Interview:Chuck Kim

On January 4, 2008, Ryan Gibson Stewart held an interview via phone with writer, Chuck Kim. Chuck is responsible for writing the episode .07%, the documentary Sword Saint, and several graphic novels including Trial By Fire, Bully, The Trial of the Black Bear, Elle's First Assignment, Normal Lives, and The Ten Brides of Takezo Kensei

Ryan Stewart: So how's the writer's strike going?

Chuck Kim: It's very boring. [laughs]

I'm sure it is!

Yeah. It's extremely boring. I mean, it's really awful. This is the first show that I've ever worked on. One of the very cool things about it is that the crew is on set basically Monday through Friday, sometimes Saturday and Sunday, working on the show. They're there on the set for twelve to fourteen hours a day, and they're still just so enthusiastic about the show. The camera people, the lighting people, the grips--everybody--they're just so "into" the show. The fact that they can keep up that energy keeps us very excited too. We all feel really awful for those people, too, because not only are we not working, but they're not working as well. Overall, it's just a really depressing situation.

It's hard because I'm sure they all support the cause, yet it's not their fight, though they have to suffer for it. It's not anybody's fault, it's just a really unfortunate situation.

Indirectly, it's their fight, too. While we're fighting for residuals and whatnot, the crew members' health coverage is basically paid for by the studio the same way our residuals are paid for by the studio. If we don't get the same residuals from the internet and downloads, etc., then they wouldn't get that percentage that they would normally earn from the internet for their health coverage either.

It's really affecting more than just the writers.

It is! We're kind of the first group that is facing this. The actors are going to face this and the directors are going to face this. Basically, any other guild that has money tied into the studio that's paid that way (whether it's health coverage or anything like that), it will affect them as well.

Well, I certainly hope the strike finds a resolution quickly. I'm sure you want to get back to work soon.

...Yeah. [laughs] You know, this is just a really great group of people to work with and it's so much fun. Planning out what happens to these characters is a dream come true. I've been trying to get into television writing for years, and it still surpasses any of my expectations.

That's great. And you wrote a really terrific episode with .07%--what a fantastic episode! It was a great comeback from the break, it had a nice tribute to Isaac in the beginning with showing all his artwork, it had that terrific fight between Sylar and Peter--

Oh yeah, that was amazing! That scene started with Chris Zatta's episode, which was eighteen, and went into my episode, which was nineteen. Shooting that scene where we show Mohinder on the ceiling and we show Peter being choked against the wall and his head being cut open--just that was a day's worth of shooting. I mean, what was on screen for maybe a minute, oh my God! Normally, we can't take that kind of luxury in shooting it. And we had two directors, and two writers on set because it was a crossover scene. It was a lot of work. [laughs]

I'm sure it was technically difficult too, with all the special effects, and keeping Mohinder up on the ceiling and Peter on the wall, and then there's a great clash of powers.

I wish you could see it. It's very interesting, actually, even just getting Mohinder on the ceiling. There's sort of a tray that he lies on top of. Then that's pulled up to the ceiling, sort of like the platform that Frankenstein's monster gets raised up on to with the lightning. It's sort of like that. He's raised up to the ceiling. Then when he's there, they put on something like doll's clothing with snaps on the back, so they actually put that around the tray (which is molded to his body), and then snap the clothes on that way when he's on the ceiling. It's really quite cool. So much work goes into this, I never realized.

Now, you wrote that episode after you had written quite a few graphic novels. How did that feel to write an episode after writing some graphic novels?

It was pretty amazing. I mean, I basically have been in comic books since I was 22 or 23, so this really was the perfect fit. Honestly, I never thought I'd be able to get involved with something so closely related to comic book as this, and actually writing comic books again. I think as far as this season's graphic novels have gone, since I'm kind of used to the medium, I've actually tried to go a little more experimental with the ones this season. I read the posts on these pretty religiously, and some of the comments, I'm like, "Oh, ouch!"

What do you read, 9th Wonders?

Yeah, 9th Wonders, and I'll go to the NBC site.

Yeah, people can be pretty brutal in chat forums.

They're pretty brutal; I think it's funny because I did a Takezo Kensei story--

The Trial of the Black Bear. That was a really neat one.

Oh thanks!

I liked it, but I know a lot of people didn't.

Well, I think it was a little misunderstood because I tried to make it clear that it wasn't a Heroes webcomic, but it was a 9th Wonders! manga comic.

Right, and you said that at the beginning of the graphic novel, too.

Yeah, but I think some people just missed it because I remember reading some of the posts and people were like, "Wait, why is Hiro a little bear, or cat, or whatever?" I was thinking, "Oh no! I didn't make it clear enough!" But that was supposed to be basically a comic that Micah might read.

Is that why the manga style was chosen for that one?

Well, we wanted to make Takezo Kensei the equivalent of Paul Bunyan or Davy Crockett in our world.

A legend.

Yeah. He was a person who actually existed in the Heroes universe, but obviously his legend grew larger than he was. That 9th Wonders! comic was supposed to be sort of an example of what little kids in Japan might read.

Personally, I took it as a great tribute to something Hiro would have read as a kid. And I liked that he was a little creature--how fitting for Hiro! But the novel certainly stood out from the others, whether for better or for worse.

Yeah. Before, these were all comics that directly involved characters from the show, and this was a bit of a departure from that. I'm glad that some people liked it anyway. [laughs]

It's probably the most beloved and hated novel. [laughs]

True. You know, I talked with Joe Pokaski about it, and he said he got a very similar reaction to his episode, number twenty, Five Years Gone. A lot of people really loved it, but some people didn't quite get it.

I think people who didn't love that episode are in the minority.

It's fun, it's different. You get nineteen episodes evolving in a certain way, so changing it up a little can be a lot of fun.

Well, even a poorer episode of Heroes is still better than what's on most of TV.

[laughs]

So let's talk about some of your other graphic novels. The most recent one you wrote is The Ten Brides of Takezo Kensei.

Yeah, that was a lot of fun to write. It was a lot of research, too, because I had to figure out all sorts of different ways for these women to die. [laughs] It was a lot of research, like the French woman dying from the lead-based makeup.

Interesting. Did that happen a lot?

I guess that was really common in those days. People didn't realize that lead poisoning existed back then. I remember when I reading some of the comments, some of the people were a little iffy on the whole blood transfusion thing, but I made sure that was actually done in that era. I think it actually started at least twenty years before he had tried it.

You're talking about Diane, the wife who died of tuberculosis, and Adam gave her a blood transfusion in 1901.

Right. Work was already being done on blood transfusions in the late 1800's. Honestly, I tried my very best to do accurate research. Except for the math, I think I got everything down pretty well.