Watching Heroes

The artist behind the Heroes paintings is celebrating his birthday today. Tim Sale was born in Ithaca, New York on May 1, 1956. Sale grew up in the Seattle, Washington area and studied art at the University of Washington for two years. He also attended the John Buscema Workshop and The School of Visual Arts in New York City before returning to Seattle.

Tim’s first comic book work came when he drew for Phil Foglio on Warp Graphics Myth Adventures in 1983. He went on to work on Thieves World for Donning/Starblaze in 1985 before eventually moving on to mainstream comics.

Much of Tim’s work has been a collaboration with Jeph Loeb. They have worked together on Batman: The Long Halloween, Batman: Dark Victory and the Marvel color books which feature Spider-Man, Daredevil and Hulk. The duo, of course, went on to work on Heroes - Tim as the artist behind Isaac Mendez’ paintings and Loeb as co-executive producer.

Watching Heroes would like to wish Tim a very happy birthday!

Happy Birthday to Nathan Petrelli’s alter ego, Adrian Pasdar. Adrian is 43 today.

Adrian was born on April 30, 1965 in Pittsfield, Massachusetts but grew up in Pennsylvania. He started acting after an injury ended his college football career. He got started in Hollywood in the mid 1980’s when he starred as Chipper in Top Gun. Since then he has done dozens of movies and television series, most notably Profit, Mysterious Ways, Judging Amy, Desperate Housewives and, of course, Heroes. Adrian is married to Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks and they have 2 children.

In the season 2 finale, it didn’t look good for Nathan but from what I hear, Nathan will be back for season 3!

Also celebrating today is Diana Agron who had a minor role as Debbie, the rival cheerleader at Claire’s school with whom Claire and West played some mind games. Diana is 22 today.

Watching Heroes would like to wish Adrian and Diana a very happy birthday!

Happy Birthday to Heroes‘ Kaito Nakamura, George Takei. George is celebrating his 71st today!

George was born in Los Angeles to Japanese-American parents on April 20, 1937. He is, of course, best known as Hikaru Sulu in the television series Star Trek, as well as six of the Star Trek films. In addition to Star Trek and Heroes, George has over 100 other film and TV credits. He has served as the announcer for Howard Stern, voiced characters on The Simpsons and Futurama, guest-starred on children’s shows, westerns, comedies and dramas and, most recently, tried his hand as a country singer on Secret Talents of the Stars. You name it, George Takei has probably done it!

Although Kaito appeared to be out of the picture at the end of season 2, I have heard rumblings that we have not seen the last of George Takei on Heroes. I hope we do see him again!

Watching Heroes wishes George a very happy birthday!

Watching Heroes would like to wish Eric Roberts a happy 52nd birthday! Eric was born April 18, 1956 in Biloxi, Mississippi. He is best known to Heroes fans as Company bad-boy, Mr. Thompson but you might also remember him from his role on the ABC sitcom Less Than Perfect, or in the movies The Pope of Greenwich Village and The Cable Guy. We probably won’t see Eric on Heroes again (although you never know), but he can be seen in the upcoming Batman movie, The Dark Knight, as crime boss Salvatore Maroni.

In addition to his acting credits, Eric is also known for being the big brother of actress Julia Roberts and dad of teen star Emma Roberts who stars in Nickelodeon’s Unfabulous and played the title character in last year’s movie adaptation of Nancy Drew.

Watching Heroes would like to wish Nicholas D’Agosto a happy 28th (yes, I said 28th) birthday today! Nicholas played Claire’s high school love interest, the high-flying West Rosen in the second season of Heroes.

Nicholas was born in Omaha, Nebraska on April 17, 1980. Nicholas got his start in the 1999 movie, Election, in which he co-starred with Reese Witherspoon, Matthew Broderick and Chris Klein. He has also guest-starred on ER, Six Feet Under, Cold Case, House, Supernatural, Without a Trace and The Office. He has two current projects listed on IMDB, Fired Up (in production now) and Mardi Gras (listed as being in pre-production).

No word on whether we’ll see West in season 3 of Heroes. Given that the Claire-West storyline was not one of the more popular, I’m guessing he won’t play a major part in the “Villains” chapter though.

Erick Avari celebrates his 56th birthday today. You’ll remember Erick as Dr. Chandra Suresh, Mohinder’s father, on Heroes. 

Erick was born in in Darjeeling, India on April 14, 1952. He lived in India until he was a young man in college. After attending college for a few years there, he won a scholarship to the College of Charleston, in South Carolina and migrated to America where, as they say, the rest is history.

In addition to Heroes, Erick has starred in the films Independence Day, The Mummy, Mr. Deeds, Planet of the Apes, Daredevil and Stargate. Television credits include episodes of Stargate SG-1, Law & Order, Alias, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Enterprise, Babylon 5, and The X-Files.

