, I don’t really want to do… can I do something else, another action or something?” But no.
Kevin Chamberlin: It looks cool though.
Greg Grunberg: It does look cool.
Kevin Chamberlin: You work it.
So, yeah, I was saying there’s a lot of New York theater actors on this show, um, Missy Pyle, who, uh, is coming up, and, uh, Paula Newsome, who played the psychiatrist, (main video cuts back to Matt Parkman with the holster in place) Oh, there it is!
Greg Grunberg: There it is, look look look, I’ve got it on now. We cut to it on. I think, you know, Kay, who’s, you know, one of our-- Adam and Kay were on the set, they’re writers, producers, and they both were like, “Yeah, let’s just get that thing on him. Let’s strap it on, okay? ‘Cause it’s not all about the holster.”
Kevin Chamberlin: “Don’t worry, Greg, we’ll cut away.”
(main video cuts between Matt preparing for work and Jessica, also preparing for work)
Greg Grunberg: I love this. This is so great, cutting back and forth this quickly…
Kevin Chamberlin: Oh, here’s LAX.
Greg Grunberg: Look who’s wait… look at that! I made that sign, by the way.
Kevin Chamberlin: Who’s gonna be? Who’s it gonna be? Oh… good vs. evil. Oh, oh…
Greg Grunberg: You’re such a jerk, man. I love it! (laughs)
Kevin Chamberlin: That was, that was a great effect, wasn’t it.
Greg Grunberg: Cutting from you to you.
(main video: Heroes eclipse)
Kevin Chamberlin: As the world turns.
Greg Grunberg: This is gonna be good.
Kevin Chamberlin: Wow. I was actually the, the, the lead-out shot.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah.
Kevin Chamberlin: Very exciting.

---END PART ONE---

Distractions commentary transcript, part six!

2007-02-12T02:56:39Z

Okay, my connection issue has once again reared its ugly heads (like a hydra, it is) so this isn't going to be my most accurate transcript ever. I'm pretty sure some of that mumbling would become intelligible if I only watched it seven or eight more times. But it is not to be, at least not today, so I thought I'd just put this mostly-complete draft up and maybe I'll go back and polish on a day when NBC's website doesn't hate me quite so much. So: part six!

Update: Whee! Snow day! Plenty of time to polish today! So here's the finished version:

(commentary video: we're down to two chairs again, with a complete change-over of staff; Milo has returned, accompanied by writer Michael Green.)
(main video: Peter, shattered and sitting against the taxi)
Milo Ventimiglia: Hey, I’m back, Milo, with Michael Green, the writer of this episode. (to off-camera crew) A little more volume?
Michael Green: And… this is where you get a little violent,
Milo Ventimiglia: Yeah.
Michael Green: …after being treated violently.
Milo Ventimiglia: He said it all right there, you just threw him off a thirty-story building, if he didn’t regenerate, he’d be dead.
Michael Green: Yeah.
Milo Ventimiglia: Which is funny, though, I mean, because, you know, you’ve thrown him off and you’re thinking that Peter’s going to fly, you’re waiting for him to fly, but he doesn’t fly.
Michael Green: We’re kind of hoping he’s going to fly. And he just said, it’s like, “You could have flown.” Didn’t work out. Uh, and what we also saw is when you first come in, he’s kind of sitting against the cab, that was something you might want to remember, ‘cause we're going to see that image in a bit.
Milo Ventimiglia: Oh, yeah. It was, uh… yeah, you do want to hang on to that image. He’s sitting next to the ground and… all bloody and broken.
Michael Green: And it’s here where you’re finally starting to learn, so he’s been treating you like, kind of crap the whole time, telling you you don’t know what you’re doing, and then he’s trying to tell you to forget everyone, but here’s, uh… it’s kind of the primer, he’s been trying to teach you how to use your power and you start figuring out. So now you have to cut everyone out.
Milo Ventimiglia: It’s kind of nice, too, when it’s, you know, it’s not the teacher telling the student what to do, it’s actually the student figuring it out on his own.
Michael Green: Figuring it out. So when you were doing this with the other guys, were you just kind of like, talking about the episode, or were you… talking about what you did that day, or…
Milo Ventimiglia: Eh, we were talking about Mr. Muggles.
Michael Green: (very fast and unintelligible) Mr. Muggles? Unfortunately, you don’t get too many scenes with Mr. Muggles.
Milo Ventimiglia: No, I don’t have any.
Michael Green: ‘Cause what I’d love to see you do is telekinetically hurl Mr. Muggles into something, like…
Milo Ventimiglia: Across the room, make him bloody?
Michael Green: Yeah. (main video: Claude decks Peter) Oh!
Milo Ventimiglia: Ah.
Michael Green: And, as we solve most problems on this show, someone punches someone else. It, it’s kind of a signature move at this point. Yeah.
Milo Ventimiglia: God, I remember that dirty, dirty L.A.
Michael Green: Were people worried that Mr. Muggles was going to die?
Milo Ventimiglia: No, I don’t think so.
Michael Green: I think-- I think there was, ‘cause he’s a little bit… we tried to kill him, and, um, it was one of the things that, um, the network just said, “You can’t kill the dog.”
Milo Ventimiglia (off Isaac’s painting): See, there’s the picture now.
Michael Green: We weren’t really gonna kill him. Oh, there’s the picture.
Milo Ventimiglia: (laughs) He’s fixated. He’s fixated and focused on Mr. Muggles.
Michael Green: I just don’t, you know, Mr. Muggles is very hard to work with.
Milo Ventimiglia (laughing): You can’t get over it. There’s been two or three of them.
Michael Green: Oh! Big thing for the audience here. So people should be screaming right now, because they’re like, uh, you know, Isaac was with, uh, HRG, hanging out with Primatech, and he just called it in. He’s been looking for Peter, and he seems to have found him.
Milo Ventimiglia: Missing a leg, or invisibly…
Michael Green: “Peter’s had his legs cut off! Wait a minute… or perhaps he’s invisible.” Uh, but this is a… if anyone’s still wondering, yes, that means that Isaac has been calling in with HRG, uh, and is work…
Milo Ventimiglia: I got a question, though, do you, do you wonder if people started to get that, or believe that, once he went into the custody-- not custody, but once they cleaned him up and they brought him in, got him in…
Michael Green: I think people have been wondering, I think that kind of, just like, hit it. Like, if, in case you were wondering, yeah, they didn’t really wipe his memory, he knows exactly who he was with and what he was doing.

(main video: Hiro says goodbye to his father and sister)
Aw, and this is sweet stuff. “Have to go save the world!” And he hugs Sulu.
Milo Ventimiglia: Oh, wow. Some interesting etiquette. Be sure not to…
Michael Green: Hm?
Milo Ventimiglia: Not usually, uh, uh… for his culture.
Michael Green: Yeah. Oh, George Takei was great in this, like, he’d go… Masi comes on and does all these really sweet things, and, like, hugs his dad, and he just looks, like, (robotically) “You are not my child. I do not know why you are doing this.” And… aww. No sugar for Ando.
Milo Ventimiglia: I noticed, uh, the scene earlier, ‘cause I… just, like, forgetting about things in other, uh, other storylines, when Hiro makes the comment to Ando, “Are you wearing cologne?”
Michael Green: (laughs)
Milo Ventimiglia: And I turned to Zach, I’m like, “Wait, why did he make the reference about cologne?” and then I remembered the sister and all that, and…
Michael Green: Yeah. Ando’s got a thing for Hiro’s sister. And, funny thing, this girl playing her, who was fantastic, her last name, Nakamura.
Milo Ventimiglia: You’re kidding.
Michael Green: In actual life.
Milo Ventimiglia: Wow.
Michael Green: If, you can go back to the credits.

(main video: Jessica at home)
Milo Ventimiglia: She’s about to talk to herself.
Michael Green: Yep. Wait a minute… she got back out… (main video: reveal of the tattoo) “Oh my god! What, Niki doesn’t have a tattoo, Jessica does! Could this… is that…?”
Milo Ventimiglia (to camera): You know, it’s awesome, right now you’re actually hearing the, the subtext, the… all the, all the writing going on… in between the words.
Michael Green: This is… this is what’s in the stage directions.
Milo Ventimiglia: See, now, if there’s ever an opportunity for him to really get all the words out,
Michael Green: Yeah.
Milo Ventimiglia: You’re getting the uncensored version.
Michael Green: ‘Cause basically they don’t let writers talk usually,
Milo Ventimiglia: (laughs)
Michael Green: …for a very good reason. We don’t have much to say, uh, and usually we can get better-looking people (gestures to Milo) to say it for us, so, uh… and we don’t have a filter. Which is why we, we like to edit.

(main video: Claire returns home)
Michael Green: “You are in big trouble.” “But why, mother?”
(Milo says something but the audio is blocked out, then both laugh)
Milo Ventimiglia: Busted.
Michael Green: (grunts) Let’s see if we can get a shot of Zach's suspenders.
Milo Ventimiglia: Why, how did… how did you guys pick the manatee?
Michael Green: The manatee? I think what happened…
Milo Ventimiglia: Who, who did… who did the manatee report and said, “I’ve got a great report on manatees.”
Michael Green: Uh, that would be Aron Coleite, uh, he threw in “manatee,” and then we brought it back here and said, “How many times can we say ‘manatee’ on network television?” The answer is: six.
Milo Ventimiglia: Couldn’t pick “cheetah”…anything else, no.
Michael Green: No. Cheetah… everyone’s done a report on cheetah, it’s like Finland, remember the scene in Wayne's World, when he goes up to the secretary and it was, uh, uh, Drew Barrymore and she’s, like, Swedish, and he knows about Sweden because he did a report on it in sixth grade? (Transcriber's note: and a big thank you to adina on the TWoP boards for helping me figure out that he's referring to Wayne's World 2 here!)
Milo Ventimiglia: That’s right, that’s right.
Michael Green: It’s going to help with the manatee.
Milo Ventimiglia: See, I did Norway and I did cheetahs, so… I mean, I was halfway, you know, I did…
Michael Green: I did New Hampshire and plankton.
Milo Ventimiglia: Really.
Michael Green: “This… wait, piece of glass! What does that mean?” But you’ve got to fake it because (sing-songs) he’s kind of ee-vil! “Hi, Dad!”
Milo Ventimiglia: Oh, wait a minute, I totally missed…
Michael Green: And that she did--
Milo Ventimiglia: I missed all the Sylar stuff.
Michael Green: Can we talk about how great she is for a minute here? All the what?
Milo Ventimiglia: All the Sylar stuff. I had to step away and… work with blood (gestures to his makeup, which is indeed very bloody)
Michael Green: Well, we were talking about New Hampshire and… it’s true. (main video: Meredith calls Claire’s father) Okay, now here’s the big thing.
Milo Ventimiglia: Oh yeah, okay, okay.
Michael Green: Shh, shh, shh. “Our daughter…” (gasps, whispers) Who’s she talking to?
Milo Ventimiglia: As if the ring didn’t give it away…
Michael Green: As if the ring didn’t give it away.
(commentary video fades out and back in)
Milo Ventimiglia: What’s up, I’m Milo, thanks for watching.
Michael Green: Hi, this is Michael, thanks for watching.

---END COMMENTARY---

Distractions commentary transcript, part five

2007-02-11T05:34:55Z

A little late today, I'm sorry, but here we are:

(main video: HRG comforts his distraught wife)
(commentary video: there are three chairs now! And neither Milo nor Zach are in any of them!)
Greg Grunberg: So Zach had to go to work, and, uh, look who I found! Jeannot, ladies and gentlemen! The director of the episode. Director extraordinaire.
Jeannot Szwarc: Thank you, thank you.
Greg Grunberg: I didn’t even know you speak English! That’s fantastic!
Jeannot Szwarc: I do it with an accent.
Greg Grunberg: (laughs) And Jack Coleman, ladies and gentlemen.
Jack Coleman: Do you-- do you mind? I’m on-- I’m on screen.
Greg Grunberg: Oh, sorry, sorry.
Jack Coleman: Thank you. Let’s have a little respect.
Greg Grunberg: Now, I want to explain the bruises, for a second. I have this bruise because his character smacks me, just cracks me across the face…
Jack Coleman: And I have this bruise ‘cause he smacked me. In real life.
Jeannot Szwarc: So you smacked each other.
Jack Coleman: That’s not makeup.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah, that’s not makeup.
Jack Coleman: This is a sad scene. She breaks my heart in this scene.
Jeannot Szwarc: I love…
Jack Coleman: You have mentioned Ashley Crow.
Jeannot Szwarc: I love when she says “Again?” thought that was great.
Jack Coleman: What a twisted little triangle this is.
Jeannot Szwarc: Oh, I remember, that’s one of our best shots, this time here.
Greg Grunberg: You’re setting the audience up for… (main video: the Haitian moves in) …oooh.
Jack Coleman: Oh, that’s not right.

(main video: Claire says goodbye to Meredith)
Where did you shoot this, Jeannot?
Jeannot Szwarc: We shot this, erm, god, I don’t remember, around Painter Canyon? No?
Jack Coleman: Okay.
Jeannot Szwarc: We found a place where there were some, um, motor homes, and then, uh, the art department did a great job, you know, making it look like Texas.
Jack Coleman: And the light, as usual, is extraordinary.
Jeannot Szwarc: Yes. And this, as a matter of fact, we shot just before sunset. Yeah, that golden hour.
Greg Grunberg (at the same time): Yeah, it’s that golden hour.
Jack Coleman (at the same time): Golden hour! Golden hour’s, like about twelve minutes, isn’t it?
Jeannot Szwarc: Yes.
Greg Grunberg: I love… I love the color, the placement of color throughout the show…
Jeannot Szwarc: Yes. It’s very good.
Greg Grunberg: Was that…
Jeannot Szwarc: Did you see, there was already some, you know, we did one, the Japanese, we did very much in a Kurosawa style… a bit different from the rest of the show.
Greg Grunberg: Mm-hm.
Jeannot Szwarc: But we tried to vary, and to give, you know, every sequence a different kind of look and style.
Greg Grunberg: Mm-hm.
Jack Coleman: This is my first really good look at Jessalyn as… as, uh, as Claire’s mom.
Greg Grunberg: She’s great.
Jeannot Szwarc: Have you… I worked with her before, she’s very good.
Jack Coleman: On 24, or…?
Jeannot Szwarc: No, on, um… Boston Public.
Jack Coleman: Boston Public. Not to be confused with Boston Legal.
Jeannot Szwarc: Well, same creator.
Jack Coleman: True.
Greg Grunberg: That’s true.

(commentary video shows the Heroes logo for a while, complete with whooshing sound effects to take it in and out. I honestly have no idea why.)

