Courtesy of TV GUIDE! Conor, the reluctant hero of Roar (Mondays,9 p.m./ET, Fox), never expected to be king. But when his father and older brother -- his entire family, actually -- are slaughtered by invading Roman forces, he gets the job, like it or not. Actor Heath Ledger knows how that feels. The 18-year-old Australian was just establishing himself in theater and small films when he snagged the lead in this epic sword-and-sorcery series, set in a mythicized Europe circa 400 AD. But, as Jeanne Wolf discovered, he's eager for the challenge. -- John Walsh *This is a very new show. Tell us what you know about Conor.* OK. Well, Conor's a prince. He's a boy. He's just an average boy, really, and he just doesn't expect that within a day he has to stand up and become a king. A leader. And this happens to him obviously because his family are slaughtered, and his girlfriend's killed. And from this, he gets this rage. It just burns up inside of him, and he's out of control and he just wants to go out there and get revenge. But then an old friend of the family, a sorcerer named Cord Gaylan, comes to him. He pulls him together and he sits him down and just explains to him that he really has to search for this inner power called the roar. The roar is this power within the Earth that surges through all of us. It gives him courage. Conor has to throw away his own need for selfish revenge. And when he does, he builds this power inside of him -- the power that his father, the dead king, had. He unites these other tribes, people who have lost their families as well. But what I think is important is to show the boy inside of Conor, because, I mean, nobody can go from being a boy one day straight into this vicious, heroic leader. *Actors always say they're getting paid to play. But you're getting paid to play on an epic scale.* Yeah. It's huge. I mean the sets are just fantastic. We have these amazing castles and forts and villages set up on a thousand acres in Queensland [Australia]. And they're just so realistic. When you go to work, you get into your wardrobe, and as soon as you step on set, you really are taken back to 400 AD. It's a real time-travel experience, you know, if you can understand that. *Does it help you in your work, walking around these elaborate sets and wearing those costumes?* It puts you into the character. It really does. That was the biggest thing that I was really looking forward to because I'm from a theater background, from my earlier days. And that's what I love. I love that drama where you go to work and become somebody else. You change; you look in the mirror and you say, "Wow. I'm back there." And it helps. *Are you a believer in these notions of the supernatural, all that sword-and-sorcery stuff?* Well, I'm not so much into the supernatural as I am a fan of the epic tale. I'm a huge fan of Braveheart and stories like that, set in that era. Coming from a half-Irish, half-Scottish background, my blood's in the show, almost. It sounds weird, but I can remember watching Braveheart and thinking, "God, I really would have loved to have played that role, but there's never going to be anything like that ever again." But now I've found a role like that and it's just fantastic. *Americans know Shaun Cassidy primarily as a teen idol. But you know him only as the creator and executive producer of Roar. What's he like to work with?* The guy's fantastic. I've seriously never worked with a producer who's so spot-on. He's just so helpful and when he's on set, he knows what he wants. He's got a big, clear picture in his mind of what he wants to achieve, and it really shows. He's fantastic. He's got a weird but wonderful mind. I'd never worked with an American producer before, and so I was unsure of myself. He received me in without an attitude. He's totally cool. Obviously I was nervous, coming into a big production like this, and Shaun just helped me to cool down, to relax and to receive his vision of what he wanted this show to be. *Do you think people need fantasy stories like Roar now?* Oh, yeah. I truly do believe that. It's a time of innocence. Everything is new. I think it's good to look back and realize how close we were to the Earth, how different it was and how pure everything once was. The basic things in life were the most important things. I think that's very important for the human spirit today. *OK, be honest. The first time you stood on that cliff and roared at the top of your lungs, were you self-conscious?* Yeah. That was my first day of shooting. It was a 3:30 a.m. call. So I got up -- I'm still drowsy. And the cliff's so beautiful -- you should have seen it, just fantastic. But yeah, just before I did the first roar -- I'd never done a roar before in my life. And I was thinking, "Oh, I wonder what it's going to sound like? Will it be squeaky? Will it be awful or will it come out all right?" But I just let it come from my guts and I was amazed. It sounded all right in the end. *Come on, you didn't practice at home in the shower?* I swear to God I didn't. But since then I've done about 50 of them. *Does the roar work?* Oh, it does. It shakes you off. Aside from giving you a head spin, it pumps you up. The Celts used it when they fought, actually. It was a great scare tactic. They would roar and they'd have their faces painted. They liked to scare the opposition like that. And when you're going into a fight, and you're all lined up, and you just charge down yelling, you can really feel this sensational power being passed through the cast. And throwing it to the other side. And you almost go into this big oblivion. This unknown world. And then the director calls "Cut!" and suddenly this four-minute fight is over. And you don't really know what you've just done. It's -- it's amazing. It's dangerous.