Hero: Out Writer Bryan Fuller

January 13, 2007

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What a thrill to speak with the creator of "Wonderfalls" and "Dead Like Me", and now a writer on "Heroes", the super-fantastic fantasy epic that rules the new TV season. And best of all, he's openly gay. Always has been. We talk to Bryan Fuller about genres, fantasy, gays on television, and the why science fiction is important for today's (gay) audiences.

OUTzoneTV.com: Let's start off with everyone's favorite show right now. What's your involvement with “Heroes?”
Tim Kring created it. And he’s a peach of a guy. The whole experience has been really fantastic. My agents called and said “you have to read this.” And they never do that. They’ve tried in the past, and there’s stuff that I kinda go, “I don’t get it. I don’t know if I can get excited about writing that.” I’m sort of a workaholic and if something doesn’t inspire me then I cannot, at all, dream of working on it. And I read the script, and it as one of those things that in my gut I thought, “this is going to be HUGE.” The diversity of characters, the metaphor of feeling that you need to be giving something back. There are issues of destiny and fate. And all those things I really like to write about. I knew it would be a really great ride. And I knew it would be a big hit. So I joined a fantastic staff that Tim pulled together. And it’s been the best writing experience I have ever had on a show.

Everyone on staff has such great strengths. People who know this genre inside and out. Everbody on the show is both a great…plottist? Is that a word? But they’re also great character writers. So I really think it’s a great collision of magical events that all of these people came together. And I think it’s to Tim’s credit that he’s really come to it and allowed everyone to give to it as much as they can. So it’s very Utopian. When you think about a writing staff- this is what it should be.

HEROES

What were the shows that you watched as a kid? And what shows do you think influenced you the most?
The “Twilight Zone” has to be the biggest. It was the first time that I was watching television that wasn’t confined by the boundaries of reality. In my house, growing up it was often westerns and very grounded kind of stuff on TV. So when I first discovered the “Twilight Zone,” it was an epiphany. You don’t have to talk about things that don’t necessarily happen? And of course, I was a huge fan of “The Munsters.”

Which Munster did you want to be?
I think I was Eddie. You know, sleeping in the drawer. A little inconspicuous. And you know, he had a pet dragon, that’s not a bad thing to have around for emergencies.

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