This week, I am thrilled to present to you an interview with Heroes Reborn actress, Gatlin Green! You’ve seen her on Criminal Minds, Disney Channel’s Liv and Maddie, and Cody Simpson’s Finding Cody.

If you tune into NBC every Thursday night like I do, you know her as Emily, one of the few characters on the show without a power, whose journey is just as extraordinary! I got the opportunity to catch up with her this week and talk about Heroes Reborn, her former hometown of Nashville, TN, and more!

Check it out!

Starting off with a throwback, what were your favorite story lines in the original Heroes?

I loved Hiro! Hiro Nakamura! I loved him! I got to meet Masi Oka and he’s super nice in real life and he’s so talented and I loved following his story line throughout the original series. I liked his power and he was my favorite part of the original show.

I actually recently interviewed Heroes star, Masi Oka and we talked a lot about time travel. So I’m wondering, if you could time travel to a past moment of the original Heroes and be a fly on the wall in the world, what moment would you go to?

Oh my goodness! That’s such a good question, I don’t know. Okay, so I missed Heroes when it was first on because I was a little young. So I definitely binge watched it when I found out that I had an opportunity to be on the show but I got to season two and was being sent to Toronto to film the show, Heroes Reborn…so I’ve still got some catching up to do! I know how the show ends but I missed a little chunk at the end.

But I loved Masi’s story. So anything with Hiro, Peter, or Claire…or just following Jack Coleman around as Noah Bennet and seeing what he does on a daily basis, that would be hilarious.

Now based on last week’s revelations, we now know that Emily is interacting with Claire’s son…Claire, a hero who saved the world. So if you could take a real life hero and be friends with them before they were known by the world, who would it be?

Is it cliche to say that my parents are heroes? I do think that they are definitely heroes and they are known to the world… I think that they are such givers and they really impacted a lot of people’s lives, especially mine and I’m super thankful for them. So I do think they are heroes if that answers the question. (laughs)

Now I love the places that Emily and Tommy (Robbie Kay, “Once Upon a Time”) find themselves in, whether they’re in the dead center of conflict or in front of the Eiffel Tower! Had you been to France prior to shooting for the show?

I had never been so it was such an awesome thing when Robbie and I found out that we were getting to actually go there for real. We thought they were going to green screen it but then when we found out that we were actually going to film there, I was beside myself! I was so excited because I had never been before. We actually got to fly out a few days early so that we could be tourists and see Paris so that was super awesome. I took my mom out with me and we did some touristy things. It was such an awesome trip! I loved it.

It’s such a beautiful place. We got to go to the Louvre and that was awesome. I could have spent all day in there looking at the different sections. We shot right under the Eiffel Tower and we got to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower which was super cool. It’s big! You don’t realize how big it is until you’re right there. It’s huge. We stayed at two different hotels while we were there; one hotel was cute and old and classic French Paris. The other hotel was super modern and fancy. We got to see two really different areas of Paris while we were there and it was really great. I loved it.

You’re also a very talented songwriter so I’m curious to know what has inspired you most recently?

I absolutely love songwriting, it’s a huge part of my life. My parents are both musicians so it’s something that I’ve been around my whole life. I love writing songs in story form and sometimes it’s not even from my own experiences. I do have a lot of songs where I’ve gotten to write about my life though, especially when I started dating my boyfriend, Austin. I have a lot of songs about him and it was really funny to reveal that to him after about a year… or really, six months…and say, “Oh by the way, all of those songs that you like are about you!” (laughs)

So yeah, I love writing songs about my life and about characters and telling stories. It definitely comes from everything that I do in my life, family, traveling, seeing the world. And I’m glad to be back with my brother, Cooper, we’re a duo. He’s got the guitar and other instruments and he sings and I’m more of the lyricist. I haven’t been with him for seven months since I’ve been filming in Toronto so it’s so good to be back…we just wrote a song the other night actually and we’re writing tonight! So it’s really good to be back.

So as far as storytelling goes, who are your favorite songwriters?

I don’t know that I have specific songwriters…I’m pretty eclectic when it comes to the music that I listen to and I don’t really stick with one album at a time. Sometimes I just take a bunch of different artists or songs that I’ve heard…. my iTunes library is pretty all over the place. (laughs) But I love stuff that’s really thought through and clever and tells a story. So any songwriter that captures you with their every word and invites you into the story while you’re listening, is something that I absolutely aspire to write like. That’s always cool to find.

As a foodie and a former Nashville local, what are your favorite underrated places to eat there?

Okay, so one of my favorite places to go was Garcia’s. Their cheese dip is the best I’ve ever had. And I like Koi for sushi, outside of Downtown Franklin. There are so many cool places that are really, really good!

So you watch all of the cooking shows?

Yes! Any time I go to the dentist, I ask them to turn on the Food Network! (laughs) I loved Rachael Ray growing up. I thought she was hilarious and made it super fun.

You know what show I’m really loving? I made Austin sit down and watch this with me. MasterChef Junior is super inspiring but it also makes me super sad because I think, “These kids are 8 years old and making dishes that I could probably never make.” Then you watch the regular MasterChef and it’s basically the same stuff and you’re thinking, “Oh! 8 year olds can do that, y’all better step up your game!” (laughs) It’s super impressive, I love it!

Finally, November is National Adoption Month and since you have three adopted siblings from Ethiopia, I’m wondering what are some extraordinary things you’ve learned from them?

Yeah, they’ve been here five years now so it’s been a long, long, long time and it feels like they’ve been here forever. I adore them and it’s seamless, really.

You learn a lot when you go from two siblings to five siblings. You learn a lot. There’s patience, there’s how to handle having younger siblings and hanging out with them and having fun and being a good big sister. I absolutely love hanging out with them – I’m a little bit of a gamer and right now I absolutely love the LEGO games… my little brother, Caleb and I, he’s 11, we love playing the LEGO games together, so I went out and bought LEGO Jurassic World.

Family is super, super important and you learn that when you have a big family just how important it is to have a family and never take it for granted. I think you learn a lot about grace. You learn a lot about patience. You learn a lot about how to love people well, how to love people coming from different walks of life and things that you may not personally understand but you have to learn how to love them the way that they need to be loved. It’s been such an amazing thing and I am so blessed to have them in our family.

Watch Heroes Reborn Thursdays at 8/7c on NBC.

Follow Gatlin Green on Twitter.