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"Masi Oka played one of Heroes&amp;#039; best-loved characters, the wonderful Hiro, so it&amp;#039;s not a surprise that he&amp;#039;s already found a new show to join. Masi&amp;#039;s signed up for a role in the reboot of Hawaii Five-0, playing the hugely intelligent (but slightly odd) medical examiner Max Bergman. Read on to find out more about Max, whether Masi is squeamish, and what it&amp;#039;s like moving on from Heroes. Did you go back to watch old episodes to get an idea of what Max would be like? &amp;quot;I actually didn&amp;#039;t. The whole idea is not to look at the original so much. There&amp;#039;s a reason for a remake and making a modern remake. I trust the creators and the writers and the staff to create that remake or that tone or whatever they want to do for the modernised version. I feel like us actors shouldn&amp;#039;t re-enact what was portrayed, but just give it our own flavour. I think that the chemistry of us doing our own thing and trusting the writers and staff and production team to maintain the Hawaii Five-0 brand kind of works.&amp;quot; Max&amp;#039;s social skills aren&amp;#039;t the best, are they? What are the funniest things he&amp;#039;s done? &amp;quot;He gets in his own world, so in the morgue he has a piano right next to the examination room. He plays to think - he&amp;#039;s a tactical thinker - so in order to be inspired he just plays the piano and thinks logically through the music. I kind of likened him to more of a mad professor. He won&amp;#039;t realise that people are around him. It actually takes him like, five minutes into a conversation he&amp;#039;s having with everybody until he realises people are around him.&amp;quot; You&amp;#039;ve gone from playing a superhero to an &amp;#039;average Joe&amp;#039; - is there a preference for you? &amp;quot;They&amp;#039;re both fun. I mean, the preference is definitely to do something more comedic, grounded in reality and seriousness. I do enjoy trying to make people laugh. That&amp;#039;s something in common with all my characters - I try to find the humour in any situation. They&amp;#039;re both fun, I think. Even Max has his own quirks, because he&amp;#039;s this prodigy and gets to play the piano and knows everything about dead bodies, so he&amp;#039;s a superhero in that way. Everyone has something that&amp;#039;s unique about them - when that&amp;#039;s exaggerated, that&amp;#039;s what makes them a hero.&amp;quot; Are you squeamish about blood and guts, even when it&amp;#039;s fake? &amp;quot;Unfortunately, yes. I definitely don&amp;#039;t do the duty of being the tough guy when it comes to going to see horror films and stuff. When I see blood, I go, &amp;#039;Ahh!&amp;#039; I always try to stay away from medical shows, because of the blood, but also the language is really difficult. It&amp;#039;s all these chemical terms. I was great in maths, I was great in physics, but organic chemistry was like the one subject I could not get through. So those are two reasons why I try to stay away, and I had to deal with both. It&amp;#039;s actually tougher, I think, for the dead bodies. They use a real body and they pale them up with special effects makeup. They just have to lie there the whole time. I felt bad for them - tough job.&amp;quot; Has anything gone wrong during filming? &amp;quot;The hardest thing wasn&amp;#039;t the lines or the piano playing - it was putting the gloves on. Those rubber gloves are so hard to put on. I would always have two fingers in one hole, and you had to continue the scene. That was the hardest part of everything!&amp;quot; Do you think Max will get more involved in the action in the future? &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t think so. That&amp;#039;s what makes him interesting - that he is a mole, he doesn&amp;#039;t like the daylight. He&amp;#039;s very comfortable in his morgue and playing the piano, that&amp;#039;s the kind of guy he is. I&amp;#039;m not sure if I want to see him in the daylight, but that could also be a funny episode - to see him out there and bake in the sunlight.&amp;quot; How do you think fans of Heroes are going to react to your new role? &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s impossible to really predict anything.There&amp;#039;s always going to be a part of me in every role so there might be little similarities, but at the same time it&amp;#039;s a completely different character. First of all, my hairstyle&amp;#039;s completely different, which is nice! The glasses are actually quite familiar. I remember going to a warehouse where they had all these glasses, and everyone&amp;#039;s saying, &amp;#039;We definitely don&amp;#039;t want Hiro glasses&amp;#039;. So we try these big round ones, some black frame ones, but they ended up being fairly similar to Hiro&amp;#039;s glasses which is kind of interesting. But it&amp;#039;s a different character - still comedic and somewhat socially awkward, but played in a very different way. Hiro is more naive - Max Bergman is a savant. And the great thing is he&amp;#039;s also the first Jewish Japanese guy I&amp;#039;ll ever be playing on TV.&amp;quot; How did you go about embracing the role? &amp;quot;Just having fun - seeing how I was doing and what&amp;#039;s needed for the scene. Hawaii Five-0 is so gritty in tone. My character is supposed to bring that break and a little bit of light-heartedness into the overall show. So that&amp;#039;s what I tried to focus on - how can I make Max humourous while making him grounded?&amp;quot; What&amp;#039;s it like going from being a series regular on Heroes to appearing as a guest star? &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s fun, it&amp;#039;s a new environment. Fortunately I know Daniel Dae Kim from the Lost days and chatting. I&amp;#039;ve always watched Grace Park&amp;#039;s work and Scott [Caan] and Alex [O&amp;#039;Loughlin] are amazing as well. It&amp;#039;s kind of strange to go in as a guest where it&amp;#039;s not a family I was a part of. But everyone has been so welcoming and it feels like I&amp;#039;m already a part of the family, just going into it. So it&amp;#039;s a little bit different but at the same time it&amp;#039;s exciting.&amp;quot; Have you enjoyed shooting in Hawaii? &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a lot of fun. The cast and crew are really amazing. Everyone&amp;#039;s really funny on set. The first episode, I get to work with Scott and Alex, and they literally banter like that off camera as well. So it&amp;#039;s really funny to see that odd couple scenario going on.&amp;quot; Why do you think Hawaii Five-0 has been so successful? &amp;quot;With any kind of remake, there&amp;#039;s first of all a nostalgia factor which brings in older audiences - it&amp;#039;s something they can watch with their kids. It&amp;#039;s pretty violent, but at the same time it&amp;#039;s really smart and sexy and the storylines are very clear. There&amp;#039;s a clear good and evil - you know what you&amp;#039;re getting. If you know what you&amp;#039;re going to get it can be comfort food.&amp;quot; Hawaii Five-0 continues on Mondays at 10/9c on CBS. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/ustv/interviews/a280896/masi-oka-hawaii-five-0/>