Massachusetts-born actor Adrian Pasdar has a string of successes to his name, including cult horror-western The Killing Box and the stunning vampire drama Near Dark. But Heroes fans know him best as Nathan Petrelli – a character who has turned into a different person entirely over four seasons. He talks to Abbie Bernstein about the “initial parry”…

At the end of last season, Sylar apparently killed Nathan Petrelli, and Matt brainwashed Sylar into thinking he’s Nathan. So are you essentially playing Sylar in Nathan’s body now?

Well, yes and no. If you break it down to brass tacks, Sylar’s playing me. I mean, he’s manifesting himself through me, so I’m trying not to act like him. He’s trying to act like me, so I’m acting like him trying to act like me!

Did the writers do this because they thought it was a cool plot twist or because Zachary Quinto needed to be written out for awhile?

No. I think both our characters had gone as far as we could go with the parameters of the plot, and we did everything we could do, so what’s left? They wanted to destroy us and recreate us, and that gives us a new place to go as individuals, rather than just trying to service a plot as characters.

Can you both be on the show at the same time now?

Yeah. What happened was in the transfer at the end of season three, something went a little wrong, so part of Sylar ended up in Matt, as well as Nathan’s body. So he wants his body back and he can only get it by threatening Matt. It’s a triangle between Nathan, Sylar and Parkman. Sylar’s identity is crushed, but as long as he stays crushed, everything that he touches – everything that Nathan touches – gives him intuition about his past.

Nathan still thinks he’s Nathan until he realises he’s not Nathan at all, and actually something’s gone horribly wrong. He has to retrace his steps as an individual and figure out how he got there, which leads him to Matt. He has to ask Matt what happened. The people in that room – Noah Bennet, Parkman, Nathan and Sylar… that’s an interesting meeting. We never saw what happened to my body.

So what we’ve seen so far is …

The initial parry.

In scenes with people who don’t know that Nathan’s got a slightly recalibrated soul, are you all playing the scenes any differently than when you were playing the real Nathan?

Angela, Matt and Noah are the only three people who know what happened. So to everybody else, he’s – as far as they can tell – Nathan. The situations Nathan’s in and the way people refer to him define how he’s perceived. I shouldn’t really have to try too hard. Otherwise, if I’m trying to act like Zack it looks and reflects poorly on all of us.

How was the reaction to the Heroes panel at Comic-Con this year?

That’s our core group and it was great to be able to go down there this year and have that excitement surround us. It’s been one of the initial reasons why we were so successful. The core group will be there long after the smoke clears. I think there’s a great debt that’s owed to the people who attend Comic-Con every year. And it’s recognised, insanely so, by everyone associated with the show. They’d be foolish not to respect it.

Have there ever been moments where you wanted Nathan to go a different way than he did, either as a storyteller or as an actor, or have you always liked where the character has gone?

I never felt like it was compromising my ability to contribute. I was always happy with the choices that I was asked to make. When you’re working with the people that we’ve been working with, there are so many things that happen right in the room, right when the camera’s rolling. To the writers’ credit, it’s all there suggested on the page.

One of the main responsibilities of an actor is to just be visually compelling and to say the lines correctly. The narrative is up to the director and the writer, but a lot of stuff happens at the last second between the people I work with and myself to a large extent. So I’m always encouraged that something interesting is happening.

So in terms of commenting on what they’ve asked me to do and what I’ve done, it’s all been a yellow brick road. It’s just been great to be a part of it. And with Milo [Ventimiglia, who plays Nathan’s brother Peter], who I spend a lot of time working with, the two of us have a great exchange. The writers and producers count on that, too, and they know that stuff’s going to happen once we start working together. They leave room for that within the structure of a scene; they always leave room for the unknown. It might be very little – I’m not talking about a super, highly dramatic thing, but there’s subtle subtext that gives texture to the scene.

So within the choices that they create for Nathan, there’s always a little room left for Milo and I to create something extra, and I’ve been very grateful for that.

Finally, what’s happening with Home Movies, the horror film you wrote and starred in, and Atlanta, the stage musical you co-wrote that played in Los Angeles last year?

I believe Home Movies is going to be available through IFC to watch. Atlanta just got nominated for an NAACP Award. There’s talk about taking it to London. Atlanta co-writer Marcus Hummon and I spoke just the other day.

There are a couple of movies that I’m trying to fit in next summer, so it’s fairly busy. But right now, my focus is just on Heroes and making sure this season is as great as it can be, because we all want to see this thing end up on the winning side.

Heroes is currently airing on NBC.

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