(main video: Simone and Isaac on the roof)
Jack Coleman: Oh, I love this set. It’s a good thing, too, because we spend a lot of time on it.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah.
Jeannot Szwarc: The set is magnificent, I mean, Ruth(?) did an incredible job.
Jack Coleman: Yeah, really is gorgeous. Looks just like New York City, too. Or is that blue screen.
Greg Grunberg: That’s blue screen.
Jack Coleman: Oh, that’s blue screen.
Greg Grunberg: It will!
Jack Coleman: Oh, look, there we go,
Jeannot Szwarc: There we go.
Jack Coleman: That, that, that effect is in. Ah, the breeze.
Jeannot Szwarc: Oh, yeah, you know, it’s absolutely necessary.
Greg Grunberg: Do you like working with, when the special effects person’s on the set, and they restrict you, or…
Jeannot Szwarc: Well, yes, because I’ve done it so many times and I’m used to it, and this show has terrific people, and… this was not that difficult, as a matter of fact. We did some other scenes that were more difficult.
Greg Grunberg: Mm-hm.
Jeannot Szwarc: The only thing, it’s a little bit tricky is trying to visualize, you know, what it’s all going to be like, it’s a bit frustrating.
Greg Grunberg: Mm-hm.
Jack Coleman: This is a, sort of a star-crossed romance, isn’t it.
Jeannot Szwarc: Yes.
Jack Coleman: He looks good cleaned up, though.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah, he does.
Jeannot Szwarc: Yes.
Jack Coleman: Course, he looks good messy too, but…
Jeannot Szwarc: No, I, I agree, really… yes.
Jack Coleman: I mean, I’m just saying, I’m just stating, as an objective…
Greg Grunberg: Hey!
Jack Coleman: …observer.
Greg Grunberg: Whatever. You like him clean, you like him dirty. That’s your business, Jack.
Jack Coleman: I don’t think we should go any further with this, Greg.
Greg Grunberg: Uh, you brought it up.
Jack Coleman: And… of course Tawny looks gorgeous.
Greg Grunberg: It’s the first time I think Santiago hasn’t had paint on his wardrobe. Very excited about that, I think.
Jack Coleman: I think he had it surgically removed just for this shot.
Greg Grunberg: (laughs) They’ll put it in in post.
(main video: reveal of Peter)
Jack Coleman: Oooh.
Greg Grunberg: Oh, that’s so good!
Jack Coleman: Oh, the invisible people are watching.
Greg Grunberg: That’s just the best.
Jack Coleman: That’s, uh…
Greg Grunberg: Nothing is as it seems on this show.
Jack Coleman: That has to be illegal, though, doesn’t it?
Greg Grunberg: What?
Jack Coleman: That invasion of privacy, that you can just hang out in people’s houses.
Jeannot Szwarc: Well, if you get caught, but if you’re invisible, it’s tough to be caught.
Jack Coleman: It is tough to be caught.

(main video: back with the Nakamura family)
Greg Grunberg: Now, directing this, were you kinda like, “I hope they’re saying the lines, ‘cause I have no idea!”
Jeannot Szwarc: No, it, it, it’s really interesting, Greg told me that, Greg Beeman, but there was an interpreter, who was lovely, and she really checked about the words, but I really didn’t, didn’t ask her that much. You can tell from the inflection.
Greg Grunberg: Mm-hm.
Jack Coleman: Well, as you know, now, I’ve just recently done a scene in Japanese, we won’t get into any details on it, but… and Yumi helped me a lot on that. As did Masi. (whispers) It’s not easy, though.
Jeannot Szwarc: No, it’s not.
Greg Grunberg: Oh, it’s really hard.
Jeannot Szwarc: But it was interesting, I really knew, you know, you can feel, the rhythm is kind of not that different, and…
Jack Coleman: I love that Ando’s in love with his sister.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah.
Jeannot Szwarc: Yes, me too. So we did a whole day in Japanese. It was wonderful.
Greg Grunberg: I remember when I saw this scene in the script, I thought, “Man, if they…,” you know, it was a lot of dialogue! A lot of straight dialogue in Japanese, but it plays just perfectly.
Jeannot Szwarc: Yes, it pl… you know, I brought that up…
Jack Coleman: Were you worried about that?
Jeannot Szwarc: I brought that up, and I was told that they always play, they’d never worried about it since the beginning of the show, because the scenes in Japanese played so well.
Jack Coleman: Yeah.
Jeannot Szwarc: And once I got into it, it really plays, and it grabs you.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah.
Jeannot Szwarc: (off George Takei) And you recognize him.
Greg Grunberg: Oh, yeah. From the Howard Stern show.
(much chuckling from the three guys)
Jack Coleman: Yeah.
Greg Grunberg: This is a coup. This is one of those, you know, casting coups.
Jack Coleman: He’s so great in it, too, I… the scene I did with him was just so impressive.
Jeannot Szwarc: He is very good. And they all got along so well.
Jack Coleman: He’s got that very, very stern look.

(Another, much longer, installment of the Heroes logo. *shrug*)

(main video: Niki is released from jail)
Greg Grunberg: Now, Kevin, two-time Tony nominee. You knew that, right?
Jack Coleman: I did know that, yes.
Greg Grunberg: Yes.
Jack Coleman: Aaron Malski.
Greg Grunberg: Aaron Malski.
Jack Coleman: Infamous Aaron Malski.
Jeannot Szwarc: And I can’t tell you…
Jack Coleman: Song-and-dance man.
Greg Grunberg: Song-and-dance man!
Jack Coleman: Who knew?
Greg Grunberg: Who knew?!
Jack Coleman: Just lookin’ at him.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah.
Jeannot Szwarc: He’s perfect and he looked perfect.
Jack Coleman: Boy, she spent a lot of time in that set, didn’t she.
Greg Grunberg: Oh yeah.
Jack Coleman: This padded cell.
Greg Grunberg: Did you have a lot of casting for this episode? Or no.
Jeannot Szwarc: No, none, almost.
Greg Grunberg: That’s what I was going to say, you don’t have that many people to…
Jeannot Szwarc: As a matter of fact, I didn’t have any! It was wonderful.
Greg Grunberg: That’s great!
Jeannot Szwarc: I showed up, and they said, “We’re all cast.” Oh, my god… heaven.
Jack Coleman: Oh, that’s nice.
Greg Grunberg: That’s great.
Jack Coleman: Unless, of course, then you have a problem. Then it’s not heaven.
Jeannot Szwarc: No, but I think they were all people that, you know, had been on the show before.
Jack Coleman: That’s right… well, um, I-- I don’t even know her name, the woman who plays, uh, Masi’s sister.
Greg Grunberg: Oh yeah, wasn’t this her…
Jeannot Szwarc: She was… she was cast.
Jack Coleman: Oh, had she been in before? But she hadn’t been in before.
Jeannot Szwarc: No… was she in before? I can’t remember if she was…
Jack Coleman: I think this is her first episode.

(main video: Peter and Claude on the roof)
And Christopher Eccleston, doing such great work. We’re very lucky to have him.
Jeannot Szwarc: Fabulous. And the two of them have great energy together.
Jack Coleman: Yeah.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah.
Jeannot Szwarc: (still on Ms. Nakamura) I think she was… she had, she didn’t have dialogue, but she was in the scene, I think, before.
Jack Coleman: Oh, was she?
Jeannot Szwarc: I’m not sure. …My short-term memory’s not what it used to be.
Jack Coleman: Oh, I can understand. But, you know, you… Oh, back on the rooftop. It is such a great set.
(main video: Claude pitches Peter off the roof)
Greg Grunberg: Whoaa… come on!
Jack Coleman: Here we go. Here we go.
Greg Grunberg: Wow.
Jack Coleman: Something better happen. Oh no…
Greg Grunberg: Wow!
(main video: Peter slams into the taxicab)
Oh! Come on!
Jack Coleman: Oh!
Greg Grunberg: That was incredible. Wow!
Jeannot Szwarc: Wow.
Jack Coleman: That did not, do you know, that did not end well. What happened.
Greg Grunberg: That’s incredible. That’s fantastic.
Jack Coleman: Oh, now… now he has to heal.
Jeannot Szwarc: I think what’s great is that everybody’s going to expect that at the last minute he’s going to start to fly.
Jack Coleman: That he’s gonna fly, right.
Jeannot Szwarc: Yeah.
Jack Coleman: And I love that there was no sort of slowdown, or, you know, playing, it was like…
Jeannot Szwarc: No, it was real time.
(main video: Peter de-impales himself, painfully)
Greg Grunberg: Oh! Come on!
Jeannot Szwarc: A little bit, I think…
(commentary video shows the storyboards for this scene all the way to the end! Cool!)
Greg Grunberg: Wow, thanks, now I know to have my kids turn away from the tv.
Jack Coleman: Ouch.
Greg Grunberg: That was so well done. That’s crazy.
Jack Coleman: That was, that was really well done.
Jeannot Szwarc: And I must tell you that the, you know, the visual effects guys did an incredible job.
(main video: “Son of a bitch.”)
(fade out)

---END PART FIVE---

Distractions commentary transcript, part four

2007-02-10T01:57:43Z

(commentary video: Greg Grunberg is now sitting where Milo was before)
Zachary Quinto: (turns to Greg) So, Milo, when we… oh…
Greg Grunberg: Wait a minute, where’s Milo? Milo is “working.” That’s what he calls it. …Milo’s not that good on the show.
Zachary Quinto: (laughs)

(main video: Sylar at the Bennets’)
Listen to my fake Texas accent.
Greg Grunberg: I love this. I saw the commercial for this, it was the first time I’d actually seen it. (unintelligible)
Zachary Quinto: I just went to New Orleans for a second there.
Greg Grunberg: Did you? You’re all over the South.
Zachary Quinto: I am all over the South. (laughs)
Greg Grunberg: Yeah.
Zachary Quinto: On purpose. They put baby food on my shoelaces so Mr. Muggle would eat… Did I already say that? (trails off, mumbling)
Greg Grunberg: Did you study Hee-Haw to learn this accent?
Zachary Quinto: (laughs)
Greg Grunberg: ‘Cause it looks like, you’ve got that same twang, like you’re popping up in the corn. (in yokel accent) “Heyyy! How you doin’, Sandra?” (main video: Sylar asks about Claire.) Oooh.
Zachary Quinto: “Wanna meet her.”
Greg Grunberg: What I… but, honestly, what this… the creepiest thing in the world, for me, is that you’re not playing creepy. That is what’s so scary.
Zachary Quinto: I just am.
Greg Grunberg: You-- you just are!
Zachary Quinto: It’s true.
Greg Grunberg: You know, some people just have it.
Zachary Quinto: It just exudes from my pores.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah. Creep.
Zachary Quinto: Creepy.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah. …Mayonnaise exudes from my pores.
Zachary Quinto: (laughs) I can’t keep up with you, Grunny.
Greg Grunberg: Yes, you can.

All right, let’s talk about Ashley for a second.
Zachary Quinto: Okay. Let’s talk about her.
Greg Grunberg: How great is Ashley. And how weird is it,
Zachary Quinto: That she’s really married to Matt.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah.
Zachary Quinto: Yeah.
Greg Grunberg: That Ashley and Matt are married,
Zachary Quinto: Ashley and the Radioactive Man… real deal.
Greg Grunberg: Right. And we’re actually shooting a scene right now… (main video: HRG, trapped in Sylar’s cell) ooh, look at this.
Zachary Quinto: He’s pissed, dude.
Greg Grunberg: Wow. He’s not pissed enough that he fogged up the, the glass.
Zachary Quinto: No, he didn’t fog up the glass.
Greg Grunberg: No. You did that, when you were, “My name is…”
Zachary Quinto: Did I? It fogged up? No.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah, you sort of gave yourself that white dye… that, like, that filter.
Zachary Quinto: And after they cut it, I wrote my name in it. But they didn’t… they didn’t use it.
Greg Grunberg: Did you? (writes with his finger on imaginary glass) “My name is…”
Zachary Quinto (laughing): “Sylar.” Backwards… you had to write it backwards.
Greg Grunberg: “Who do I make this out to?” “This glass is going right up on the internet.”

(main video: Claire at Meredith’s)
Oh, boy. I haven’t met her yet.
Zachary Quinto: Jessalyn?
Greg Grunberg: Yeah.
Zachary Quinto: I met her before…
Greg Grunberg: You worked with her before?
Zachary Quinto: No, just met her.
Greg Grunberg: Really?
Zachary Quinto: Yeah, once. I think.
Greg Grunberg: At, like, a hot tub party, or something? Where’d you meet her?
Zachary Quinto: Yeah, you know, (audio cuts out as he names an establishment)
Greg Grunberg: Yes! On, uh,… (audio missing)
Zachary Quinto: …and… (audio once again missing)
Greg Grunberg: …yeah! You got my back there once!
Zachary Quinto: (cracks up)
Greg Grunberg (laughing): I remember that! That… is that place still there?
Zachary Quinto: Yeah, I don’t know, dude…
Greg Grunberg: Ooh, we’re talking about this, like, place in L.A., that’s like, uh, it’s a hot tub…
Zachary Quinto: You rent the hot tubs by the hour.
Greg Grunberg (laughing): Yeah, rent it by the hour! Wow.
Zachary Quinto: Yeah. We’re having… we’re having our wrap party there, aren’t we?
Greg Grunberg: My mom… my mom made a fortune there!
Zachary Quinto: Whoa, now.
Greg Grunberg: Stop.
Zachary Quinto: We’re having our wrap party there, I think.
Greg Grunberg (laughing): Are we having our wrap party there?
Zachary Quinto: Yeah.
Greg Grunberg: How come no one’s in Matt Parkman’s tub? (both guys laugh) Everyone’s in Hayden’s tub. Let’s see… so this room that we’re in right now, you, you’ve never even been in this room.
Zachary Quinto: I’ve never seen this room before.
Greg Grunberg: This is Primatech Paper, this is where I was taken, this is where you get the, uh, you know, the incision on the neck, (Zach makes stapling noises) and, uh, this is sort of the Primatech operating room, I would think. I guess it’s just
Zachary Quinto: It looks like a, sort of like the kitchen of a restaurant.
Greg Grunberg: Yes, it does!
Zachary Quinto: Like, over there.
Greg Grunberg: This is where Primatech, they operate on people,
Zachary Quinto: This is the cafeteria.
Greg Grunberg: …and do dishes.
Zachary Quinto: And make macaroni and cheese.
Greg Grunberg: (laughs)
Zachary Quinto: (opening a steel cabinet door behind his head) And bake bread in the oven.
Greg Grunberg: That’s right.
Zachary Quinto: That’s the oven.
Greg Grunberg: They have the best chocolate milk and brownies…
Zachary Quinto: At Primatech Paper.
Greg Grunberg: …at Primatech Paper.
Zachary Quinto: So true, man. So true.

