Sendhil Ramamurthy is one of the stars of the fantastic new series HEROES and he plays Mohinder Suresh, a lecturer at Madras University. His father, a pioneering genealogist, believed that evolution had already taken a step forward and there were people in the world who were pushing the boundaries of human capabilities. He had traveled to New York to carry on his research and to find these unique individuals. On hearing the news that his father had been murdered whilst driving a cab, Mohinder decides to continue his father’s work, so he goes to his flat in India to gather some papers but finds that someone else is also tracking his father’s work. Mohinder becomes the a central character in the unfolding of the story of these unlikely heroes.
I met up with Sendhil, at the Soho Hotel, just before Christmas. It was the end of a long day of interviews for him, but he was still filled with enthusiasm for the show. I promised him I wouldn’t ask him what super power he would have if he could, which got us off to a good start.
SFL: How did you get the part in HEROES?
SR: I was living here, in London, and my agent in L.A. sent my London agent the script and said, “Get Sendhil to put himself on tape for this”. I read it and I thought the script was fantastic but I didn’t see a part in it for me because the part I’m playing now was originally my father, a 55 year old man. That’s how it was written in the pilot. So I did the tape, and it was good because I put no pressure on myself, I didn’t care. I just kind of did it and was very loose and relaxed with the whole thing. I sent the tape off and never expected to hear anything about it again. They called up and said they were into it and brought me out to screen test. I showed up at the screen test and it was me and five other guys, who were 55-ish. I just thought, “OK, I’m here and they flew me out so I must be in with a shot.” I did my thing, and they told me not to shave, to have stubble, to wear a suit, then not to wear a suit and wear jeans. So I came in again and wore jeans. I turns out, what was happening was Tim Kring [the show’s creator] was refashioning the character and ended up changing it. In the pilot there was one scene and that was all you saw of Mohinder. That was it. He ended up refashioning the character to fit me and then, eventually, my character became the narrator of the show as well. The character just expanded and expanded and became something that I never thought it would become, and I guess Tim hadn’t thought of it before either, he just ended up changing it.
SFL: So he changed the whole scope of the show for you.
SR: Not the scope of the show, but the character of the show. I guess in a way because I bring everybody together. Hopefully I’m going to bring everybody together. I’m hoping I do. I really can’t see me not doing that. I hope that’s what happens at the end of the season, anyway. That’s what I’m hoping, because we can’t all be separate all the time.
SFL: How many episodes have been shot so far?
SR: We’ve finished shooting 15. I go back on the second of January and start shooting the 16th episode on the third.
SFL: So where do you think the show is going to go? You say that you don’t know if all the characters are going to come together yet.
SR: We have to. Whether it’s this season or next season or whenever, we have to, otherwise what’s the point? I just don’t know when it is. We get the episodes three days before we shoot it, tops. Sometimes we get it the day before. There are even rewrites on the set, a whole page rewritten. We really don’t have any idea of what’s occurring. I can tell you where I would like the show to go. I would like us to all come together, preferably at the end of this season, I don’t want it to go into next season, but it may well do. I don’t know. Then I want us to go on a mission to save the world. I want it to all be together. I want us to all be working together and I don’t want all of us to be good. I want some people to be bad. I wouldn’t be averse to Mohinder being bad – that would be really fun to play. That would be really cool if he got this really sick, twisted, demented, mad-scientist thing going on and started creating people of his own, maybe. I don’t know how it would go, but I would love Mohinder to go rogue, and hopefully a few other people would go rogue as well. It would be great.
SFL: Like Mendez, the artist, who’s a little bit bad already.
Yeah. What a dream part. It’s such a cool part, being a strung out heroin addict. How much fun is that to play? It’s great.
SFL: As long as you don’t have to do it method.
SR: Absolutely. That’s what I hope happens. God knows. Everything that I’ve wished would happen, nothing has happened, but what they’ve come up with is better than what I envisioned. So hopefully, that’s what will happen with this.
SFL: That’s why they’re the writers and you’re the actor.
SR: Exactly. That’s why I don’t make my living writing.
SFL: In India’s heritage there are a lot of heroes.
SR: Absolutely. Bollywood movies are full of it. They’re all heroes. And there’s a villain. There’s always a villain. We should refashion Heroes into a Bollywood musical. That would be fun.
SFL: Like they did a musical episode of Buffy.
SR: Exactly. You know, I bet our writers could come up with something like that. That would be so much fun to do. We have a couple of singers in our cast. Hayden Panettiere sings and Masi Oka sings.
SFL: There’s also the whole mythology of India, with Sri Rama and Hanumana – archetypal heroes.
SR: That would be amazing. That would be really cool to do.
SFL: They talk about in the time of Rama, people could fly.
SR: Yeah. No question. Hanumana, the monkey god, could fly. They all had chariots too that could fly, that was cool. Have a flying chariot instead of rolling around on the ground, why would you do that, when you could fly?
SFL: There has always been talk of the arrival of the Golden Age, Satya Yuga, at about this time, when people will start manifesting these powers. It seems like HEROES is an unconscious manifestation of those ideas.
SR: Absolutely. Tim Kring wrote the show as a fantastical answer to what was going on in the world today. A world were someone straps explosives to themselves and blows up a café or flies planes into a building. Or there can be people starving to death in Darfur simply because they don’t have food, they don’t have water – how simple is that. There are rich countries that can provide that and aren’t.
