Interview: George Takei of Heroes
L.A. native stars as Hiro's (Masi Oka) dad in primetime drama
From his role as Dr. Sulu on Star Trek to playing Hiro's father on Heroes, George Takei shows he's equally comfortable in outer space or hanging with superheroes
George Takei is globally recognized as Dr. Sulu from Star Trek. But in his newest incarnation, the Japanese-American actor plays a stiff, domineering father to Hiro (Masi Oka) on Heroes.
On the phone from L.A., the city where he was born, Takei’s rich voice booms and flows fluidly for an hour as he talks about spending four years of his childhood in American internment camps; about coming out last year; and the relationship between Star Trek and Heroes.
Q. How did the role of Hiro’s dad, Kaito Nakamura come to you?
A. One day my agent called and said there’s interest in you for Heroes but they want you to audition. I’m not one of these pumped-up egocentric guys who don’t like to audition. They emailed the script to me and my agent said they want you to translate it into Japanese and audition in Japanese. I do speak Japanese but it’s little bit of extra work. It turns out they wanted to make sure my command of Japanese was credible.
Q. I know you won’t give away secrets but tell us about your character. Is it fair to say you won’t be playing a cuddly TV dad?
A. It’s hard to make any judgments. I am making discoveries with each script. I thought he was just a very concerned father who is a powerful industrialist but I’m discovering various other dimensions to him which makes the character even more ambiguous. I won’t reveal too much so the fans can enjoy the anguished tension!
Q. What’s your relationship with Masi Oka? He’s also very well educated and is considered a Renaissance man. (Takei studied at UC Berkeley and graduated from UCLA.)
A. When we first met we chatted about how interesting it is that we’ll be working in Japanese. And I discovered that he speaks Spanish and so do I. I was born in East L.A., which is a Mexican-American barrio and grew up hearing the language. I studied it in high school and my minor in college was Latin American studies...so we started conversing in Spanish and it blew the minds of all the people sitting around us.
Q. Hiro loves Dr. Sulu and is a huge Star Trek fan. Did you see this as a way to honour your role and move apart from it.
A. It’s kind of a completion of a circle. Here’s this character who is a Star Trek fan and supposedly he saw me younger on the Enterprise and here I am playing his father. So there is a wonderful circle here that could turn into another interesting kind of spiral. Heroes is very much like Star Trek in many ways. It’s more fantastical but it’s contemporary and so I told Masi…well actually you guys of the 21st century are the progenitors of the characters on Star Trek, because we come two centuries after you.
Q. Although you’ve been quoted as saying that your friends and family know you’re gay, what prompted you to come out publicly?
A. In 2005 the California legislature did an extraordinary thing, they passed the same-sex marriage bill. All it required to become law was the signature of our governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. When he ran for office he made all these moderate statements, he’s from Hollywood he’s worked with gays and lesbians, he’s very comfortable with them…and we felt surely that California was going to book-end the United States with Massachusetts. [Judicially had introduced same-sex law.] When he vetoed the bill, playing to the reactionary segment of his very conservative base, I felt I had to speak out and my voice needed to be authentic.
Q. What are your memories of the internment camp?
A. I still remember that scary day when American soldiers with bayoneted guns came to our front door [in L.A.] and ordered us out. I was four almost five. We were taken by train to the steamy swamps of Southern Arkansas for 1½ years and then we were transferred to another camp in Northern California on the Oregon border. When the war ended I was eight years old. The first place my parents found a home for us was on Skid Row in L.A. and that was terrifying for us.