Greg Grunberg: …This is a long scene.
Zachary Quinto: (laughs)
Greg Grunberg: Without any fire coming from her palms.
Zachary Quinto: We love it. Whoa, oh, oh, ready? …Oh, no, not yet. In a second, though. There’s gonna be some blood and then some fire. I already saw it. They gave me a sneak pre…
Greg Grunberg: You were privy to this?
Zachary Quinto: They gave me a sneak peek.
Greg Grunberg: They give you a sneak peek.
Zachary Quinto: Just right before you came in. I was here watching.
Greg Grunberg: I guess you have to be in the episodes to get a sneak peek. I…
Zachary Quinto: Are you not in this one?
Greg Grunberg: I don’t think I’m in this one.
Zachary Quinto: At all?
Greg Grunberg: No.
Zachary Quinto: Well, then, it’s… I don’t want to watch it any more. (starts to get up)
Greg Grunberg: No, exactly. No, it’ll… it’ll be very clear when the ratings come out.
Zachary Quinto: Yeah. Right?
Greg Grunberg: Exactly. No Parkman? (pushes imaginary remote button) “Honey?”
Zachary Quinto: Click! (and the audio cuts out on him again for a second)
Greg Grunberg: Oh, here we go.
Zachary Quinto: Oh, we’re not allowed to say that, am I. (no audio. Which means that he repeated the thing he knew he wasn’t allowed to say. Silly boy.) that’s fine.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah. (main video: Claire knifes her arm open) Ooh. Can you imagine how much money the guy is getting paid every time you hear (imitates the soundtrack wail)
Zachary Quinto: No songs!
Greg Grunberg: Could’ve been me. That’s not a song! Did somebody, did somebody call and…
Zachary Quinto: Could’ve been you, right. Did you audition for that?
Greg Grunberg (laughing): Yeah, I wish!
Zachary Quinto: Wait, watch, ready? Here it comes.
(main video: Meredith produces a fireball)
Greg Grunberg: Oh! Come on! That’s awesome.
Zachary Quinto: Yeah.
Greg Grunberg: That’s incredible. That’s our show.
Zachary Quinto: It’s really good. That’s our show.
Greg Grunberg: That’s our show, right there.
Zachary Quinto: The best.

(main video: Sylar and Mrs. Bennet)
Greg Grunberg: Oh. See, I love a scene like this ‘cause it’s just looming.
Zachary Quinto: And there’s, uh, and there’s vegetables in it.
Greg Grunberg: And there are vegetables.
Zachary Quinto: I absolutely adore scenes with vegetables in them.
Greg Grunberg: So I’m trying to get a Primatech Paper hat.
Zachary Quinto: A hat, with a jacket?
Greg Grunberg: I want to get a… I want to… no, I want to take that patch, and put it right on, like, a trucker’s…
Zachary Quinto: They have those patches.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah. They’re making a hat for me.
Zachary Quinto: They’ll hook you up, I hear.
Greg Grunberg: I’ll be the only one with a hat like that, for about five minutes until they start selling them.
Zachary Quinto: Yeah. Exactly. On eBay.
Greg Grunberg: She’s so good. I love Ashley. I just love her.
Zachary Quinto: I do too. I had so much fun working with her in this stuff. And this scene in particular, where it takes the turn, and she starts to get suspicious and freaky.

Greg Grunberg: Do you stick right to the word, or are you, do you kinda…
Zachary Quinto: I usually stick right to the word. Do you? No? You’re all over the place?
Greg Grunberg: No. The script is basically just an outline.
Zachary Quinto: Just a playground for Greg Grunberg.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah. It just kind of tells me what room we’re going to be shooting in. You know, I just look at “INTERIOR-- MATT’S HOUSE.”
Zachary Quinto: (off Sylar’s TKing the phone out of Mrs. Bennet’s hand) Did you see the phone go flying across the room?
Greg Grunberg: I didn’t. I was looking at your face.
Zachary Quinto: That, that was, that was, they had a piece of wire attached to it, and then they pulled it to the wall, and then they will digitally remove it… (gets momentarily tongue-tied while Greg mocks him)
Greg Grunberg: …So the post-production takes the wire out.
Zachary Quinto (with extra diction this time): Post-production digitally removes the wire.
Greg Grunberg: Thank you. Wow. This is great.
Zachary Quinto: And now I prepare to throw her. Now, Ashley, Ashley, stunt double,
Greg Grunberg: Is this a callback… (main video: Mrs. Bennet crashes into the cabinet) Ohhh! Look at that. Look at that!
Zachary Quinto: Ashley. Now you get a slow crawl.
Greg Grunberg: You are so mean, man. You are heartless…
Zachary Quinto: I am, it’s true. (off Sylar’s “Hi”) “Hi.”
Greg Grunberg: At this point you’ve eaten how many brains?
Zachary Quinto: I… we don’t know that I eat them, Greg.
Greg Grunberg: Really?
Zachary Quinto: Nobody knows that for sure.
Greg Grunberg: Hm. Well, I’ve seen you in your trailer.
Zachary Quinto: That was Lucky Charms. Mixed in with brains.
Greg Grunberg (laughing): Lucky Charms…
Zachary Quinto: And then Jack…! (main video: HRG bursts in, shooting) BOOM!
Greg Grunberg: Aw, yeah! Look at that. Did they, uh, ratchet you back?
Zachary Quinto: That was a stunt double too, they, they ratcheted the stunt double back.
Greg Grunberg: This is so cool. This is how every act should end. Fantastic. You’re fantastic.
Zachary Quinto: You’re fantastic.
Greg Grunberg: We’re fantastic.
Zachary Quinto: You’re fant…
(fade out)

---END PART FOUR---

Distractions commentary transcript, part three

2007-02-09T04:42:21Z

(main video: Claude and Peter)
Zachary Quinto (laughing): I love how you guys are just, like, bumping into people. It’s just, like…
Milo Ventimiglia: You just hear all the bumps, too.
Zachary Quinto: (laughs)
Milo Ventimiglia: Wow. It’s pretty clever, too, the way they put all this together.

Such a cool revelation, too, with a lot of this stuff, to figure out what it is that holds Peter back from… getting control of all the abilities that, that he’s come across, like, the reason why he freaked out…
Zachary Quinto: Like, he’s just saying, like, your attachments to people, and…
Milo Ventimiglia: Yeah.
Zachary Quinto: …and your relationships…
Milo Ventimiglia: Yeah, like…
Zachary Quinto: Well, it’s interesting, ‘cause you’re such an empathetic character, but yet that’s almost what gets in your way, initially, from being able to hone in to that, right? I mean…
Milo Ventimiglia: Yeah. Mm-hm.

(long pause, in which Milo appears to say something, and Zach laughs, but there is no audio… after the laughing they both shoot a look to someone off-camera, too. Getting a little spoilery, there, Milo?)

Zachary Quinto: I really like Chris. He’s so good.
Milo Ventimiglia: Yeah. He’s so natural. Everything he does sounds, just, like, so conversational, you know?
Zachary Quinto: So… so he takes you to see Simone?
Milo Ventimiglia: Yeah.
Zachary Quinto: What’s going on… is this green screen?
Milo Ventimiglia: No.
Zachary Quinto: It’s not?
Milo Ventimiglia: That was the city.
Zachary Quinto: Huh.
Milo Ventimiglia: That… yeah. Kind of, kind of looked…
Zachary Quinto: It looked strange the way the people were walking by.
Milo Ventimiglia: No, that was, uh… that was all practical.

(main video: Isaac begins to paint)
Here come the eyes. I’m always impressed, too, like, the reveal of how, uh, they come up with, with, getting to the eyes.
Zachary Quinto: Yeah.
Milo Ventimiglia: Remember saying in one shot, I’m like, that’d be so cool, if you literally just, like, close your eyes and you open them and they’re there, but you’re seeing normal eyes before…
Zachary Quinto: Um…
Milo Ventimiglia: …like they just did. (laughs)
Zachary Quinto: Did they?
Milo Ventimiglia: I think.
Zachary Quinto: I was always, uh, I was really impressed because Santiago was really working with one of the painters and really painting some of this stuff.
Milo Ventimiglia: Oh, yeah.
Zachary Quinto: Mm-hm. It’s pretty cool.
Milo Ventimiglia: Like, a lot of them he was, he was actually going through, like, color detail and whatnot…
Zachary Quinto: Mm-hm.
Milo Ventimiglia: You know, and they just have stacks of those, and they would just go through, you know, and wipe the paint off, and…

(main video: Hiro pieces the painting back together)
Even torn up, it’s still so cool.
Zachary Quinto (reading the subtitles, in an English accent. Why? Search me. I think he thinks it sounds feminine?): “Please, father, let me speak with him.”
Milo Ventimiglia: That’s a great shot.
Zachary Quinto: Yeah, with the shadows?
Milo Ventimiglia: Yeah. What was up with the cologne reference?
Zachary Quinto: The what?
Milo Ventimiglia: The cologne reference. (gets it) Ohhh…
Zachary Quinto: Cologne?
Milo Ventimiglia: He just said, uh, Hiro just said to Ando, “Did you put cologne on?” and Ando didn’t say anything but I think it was because the sister…
Zachary Quinto: Oh, he’s got a crush on the sister, yeah.
Milo Ventimiglia: He’s got a thing for the sister, yeah.

Zachary Quinto: I love how they place the subtitles, like, all over the screen.
Milo Ventimiglia: Also, too, they keep them close to… they keep them closer to their faces so they’re not just, like, at the bottom of the screen…
Zachary Quinto: Yeah, they jump around. Right.
Milo Ventimiglia: …so you can actually watch and read. Unless you speak Japanese, you know…
Zachary Quinto: Then you don’t have to.
Milo Ventimiglia: Yeah.
Zachary Quinto: Like me.
Milo Ventimiglia: (laughs)

…Again, the many voices of Masi Oka.

That’s got to be frustrating for Hiro. All of a sudden it’s like his powers aren’t really there.
Zachary Quinto: To have them, and then they leave?
Milo Ventimiglia: Yeah. I mean, to have them at such a… a level, too. (off Hiro and Ando) God, (those) two little guys together are great.
Zachary Quinto: Yeah, they really are.
(Milo suddenly turns his head to look at Zach, who catches the look, and then breaks into laughter.)
Milo Ventimiglia: Zach and I have this problem when we work together, ‘cause we have, like, very intense scenes and moments where it’s really one line,
Zachary Quinto: But it’s only, like… there’s no action right away, it’s like, it’s like, Milo turns around and sees me and I say something to him, like…
Milo Ventimiglia: Very, very, very pr…
Zachary Quinto: “You don’t know what power is.” And then, then it’s just dead, and then we laugh.
Milo Ventimiglia: We wait.
Zachary Quinto: Yeah. And it’s not funny.
Milo Ventimiglia: But now we’re in a trailer park. Well, not we, but the act is.
Zachary Quinto: The proverbial, the corporate we.
Milo Ventimiglia: Yeah. (laughs)
Zachary Quinto: “We,” all of us together, are in the trailer park.
Milo Ventimiglia: In Odessa, Texas. (coughs) Santa Clarita.
Zachary Quinto: Santa Clarita.
(main video: Zach leaves)
Milo Ventimiglia: Dude, he’s not going to stick around? Oh. It’s kind of harsh just to leave her there.
Zachary Quinto: What if… yeah.
Milo Ventimiglia: What if she gets, like, attacked by windmills?
Zachary Quinto (laughing): I know, right.
Milo Ventimiglia: Pinwheels.
Zachary Quinto: (laughs) They got the… (audio cuts out. Zach says something off-camera, Milo looks askance at him and says something, Zach covers his mouth as he realizes that he shouldn’t have said whatever-it-is. Audio cuts back in on Milo laughing.)
Zachary Quinto: (timorous voice) I’m so nervous about what we’re allowed to say!
Milo Ventimiglia: (laughing…)

(main video: Claire meets Meredith)
Zachary Quinto: It’s a heart-felt moment. Boy.
Milo Ventimiglia: Uh-oh. Who’s going to speak first?
Zachary Quinto (whispers, imitating the actors on-screen): Jessalyn. Claire.
Milo Ventimiglia: That was inaudible. Was it…
Zachary Quinto: It was mouthed.
Milo Ventimiglia: Oh, god. She almost touched her, but…
Zachary Quinto: Oh, “I want to touch you, but not…”
Milo Ventimiglia: Go ahead, go, just do it… (main video: Meredith and Claire hug) there you go!
Zachary Quinto: (laughs)
Milo Ventimiglia: Happy of moments.

(main video: Sylar at the Bennets’)
Zachary Quinto: Uh-oh. Not happy moments.
Milo Ventimiglia: (squeaky talking-to-da-liddle-doggie voice) “Mr. Muggles, what’s up?”
Zachary Quinto: The dog kept looking at the, um…
Milo Ventimiglia: ‘Kay, I gotta say, those are nice boots, though.
Zachary Quinto: Oh, thanks! Thanks. They actually wanted me to continue wearing them in the future episodes and I opted for these (shows off his shoes) instead, which I regret, when, when we went to Montana… when we go to Montana and there’s snow everywhere and these got soaking wet, and I was supposed to be wearing boots, and then everybody in wardrobe was like, “Well, we told you!”
Milo Ventimiglia: Why didn’t you want to wear the boots? (goes unintelligible as Zach talks over him)
Zachary Quinto: I don’t know, I just thought… I don’t know.
Milo Ventimiglia: Really?
Zachary Quinto: Yeah. I should have.
Milo Ventimiglia: You can… I mean, you could (mumble) get those at any time, though.
Zachary Quinto (talking over): (unintelligible) what? The boots?
Milo Ventimiglia: ‘Cause of course, Sylar would need a moment to go shopping.
Zachary Quinto: Yes, yes.
Milo Ventimiglia: ‘Cause he’s Sylar.
Zachary Quinto: Well, he can make boots out of the air. Out of nothing.
Milo Ventimiglia: Wait, what… who’s the guy that Sylar killed (audio BLEEP!s him), uh, things like (BLEEEEEP!)
Zachary Quinto: That hasn’t happened yet! That happens next week!
(Aaand it’s Milo’s turn to clap his hand to his mouth in an embarrassed fashion while the audio cuts out again for a couple lines.)

