Super Hiro

Heroes is back on BBC2 next Wednesday, rendering the Arena office’s legion of fans an unfeasibly excited mass of humanity, even after that slightly dodgy season two.

One of the superpowered stars of the show, Masa Oki, aka time-travelling Hiro Nakamura, is the subject of First and Last in the October issue of Arena, on sale now. Sadly, we didn’t have room for all his words of wisdom in the magazine, so here we present the bits we had to leave out…

First time you were shocked by a swear word
“It was when I found out it was a swear word. It rhymed with ‘duck’ and I thought the word was pretty cool, so I’d been using it all the time. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’ Then, when someone actually told me what it meant I realised I shouldn’t really be saying that.”

Last time you gave up
“Ironically, I gave up acting when we were filming the pilot season of Heroes. I made a conscious choice that I’m done with it, because I’d written a script, and a TV producer I knew loved it, but said, “Hey finish the pilot season as an actor and then we’ll develop the script.” But in my mind I was done with it, I thought I’d just get through it, go through the motions, and then turn to the script, but of course things turned out slightly differently and I’m glad that I didn’t quit.”

First time you had a fight
“My only fistfight was back in school. This guy was being a bully, talking down to some other guy and pushing him around, and I was like, ‘Dude, you shouldn’t do that.’ And I threw a punch. This guy was about three times bigger than I was, but, I needed to defend this other kid’s honour. After that, though, I learnt my mistake and I’ve not been in a fight since. It hurts less.”

Last time you wasted a lot of money
“I suppose it depends how you define ‘wasted’. I really like playing poker, it’s a great way to meet people and socialise, and I like telling what kind of person they are by the way they play. I remember one game, with industry people, high-rolling producers, and I didn’t know how much the buy-in was. And they made me buy in for big money, several thousand bucks, saying, ‘Oh, you’re a TV star, you have loads of money.’

But, contrary to popular opinion, we don’t make that much money on Heroes, at least not yet — not until the re-negotiation. But I didn’t want to say that I couldn’t afford it and look bad. So I lost a lot. And no, I’m not telling you how much I lost. It is kind of private (laughs).”

To read the rest of our interview with Masi Oka, get the October issue of Arena, on sale now, priced £3.80. Or click here to subscribe.