Interview:Adam Armus and Kay Foster

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On January 15, 2008, Ryan Gibson Stewart conducted an interview with Adam Armus and Kay Foster. Adam and Kay are both producers for Heroes, and have been writing partners for a number of years. Together, they wrote Homecoming, Run!, and The Line.

Ryan Stewart: So you two have been writing partners for some time now.

Adam Armus: Yes. We've been writing partners since about '94. I think '94 was our first gig on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. We've been together a long time, going on fourteen years now. We met in the waning days of our former careers. Kay was selling furniture at the time--

Kay Foster: --I was a sales and marketing rep for a furniture company--

AA: --and I was a lawyer. We were both dismissed from our jobs. Her company closed down. My law firm department closed down. So we were both out of jobs. We both took a screenwriting class together. UCLA has these adult extension courses where adults can go back to school and learn specific things. We both took a class and that's where we met.

RS: When was that?

KF: Probably in '91 or '92. Both of our companies closed because of the recession.

RS: And you hit it off immediately?

[at the same time] AA: Yeah. KF: No.

[all laugh]

KF: Ah, I'm just saying that. We wanted to write sitcoms. That's really the class we were in and how we started out. We wanted to be funny. And...

AA: ...and we failed miserably. [all laugh] We both were writing sitcom scripts, and we realized that the stories we each had combined together to make a good script. So we combined our stories together and we submitted a script to the Warner Bros. New Comedy Writers Workshop, which is the let's-discover-new-people thing that Warner Bros. does. I'm not sure if they're still doing it, but they did it back then. It was basically them trying to find new talent. If you are successful, they place you, and you could get jobs, agents, and things like that. So we got into that program and from there we got our first gig on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.

RS: Wow. That's quite a first gig!

KF: It was a good first gig.

AA: It was a great first gig. We had a lot of hands on experience. In those days, the days of Hercules in syndication, there was not a lot of studio or network involvement in anything. It was basically us doing our thing. We really cut our teeth and learned how to write television from Hercules, and also Xena. We did a number of Xena: Warrior Princesses.

KF: More Xenas.

RS: And those are definitely not sitcoms.

KF: Definitely not.

AA: We were not funny, as I said.

[all laugh]

KF: We just weren't funny enough.

AA: We actually wound up writing a number of the humorous Xena episodes. We tend to write funny in whatever we do, or try to put a little humor in everything we do. In almost every show we've worked on, we've tried to infuse a little humor. So we don't write sitcoms, but we try to be as funny as we can.

KF: We like sitcoms...but we can't write them.

[all laugh]

RS: You two wrote a musical episode for Xena: Lyre, Lyre, Hearts on Fire. What was it like writing a musical?

AA: It was actually kind of fun because we worked with Joe LoDuca who did the music for Xena. We just worked carefully with him. We kind of had an idea of the songs we wanted to use, and our producers gave us a number of songs that they were buying the rights to. So it was about trying to craft a story around music that we were doing. And we also got a chance to write some lyrics to what was known as "The Joxer Song", so that was a lot of fun.

KF: And it was silly--totally silly--which we liked. And we got to work with Bob Orci and Alex Kurtzman, who have gone on to be big time screenwriters. That was really fun.

RS: So how did you get involved in Heroes?

AA: We got a call from our agent saying that Tim Kring wanted to meet us, that Tim Kring had read our work. We sort of tangentially knew Jesse Alexander, who was already hired on the show, and I think he put in a good word for us, too, because we have friends in common. So Tim read our work and said he wanted to meet us. So we went in, had an interview, and he said, "You're hired!" Well not there on the spot, but our agent called us later and told us the meeting went well and that we got the job.

RS: That's great. And the first episode you wrote was Homecoming. That was a big episode! It was the culmination of a major prophecy, and everything sort of built up to that episode in a way. What was the pressure like?

AA: You know, we had no idea the pressure we were under. We had no idea. We just knew that we wanted it to be a culmination. We actually wanted it to be even bigger than it was when we first set out to do it because we knew a lot of things were coming to a head. At the time we wrote it, the show had not premiered yet, so we had no idea whether or not this was going to be a big hit, or whether or not people were going even going to be interested in the things we were leading up to. But we did feel a sense of responsibility. We had a lot of fun with it.

RS: So tell me about writing Homecoming, then. There were a couple of big storylines in that episode. For instance, it wasn't the first time we had heard of Sylar, but it was--

KF: --it was the first time we actually saw him. We got to cast him, which was really fun. We were in the casting session for that.

AA: We helped cast Zach Quinto, which we think was a boon. A great find.

RS: Yes, good choice! And on behalf of many many fans, thank you for doing that!

[all laugh]

AA: Absolutely!

RS: What was it like writing for Sylar's character, then?

AA: At the time of Homecoming (since then, of course, it's changed), he was just a shadowy figure.

KF: You didn't even really see him, did you?

AA: Well, you did that one time he was taken down.

KF: Vaguely, though.