Zachary Quinto: The dog got really freaked out by some things, like when she screamed.
Milo Ventimiglia: That’s so eerie, your taking your hat off, old-fashioned? (laughs) The dog, too, is like… (makes pawing motions)
Zachary Quinto: That poor dog. It just wants to get away.
Milo Ventimiglia: …pushing your hand away when you grab his nose.
Zachary Quinto: And it got really freaked out by the camera tr… dollying back, I would have to… it’s a lot, whole other consideration when you’re working with a dog.
Milo Ventimiglia: Yeah.
Zachary Quinto: You know. It’s like, it’s like a whole other entity, to see…
Milo Ventimiglia: (just laughing…)
Zachary Quinto: Luckily, I have a dog, so I know how that works.
Milo Ventimiglia: Yeah.
Zachary Quinto: I know how to…
(fade out)

---END PART THREE---

Distractions commentary transcript, part two

2007-02-08T05:17:39Z

(main video: Simone talks to Isaac)
Zachary Quinto: I’ve never been on this set. The loft.
Milo Ventimiglia: It’s a good set, man. Got so much use out of it…
Zachary Quinto: I know, right?
Milo Ventimiglia: …spent tons of time there, caked in blood, getting thrown around… painting things…
Zachary Quinto: So much has happened there. It’s really an integral…
Milo Ventimiglia: Well, plus, I mean, this set, there’s… I mean, it was big enough to have the mural on the ground,
Zachary Quinto: Yeah, yeah…
Milo Ventimiglia: New York exploding, but also, there’s so many different… there’s so many different pieces to it. You know, you have, like, the main room…
Zachary Quinto: Yeah, layers, levels, right.
Milo Ventimiglia: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and then you have, back up in the corner you have a bed, then on the other side you have a workspace and everything.

Zachary Quinto (laughing): I love what they do when, when we’re seeing, like, an early cut of it and they haven’t done ADR yet?
Milo Ventimiglia: Oh, yeah.
Zachary Quinto: And, like, a random voice comes in?
Milo Ventimiglia: From the editors, like, trying to be, like, Sylar…
Zachary Quinto: And they’re like, (high, not-at-all-dramatic, apparently editor-y voice) “How do you know?”
Milo Ventimiglia: What was that one line you had, in the jail cell with me? “You don’t, you don’t…”
Zachary Quinto (now ultra-deep and Sylar-y): “You don’t know anything about power.”
Milo Ventimiglia: “… know anything about power.” It was just, it was like Dawn, or Mike: (ultra-nerdy, nasally voice): “You don’t know anything about power!”
Zachary Quinto: (laughs)

Milo Ventimiglia: God, how intregal all those, all those paintings are. (transcriber’s note: um, that’s a [sic]. Yes, he pronounced it “intregal.” This is, I think, the first time that my otherwise boundless love and adoration for Milo has taken a hit. Integral, dammit.)
Zachary Quinto: Tim Sale’s, like, you know, like an extra cast member.
Milo Ventimiglia: He really is.
Zachary Quinto: Seriously.
Milo Ventimiglia: I mean, and even doing a scene the other day, we were talking about… or, before we even walked on to the set, there was a painting of Peter… how he was supposed to be standing, what he was wearing and everything, and, like, before I, I didn’t get a chance to weigh in on that, just as an actor…
Zachary Quinto: Yeah. It’s done.
Milo Ventimiglia: Yeah, and I showed up, and it wasn’t what I was… had in my mind, but then it worked out so perfectly.
Zachary Quinto: Mm-hm.
Milo Ventimiglia: You know, like, how he was standing, the way he was… his clothes were skewed, the look on his face, even. God, what a sad relationship, the two of them, you know? It’s like, guy totally lost the girl, he goes on drugs (unintelligible, again, Milo, stop with the mumbly please) a lot of stuff, and trying to clear himself up and get back, and…

(main video: Claire asks her mom if she can skip school)
Zachary Quinto: I love the Bennets.
Milo Ventimiglia: (laughs)
Zachary Quinto: (also laughs) I really do.
Milo Ventimiglia: Mrs. Bennet and Mr. Muggles.
Zachary Quinto (laughing): Mr. Muggles is my…
Milo Ventimiglia: I liked his sweater last week.
Zachary Quinto: You liked the what?
Milo Ventimiglia: The sweater he was wearing last week.
Zachary Quinto: He was wearing a sweater?
Milo Ventimiglia: He was wearing a sweater.
Zachary Quinto: When?
Milo Ventimiglia: Uh, last episode.
Zachary Quinto (glimmer of recollection): Was it red? Was it red?
Milo Ventimiglia: Like, uh, yeah, something, I think, there was red in it.

I haven’t worked with Mr. Muggles.
Zachary Quinto: I worked with… well, you’ll see, I worked with Mr. Muggles in this episode. He’s a little temperamental. Now, his name is…
Milo Ventimiglia: Not as temperamental as that dog, though…
Zachary Quinto: What?
Milo Ventimiglia: I said not as temperamental as that dog in the parking lot.
Zachary Quinto: (laughs) That, no, that was a bit, I forgot… Uh, Mr. Muggles’s real name is Lestat.
Milo Ventimiglia: No way.
Zachary Quinto: Yeah. Or, the one… there’s more than one Mr. Muggles.
Milo Ventimiglia: There’s two, yeah. I’ve seen two.
Zachary Quinto: There’s two Mr. Muggles. But the one that I worked with is Lestat. He was good. He’s alright. We got along.

I was psyched when Jessalyn got the job as Claire’s mom. She’s quite good.
Milo Ventimiglia: And in that last episode, too, she’s like, has the cigarette, has the fingers…
Zachary Quinto: (makes flames-erupting whooshing noise)
Milo Ventimiglia: George Takei. (off the camera angle, looking out at the ocean) Wow.
Zachary Quinto: That’s awesome. They shot this in San Pedro, and, uh…
Milo Ventimiglia: I was, I was just about to say, like…
Zachary Quinto: Yeah.
Milo Ventimiglia: …this isn’t green screen, or is it, I don’t…
Zachary Quinto: No, it’s not green screen, that’s really the real ocean.
Milo Ventimiglia: Wow.
Zachary Quinto: Yeah, they were all really… I remember when we were shooting our stuff, later in this episode, Nate, the DP, brought in the, uh, he had it on his laptop and he was showing it, and they were all so excited about how this stuff turned out. ‘Cause it was all… they lit it so well, and, you know, it just, it worked out so well.
Milo Ventimiglia: Yeah.
Zachary Quinto: So crisp. Yeah.
Milo Ventimiglia: That’s the hardest play, I mean, you’ve got all your light sources coming in from there, it’s just going to blow everything out in one direction, but you turn around and you make sure…
Zachary Quinto: Yeah, yeah.
Milo Ventimiglia: It’s been pretty cool, too, to see the feel of each set, each character,
Zachary Quinto: And each story has, like, a different tone, like, different colors… it’s so cool to see how they execute it. So well done.
Milo Ventimiglia: Like, I always look at that nice, warm, golden glow on Suresh, and think, “Wow....”
Zachary Quinto: Mm-hm. (laughs) Oh, yeah. “You know, I kind of want that.”
Milo Ventimiglia: (laughs) “He’s got a warm friendly light around him. Why is Peter so cold and dark?”

(main video: Mr. Nakamura tells Hiro his destiny)
Not what Hiro wants to hear. That’s his sister.
Zachary Quinto: (deep Takei-esque voice) “Hiro.” Now, Masi speaks Japanese already, doesn’t he?
Milo Ventimiglia: Yeah. Masi was, uh, born in Japan,
Zachary Quinto: Right.
Milo Ventimiglia: But, uh, raised over here, and I know his mother goes back and forth, he goes back and forth…
Zachary Quinto: That is such a, uh, just such a… I don’t know, to have to do it and to do it so fluently, under pressure…
Milo Ventimiglia: Well, plus, too, look at James.
Zachary Quinto: Right.
Milo Ventimiglia: Like, I think James came into this series speaking, who plays Ando, speaking very little Japanese. So he’s learning Japanese as he’s going, and…
Zachary Quinto: Doing it so well.
Milo Ventimiglia: I mean, doing, doing an amazing job, like, to be able to react, and… and have some kind of, uh, have some kind of emotion, or… anything. It’s… I don’t know, like, that really impresses me.
Zachary Quinto: Rip it up, Takei, rip it up! (Hiro’s father rips up the painting) Yes. They also had a bunch of different takes that Nate was showing us, with this stuff, that, like, you know, there were a couple where the thing wasn’t quite ripped, and, like, you know, it didn’t go right away…
Milo Ventimiglia: Yeah.
Zachary Quinto: It was really funny to see.
Milo Ventimiglia: I love, you know, there’s, like, another shot, it’s like, in a million little pieces, confetti.
(main video: Niki comes back to herself; the psychiatrist is unconscious and twitching in the corner)
Zachary Quinto: (gasps) Dude, is she just dead?
Milo Ventimiglia: She looked pretty dead. The… oh, yeah, she’s…
Zachary Quinto: Oh, dude!
Milo Ventimiglia: Look at all the burn marks.
Zachary Quinto: Oh, she tased her. (Broken Nose takes his baton to Niki’s face) Ohh… Broken Nose guy.
Milo Ventimiglia: That’s gonna suck.
Zachary Quinto: Wait, so did she kill her, or did she just tase the hell out of her?
Milo Ventimiglia: I don’t know, man, she looked pretty dead. The angle of the arm…?
Zachary Quinto: Oh… she’s gonna have a hard time using that wrist again.

---END PART TWO---

Distractions commentary transcript, part one

2007-02-07T06:31:52Z

(main video: HRG says, “Previously, on Heroes…”)

Zachary Quinto: Was that Jack’s voice? Was that Jack?

Milo Ventimiglia: …Jack what?

Zachary Quinto: …that said “Previously, on Heroes.”

Milo Ventimiglia: I dunno. I heard one that Adrian did, one that Adrian did was pretty funny, ‘cause, like… it’s so fast…

Zachary Quinto (deep pretending-to-be-Adrian voice): “Previously...”

Milo Ventimiglia: No, it’s: “PreviouslyonHeroes.”

Zachary Quinto: (laughs)

Milo Ventimiglia: You know, Adrian’s so… intense.

(main video: Hiro explains about his mission)

The funny thing is the many voices of Masi.

Zachary Quinto: Yeah.

Milo Ventimiglia: (laughs) He’s got FutureHiro, he has Hiro-who-speaks-English, he has Japanese and scared Japanese, which is very (uses high and somewhat squeaky voice and says what I presume is an actual word of Japanese. Though I really wouldn’t know. So, um, let’s just say that yes, it was Japanese, and, you know, move on.)

Zachary Quinto (laughing): Yeah, yeah. Scared Japanese.

Milo Ventimiglia: Yeah.

Zachary Quinto: I like that woman that played the, uh, psychiatrist. She’s intense.

Milo Ventimiglia: I’ve seen her before. She’s very good.

(main video: Claude yells at Peter)

He was great.

Zachary Quinto: Yeah, he’s cool. Was that downtown?

Milo Ventimiglia: Yeah, it was all downtown. Uh… god, he’s just so natural with things. Like, the way he said…

Zachary Quinto: When he took the hat out of the, um, bobble-headed dog, and he was, like, looking at it, then he put it back? That was last week, though.

Milo Ventimiglia: Yeah.

(main video: henchscientist: “He’s dead.”)

Zachary Quinto: Dead.

Milo Ventimiglia (at the same time): He’s not dead.

Zachary Quinto (imitating on-screen noises): “K-chh, k-chh.”

Milo Ventimiglia: (off the SFX of the scarf getting pulled off the man’s neck) Oh, wow. So funny, how… (off the pretzel) whoa.

Zachary Quinto: That’s awesome, dude.

Milo Ventimiglia: How much they were trying to… I mean, how many times we did this just to get…

Zachary Quinto: All the timing right? How did they do it? With the scarf and stuff. Like, a string?

Milo Ventimiglia: Uh, yeah, a lot of it was practical.

Zachary Quinto: Right.

Milo Ventimiglia: You know? So it was, uh, you know, a string making the scarf off, pulling the thing off… (off the garment rack stopping) this was literally just a crack in the sidewalk where the thing got stuck and the guy couldn’t push it.

Zachary Quinto: Really?

Milo Ventimiglia: Yeah. That kind of came as a mistake, too, like, the guy tried to wheel past in one take, but he was going right towards us, and Chris just grabbed the thing,

Zachary Quinto: Huh.

Milo Ventimiglia: And Jeannot was like, (in French accent) “Let’s use it!” Funny.

Zachary Quinto (also imitating Jeannot Szwarc): “I love it!”

Milo Ventimiglia (as above): “I love it!”

Zachary Quinto : “Jeannot.”

Milo Ventimiglia : “With Milo!”

Zachary Quinto: (laughs)

Milo Ventimiglia: Great, great. Really nice guy.

Zachary Quinto: He was really fun, yeah, he was great.

Milo Ventimiglia: Yeah.

Zachary Quinto: So what about all the extras in this scene? I mean, they had to be more integrally… like, they were more involved in this stuff, right?

Milo Ventimiglia: There were, there were I think five or six extras that were, uh, stunt guys, I guess you could kinda call them?

Zachary Quinto: Uh-huh.

Milo Ventimiglia: And…

Zachary Quinto: That they planted them in the, in the rest of the crowd?

Milo Ventimiglia: Yeah, they planted them just walking through and they would intentionally bump you, and…

Zachary Quinto: Right.

Milo Ventimiglia: Yeah. The hard part was, they were kind of gunning for you. As quickly as they can. Like, they’re, they’re really going in a direction to hit you.

Zachary Quinto: Right.

(main video: the psychiatrist wants to talk to Jessica)

I love how, uh, I love how she’s just like, “bring it on,” the psychiatrist’s just like, “I want to meet Jessica, I want to meet Jessica,” and then she just gets it.

Milo Ventimiglia: Yeah, I know. Is this… this is the scene where she gets all torn up, right? …Oh, yeah, the taser’s just sitting on the table, too. (laughs) It’s funny, I was talking to Ali about doing all the incarcerated stuff, and how she was saying that she was kind of excited, like, not to wear make-up, not to do anything, you know, orange jumpsuit, and then now she’s especially “all right, I kind of want to get back into makeup…” (trails off into unintelligibility)

Zachary Quinto: She’s like, could do it up.

Milo Ventimiglia: She’s had enough. (to psychiatrist)

Yeah, just keep talking. Bring it on.

Zachary Quinto (creepily): Jessica...

Milo Ventimiglia: (laughs)

Zachary Quinto (still with the creepy): …I want to meet her…

I love the music, though, how there’s, like, piano music underscoring this… (main video: Niki transitions into Jessica) ooh.