It’s not clear whether we will see Erick in Heroes again, but it’s quite possible we might catch him in a flashback sometime. His character’s legacy will certainly live on though.

Watching Heroes wishes Erick a happy birthday!

At the Upfronts yesterday, Co-Chairman of NBC Entertainment and Universal Media Studios, Ben Silverman, announced that Heroes would be returning on September 15 with a three hour event. The first hour will be a clip show, recapping the previous seasons and refreshing our memories about where we left off. The 2 hour season 3 premiere will follow.

Silverman also announced that the show will air re-run free throughout the season, taking only a brief hiatus in the winter. American Gladiators will replace Heroes during the break.

Chuck will return to Monday nights and a new show, My Own Worst Enemy starring Christian Slater, will round out the night.

Also - it looks like the spin-off Heroes: Origins is officially dead now. Apparently the network thought it was too much to ask the producers to complete 30+ episodes per season.

You can read the complete press release concerning the 2008-09 television season at NBC.com.

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David Anders celebrates his 27th birthday today. Watching Heroes would like to wish David a very Happy Birthday!

Anders, who has frequently portrayed British characters on television, was actually born in Grants Pass, Oregon on March 11, 1981.  He began acting in musicals like Jesus Christ Superstar and My Fair Lady in his hometown. His first television role was a guest spot on the Mary Kate & Ashley sitcom, So Little Time in 2001. His big break came later that year when he got the role of Julian Sark on the J.J. Abram’s show Alias (which just happened to star another Heroes cast member, Greg Grunberg).

David joined Heroes in Season 2 and we first saw him as Hiro’s hero, Takezo Kensei. Kensei turned out to be quite different than the person Hiro had read about growing up and soon Hiro was pitted against his hero in a battle to save the world. Adam Monroe, as we came to know him, was last seen buried alive but the buzz is we’ll see more of him in Volume 3.

Ali Larter celebrates her 32nd birthday today. She was born February 28, 1976 in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

Ali began her career as a model at age 13 but is probably best known for her role as Niki (Jessica) Sanders on Heroes. You might also remember her from the movies Legally Blonde, Varsity Blues, Final Destination, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Resident Evil Extinction, or from her work on the television shows Just Shoot Me or Dawson’s Creek.

Ali has served as spokesperson for the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty and is currently promoting Godiva Chocolates. She recently announced her engagement to actor Hayes MacArthur, who she met when they both appeared in National Lampoon’s Homo Erectus.

Watching Heroes wishes Ali a wonderful birthday!

One half of Heroes‘ “Wonder Twins,” Shalim Ortiz, celebrates his birthday today. Shalim played Alejandro Herrera, twin brother of Maya (Dania Ramirez), in Season 2 of Heroes. You’ll remember he was the antedote to Maya’s big, bad, black-oozing eyes power. He made the mistake of crossing Sylar though, so it doesn’t look like we’ll be seeing him in Season 3.

Shalim was born in Puerto Rico to Elin Ortiz, a popular Puerto Rican entertainer, and Charytin Goyco, a famous Dominican singer, on February 26, 1982. His film and television credits include Spin, Lizzie McGuire, S-Club 7, Engaged and Guardian. He will be appearing in the upcoming films Art of Travel and Yuniol. He was voted one of the 20 sexiest bachelors by People en Español.

Watching Heroes wishes Shalim a very Happy Birthday!

Jack Coleman was born February 21, 1958 so he’s celebrating his 50th birthday today. Watching Heroes would like to wish Jack a very Happy Birthday!

Heroes fans know Jack as Noah Bennet aka H.R.G., Company Man and father to Claire. You might also remember Jack from his run on Dynasty back in the late 80’s. His role as Steven Carrington, one of television’s first openly gay characters, was groundbreaking. It’s also interesting to note that Jack is the great-great-great-great-great-great grandson of Benjamin Franklin.

Watching Heroes would like to wish Christopher Eccleston a Happy 44th Birthday! Eccleston is best known to Heroes fans as Claude the Invisible Man, but better known to the world as the 9th doctor in the Doctor Who series. 

Fans would love to see him do another stint on Heroes, but it doesn’t look like he will be available anytime soon. Eccleston recently signed to play the villain Destro in the upcoming live-action G.I. Joe movie due out in 2009.

It’s Monday. Time to see what the Heroes stars were up to over the weekend! 

Hayden Panettiere was in Berlin this weekend to promote her upcoming film, Fireflies In The Garden. Here she is on the red carpet for the premiere as part of the 58th Berlinale Film Festival at the Berlinale Palast on February 10.

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I want to wish all of our readers a Happy New Year! 

I apologize for my absence over the holidays. I’ll be back writing tomorrow morning later today with some scoop on Hayden and Milo and whatever other Heroes news I can dig up. I’ll also try to update you on the writers’ strike.

Here’s to a great 2008!