AA: What I remember thinking was that we wanted to dramatically show his face. So at the very beginning of the episode, he was all in shadow. Then I remember at the time he was in the locker room when he was actually slicing off the top of Jackie's head--

KF: --we kept him in shadow.

AA: We kept him in shadow, except for his eye.

KF: Right right right.

AA: We had the light right on his eye. We said, "Okay, we're going to show you his eye. And maybe that's all you're going to see." Then at the very end, we actually showed him full face, but with the hat on, which kept his face in more shadow, but that's when he was taken down. It was sort of a dramatic thing--we were slowly revealing the face of Sylar.

RS: I recently spoke with Nate Goodman--

KF: --he was the director of photography for that episode.

RS: Well, he was saying how much of a challenge that scene was to light. Here was this very pale white woman who was supposed to be in light, a black man who was supposed to be in light, and then Zach Quinto who was supposed to be cloaked in shadow.

[all laugh]

AA: I remember at the time that we actually changed the location at the last minute. Poor Nate, he was so pissed off. It was very important--we wanted him up on that hill where he was actually taken down. We didn't want him anywhere that people--or police officers--could have seen him. (Remember in a future episode, Matt Parkman came and investigated this thing). We wanted to make sure that Sylar seemed to disappear from out of nowhere. There were no footprints, or there was no way he could have gotten in a car and driven away, or anything like that. So it was very important that we did it in that very remote location. I'm sure we really made it hard for everybody.

RS: It was an exciting end to an exciting episode.

AA: I think it turned out really well.

KF: I think it's still my favorite.

AA: We had a great director, of course. And we had wonderful actors. We were just fortunate enough to tell stories that involved pretty much everyone. It was really a great experience.

RS: And then you wrote Run!

AA: Yes, Run!, which was our second episode of the first season. That was a fun experience, too. Roxann Dawson directed that episode, and she's a great lady. She was actually just nominated for an NAACP for that episode. That's great. And working on the episode was a really good experience. The storyline was very much a we're-going-to-connect-some-pieces-together episode. We were doing a lot of near misses and people seeing each other but not actually knowing each other. If you recall, there was a storyline where Suresh met Sylar for the very first time in that episode, but he had no idea it was Sylar. He was "Zane Taylor". At the same time, we had Nathan Petrelli coming and seeing the woman he slept with, and Claire never got to see his face either. There was a lot of almost coming together, or coming together but not realizing you're coming together.

RS: It was actually after seeing a promo for that episode that it hit me how many character connections there were on Heroes. I mapped them out a bit, and it's amazing to see how much the connections have grown over time.

AA: Yes! And we purposely do that. We purposely say, "Hey, this guy is here. Can he also be there, and can he also meet this guy that way?" We knew we wanted to make the world smaller, but we wanted to make it smaller in interesting ways, and connect characters that you didn't think were going to be connected.

KF: Making it totally unpredictable.

RS: You talked about Zane. Tell me more about that character and his interesting power.

AA: The power of goo! That's what we like to call it! [all laugh] Zane Taylor was actually named after my nephew.

RS: How sweet of you to name a doomed, dead character after your nephew. He must be so proud!

[all laugh]

AA: He was very happy to have a power, but very unhappy to meet his demise the day we meet him.

KF: He doesn't like being dead.

AA: The power idea--the ability of Zane Taylor--came from Tim Kring. He wanted something that was sort of unpredictable, and kind of scary for the person who had it. If you remember, he covered his whole house in plastic. When you first met him, he was sitting on a couch sort of rocking back and forth. He wanted an ability that was sort of seemingly useless, which it kind of is, and also very strange and peculiar for whomever had it. That's what Zane Taylor was about.

RS: I have to disagree with you on the power being useless. Besides, of course, all the useful applications we've seen (like melting a wrench and a toaster), his power could be considered one of the most dangerous powers, especially in the hands of Sylar. If he puts his hand on a building--

AA: --Right! There goes the entire building! [laughs] The reason I called it seemingly useless is because he can melt it, he can change it to goo, but he can't do anything else. The way I look at it, it could be a power that could possibly evolve into something else. Maybe somebody could, with time, change something from goo, then reform it into some other kind of shape or matter--reconstruct it. That would be sort of the continuation of that power.

RS: That would definitely be an interesting development.

AA: Yeah, who knows? Maybe one day Sylar will have that. But for now, no.

KF: I think also that we were responding to the power because the special effects didn't really do justice to the power. It's no fault of the special effects guys: sometimes they come out really great-looking, and sometimes they don't. Sometimes they're rushed if they have too many things to do. I think that kind of undermined our interest in pursuing that power.

AA: Yeah, they worked really hard on the melting of the toaster, I remember. The gooifying of the toaster. But on everything else, everything sort of came out sort of "fakey" looking. But it was really hard for them to do, much harder than we ever anticipated when we started talking about the ability.

