16 Welcome to LA
SIXTEEN
Welcome to LA
My parents got the master bedroom, and I took one of the other bedrooms. Jansen’s room was above me, in the loft, and it contained a bed, a futon, and a desktop computer that blasted house music morning, noon, and night.
The loft was Jansen’s preteen boy cave, and—as the only place that felt separate from the rest of the condo—it gave him a semblance of privacy and his own special space.
There was only one problem: it was a loft, so it didn’t have walls that could hold all that house music in.
One night I was about to fall asleep, and I heard a loud thump above my bedroom.
“What is that?” I yelled, shooting up in bed.
Boom! It sounded like something was about to crash through the floor onto my bed—and my head.
“What is going on?” I yelled again, jumping up and running up the stairs to the loft.
When I got there, I saw Jansen. He was standing on the couch, his back toward the television.
A mattress lay on the floor behind him. He crouched low, then sprang up, arched his back, and flipped onto the mattress.
His feet hit first, then he pitched onto his face.
“Oh, my God,” I said. “Are you… trying to do a backflip while I’m trying to fall asleep?”
“Yes, yes I am,” he answered proudly. “I’m teaching myself, and I’m just about to get it right.”
Welcome to LA. Our cramped condo was half the size of our house, with a fraction of the privacy. This living situation was really going to put our family to the test.
On September 25, 2006, Heroes premiered, and 14.3 million people tuned in to watch. The pilot was a slam dunk for NBC; for comparison, Monday Night Football gets lower ratings most weeks.
I wasn’t expecting this kind of reception, but in retrospect, I see why it happened.
The writers—led by creator Tim Kring—were brilliant, crafting flawed characters viewers instantly sympathized with.
The cast’s superpowers were so strange and unconventional that they felt radical; Hiro Nakamura’s space-time manipulation and Niki Sanders’s split personalities weren’t just fun to watch, they also made you think.
This was pre–Iron Man, when the Marvel Cinematic Universe was still in its planning stages, and many superhero movies felt stale and dated.
In Heroes, the characters weren’t always trying to save the world; they simply wanted to save themselves.
What an idea! Each episode also sprinkled enough breadcrumbs that viewers followed them right up to the cliffhanger—and there were plenty of those.
The show was a triumph, with escapist fun mixed with relatable social commentary.
I also loved how exciting the set was. Everyone was constantly on their toes, moving from scene to scene with a flood of endorphins coursing through our bodies.
No one ever had the chance to doze off at their posts.
When I wasn’t getting ready in my trailer, I was immersed in stunts that were a step up from anything I’d done before.
They actually felt dangerous—and they were.
For example, after Claire jumped off an oil rig for her opening number, she took a walk with a friend and stumbled upon a burning, derailed train.
After assessing the situation—with its broken, twisted metal and fiery explosions—she once again dusted off her cheerleading uniform and sprinted into the flames to save the train’s passengers.
The plan was for me to perform the scene all by myself, with no stunt double, and I was pumped.
The scale of the derailment was massive.
There were multiple train cars, a dozen or so actors playing firefighters, and a pyrotechnic crew who I decided had the most interesting job in Hollywood.
The crew covered the train cars in fire-retardant materials so that when they ignited them, they’d look like they were fully engulfed, but in fact only their surface was.
This small-scale burn ensured that I could run past the flames without them spreading and setting me on fire.
No matter what, the train cars would never fully burn—nor would I.
“You ready for this?” an assistant producer asked as I stood just off camera before the scene started. Dad was on set, too, and I looked at him and waved. He was smiling, but I could tell he was worried by the way his arms were crossed.
“Totally. Let’s do this,” I answered.
The train cars exploded into flames, and the director called “Action!” That was my cue to run down a path toward the train and dive right in.
Easy peasy, I thought as I set off sprinting. I am a firefighter’s daughter, after all.
As I rushed into the wreck, the flames flickered around me, giving the impression that the fire was raging and inches from engulfing me.
Guess what? It was. The flames were so close that they scorched my skin in seconds.
But I stood firm, waiting for a voice on a loudspeaker to tell me to leave.
When I finally sprinted out, I was coated in sweat.
Apparently, so was Dad.
Some of my stunts were so complicated and dangerous that I wasn’t allowed to do them myself.
At first, this rubbed me the wrong way, but I quickly realized what was at stake.
Claire’s first scene—when she revealed her powers of cellular regeneration—involved her hurling herself off an oil rig, landing with a thud, then standing up, dusting off her cheerleading uniform, and snapping her broken shoulder back into place.
I was dying to do the stunt myself, but the director insisted I couldn’t.
“You’re not trained to fall eighty feet, even if you are strapped into a harness,” he said.
The plan was that I would run up the rig’s steps, then the camera would pan to the side while my stunt double strapped in and jumped off.
In rehearsals, however, the wire on the rig broke.
Thankfully, no one was injured, and the crew repaired the wire right away.
But I learned my lesson: stunts are dangerous, and when a director warns you off one, they probably have a good reason why.
The genius of the early Heroes episodes also had to do with its actors.
We were an ensemble cast—and a large one at that—so the show wasn’t driven by any one star.
There were so many advantages to this: fans could fall in love with whomever they wanted; the plot was constantly moving among the trials and successes of many people, and if a plotline became stale, there was always another one to bolster it up.
An ensemble cast keeps the audience on its toes.
It does the same for the writers and cast, too.
If viewers or critics start to complain about a particular character or plotline, the writers can make adjustments to keep the character exciting and fresh.
Unfortunately, after the first season, this kind of perfectionism happened less and less in the writers’ room—but I’ll get to that later.
Right away my castmates felt like older siblings, guiding me through scenes and encouraging me to become a better actor through their examples.
I’d never had an acting teacher other than Mom, but I’ve always learned the craft through other actors, and this was never truer than on Heroes.
We began to develop off-screen relationships, going out to dinner or to each other’s homes.
As we got to know each other, our on-screen characters developed together, too.
We were deeply, fundamentally part of each other’s lives.
While it quickly became apparent that Claire was a fan favorite, I never once felt that the early success or failure of Heroes rested on my shoulders.
Like I said, I learned from other actors as much as they learned from me.
I also liked to study the work of my stunt doubles, who are some of the toughest, smartest people in the business.
Whether I was running toward a blazing train derailment or acting out a scene with my costars, Heroes was liberating, like a full-body release.
Something that had been lying dormant inside me came alive, and as I grew from a child into an almost grown-up, it felt like Heroes was setting me free.