UPDATE: The first webisode is now live, it's at this link at NBC.com. Have at it, gang!
Good morning Heroes fans. It's a Monday and we're coming off quite the good episode from last week. We've finally seen where all the players from the past key into the story of The Company. We learn more about Angela Petrelli that I ever thought there was to learn. We met the young Chandra Suresh and with that we discover this very Battlestar-esque meme of how we as a people are bound to repeat the mistakes of our past if we don't learn from them, or even worse, don't let that history be known to all.
And today, the first of a four-segment webisode series begins starring everyone's favorite creepy puppeteer Eric Doyle, who, with the new identity given to him by the helpful cheerleader Claire Bennet attempts to go off and live a life of relative obscurity as an office drone.
Of all things, huh?
Doyle has been played brilliantly by, per Variety's Brian Lowry this past week, "the very regally named David H. Lawrence XVII" (which, by the way, is his SAG name because there was another David Lawrence and you can't have two). I wrote about David's first appearance as Doyle because he totally creeped me out in his scenes in that first episode he shot with Jessalyn Gilsig's Meredith Gordon.
(During my lunch with David, he wanted me all to remind you to watch Gilsig on Glee this May 19 after Idol on Fox, he really loved working with her. And as I've said on a few occasions now, he's such a mensch.)
We met at Mo's in Burbank and hit the ground running -- he's one of those people that I would never run out of conversation with, we have too many interests in common.
What you don't know is that Lawrence's first episode was supposed to be his last. I'll have him tell the story to you later in the webisode series. I will be having parts of my interview with him from last week posted with each of this four part series.
Suffice to say on his first day of shooting the writers on the set disappeared and then reappeared with more stuff for him. He's now appeared in eight episodes since that debut on Heroes last September, which you'll find out as the weeks progress is a testament to his preparation and, I think, his passion for doing this.
Another thing you don't know about Lawrence, a Cleveland guy who had a big career in radio broadcasting and in technology for years (just look around his website to see all the irons he has in the fire) until he finally succumbed to that need to fulfill his dream. He's only been seriously pursuing this acting career for the past three years, and he's applied all those skills from his previous profession admirably and quite effectively.
More on all these things as the episodes progress. I could throw it all at you now, but I know you can see these webisodes everywhere and I want you to keep coming back here for them.
So, we're good? Okay.
We start with David talking about finding out that this web series would center around him.
"You could have knocked me over with a feather," he told me. "My agent called and said they want you to do some webisodes series. I said some webisodes for Heroes, and he's like yeah, and I said, 'The Recruit? And Going Postal?'
"And he said, 'I have no idea what you're talking about,' but I did because I'm a fan."
"When I found out they were centering it about me I thought they would just have me do what I did on the show, I'd show up I'd do some puppet stuff and then they'd get rid of me or they'd make me scream that I wanna be normal."
But that's not the case. Eric Doyle, as you know, now has a new identity. He is Jason now, and as you'll see there's also someone else from the Heroes universe that mysteriously reappears. All he would tell me is that I would be very surprised.
"This is all about what happens to this character after Claire helps him and you find out what that smile was all about, Lawrence said. "That smirk at the end after Claire asks, 'Are you serious? Are you really gonna change?' and I give you that smirk? You'll see."
"And when you watched the trailer you saw a character that makes a return that nobody expected. I was really amazed at how well it is written and what it let me do."
The webisodes were produced by Heroes Exec Producer Dennis Hammer and written by Timm Keppler and Jim Martin. They're shot by Retrofit Films, which both David and I agree is important to continuity for the fans.
"They so get the Heroes look and feel and they have access to all the same production elements, so they have all the familiar music and the effects for the fans ... and, I finally go a copy of my sound effect."
Then Lawrence does the effect with the hand movement, the mouth's closed movement that you might remember from your kindergarten teacher now taken to an entirely creepy new level, and, honestly, I got a little freaked out, right there in front of my omelette and bagel.
"It's a four episode series," he explains, "and we find out what kind of a really wonderful guy Eric/Jason is. I get a love interest and I get to save a damsel in distress, and I get to kick some ass.
"I watched the episodes in the big digital theatre at NBC.com and I'm thinking this is some of the best work I've ever done. If it all ended tomorrow, this would be awesome. It'll be really interesting to see how the fans react to it. "
This blogger doesn't think for a second that it will all end tomorrow for David. I'm pretty sure the second the people at Heroes let him go he'll be on his way to bigger things.
In the subsequent weeks, I'll have details for you about David's career in radio and the tech field, more about his really remarkable "second act," his kids' reaction to his rather sudden launch into the Zeitgeist (it involves a Zac Efron request) and of course I'll have more of Heroes: Nowhere Man, which premieres today online.
After the jump, watch Tim Kring talk to you fans about the show and these webisodes, and then watch the trailer, see the mystery returning player, and as soon as it posts at NBC.com, I'll be updating this post with the link to the first segment of Heroes: Nowhere Man, starring David Lawrence.
UPDATE: The first segment is live, as I said at the top of this post, at this NBC.com link.