Milo Ventimiglia: Ooh. (laughs appreciatively)

Zachary Quinto: She just showed up.

Milo Ventimiglia: You know what’s amazing? God, I wish I could rewind it. Is the moment that Niki breaks-- where Ali breaks and goes into Jessica.

Zachary Quinto: Yeah.

Milo Ventimiglia: Where it’s… (main video switches to HRG outside Sylar’s cell) so this right here then is recap.

Zachary Quinto: Yeah, this is back from eighteen, I mean… thirteen?

Milo Ventimiglia: So then it’s what, so a continuation…

Zachary Quinto: Yeah. Um…

Milo Ventimiglia: (unintelligible) the music, just the…

Zachary Quinto: Yeah, just how they underscore it so well, and they just echo what they’re talking about in the scene, you know?

Milo Ventimiglia: And the shunt, in the head.

(main video: HRG flies into the glass)

Zachary Quinto: See, that freaked me out so bad, I was standing right there when the stunt guy went off the air… he, it was on the air-compressed catapult…

Milo Ventimiglia: Air… yeah.

Zachary Quinto: …and it freaked me out. Every time.

Milo Ventimiglia: Okay, that’s pretty (unintelligible! Stop mumbling, Milo!)

Zachary Quinto: The shunt… yeah.

Milo Ventimiglia: The shunt.

Zachary Quinto: Dude, the shunt, took us… I mean, we were, we were into the shunt for a while, there were about three weeks, I think, that we had to glue it into the back of my head with Gafquat?

Milo Ventimiglia: Yeah.

Zachary Quinto: What do they call it? Gafquat, right? That, like, hair glue.

Milo Ventimiglia: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Zachary Quinto: It was intense, it was, it was a lot… and then they didn’t end up even, like, in twelve, they did a lot more coverage of it…

Milo Ventimiglia: You didn’t see…

Zachary Quinto: Yeah, but you didn’t see it too much.

Milo Ventimiglia: (off Sylar finding HRG’s driver’s license) Giving away the address. That set was pretty wild, I was, uh, filming something in, uh, Nathan’s office the other day, and next door was this set,

Zachary Quinto: Yeah, yeah, this set’s rad.

Milo Ventimiglia: I’d never walked into, like, the detail, where there’s all those different doors, and they’re built to look much like steel doors…

Zachary Quinto: Yeah.

Milo Ventimiglia: I… it’s unbelievable, the concrete, the setup, everything.

Zachary Quinto: Yeah, no, that set was great. I mean, when, the first day I went in, the first day we had to shoot in there for eleven, I went in and sat in there for a little while, before they started setting it up and…

Milo Ventimiglia: Yeah.

Zachary Quinto: So cold, and so, um, just cavernous, you know?

(fade out)

---END PART ONE---

Phew! The Fix commentary transcript, parts five and six!

2007-02-05T03:28:13Z

Finished! Whoo-hoo! Take THAT, Evil Gods of Buffering. You are not the masters of me!

Part five: (main video: Claude in Peter’s apartment)
Greg Grunberg: Good to be back. It’s good to be on Heroes. It’s good to be a part of this show, that we’re watching right now.
Natalie Chaidez: Oh, okay.
Greg Grunberg: See, now here we go hand-held, which I think is…
Natalie Chaidez: Right, and…
Greg Grunberg: …always… it’s a, it’s a giveaway, it’s like, okay, something huge is about to happen.
Natalie Chaidez: Right. Well, this was one of Christopher’s, this was definitely Christopher’s first day of shooting, um, I think Milo was, you know, feeling it out, it was, like, definite chemistry,…
Greg Grunberg: Mm-hm.
Natalie Chaidez: Actor chemistry… man-crush? Can I say man-crush?
Greg Grunberg: You can say that! I’ve got man-boobs.
Natalie Chaidez: (laughs)
Greg Grunberg: Can I tell you, just something about Chris… Christopher Eccleston? This guy is such an amazing actor, he’s so powerful.
Natalie Chaidez: Yeah. He’s unbelievable.
Greg Grunberg: He’s one of those guys that doesn’t have to try at all, and he just brings so much weight to everything he does. Even a look. To get him on a show like this, it just says… we had the same thing on Alias. Just… quality actors wanting to be part of a show like this. And, I mean, you’ve got to be happy, when… you know?
Natalie Chaidez: Right. Right. Yeah. I, I have to say, Michael Green is one of the writers, and, and he was really instrumental in creating Claude’s voice.
Greg Grunberg: Oh, really?
Natalie Chaidez: So, big ups to, to Michael.
Greg Grunberg: Big ups.
Natalie Chaidez: ‘cause he, he… yeah.

(main video: Matt fixes the sink)
Oh, okay, see, this is the plumber. This is where the plumber got cut out.
Greg Grunberg: All right, this scene is, uh…
Natalie Chaidez: Oh…
Greg Grunberg: This is gonna bring back a… this is a…
Natalie Chaidez: Do you remember that-- what happened on this day?
Greg Grunberg: Yeah. This was crazy. You guys were like, “Ha-ha! …Oh my god, did he break his arm?” Because watch: I sit down, and the weight of Big Cop-- me being Big Cop-- that bathtub, as…
Natalie Chaidez (laughing very hard): Dude, it just went (flips her hands over). It was awesome.
Greg Grunberg: It just tipped over, because it’s not a real bathtub, I mean, it’s a real bathtub, but it’s not secured, and the tub was pinching my arm against the fake wall that’s supposed to move! And it didn’t move.
Natalie Chaidez (still laughing): I’m so sorry for laughing but it was so funny when you guys… I had to go back up to the writers’ room and say, “Guess what happened to Greg?”
Greg Grunberg: Will that be on the, uh, gag reel, I hope?
Natalie Chaidez (finally collecting herself): I hope so. Well, it was a little dangerous because of the real condition of your, your co-star.
Greg Grunberg: Oh, that’s true.
Natalie Chaidez: Because…
Greg Grunberg: And she’s about to reveal right here…
Natalie Chaidez: Right.
Greg Grunberg: Let me see this.
Natalie Chaidez: Oh, I love this moment. I love this moment. You’re so good.
Greg Grunberg: Oh, stop…
Natalie Chaidez: No, I’m serious.
Greg Grunberg: I know I’m good. Stop it.
Natalie Chaidez: (laughs) So cute!
Greg Grunberg: ‘Kay, wait. …She’s fantastic.
Natalie Chaidez: Yeah.
(main video: Matt reads Janice’s mind)
Greg Grunberg: Come on.
Natalie Chaidez: Aw, so cute!
Greg Grunberg: Goosebumps. Goosebumps.
Natalie Chaidez: It is. I well. I well every time I’ve seen it. Aw.
Greg Grunberg: That’s great!
Natalie Chaidez: But you know the story about her, that we discovered, we had created the character and then we thought, “What would be a great secret to be revealed in this scene?” One of the writers in the writers’ room pitched “she’s pregnant,” Jesse Alexander, the co-exec, gets a call, steps out,
Greg Grunberg: From me.
Natalie Chaidez: From you-- was that from you, dude?!
Greg Grunberg: From me. She says to me on the set, she goes, “I have a secret,”
Natalie Chaidez: Are you serious?!
Greg Grunberg: Yes. She goes, “Do you think that they’ll freak out, who do I call, who do I talk to first, I’ve never done this before,” ‘cause she knew that I’d worked with actors who had… actresses who’d become pregnant…
Natalie Chaidez: Right.
Greg Grunberg: …how do you, best way to handle it, I said, “Just tell them! Come on, I mean, you know, it’s an ensemble, they’ll shoot around it,” whatever, Jesse tells me, “You’ve gotta be kidding me! Guess what we just discussed?”
Natalie Chaidez: Well, he comes back in the room with his face, like, just dead-- like dead-- like, what just happened?, he goes, “You’ll never guess what happened.” Click. “She’s really pregnant.” Art imitating life. It was, like… it was amazing.
Greg Grunberg: Well, I… I had a hint that that’s where you wanted to go story-wise, so I took one for the team, and I said, “You know what?”
Natalie Chaidez: (laughs) Does your wife know?
Greg Grunberg: “Well, let’s save some money on prosthetics, and I’ll just do it.” You know what I mean? It was fun. It was fun. We tried for weeks. It was great.

(main video: D.L. in Niki’s cell)
Natalie Chaidez: Well, this is back on the itchy set.
Greg Grunberg: Oh, god, the itchy set. Never put me in this cell. How did he get… how’d he get in there? He walked through the wall?
Natalie Chaidez: He phased. You missed the top of the scene, but he, we call that “phasing.” And he phased into the cell, um, because that’s what D.L. can do,…
Greg Grunberg: How do we shoot the phasing?
Natalie Chaidez: Um, it’s very complicated, it involves FX, and a stunt double, and we’ll have to get…
Greg Grunberg: Do they… do they take a plate of the wall, first, a plate is where there are no moving, you know, no actors or whatever, it’s like a static shot of the wall, is that what they do?
Natalie Chaidez: Right. I think…
Greg Grunberg: And then he walks through it and they’ll, they create that illusion?
Natalie Chaidez: Something like that.
Greg Grunberg: Something like that, yeah.
Natalie Chaidez: Yeah.
Greg Grunberg: We had to do that on Hollow Man. I’m at it again… throwing another one of my credits around. Oh, sorry, let me just pick that up…
Natalie Chaidez: (laughs) Were you in that movie?
Greg Grunberg: (picks something imaginary up, shows it to the camera) …Hollow Man. Big movie. Kevin Bacon, Elisabeth Shue, Josh Brolin, Greg Grunberg. Um, but anyway, I remember on that, we had to pretend that we were, we were talking to nothing, and Kevin was standing there,
Natalie Chaidez: Right, right.
Greg Grunberg: So it must be that way for him too.
Natalie Chaidez: Uh, yeah. And they were awesome in this scene. (something unintelligible)
(main video: D.L. phases out of the cell)
Greg Grunberg: Oh! Come on! That’s fantastic.
Natalie Chaidez: …’cause how cool was that, yeah. ‘Cause he needs her. This is…
Greg Grunberg: Wow. And by the way, that’s not even a finished effect right there.

(main video: Micah at the ATM)
Natalie Chaidez: Oh, this is like the best scene in the whole episode! Exc… next to yours.
Greg Grunberg: Oh, okay, let’s watch this. Where’s this shot? This is on…
Natalie Chaidez: This is out by your… uh, Matt’s house. Up in, uh,…
Greg Grunberg: Oh, yeah.
Natalie Chaidez: …sort of across the 101 in Hollywood.
Greg Grunberg: Right.
Natalie Chaidez: And, ah…
Greg Grunberg: Oh, this is great.
Natalie Chaidez: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. This is like… this is…
Greg Grunberg: I love how all the characters are faced with these, these, you know, choices.
Natalie Chaidez: Well, this is a hero’s wish fulfillment at its finest.
Greg Grunberg: Absolutely.
Natalie Chaidez: Aw… every kid in America’s gonna go, “Yeah!”
(main video: ATM dispenses bills)
Greg Grunberg: (laughs) Come on, that’s the best!
Natalie Chaidez: Awesome!
Greg Grunberg: Oh, if he were in Vegas those would have been hundred-dollar bills.
Natalie Chaidez: But he can do it again and again. All the ATM machines.
Greg Grunberg: Wow.
(ATM dispenses bills again)
Natalie Chaidez: How great is that.
Greg Grunberg: Look how great he is. He’s the greatest!
Natalie Chaidez: It’s awesome.
Greg Grunberg: Wow.

---END PART FIVE---

Part six: (main video: Claire’s room)
Greg Grunberg: Okay, the, the last act of the show. Which has to be difficult for you guys to write, because you’ve got to wrap up, and you’ve got to set up great stuff at the end of the show.
Natalie Chaidez: Well, we’re, you know, we’re known for our twists, now…
Greg Grunberg: Right, that’s what I’m saying.
Natalie Chaidez: Um, but you know what? Because we know what’s coming ahead, we don’t have to kind of contrive something, we’re just giving a little peek at what comes next.
Greg Grunberg: Right.
Natalie Chaidez: And that’s our twist.
Greg Grunberg: That’s just great. ‘Cause with every answer on this show, comes a HUGE question.
Natalie Chaidez: The manatee has great significance for Heroes.
Greg Grunberg: It does?
Natalie Chaidez: Yeah! Keep watching. (laughs) And this is, uh,…
Greg Grunberg: I feel like a manatee sometimes, when I wake up in the morning. I really do, I feel like I’m just, like… (makes dopey face) a manatee.
Natalie Chaidez: A manatee-crush?
Greg Grunberg: That was my nickname in high school. “Hey, manatee! C’mere!”
Natalie Chaidez: Well, Claire… this is… the manatee report is cover for Claire, who’s actually going off to find her real mom. She’s supposedly working on this manatee report with Zach.
Greg Grunberg: Oh, that’s right.
Natalie Chaidez: That was just sort of their, their cover. And, uh, you know, of course, here the relationship has, has changed, because, uh, she was supposed to have been wiped by the Haitian. Her memory taken, and, uh, she, uh, knows that her dad’s not who he says he is.
Greg Grunberg: And those bears are bears from around the world.
Natalie Chaidez: Bears from around the world.
Greg Grunberg: So whenever he travels, he brings back a bear. So, I wrote something, uh, a script, and I thought I was the biggest genius, I was like, “This is genius! These bears represent--” And then when the kid finds out that the bears actually represent different assass-- ‘cause he’s an assassin, killed people all around the world, she just can’t believe it and she goes-- and then when this happened, I was like--
Natalie Chaidez: Are you serious?
Greg Grunberg: Yeah.
Natalie Chaidez: Are you serious?
Greg Grunberg: Yeah. And I was like, wow, that’s interesting.
Natalie Chaidez: Well, that came up in the writers’ room as we talked about being a parent and children getting older and what you have to give up, and, um, the chimes. Did you see the chimes?
Greg Grunberg: Yeah.
Natalie Chaidez: The chimes was, uh, supposed to be how she signals the Haitian.
Greg Grunberg: Ohhh!
Natalie Chaidez: And there was a little debate, like, does the Haitian keep circling the block? Like, how would that…
Greg Grunberg: That’s interesting, ‘cause you went from chimes to chimes in my scene with Lisa.
Natalie Chaidez: Right. Which didn’t imply that you have a connection to the Haitian.
Greg Grunberg: Right.
Natalie Chaidez: Yet. Well, you’ve had one.
Greg Grunberg: If that’s the case, then I’m gonna go into the chimes business, because people are gonna buy chimes, to try and call for the Haitian.
Natalie Chaidez: To try to get Jimmy to show up?
Greg Grunberg: Yeah.
Natalie Chaidez: With his shirt off?
Greg Grunberg : (rings imaginary chimes) “Jimmy!” You know what, there was an old movie, The Warriors, that was the beginning of the chimes. Did you ever see that?
Natalie Chaidez: No.
Greg Grunberg: Oh, yeah. (mimes clinking Coke bottles together) One finger in each Coke bottle. “Jimmy! Come out to play-ay!” People will remember that.

