TVSquad

Do we love or do we hate the horned rimmed glasses clad character of Mr. Bennet better known as HRG? On one hand he seems to have dedicated his life and career protecting his cheerleader daughter Claire, on the other he puts his family and others in jeopardy with his lying, manipulative memory zapping ways. Its hard for anyone who meets the actor who plays HRG to resist asking if he's a good or bad guy.

On the next episode of Heroes,airing Monday on NBC, Jack Coleman, the actor who portrays HRG, says that those questions will be answered as his character's motivations are revealed. Out of all the episodes he alludes to this one as his favorite, "I'll just say that at the end of episode 117, I will not tell you exactly what it is but its very emotional and stuck with me for a while."

Which makes everyone wonder: what on earth kind of superhero story line would bring a mostly stoic actor to an emotional blunder? Usually thats the kind of talk when someone is going to be written off a show, giving no hints to his character's demise he does admit, "There are some relatively profound changes heading toward HRG, but i don't know that they are going to continue [them] or what's going to happen into the next season."

Interesting.

He is no stranger to playing characters with tremendous amounts of inner conflict. Before being well known as HRG on Heroes, Jack Coleman played the sexually confused and ambivalent Steve Carrington on the long running primetime soap Dynasty. Fast forward nearly two decades later and Coleman is quite pleased to have the opportunity to play a role such as HRG. He's not even mad that his character lacks superpowers,
"My experience with prosthetics is that it's a lot more fun to watch than to do. It's also kind of fun to be the guy that has to rely on knowledge and anticipation to stay alive in this world. I just never thought of it as, you know, darn, I wish i could read people's thoughts or fly or start fires or whatever. I just think of this guy as someone who really has to rely on his knowledge and understanding of the situation to survive.

What exactly does Jack Coleman do to prepare in becoming HRG? Believe it or not, there is more in the glasses than anyone would expect, he admits to having several pairs, but only one pair seems to help him get into character, "As soon as I put the glasses on, it's the character -- well other than having an epiphany that I look exactly like my father did at my age which is shocking."

Channeling his father might be good considering that his character seems hyper concerned with his adopted daughter's well being. But how much of his personal parenting experience does he bring into HRG? Is he as overbearing with his real life children as HRG is with Claire? Says Coleman, "Certainly, you bring your own experience to the table. There's a kind of idealization of my parenting skills, or course, I'm not bagging and tagging people and doing horrible things and putting chips in them and performing experiments, so that part of the parenting thing is quite different from my own experience."

Even if the relationship isn't as similar to his own, the relationship between Claire and her father is nowhere near perfect, and in tomorrow's episode, Coleman gives us a hint as to what to expect, "There's a crisis situation which brings it to a head, and then possibly some kind of at least temporary resolution. I suspect the relationship between Claire and HRG is one of the core values of the show and as twisted as the relationship is, they've said so many lies to each other, but ultimately, I think they really do love each other and there is a tremendous bond there, and I think its one of the bedrocks that they will build story on. Its much more of a domestic issue than some sort of superhero issue."

So no, it doesn't sound like HRG is going to be written out of his hero chasing ways anytime soon. Fortunately for the audience, watching his complex relationship and personality adds to all the frustrating fun that makes Heroes such a successful show in the first place.