Today's Guest: Milo Ventimiglia, actor, "Heroes," "This Is Us" Milo Ventimiglia, actor, Heroes, NBC Milo Ventimiglia is not your average save-the-world superhero, although he does play one, Peter Petrelli, on NBC’s hit series “Heroes.” In real life, he’s an ambitious actor and producer whose company, Divide Pictures, just completed a series of five animated holiday shorts available exclusively on the American Eagle Outfitters website. Milo narrated the first episode, “Home for the Holidays”; others feature the voices of Kristen Bell, Lil Jon, Adrianne Palicki, and Pete Wentz, the Fall Out Boy. Milo Ventimiglia Twitter • Order Heroes: Season 3 from Amazon.com BOB ANDELMAN/Mr. MEDIA: I hate to pimp for American Eagle Outfitters, but it seems appropriate here. I have to think that any fan of yours -- and “Gilmore Girls” for that matter -- is going to love “Home for the Holidays” because you play yourself. How much fun was that? MILO VENTIMIGLIA: It was a lot of fun. The “Home for the Holidays” tale was kind of a combination of stories between myself and Adam Green, the writer/director of “Winter Tales.” I was just thinking about different situations I’d find myself in, or that he’d find himself in, and came up with the tale of a guy who’s taking a really miserable plane ride home. ANDELMAN: Now, that’s never happened to you, has it? Order from Amazon.com by clicking the DVD above! VENTIMIGLIA: Not exactly. Like I said, it was a combination of stories between myself and Adam Green. ANDELMAN: How weird was it, though, to find yourself playing yourself and have this kid, I don’t want to give it too much away, but the kid has a little problem with reality, I guess? VENTIMIGLIA: Yeah, I guess, a little bit, a little problem. All he wants to do is relax, but he can’t do that. ANDELMAN: What’s a guy like you doing in the realm of animated holiday shorts? How did that come about? VENTIMIGLIA: It was just another opportunity to work with American Eagle Outfitters. We did one series of shorts with them earlier called “It’s a Mall World,” which I produced, and we just found a great partnership with them. And we pitched the idea of Claymation, and they’re really into it, so we developed a bunch of stories and made these classic tales our own. And what you get is five great shorts. MILO VENTIMIGLIA audio excerpt: "I think in a world where there are people with abilities, I’d take my character’s. He’s a sponge. He can soak up anything. But if I just had any ability, I’d want to be able to teleport. I could go have coffee in Paris if I wanted to and lunch in Italy, then be right back."  ANDELMAN: It’s a lot of fun. How did you get people like Pete Wentz and Kristen Bell to come on board? VENTIMIGLIA: We called up their agents, had excellent relationships, and once you pitched them the idea, they were into it. Kristen Bell, I called myself and said, “I’ve got this thing I’d love for you to work on,” and she was just like, “I’m in. Whatever you want to do, I’m in.” And then the same thing with Lil Jon, Adrianne, and we just kind of threw it out, and they were more than happy, more than excited, to be a part of it. ANDELMAN: What do you want to do next? If you’re kind of playing with this now, I’m guessing you want to go on to bigger and better in production… VENTIMIGLIA: I enjoy it all. I enjoy directing. I enjoy producing. I enjoy acting. And I take the opportunities that are presented to me when they come up. Of course, I’d love to direct a longer format; I’d love to produce a longer format. And there are a bunch of things that I am circling around, but anytime I’m involved in any one of those three, I can direct and you’re producing for my job, I’ll take it. ANDELMAN: We have to talk about “Heroes,” of course, don’t we? We can’t take live calls today, so I did the next best thing, and I solicited questions from friends of mine and fans of y