RS: I enjoyed how you teased us with the power. We were really drawn in by his plastic-strewn house, and the puddles which were quite unidentifiable at first. I don't know how much of that was your writing and how much of that came from the design--

AA: No, we definitely wrote it that way. We definitely wrote it with the idea of the plastic--

KF: --make a little mystery.

AA: You try to put yourself in the mind of the person with the ability and say, if you actually have this ability, and didn't know where it came from, and didn't know what you were supposed to do with it, what would your life look like? And that's what we imagined Zane Taylor's life would look like.

RS: Even right at the scene break, Zane is about to use his power in front of Sylar, and then the scene cuts off. Aargh! You really want to see it! I think it was even more disturbing that the first time we actually saw it being used was when Sylar was using it, while under the guise of Zane.

KF: And he was wearing the t-shirt, did you notice that?

RS: Yes, the Ramones shirt! Not only that, but Zach Quinto took on some of Ethan Cohn's unique affects.

AA: Yeah, that's all Zach Quinto. That's all him understanding a character and getting inside of it. He's just an amazing actor. That's all Zach. I mean, we wanted him to Zane-ify Sylar, but we left it up to him exactly how to do that. And he was incredible.

RS: And creepy, especially with the dead body in the next room!

AA: Yes, we planned all that. Do you remember that, Kay? The idea of where he was coming out--

KF: --where it would be...Yeah.

AA: That was all planned out with Roxann. It was really about trying to make something like a thriller movie that you would see. Something that is sort of keeping you at the edge of your seat. Is he going to find him? What's going to happen? All that stuff.

RS: I actually have a bit of trivia about Zane, which I'm not sure if you know or not. A few episodes later, in Chris Zatta's Parasite, Zane's obituary is shown.

AA: Yes.

RS: Well, a closeup of the obituary reveals that Zane was in a band that released three albums in one year: Godsend: We are Godsend, a live version called Godsend: We are Godsend Live, and a compilation named Godsend: We are the Best of Godsend.

[all laugh]

AA: Well you know, that's all Ross, the guy who designs our props. He does a lot of things that are a lot of fun.

RS: So in Season Two, you wrote The Line.

AA: Yes, that was our first episode of Season Two.

RS: There's a great scene in that episode with Mr. Bennet and his confrontation with Ivan.

AA: What I'll say about that scene is that it was all shot in one day in this hotel room in Pasadena. It was the lobby of this hotel room in a beautiful old hotel. It was just amazing. It was like watching a great acting class because these two wonderful actors were doing their thing in a very small amount of space. The emotions that they conveyed from the beginning to the end of the story were just amazing. It was really interesting. It was one of the most interesting days on Heroes for me.

KF: Yes, definitely.

RS: That scene was both touching and heartbreaking, and was really wonderfully executed. Plus, it was just very cool, you know, for the fanboys.

AA: Great! Thank you.

KF: I'm so glad!

RS: Lots of things happened in The Line. We got a better glimpse of Monica--by the way, thank you for giving us the very specific name, "adoptive muscle memory".

AA: Yes! Well, we have to thank all the fanboys who write for our show. Kay and I are not big comic book guys, but we have a number of writers who are. We debated at length as to what we would actually call her ability. We took everybody's ideas. Then we arbitrated and finally came back and decided on adoptive muscle memory. We thought that was the best one.

RS: It's certainly better than "the power of goo"!

[all laugh]

AA: Yes, exactly! But all of them deserve credit because they all work really hard on that stuff.

RS: The episode was dedicated to...

AA: ...It was dedicated to one of our location scout guys who passed away very suddenly, Tim Susco. I believe he had an aneurysm. Everyone decided that this would be the episode because he died during the making of the episode.

RS: What a wonderful gesture.

AA: Definitely, definitely. We sacrificed thirty seconds of story, but for us, it was like, "Of course!" He was a member of our Heroes family, so of course.

RS: His family actually collects donations for the Brain Aneurysm Foundation. At Heroes Wiki, it was our pleasure to donate to the Foundation and give back in any way we can.

AA: Oh, that's wonderful!

KF: Totally.

AA: Thank you very much.

RS: Of course. Anyway, in the episode we see that Adam and Hiro's relationship really comes to a head.

AA: We felt that the whole Hiro-in-Japan storyline was actually beginning to tread water a little bit, so we wanted things to begin happening. This was the penultimate episode in Japan. In the very next episode, Hiro would leave Japan and go back to present day. We (all of us as writers) decided that it was time for big things to be happening--big betrayals to happen. All the things that were going to happen were set up from the get-go when we decided to do the Hiro story. So we knew exactly where we were going. It was just a matter of executing it.

KF: We didn't know how, but we had an overall arc, which is what we worked with. And the specifics of that arc we work out in the room. So little things are worked out in the storyline as we go, which makes them seem more immediate and more real. I think it's a really interesting process that happens in the room.

AA: Exactly.

KF: For instance, him enlisting the other army to turn against Hiro at the last minute--that's the kind of thing we think of in the room.

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