MASI OKA

FILM INTERVIEW Get Smarter MASI OKA’S PLAN FOR WORLD DOMINATION

S HEROES’ TIMETRAVELING samurai Hiro Nakamura, Tokyoborn Masi Oka has already earned Emmy and Golden Globe Award nominations for his talents. Now, with a hilarious role as Steve Carell’s sidekick in the new Get Smart film adaptation, the 33-year-old former CGI expert has his sights set on a Hollywood breakthrough. We recently caught up with Oka to discuss his whirlwind career. A BY B. LOVE

You were on the cover of Time Magazine at the age of 12 in an issue about “AsianAmerican Whiz Kids.” How did that initial taste of fame affect your life?

I was very shy as a boy, and still am, so I kinda freaked out when I saw myself on the cover. But my grandparents were very proud, so they bought like 100 copies and wherever we went they would give them out. It was kind of embarrassing, and made me realize I didn’t want to be famous.

You graduated from Brown University with degrees in Math and Computer Science and a minor in Theatre. Was a career in show business your primary goal at that time?

I never though of show business as something I’d be doing, especially not as an actor, but when I found out about the job opportunity at Industrial Light & Magic I got really excited. I love computer graphics and I do like movies, but I didn’t realize there was a job where you could do that. Slowly, doors just started opening for me.

What did you learn about the art of filmmaking while working as a CGI artist? I learned a lot about the behind-thescenes stuff. There are like 50 people working to render 80 frames, and it takes them a month just to create three seconds of magic. It’s absolutely unreal how grandiose everything is, and it teaches you to appreciate the work these people do. The stars might be the face of the project, but the real action happens behind the scenes.

How did you make the move from working behind the scenes to becoming an actor? Well, I got the acting bug in college, and I figured I’d try it just once so I’d have stories to tell my grandchildren. Some people drive cross-country when they’re young, some people smoke weed, but I wanted to give acting a try and figured since I had no responsibilities to anyone but myself, this would be the time to do it. So after I finished working on my first big movie [as a CGI artist], The Perfect Storm, I had this big break where I decided I could enjoy doing for the rest of my life. I got my SAG card, and the rest is history.

When you initially read the script for Heroes, did you have any clue what a pop culture phenomenon the show would be?

Actually, I had no idea. When I first read the script, I thought it was absolutely amazing, because the characters were so well defined and 3-dimensional for comic book archetypes. Tim created this amazing world with so much possibility, and when we started making it we knew we had something special. But while I knew it would attract the Comic Con and sci-fi, I never expected it to get the mainstream reception that it got. That was a surprise to me.

Science fiction and fantasy fans can be fairly fanatical. What’s the most unusual Heroes fan encounter you’ve had thus far?

Every one is unique in its own way. I’ve gotten marriage proposals, people chasing me down the street, people dressing up in drag and stalking me at Comic Con, faint ing when meeting me. That’s always like, “Whoa!”

Tim Kring has acknowledged the show lost its way a bit, but your time travel storyline got a lot of screen time. How did you feel about the second season overall? Well, the first season was absolutely magical, and it set such a high bar that there was no way that any season could really top it. It was perfect, and as a result I think the writers were very bold in doing something completely different and taking it in a different direction. I give them a lot of respect for that, and I think when the second season started out they had a lot of great ideas. It just didn’t click, and there was a little bit of confusion about whether we wanted to reset and try to bring in new characters and attract a new audience so they wouldn’t feel like they’re missing out on anything. But in doing that we kind of patronized our fans from season one. So I think it was a nice wake-up call for everyone. They tried something different

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and they recognized the challenges before them, but it fell a little flat. Personally, I would’ve loved to see more fighting…

You’ve actually studied Japanese swordfighting, right? Yeah, and I love all that samurai stuff. But when you see a Western, you want to see a gunfight, but we put off the battle for five weeks. We finally got to do one big swordfight at the end, but the great thing about that era is the fights, so I would’ve liked to see more of them.

If you could write Hiro Nakamura’s storyline for season 3, what would it be?

I don’t know, what made great the first season was his child-like sense of wonder. He was very much the comic relief, but I also want to see him grow. There’s something about the promise in the dichoto my– the juxtaposition of future Hiro and present Hiro– and I’d like to see him go a little bit to the dark side. Either he needs to start to make that journey or else he needs to go back to being a true goofball.

Get Smart is obviously your biggest film role to date. What was it like working with comedic heavyweights such as Steve Carell, Alan Arkin and Bill Murray?

It was unbelievable! I grew up worshipping these guys, because they came out of Second City, which is where I trained. So at first I was very nervous coming into it, because I knew I was gonna be improvising with these guys, and what happens if they don’t laugh? Comedy is more harsh because you get that immediate response, and if you’re funny people are gonna laugh and if you aren’t then they won’t. The first day I felt like the new kid on the block, so I kinda tread lightly, but from the second day on they give us a chance to improvise, and we hit it out of the park. If you can make Steve Carell and Alan Arkin laugh so hard they ruin their take, it’s like, “Yes!”

What’s the story behind this direct-toDVD spin-off, Get Bruce & Lloyd? IfGet Smart is Hamlet, then Get Bruce & Lloyd is Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead [the Tom Stoppard play based on minor characters from Shakespeare’s Hamlet]. We shot an entirely separate fea ture that follows the same timeline as the theatrical film, but from the perspective of our characters. You’ll see a couple of the same scenes that are in Get Smart. It’s a different approach to marketing, because it comes out just 10 days after the film hits theaters, so hopefully people will go back and forth from one to the other.

Your career has really taken off these past few years. Where would you like to see it go from here?

Onwards and upwards! There’s a lot of great stuff out there, and not just in the TV and film markets. I’m interested in new media, such as the gaming market. I’m interested in creating a lot of the content, not just as an actor but as a producer, writer and possibly director. I’m trying to do it all, but it’s a constant learning pro cess, so I’m slowly expanding and doing as much as I can.