(main video: Niki sees the psychiatrist)
Natalie Chaidez: So here…
Greg Grunberg: She’s so good. What’s her name?
Natalie Chaidez: God, she’s so good. Uh…
Greg Grunberg: Oh, look her up. Imdb.
Natalie Chaidez: Brilliant woman, brilliant woman from Little Miss Sunshine.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah, look her up on, on-- on the internet.
Natalie Chaidez: Paula. Her name’s Paula.
Greg Grunberg: Paula. Paula.
Natalie Chaidez: Sorry, don’t remember the last name.
(Transcriber's note: Paula Newsome. You're welcome, guys.)
Greg Grunberg: I remember Ali just raving about her.
Natalie Chaidez: Well, she’s fantastic.
Greg Grunberg (to camera): Paula, I’m sorry I didn’t remember your name. But you don’t know who I am either, so…
Natalie Chaidez: Well, she’s asking for something she really shouldn’t, which is to see Jessica. Which is always a bad move.
Greg Grunberg: That is a bad move.
Natalie Chaidez: Yeah.
Greg Grunberg: “Can Jessica come out to play?”
Natalie Chaidez: She’s bas-- bas-- yeah. That’s basically what she’s asking.
(main video: Niki yells at the psychiatrist)
Greg Grunberg: Ooh.
Natalie Chaidez: And Ali wanted to continue…
Greg Grunberg: Okay, the idea…
Natalie Chaidez: Yeah.
Greg Grunberg: You guys give us a lot of daunting tasks on the show, and a lot of character things,
Natalie Chaidez: Yeah.
Greg Grunberg: …and moments that are really difficult. The idea of playing two characters at the same time, without cuts!
Natalie Chaidez: Oh, oh.
Greg Grunberg: You can do it with cuts but she’s been doing it now for two, this is the second episode where she actually… (moves head abruptly back and forth like the Niki/Jessica transition)
Natalie Chaidez: Since episode six, yeah.
Greg Grunberg: It scares the **** out of me, okay? (No censoring added, he just went quiet on the word, "shit," I believe it was)
Natalie Chaidez: It’s brilliant.
Greg Grunberg: And she does it so well.
Natalie Chaidez: It’s brilliant. She has a physicality, you know, a different physicality, you can see from across the room who she is, when she’s on set…
Greg Grunberg: Yeah, yeah. Ali. Oh.
Natalie Chaidez: Is she Niki? Or is she Jessica. It’s brilliant!
Greg Grunberg: Yeah.

(main video: Micah returns home)
Natalie Chaidez: Okay. Well, here’s, uh…
Greg Grunberg: Looks like Michael Mann directed this scene. With all the blue?
Natalie Chaidez: (laughs) He came in. Just for one.
Greg Grunberg: He came in?
Natalie Chaidez: Just for one. It’s very 80’s.
Greg Grunberg: Right.
Natalie Chaidez: All blue. Very sorta…
Greg Grunberg: It’s very Miami Vice.
Natalie Chaidez: Yeah!
Greg Grunberg: I like it.
Natalie Chaidez: We should do, we should do Heroes Vice.
Greg Grunberg (announcer voice): “Heroes Vice. On an all-blue Heroes.”
Natalie Chaidez: (laughs)
Greg Grunberg: Not “new!” An “all-blue.”
Natalie Chaidez: It is… I think it might just be this monitor.
Greg Grunberg: Or, you know. Maybe they’re in, inside a fishtank. Beautiful. Again, John Aronson. And Nate.
Natalie Chaidez: Yeah. They’re brilliant.
Greg Grunberg: I mean, these guys…
Natalie Chaidez: Right.
Greg Grunberg: This looks like-- look at that shot! That, to me, looks like a, uh, an image from a, from a comic! I mean, that’s what I love, it’s like these iconic images. Beautiful.
Natalie Chaidez: And I know Leonard was kind of thinking about, uh, the scene from Boyz n the Hood, where the dad has to talk to Cube,…
Greg Grunberg: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Natalie Chaidez: And it has to be firm, but sort of loving, and he’s losing control of this little kid… that was sort of his touchstone.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah, it’s always… it’s always a… he couldn’t have referenced Yentl, right, he had to go right to… it’s always a white/black thing, with Leonard.
Natalie Chaidez: (laughs) That’s what he said!
Greg Grunberg: Yeah, sure.
Natalie Chaidez: Now here comes all the money.
Greg Grunberg: Wow! Come on!
Natalie Chaidez: Big debate over the prop money, because, uh, the, we couldn’t get the right prop money, the one that we usually get, this was like some other prop money, and there was sort of debate over did it look real enough, and it was too big, and…
Greg Grunberg: Oh, wow.
Natalie Chaidez: But…
Greg Grunberg: I actually had that conversation about diamonds, but I can’t talk about that right now.
Natalie Chaidez: Oh, I know.

(main video: Hiro and Ando are taken to meet their mysterious kidnapper)
I love that. Oh.
Greg Grunberg: This is so good.
Natalie Chaidez: You know who it is, right?
Greg Grunberg: Yeah, but I…
Natalie Chaidez: Okay.
Greg Grunberg: Okay, wait, let’s… the big reveal.
Natalie Chaidez: He has no idea what’s coming. He thinks it’s gonna be Linderman,…
Greg Grunberg: Right. (echoing the creepy henchman) “Boss.” I love the placement of, uh, the subtitles.
Natalie Chaidez: Yeah, it’s very cool. Very comic book.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah.
Natalie Chaidez: Well, so, when this actor came in, we were all blown away. It was unbelievable. Our jaws dropped during casting.
Greg Grunberg: Really?
Natalie Chaidez: We said, “Can we do it? Can we do it?” …and we went for it.
Greg Grunberg: (takes several anticipatory breaths) (main video: Mr. Nakamura appears) YES!!!! Mr. Sulu!!
Natalie Chaidez: Huzzah!
Greg Grunberg: That’s fantastic.
Natalie Chaidez: Awesome. And of, um…
Greg Grunberg: Unbelievable. People… I mean, now, everybody knows,…
Natalie Chaidez: Right, right.
Greg Grunberg: Everybody already knows, because we let that out, but… George Takei.
Natalie Chaidez: When he came in the room at casting, it was just such a presence, and we said, “Can we do it, because it’s, is it too genre,” and we debated it, and he was just the finest actor for the part! Just incredible!
Greg Grunberg: Uh… what about Stan Lee?
Natalie Chaidez: Uh,well, I was… were you there that day?
Greg Grunberg: No!
Natalie Chaidez: Oh, I didn’t think…
Greg Grunberg: But people were freaking out that, I mean…
Natalie Chaidez: So cool.
Greg Grunberg: I love that you can do that, and people will appreciate it, and it doesn’t take you out of the show. Like, that’s not gonna take you out of the show.
Natalie Chaidez: Right. No.
Greg Grunberg: He’s a brilliant actor, forgetting, you know…
Natalie Chaidez: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Greg Grunberg: …that iconic image of his previous work…
Natalie Chaidez: Right.
Greg Grunberg: ...but, it’s great.

(main video: Claire on the phone with Meredith)
Natalie Chaidez: Oh, well, now, this, you know, huge moment for Hayden, meeting her, her biological mom.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah, but it’s just one of the huge moments in the reveal of her story!
Natalie Chaidez: (something unintelligible) Yeah, there was a big debate, too, about…
Greg Grunberg: Showing too much of her?
Natalie Chaidez: Uh, well, what she can do. You’ll see in a minute. Do you know? You know what she can do, right.
Greg Grunberg: Oh, yeah. When I read this in the script, I got chills.
Natalie Chaidez: Yeah.
Greg Grunberg: And they were multiplyin’. And I was losin’ control.
Natalie Chaidez: (laughs)
Greg Grunberg: ‘Cause the power she’s supplyin’? It’s electrifyin’.
Natalie Chaidez: Well, you’re… you’re gonna see the power in a minute. And there was big debate over presentation of the power, and, uh, well…
Greg Grunberg: That’s a very cool split-screen.
Natalie Chaidez: It is. Kind of a 70’s kinda…
Greg Grunberg: Yeah.
(main video: Meredith lights her cigarette)
Oh, come on!
Natalie Chaidez: Yeah. How good is that? How cool is that?
Greg Grunberg: Wow. Um, you could have ended the show like that.
Natalie Chaidez: You know what, this sho-- this episode has four, like, great endings.
Greg Grunberg: It does, yeah.
Natalie Chaidez: It does. It seriously does.

(main video: HRG at Sylar’s cell)
Oh, this. Well, Sy-- you know, Sylar was dead in… end of Act Two… Oh, HRG.
Greg Grunberg: That’s right. That’s right. But no one dies on this show.
Natalie Chaidez: I know. (main video: HRG walks toward the covered body) Ohh, HRG.
Greg Grunberg: What are you doing.
Natalie Chaidez: (main video: the henchscientist’s body is revealed) Ohh! (off the plastic thingie in Sylar’s head) That’s a shunt.
Greg Grunberg: What is that thing?
Natalie Chaidez: That’s a shunt, that they’ve been doing some sort of, draining his brain fluid and testing it,
Greg Grunberg: Oh, man!
Natalie Chaidez: You haven’t seen his, sort of, shunt scar?
Greg Grunberg: I haven’t! No, I did… yes, I have, actually, in the makeup trailer, I saw that.
Natalie Chaidez: We tell a lot of shunt jokes up in the writers’ room.
(commentary video fades out and back in)
My name is Natalie Chaidez, thanks for watching.
Greg Grunberg: Co-exec producer. I’m in good company. Greg Grunberg, Matt Parkman, thanks for watching this, and there’s gonna be more to come. Stay tuned.

---END COMMENTARY---

The Fix commentary transcript, part four!

2007-02-04T20:15:00Z

Okay, connection problems are (at least temporarily) fixed, so parts five and six should hopefully go up later today as well. But for now, part four:

(main video: Claire and Zach)
Greg Grunberg: And we’re back.
Natalie Chaidez: Right. So this is, uh, in the diner… the same place where Hiro meets Charlie.
Greg Grunberg: Right.
Natalie Chaidez: Remember that?
Greg Grunberg: Oh, yeah, yeah. See, now I guarantee you, Hayden hates french fries now.
Natalie Chaidez: Why? ‘Cause she…
Greg Grunberg: People don’t realize that you gotta eat over and over and over again. On this shot, she ate, and on this shot…well, see, no, she didn’t. I just… it hearkens back to the days when I did all these commercials. And I would do, I’d have a hamburger, you know, for some fast-food chain, I had a hamburger and I’d, I’d be like, “Oh, I’m… so great, I get to eat this!” By the end of the day, I’m like, “This is the worst thing I’ve ever had in my life.”
Natalie Chaidez: Well, she had no… this was actually one of her final, uh… well, I think I can’t, maybe can’t say that, ‘cause I’ll be giving story stuff away…
Greg Grunberg: Yeah, don’t give… what are you doing?
Natalie Chaidez: But, uh, well, this was one of the final scenes that she might play with Zach. Can I say that? I don’t know.
Greg Grunberg: Oh, yes, sure!
Natalie Chaidez: Okay.
Greg Grunberg: No one disappears on this show.
Natalie Chaidez: Okay, okay.

(main video: Matt’s inquest)
Greg Grunberg: Oh, here, wait, let me see this.
Natalie Chaidez: …the big moment.
(loonng pause)
Well, this was a pivotal moment for your character because basically you’re losing everything that you’ve wanted your entire life.
Greg Grunberg (eyes glued to the screen, only half-listening): …Yeah.
Natalie Chaidez: …You just watching how good you were?
Greg Grunberg (never looking at her, always at the screen): Yeah, it’s like when you’re, when you’re at dinner, and conversation, conversation, then the food comes in, it’s really good food? No one talks. That’s what’s happening right now.
Natalie Chaidez: (laughs) Well, I have to say, when we watched these dailies, Dennis Hammer and Tim were like, “Did you see how good Grunberg was in that scene?”
Greg Grunberg: Reall-- Oh, shut up!
Natalie Chaidez: I’m not… no, I’m not…
Greg Grunberg: Really?
Natalie Chaidez: No, I’m serious about that!
Greg Grunberg: Wow, that’s so nice.
Natalie Chaidez: I’m not, I’m not making that up.
Greg Grunberg: ‘Kay, this guy… these guys were great. This guy, my fav…
Natalie Chaidez: Oh, yeah.
Greg Grunberg: Okay, you see how I, I, I have to listen to thoughts.
Natalie Chaidez: Right.
Greg Grunberg: Now, actors that work opposite me, guest stars that come on the show, they don’t know the protocol on how we do this, right?
Natalie Chaidez: Right, right.
Greg Grunberg: So… we usually have the script supervisor reading, or you guys reading, or something, the thoughts.
Natalie Chaidez: Right, right.
Greg Grunberg: Well, the actors don’t know that, so what they’ll do is, they’ll, they’ll read the thoughts, they’ll say the thoughts, and it’s like, “What are you doing?”
Natalie Chaidez: Oh, yeah.
Greg Grunberg: It’s almost like when you have a gun and you’re like, (imitates an actor who actually says the gun noise as he fires) “BANG! BANG!” You know, it’s like, “Guess what, we’ll put that in later.” So these guys were saying their thoughts. The worst example of that, and I can’t wait to watch this scene, but I have to talk over it… ‘cause the audience…
Natalie Chaidez: Okay, which one, what’s the…
Greg Grunberg: …was the first shot, the first scene that we, that I ever did on the show, I’m outside the house and I walk in the house.
Natalie Chaidez: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Greg Grunberg: One of the actors, one of the cops, was supposed to stand there and think, “Man, I really could go for a doughnut right now.”
Natalie Chaidez: Right.
Greg Grunberg: So they told him, you’re thinking that, and he was an extra-- sweet guy-- so I walk past him, and he goes like this: (over-exaggeratedly licks his lips while obviously visualizing a doughnut).
Natalie Chaidez: (laughs)
Greg Grunberg: And I’m like, you don’t… act out every thought in your head.
Natalie Chaidez: That’s awesome. That’s awesome.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah. I had… I had that guy fired.
Natalie Chaidez: So what did these guys do? (makes “Y” hand sign) “You” (and “L”) “Loser?” “You…”
Greg Grunberg (laughing): “You loser.” Exactly.

