HEROES MAGAZINE
Issue 4
AN ACTOR'S LIFE
Milo Ventimiglia, a native of Anaheim, California, has not only played a wide variety of roles in a screen career that dates back to 1995 -- when he appeared as a party guest on the Will Smith series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air -- but he has also started his own production company as a producer and director. As an actor, Ventimiglia has had regular gigs on Opposite Sex and a breakout role as the heroine's boyfriend on The Gilmore Girls. He's also played the title character's son in the feature film Rocky Balboa and a doctor involved with a ring of serial killers in the upcoming thriller Pathology. He's played a young version of Ken Olin's character on the series Easy Street, co-created by Bobby Moresco and Paul Haggis, whose film Crash went on to win the Best Picture Oscar...
HEROES MAGAZINE: Did you always want to be an actor?
MILO VENTIMIGLIA: When I was a little kid, I'd done plays. I was really into performing -- people just kept telling me I was pretty good at it. So when I got to college at UCLA [University of California, Los Angeles], I did a theatre major and out of that I got a scholarship to a conservatory in San Francisco, and then went into this business and soon realized that I could actually make a living out of doing it. As I've gotten older, my work has diversified and I've followed different interests within the [film/TV] industry.
Milo Ventimiglia, a native of Anaheim, California, has not only played a wide variety of roles in a screen career that dates back to 1995 -- when he appeared as a party guest on the Will Smith series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air -- but he has also started his own production company as a producer and director. As an actor, Ventimiglia has had regular gigs on Opposite Sex and a breakout role as the heroine's boyfriend on The Gilmore Girls. He's also played the title character's son in the feature film Rocky Balboa and a doctor involved with a ring of serial killers in the upcoming thriller Pathology. He's played a young version of Ken Olin's character on the series Easy Street, co-created by Bobby Moresco and Paul Haggis, whose film Crash went on to win the Best Picture Oscar...
HEROES MAGAZINE: Did you always want to be an actor?
MILO VENTIMIGLIA: When I was a little kid, I'd done plays. I was really into performing -- people just kept telling me I was pretty good at it. So when I got to college at UCLA [University of California, Los Angeles], I did a theatre major and out of that I got a scholarship to a conservatory in San Francisco, and then went into this business and soon realized that I could actually make a living out of doing it. As I've gotten older, my work has diversified and I've followed different interests within the [film/TV] industry.
How did you become involved in Heroes?
I was already on a TV show called The Bedford Diaries for Warner Brothers. I was in Philadelphia, working on a film for Sony [Rocky Balboa], and I got a phone call from Dave Semel, the director of [the pilot for] Heroes. He and I worked together two years previous on a show called American Dreams. He said they were having a hard time finding an actor to play this part. They knew that I was already committed to something else, but asked if I would read the material and put myself on tape? I said, "Yeah, no problem." I did put myself on tape [when] I was in New York, and I guess everybody back in L.A. responded to it and decided to bring me in, and that's when the network got excited about me. They really didn't care that I was on another show. They took their chances and it worked out to their benefit -- Heroes got picked up and the other show did not. I wasn't necessarily looking for something [as a TV regular], but the opportunity presented itself and it was a chance to work on great material.
• More from Milo in the full interview - check out Heroes Magazine Issue 4 - on sale 20 May!