SFL: And in this hotel they charge £5 for a bottle of imported water.
SR: Exactly. All of this happening in the world, like this is the world we live in today and let’s give people some hope. So that’s what he was writing this for. Ultimately we want to entertain people and watch an hour of hopefully good television but also inspire them to kind of do something and show them you can make a difference. You don’t have to be able to fly or walk through a wall or teleport yourself, but that’s what we’re hoping to do.
SFL: Your character starts off very sceptical, doesn’t he?
SR: I think it’s realistic. Your father comes to you and says he believes that some people have developed powers all over the world and that people can fly and spontaneously regenerate themselves, you’re going to think he’s nuts.
SFL: Usually it’s the other way round. Kids go to their father and say, “Hey Dad, guess what? You can…” because kids are generally more adventurous.
SR: That’s the thing. It gave me… My character is the realist in the whole show. He’s the character that grounds the whole show in any sort of reality. That gave me a great base to start from as my first reaction to all of this is a real reaction. I think it was a real reaction to all of this. How I become convinced of it is by a vision. I’m still trying to figure it out, I’m assured it’s going to be explained how this boy came back to me and why he came back to me to show me the way, in those India episodes. I think it’s great that what changes my mind is actually somebody with a power. I love that about the show, that the writers did that.
SFL: A lot of the academics in India now are very sceptical.
SR: I think academics in general are sceptical, especially scientists. That’s it. That’s what they do. They’re sceptics and you have to convince them with proof. You have to show it to them, and that’s what happens.
SFL: Although you would think that the Indians, with that long, long tradition of the yogis they would be less sceptical. Do you think that maybe they are disillusioned by all the charlatans that are around?
SR: Maybe. I never looked at it like that. I looked at it from the point of a scientist. Whether he’s Indian or not, any scientist is going to need empirical proof. He needs data. It’s got nothing to do with spirituality. I don’t think of Mohinder as a spiritual person, at all. Like, not at all. I don’t think he believes in spirituality. I think he believes in science, and that’s the way I approach the character. Spirituality – he wants nothing to do with it.
SFL: As an Indian actor, before this came along, did you have trouble getting work, or were there always offers to play Middle Eastern terrorists?
SR: I made a conscious decision not to go in on those roles, so I just didn’t. I did a lot of theatre. I was at the RSC when I was here. I did a series here, on ITV, called ULTIMATE FORCE. I did those kind of shows. Then to get a part like this, I haven’t seen a part like this for an Indian actor on any show, anywhere- here or in the States.
SFL: Except in Bollywood, of course.
SR: In Bollywood, absolutely. On an English speaking show I haven’t seen a character like this. I’m eternally grateful to Tim Kring for writing the part.
SFL: Which do you prefer, stage or television?
SR: They’re just so different. Fulfilment-wise, absolutely it is the stage, without question. There’s something about going out there and not have the luxury of another take. You just have to be a little bit better on the night. You have to do it. If you screw up you have to find a way out of it right then and there. There’s no “Cut! Can I do that again?” You just can’t do that. And the interaction with the audience, too. You don’t have that with film or television. I love that. I love being able to have a live audience there reacting. They’re going to laugh in different places every night. There is going to be gasps and some people are going to find it really offensive you’ve said and you’re going to know about it because they are going to get up and walk out, or whatever. Any of that stuff, that’s what you get from the theatre. That’s what I really, really enjoy.
SFL: There are lots of comic books and comic book references in the show.
SR: Tons.
SFL: Are you in to comic books. Do you read them or did you read them as a child?
SR: No. We get asked that question a lot. None of us read comic books, except for Masi. He is very much like his character, really into comic books, and really into sci-fi. The rest of us, we did the comic book convention in San Diego and people were kind of bummed out that none of us read comics. I literally haven’t read a comic book in my life. I’ve never, ever read a comic book. And I was never into sci-fi. I never really got into it. I wasn’t a Trekkie or any of those things.
SFL: That’s nothing to be ashamed of.
SR: It was never something that jumped out at me. For the most part none of us were, which is why it’s so funny that we’ve all become so involved in it.
SFL: I did an interview with Brent Spiner, who plays Data in STAR TREK, and he said the same. He wasn’t a fan of sci-fi and for him it was just another job.
SFL: One final question. Who are your personal heroes, living or dead?
SR: Living or dead – let’s see. My parents are certainly heroes of mine. An historical figure… Let me see. I have sports heroes. I’m just trying to think. I want to give you a good hero answer. All my heroes are sports heroes because I’m such a huge tennis player and I love tennis. There are people I look up to in the sport. I think Roger Federer is amazing. Rod Laver is an amazing person. Even McEnroe and his attitude, I loved it. That was so great for tennis. So I’ll go with sports heroes.
SFL: Thanks for your time and I look forward to seeing where the series goes when it starts in February. And good luck with the rest of the series.
SR: Thank you.
HEROES premieres on the SciFi Channel (Sky 129, NTL:Telewest 135, Homechoice 22) on Monday February 19 2007 at 22:00, with two espisodes.
To win one of two HEROES press packs, signed by Sendhil, go to the competitions section of the forum for full details.