(main video: Matt comes home)
Natalie Chaidez: Oh, do you remember what came after this scene? Do you remember what was cut?
Greg Grunberg: Wait, wh… the plumber!
Natalie Chaidez: The plumber. There was, remember, there was a scene where…
Greg Grunberg: Yeah!
Natalie Chaidez: You come in, and the plumber, and, and, he’s trying to cheat you, and uh…
Greg Grunberg: Oh, man! He’s a great actor! What happened?
Natalie Chaidez: Yeah. He was so awesomely comic. What happened was, we felt, when we watched the cut, we felt like that moment with the badge landed so dramatically, and so deeply, that to follow it with that comic bit…
Greg Grunberg: Yeah.
Natalie Chaidez: …like, undercut your story, in this episode.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah, yeah. Makes sense.
Natalie Chaidez: So, unfortunately, it ended up on the floor. Even though it was a great scene.
Greg Grunberg: So. He did a good job.
Natalie Chaidez: Yeah.
Greg Grunberg: We’ll bring him back. Now he can play a bigger role! You know?
Natalie Chaidez: Yeah! Sure! Maybe he’ll have a power! Super-plumber.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah, exact… Super-plumber! (laughs) That’s what it is. (announcer voice) “Able to fix stopped-up pipes with a single pour.”

(main video: Hiro and Ando in the van with mysterious creepy henchman)
Natalie Chaidez: Now this guy, um, you know, had to learn Japanese, and did amazing. ‘Cause we…
Greg Grunberg: So hard. I had to do this on Alias, I would have to do accents, like, South African accents are the hardest thing, I think, that anybody could ever have to do, because it’s not British, it’s not Australian, it’s just very very difficult. Japanese, I wouldn’t even want to think about.
Natalie Chaidez: Have you worked with Yumi? Have, you know, Yumi’s the, our, uh, translator? And our language coach, yeah. So she…
Greg Grunberg: I haven’t worked with Yumi, no. I’ve met her.
Natalie Chaidez: Yeah. She works with, uh, James. And she also did, uh, worked with this guy. And, of course, is working with Jack now on, uh, episode seventeen.
Greg Grunberg: Mm.
Natalie Chaidez: Hope that’s not…
Greg Grunberg: Oh, that’s right…
Natalie Chaidez: Giving our stuff away, the way that he speaks Japanese… yeah.
Greg Grunberg: Not giving it… no, no, no. People are now gonna go back… (mimes pushing a button on a remote, makes tape rewinding noise) “Jack speaks Japanese?! What the…?!”
Natalie Chaidez: “What does it mean?!”
Greg Grunberg: Exactly. “Grunberg does NOT speak Japanese? Now I’m confused.”

(main video: Peter packs a bag)
Um… what is this.
Natalie Chaidez: Oh, okay. This, this is a pivotal scene, uh, in which Peter has been, uh, sort of ran off from the hospital because he believes, went into the coma and he thinks he’s the bomb…
Greg Grunberg: Right…
Natalie Chaidez: …and he’s fleeing town, to catch a plane to Nevada, uh, or someplace where he thinks he, he can explode safely.
Greg Grunberg: You know what’s ironic about that, is that Milo thinks he’s da bomb.
Natalie Chaidez: (laughs) He does.
Greg Grunberg: So…
Natalie Chaidez: He kinda is.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah, I mean… it kinda works.
Natalie Chaidez: He kinda is.
Greg Grunberg: He is da bomb.
Natalie Chaidez: There was a lot of debate about the scarf, in this scene, wardrobe-wise.
Greg Grunberg: Adrian’s scarf?
Natalie Chaidez: Uh, no, actually, Sendhil’s scarf.
Greg Grunberg: Where’s Sendhil’s scarf?
Natalie Chaidez: Oh, you’ll, you’ll see it in a minute.
Greg Grunberg (clueless): Somebody sneeze? What are you talking about? Did he do magic? Was it, “Hey, guys…”
Natalie Chaidez: Like, it was the sort of ascot quality about the…
Greg Grunberg: Oh, oh, oh, I can’t see, it’s so dark, I can’t see anything! I can’t see that. (main video: close-up on Sendhil) …Oh. Sort of a Mr. Howell quality to his wardrobe.
Natalie Chaidez: Exactly. Exactly.
Greg Grunberg: I like that.
Natalie Chaidez: Yeah, but they, Adrian…
Greg Grunberg (in snooty Mr. Howell accent): When he starts talking like this, that’s when we have to worry.
Natalie Chaidez: They were great in this scene, um, and this moment, they kind of improvised, this sort of intimacy between the two brothers, “You can’t leave,” and Peter’s sort of… faking his way into getting… getting past them. Well, you’ll see right here. This is awesome.
(main video: Peter and Nathan, oh-so-close-talking)
Greg Grunberg: Wow.
Natalie Chaidez: Yeah. Yeah. Was a great moment, right?
Greg Grunberg: It... yeah. Great moment.
Natalie Chaidez: Yeah. Great moment between them. Between the two brothers.
(main video: Peter runs out the door)
Greg Grunberg: Oh, so he was faking his way past… that’s awesome.
Natalie Chaidez: Right.
Greg Grunberg: I mean, they were either gonna kiss, or he was gonna do what he did, and I’m glad he did what he did.
Natalie Chaidez: So here there was big debate about… this is actually on this set, right… well, actually, this stage, right around the corner…
Greg Grunberg: So he flew out the window?
Natalie Chaidez: Well, one… you might think, because he could fly, but no, no, no! Here it is, here’s the big reveal.
Greg Grunberg: That’s awesome!! Now, I was on set when we shot that,
Natalie Chaidez: Right.
Greg Grunberg: And I’ve gotta tell you something, when I saw that shot, I knew that Chris’s character, the invisible storyline, was just going to blow people away.
Natalie Chaidez: I know. People love Christopher.
Greg Grunberg: That was incredible.

---END PART FOUR---

Sorry for the delay...

2007-02-03T05:47:31Z

To anyone who may be watching this page, I'm sorry there won't be a real update tonight; I'm having connection issues and the NBC website is a bit of a lost cause for me right now. Fear not, though, I'll be back at it first thing in the morning *crosses fingers*. Thanks for sticking around!

The Fix commentary transcript, part three

2007-02-02T04:00:26Z

(main video: Niki in the padded cell)
(commentary video: a title card displays “Hayden Panettiere was called back to set.” Natalie Chaidez is now sitting next to Greg.)
Greg Grunberg: Welcome back to the Greg Grunberg commentary show! Um, I didn’t really, uh, appreciate, or understand, my co-host, uh, Hayden Panettiere, so I have a new co-host. A more important co-host. Introduce yourself, Natalie.
Natalie Chaidez: I’m Natalie Chaidez, I’m a co-executive producer and the writer of this episode.
Greg Grunberg: So Natalie was here-- when we were shooting all this stuff, um, there’s always a writer or a producer on set, just to make sure, in case we have little changes, or the tone is off, or whatever…
Natalie Chaidez: Right. Did you-- did you hear the story about this cell?
Greg Grunberg: No.
Natalie Chaidez: You don’t know the story about this cell?
Greg Grunberg: I don’t.
Natalie Chaidez: Okay, well, Ali, so the first shot is her lying on the floor, so we got there and they started shooting with her lying on the floor, and after about a half an hour, she, she got up and she was itching, and she was red,
Greg Grunberg: Allergic to… the rubber room?
Natalie Chaidez: Absolutely allergic, allergic to the cell.
Greg Grunberg: Wow.
Natalie Chaidez: And her, and her, uh, s… her, uh, person, the person that looks like her, that lays on the floor?
Greg Grunberg: Yeah…
Natalie Chaidez: Yeah. Same thing.
Greg Grunberg: Well, did you do that on purpose, just to make her more uncomfortable?
Natalie Chaidez: (laughs) No, but to her credit, she totally went with it. And she was feeling blurry-eyed, and had tears coming out, and she was awesome.
Greg Grunberg: Wow. Wow. She’s unbelievable.
Natalie Chaidez: Yeah.
Greg Grunberg: Now, I also heard another thing, the previous episode ended with her laying on the ground, looking straight ahead…
Natalie Chaidez: Right, right.
Greg Grunberg: Tim said, but then this was discredited by some, by Allan Arkush, another executive producer,
Natalie Chaidez: Okay…
Greg Grunberg: …that that shot from this scene was pulled up and made, like, you guys reworked it to make it the end of the last episode.
Natalie Chaidez: Well, what happened is that everyone thought, like, Ali pulling up her shirt to get the shot was so hot, that they wanted to use it twice.
Greg Grunberg: (laughs)
Natalie Chaidez: That’s actually what happened.
Greg Grunberg: You guys do that a lot with me too, don’t you?
Natalie Chaidez: When you pull up your shirt and we’re, “woo-hoo!”
Greg Grunberg: Exactly. “We wanna see Grunberg… sexy Grunberg again.” Wow, look, come on.
Natalie Chaidez: Yeah. And she, Ali, like…
Greg Grunberg: Ali is unbelie… the stuff she does on the show, people don’t understand how hard that is to do.
Natalie Chaidez: And, and you know the actress from Little… she was in Little Miss Sunshine. The one that was in this scene.
Greg Grunberg: Oh, yeah! Yeah, that’s right!
Natalie Chaidez: Yeah, yeah. Ali loved her. Total chemistry.

(main video: D.L. on the phone)
Oh, all right, this is Leonard, struggling single dad, and this is… this is, like, the first we see of bratty Micah.
Greg Grunberg: Oh, yeah, this is… that’s right.
Natalie Chaidez: Yeah, yeah.
Greg Grunberg: Now Leonard told me, after shooting this, he’s like, “You know what, everyone beats up on me. Everyone! My character just gets knocked around, and then even my own son goes after me!”
Natalie Chaidez: He does. Yeah. Yeah, it’s… it’s true.
Greg Grunberg: See, look at that… what I love about our show is that you can do an untraditional angle, like Greg Beeman, whenever he…
Natalie Chaidez: Right.
Greg Grunberg: …directs, is always, like the camera starts on the ground, and stuff… way back…
Natalie Chaidez: Right. You know what? What I like about this scene, not just the look of it, is that it’s a scene that could be in a show about not superpowers. You know?
Greg Grunberg: Yeah. It’s a character…
Natalie Chaidez: It’s a scene about a struggling… it’s a character scene, absolutely. Struggling single dad, trying to make it, with his wife in prison, I mean, that’s, you know, great.
Greg Grunberg: I mean, this scene’s not that well-written, but I understand what you’re saying, and… oh, I’m sorry.
Natalie Chaidez: (laughs) I think this is Tim’s scene, actually.
Greg Grunberg: (cracks up) This is Tim’s scene!
Natalie Chaidez: Have I explained how we write collaboratively?
Greg Grunberg: Sorry, that’s true. (to camera) Sorry, Tim! Hoo, boy.
Natalie Chaidez: No, uh, you know what? These two… Micah is so good, and Leonard is so good, anything you give them, is like magic!
Greg Grunberg: Yeah. Leonard had a hard time, as did I, in coming on after the pilot…
Natalie Chaidez: Oh.
Greg Grunberg: Uh, not a hard time, but, it was like, it’s a little bit more difficult to establish yourself after people get the first impression of the show…
Natalie Chaidez: Right.
Greg Grunberg: And, uh, he’s just unbelievable. When that first, first time we meet him in the show, I-- he just took command of that character…
Natalie Chaidez: Right.
Greg Grunberg: And it was as if you’d seen him the last five episodes anyway.
Natalie Chaidez: Well, I had, I had known that he had been in Smallville, but he was more of, sort of a younger character, and here, he’s like a man.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah.
Natalie Chaidez: He’s a real man.
Greg Grunberg: Yeah.

(main video: Claire and the Haitian)
Natalie Chaidez: Okay, now this day… were you up here at this, this oil rig?
Greg Grunberg: I, no, I… where is this?
Natalie Chaidez: This is way out in, like, close to Nevada, I think, it’s like about, like, two hund… I don’t know, it’s waaay out the edge of L.A. county, it’s like…
Greg Grunberg: Well, let’s explain to people… when you go beyond 75 miles, per the union, they have to pay per diem, so they always try and stay within that 75-mile perimeter, so this was probably 74 ½ miles away from the studio lot, I would imagine.
Natalie Chaidez: Right. It’s somewhere out in Palmdale, and it’s very cold, it was like… 50.
Greg Grunberg: Really? Even with the sun shining?
Natalie Chaidez: It was brutal.
Greg Grunberg: Wow.
Natalie Chaidez: It was windy, and, uh, this was one of the first times we heard, uh, Jimmy, uh, speak.
Greg Grunberg: Well, the last episode you heard him speak. When they met out there. So it’s the second meeting… that scene was fantastic.
Natalie Chaidez: Right, this is, this is… yeah. And he’s got, like, that great melodious voice…
Greg Grunberg: Oh, the third meeting! ‘Cause the first meeting he’s, he holds her,
Natalie Chaidez: Well, the… right. And he says, “Tell me, Claire, can you keep a secret?” and then, and then, yeah, no, so this is their third.
Greg Grunberg: …Too bad that we don’t have any good-looking people on the show. That’s what we need to do.
Natalie Chaidez: Yeah. Have you seen him with the shirt off?
Greg Grunberg: Have I seen him with his shirt off? Yeah, there’s a picture in the, in our, uh… makeup and hair trailer, there are all these photos all over the place.
Natalie Chaidez: Yeah. Yeah. We, we’re trying to work it into the show, but…
Greg Grunberg: Oh, I’m sure you will at some point. You’ve already taken my shirt off. And I think that’s when we got a dip in the ratings. But anyway!,(points at screen), um, yeah, you can tell it’s cold.
Natalie Chaidez: Right. And this is, she’s just received the information that her mother, her birth mother is dead.
(main video: Mr. and Mrs. Bennet at home)
Oh, there’s, uh, oh, is this… this is the faux Muggles, yeah.
Greg Grunberg: That’s the faux Muggles?! That looks like Muggles!
Natalie Chaidez: This is, this… no, this is faux Muggles, this is not Lestat, the, the dog that plays Muggles is named Lestat,
Greg Grunberg: Right.
Natalie Chaidez: …after the Interview with the Vampire character, this is the faux Muggles, after the…
Greg Grunberg: Is that why you put faux Muggles in a box, or whatever, in a bag?
Natalie Chaidez: Yes. Yes. That’s why, well, no, he was in a carrier because in the story he’s on his way to the groomer to get a nail redone.
Greg Grunberg: Right.
Natalie Chaidez: Uh, but here he had been sprayed… you can kinda see he’s skinnier than Lestat.
Greg Grunberg: Oh, yeah! He looks like… yeah, he looks like a little runt version of, uh…
Natalie Chaidez: Yeah.
Greg Grunberg: I mean, nothing against this dog… we’re gonna get letters from his family.
Natalie Chaidez: No, he did good work, yeah.
Greg Grunberg: (laughs) He did good work. See, he’s gonna put…
Natalie Chaidez: That’s why… that’s why he’s wearing the sweater, though.
Greg Grunberg: That dog’s gonna put “Mr. Muggles” on his resume, and everyone’s gonna go, “No. I know Mr. Muggles. You are no Mr. Muggles.”

(main video: Primatech scientist calls HRG)
Natalie Chaidez: Okay. So…
Greg Grunberg: Now, that’s the guy that played the fake father.
Natalie Chaidez: Right. You might remember him. He came in in the previous episode that I wrote, where he, uh, HRG had brought him in to, uh, tell, tell Claire that he was her dad.
Greg Grunberg: Right.
Natalie Chaidez: Lie to her. But he’s actually sort of an employee at the paper company/organization.
Greg Grunberg: This is a really good episode.
Natalie Chaidez: I know. I love this one. Oh, there’s Sylar.
Greg Grunberg: These just keep getting better and better. Was this one of your favorite to write? Was it hard…
Natalie Chaidez: Um, you know what? I, I loved both of them… no, this… what’s interesting about this episode is this was considered a “smaller” episode, a smaller budget, a little bit of a smaller scale…
(fade out)

---END PART THREE---

The Fix commentary, part two.

2007-02-01T03:57:18Z

(main video: New York City)
Greg Grunberg: Do you get to go to New York when they shoot those establishing shots?

Hayden Panettiere: Mm-hm!

Greg Grunberg: That would be fun.

Hayden Panettiere: Oh, wait…what does that mean? Probably not.

Greg Grunberg: Like, the New York, New York skyline stuff.

Hayden Panettiere: No.

Greg Grunberg: On Felicity, we did. Once a year we went to, to New York. Season two, maybe we’ll make enough money that they can send us. Whoa-hoh!

Hayden Panettiere: (“whoa”s along with Greg)

(main video: Nathan visits Mohinder)

I’m trying to remember when, when this scene was, the episode, we’re so far ahead of them, we’re on, like, seventeen, and this is back in, what, thirteen?

Greg Grunberg: Yeah.

See, I have not yet worked with Adrian.

Hayden Panettiere: I haven’t worked with Adrian. I haven’t worked with anyone but you,

Greg Grunberg: Really?

Hayden Panettiere: …Jack,

Greg Grunberg: Milo,

Hayden Panettiere: …Milo,

Greg Grunberg: And by the way, I have to say, that the stuff with you and Milo was inc… was fantastic. And I’m not just saying that. Like, there’s some… you guys have a really good dynamic.

Hayden Panettiere: Well, they didn’t write any…

Greg Grunberg: No, I just thought it was…

Hayden Panettiere: We haven’t worked together again since.

Greg Grunberg: But it was, uh, it was not only… not only laugh city, it was intense city. It was good.

Hayden Panettiere: (over-exaggerated appreciative noises)

Greg Grunberg: You brought it. You brought it! …You brought it.

Hayden Panettiere: You funny.

Greg Grunberg (fake overwhelmed crying): You guys were fantastic!

Hayden Panettiere (fake crying): Oh, thanks!

Greg Grunberg: I think this scene should be darker.

Hayden Panettiere: Yeah, right, I know.

Greg Grunberg: Sendhil’s on Leno tonight!

(I wonder if there was a question here, or an edit, otherwise Greg says this next bit a propos of nothing whatsoever)

Didn’t … weren’t you in school? Didn’t you have to do school?

Hayden Panettiere (claps him on the shoulder): Yes.

Greg Grunberg: Yes. Did you learn anything?

Hayden Panettiere: No.

Greg Grunberg: No?

Hayden Panettiere: I mean yes.

Greg Grunberg: ‘Cause I learned a lot by watching your work.

Hayden Panettiere: (laughs)

Greg Grunberg: I learned what not to do.

Hayden Panettiere (mock offended): Ohh.

Greg Grunberg: Ho-ho! Kidding.

So, Sendhil… this is one of the first times that he’s actually had a scene with another human being. On the show, he’s always, like, picking up the phone…

Hayden Panettiere: No, he just had a scene with Jack!

Greg Grunberg: I know, but he talks to… no one. A lot.

Hayden Panettiere: Oh yeah.

Greg Grunberg: Yeah. He’ll be the first to admit that.

Hayden Panettiere: Yeah, yeah. Which is, like, one of the hardest things to do, is like, sitting there in a scene and not having anything to say and just having to act with your face.

Greg Grunberg: Yeah.

Hayden Panettiere: It takes a lot of energy out of you!

Greg Grunberg: It does.

(main video: Peter and Claude, on the roof)

He’s (meaning Christopher Eccleston)… this guy’s so strong, he’s… such a presence.

Hayden Panettiere: He’s been in everything.

Greg Grunberg: Yeah. (not coming up with anything) …I wish we had one thing we could reference.

Hayden Panettiere: Pigeons!

Greg Grunberg: Look at that. Okay, so this is shot in the sound stage next door, and, uh, they’re not on a rooftop; every time you see the, New York City, like there, that’s all fake. That’s all green screen. Amazing. Like, this is an effects shot. And you would not… that’s an effects shot, right there, and you would never think.

Hayden Panettiere: We have the… we have the greatest DPs and cameramen and operators, and, and, everything.

Greg Grunberg: John Aronson, our Director of Photography, is like… he’s an artist.

Hayden Panettiere: Amazing. And… did Nate do this, or…

Greg Grunberg: Nate may have done this, yeah, I think Nate did do this. Nate’s incredible too.

Hayden Panettiere: Nate’s… they’re… we’ve got the best. It’s like shooting a movie every day, we use two cameras always, it’s…

Greg Grunberg: Yeah, (to camera) well you guys can see that, I mean, look at me, right now, on video? They did not light this. (gestures to his face) Clearly. On the show, though, I’m absolutely stunning.

Hayden Panettiere: (laughs)

Greg Grunberg: Absolutely gorgeous.

Hayden Panettiere: He is. If I do say so myself.

(main video: Claude grabs Peter by the collar.)

Greg Grunberg (points prop gun threateningly at screen): Okay. (reholsters gun) I’m just a little overzealous sometimes. Gotta protect my Milo.

Hayden Panettiere (laughs): We’re all very protective of each other on the show.

Greg Grunberg: Yeah.

Hayden Panettiere: Very protective of each other. It’s like a big group of brothers and sisters.

Greg Grunberg: Milo can’t wait to get rid of that lock of hair.

Hayden Panettiere: I know. It’s like, we, we, we play games to his hair, like, like how, how many times he goes like this (brushes her hair out of her face) and floats his hair back, or tucks it behind his ear, or, I mean… he’s got, like, three or four different things that he does.

(main video: Claire and Zach)

Oh, god. That was a hard line. (something unintelligible)

Greg Grunberg: Yeah, it was. That was a mouthful. What’s it like to work with him? (points)

Hayden Panettiere: Thomas is awesome. He’s usually either beatboxing or singing, and he’s got the most inc… incredible music…

Greg Grunberg: Really?

Hayden Panettiere: … music… he writes, and he produces, and he sings.

Greg Grunberg: I have three boys, I take them to this dentist who is, uh, called Dr. Supertooth, because he wears a cape, and a, you know, Superman outfit, ‘cause it’s a kids’ dentist?

Hayden Panettiere: Mm-hm.

Greg Grunberg: And they said, uh, they were like, “You know who else comes here?” (indicates Thomas Dekker on the screen) He comes! He goes to Dr. Supertooth! Little trivia, no one needs to know!

Hayden Panettiere: He’s so funny.

Greg Grunberg: Too much information, Greg!

Hayden Panettiere: He’s got, I think…

Greg Grunberg: He’s got the best teeth. He’s got Superteeth!

Hayden Panettiere: (laughs)

Greg Grunberg: Look at this. We’re shooting in this house right now.

Hayden Panettiere: I, I… whenever I went-- Mr. Muggles. This was actually not-- I’m gonna tell you a secret.

Greg Grunberg: Oh, is this the scene you were telling me about?!

Hayden Panettiere: This was not our real Mr. Muggles. The real Mr. Muggles, whose name is Lestat, was off (puts on a snooty voice) doing a film, and apparently we could not get a hold of him.

Greg Grunberg: Yeah. “Lestat was out of reach.”

Hayden Panettiere: (laughs) Out of contact, all the way across the other side of the… um, the country. So he’s become a big… big star.

Greg Grunberg: Yeah, Lestat.

Hayden Panettiere: Big star. And so this was a dog that, I swear to god, didn’t even look like a normal Pomeranian, so we had to find a jacket for him, we had to spray paint him, we didn’t know what to do. And nobody knew that he was going to come in and we looked at him, we went, “What’s THAT?”

Greg Grunberg: (laughs) That’s right, they looked at him, and they were like, “You gotta be kidding me.” That’s why it was such a quick shot, of Lestat’s backside.

Hayden Panettiere: Yeah, it was like, “Oh, done! Nope! Bye!”

Greg Grunberg: Yeah. Just to establish Mr. Muggles. …His poops don’t stink, did you know that? He’s a big movie star now.

Hayden Panettiere: (laughs) He’s the sweetest thing in the world. I love that dog. Lestat, he’s named after the king of the vampires, though, like, which is very strange, little fluffy thing, he is.

(main video: After Claire leaves, HRG’s face becomes suspiciously serious)

Greg Grunberg: Ooh, look at that. Come on! No one does that better than Jack Coleman. We had to do that on Alias a bunch, you know, like we were good (looks innocent), and then evil (looks shifty). And, if you’re in a group, if you’re in a crowd, and you (gestures to Hayden) walk away, you never, if… in real life, you never go from this (smiling and happy) to THIS (eeeevil). It just never happens in real life. He sells that better than anybody.

Hayden Panettiere: (off Claire hanging the wind chimes) That was a big sound problem, they didn’t like me for that. So I actually, I had to hold, when I took those, those chimes out, I had to hold the chimes together so that it wouldn’t make a noise.

(main video: crossfade from Claire’s wind chimes to the wind chimes in the back yard of the Parkman home.)

Greg Grunberg: This is why they started on the chimes, in my, in the scene! I had no idea.

Hayden Panettiere: Ohh!

Greg Grunberg: I was like, “Hey, start on my face!” They’re like, “No, we’re starting on the chimes.”

Hayden Panettiere: Where was this filmed?

Greg Grunberg: This is shot in, uh, Pasadena, and we go back to their house all the time.

Hayden Panettiere: Why do you guys get to go only to Pasadena, and we have to go all the way to Santa Clarita?

Greg Grunberg: I don’t know.

Hayden Panettiere: Every time we film an outdoor shot you get, you see, it’s in Santa…

Greg Grunberg: Because you’re in Texas. You see these plants? Look at, these plants don’t grow in Texas.

Hayden Panettiere: (longingly) Green. I love green. Um, we shoot in Santa Clarita, um, we shoot the high school in Santa Clarita, um, we shoot the outside of my house in Santa Clarita, so every outdoor shot you see me in, (said like it’s painful to her) is somewhere in Santa Clarita.

Greg Grunberg (fake-distracted by himself on the screen): That’s a great story. I am such a good actor.

Hayden Panettiere: Gregory. Phillip.

Greg Grunberg: (laughs)

Hayden Panettiere: Don’t make me go to the middle name.

Greg Grunberg: Ohhhh… see, now, again, Lisa Lackey, just bringin’ it. She’s so good, oh, look at this, look, look, the water. Poor Matt Parkman.

Hayden Panettiere: We’ve got the greatest prop, prop man as well. James Clark.

Greg Grunberg: James? (dismissive) James is okay.

Hayden Panettiere (exasperated): Oh, shusshh!

Greg Grunberg: He’s the best.

Hayden Panettiere: He’s the bomb. He’s the bomb.

Greg Grunberg: He’s in control of every one of the props. (Pulling out prop gun) He would never let something like… this… (abashedly reholsters gun)

Hayden Panettiere (whispers): Put that away.

Greg Grunberg: James always has guns in his control at all times. This is a rubber gun, just for anybody interested, this is totally… (waves gun, taps his arm with it a few times to demonstrate) rubber, it’s not real.

Hayden Panettiere: But he, he does everything, he’s on top of everything.

(main video: Hiro and Ando, under the car)

Greg Grunberg: Oh, this, this was shot-- this was shot at night, underneath, uh, the van, right outside the sound stage.

Hayden Panettiere: We shoot a lot outside the sound stage. When you, when you first see D.L. and, and Niki, when they’re going down into the lower, um, part and they’re finding the guys who are ripped to shreds, and he, the first time you see him unlock the door? You don’t really see it-- um, they were right outside. That was right one… outside one of our sound stages.

Greg Grunberg: Yep. We fake it all.

Hayden Panettiere: Um, and we shoot all the… all of her, the times that she’s in a, um, cell…

(main video: someone gets in the car)

Greg Grunberg: Oh, god…

Hayden Panettiere: Uh-oh, that’s not good.

(main video: the car drives away)

Greg Grunberg: That’s so good. Look at that.

Hayden Panettiere: Every time she’s in a cell, there’s a cell and all that stuff, we build in an, actually in an old tennis court, I think, downstairs, in the basement of…

Greg Grunberg: Really?

Hayden Panettiere: …one of the studios. Yeah.

Greg Grunberg: I didn’t know that. See, I learned something. There’s that parking lot again.

Hayden Panettiere: And vans.

Greg Grunberg: Oh, Masi is not a good runner, but he looked good in that scene, look at that!

(main video: Hiro turns to see the goons grab Ando)

Oh, no.

Hayden Panettiere: Leave, or stay?

Greg Grunberg: Wow. See, this is a perfect example…

Hayden Panettiere: That’s hilarious, look at Masi!

Greg Grunberg: No, but, no one does it… Tim Kring, Jeph Loeb, Greg Beeman, no one does it better. End an act with an exciting, an exciting twist or something… look at this. Look at that! He gets taken away, what’s he gonna do… this is great. …It’s so exciting, I have nothing to say.

Hayden Panettiere: I know. …”This is how we roll.” (laughs)

Greg Grunberg: (laughs) Come on!

Hayden Panettiere: Great.

Greg Grunberg: That’s fantastic.

---END PART TWO---

Ella Ventic

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Unexpected commentary transcript, part two!

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Run! commentary, part two

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