Sky One: Battlestar Galactica-Jamie Bamber Interview
Source: Sky One

Jamie is British, although he puts on a very convincing American accent in Battlestar Galactica. He’s starred in "Band Of Brothers", "Hornblower" and "The Scarlet Pimpernel".

First things first. Is your middle name really St John?

And Bamber, which is my mum’s maiden name. Griffith is my last name. I think my mum met someone she fancied called St John a few weeks before I was born. Maybe she thought St John Bamber Griffith would be a good name for a Prime Minister. I think that’s probably what she really wanted me to do.

In the opening episode of Battlestar Galactica, the enemy Cylons attack every 33 minutes. What would you do with your last 33 minutes?

Oh my God. How many times do you want me to fit it in to 33 minutes? I could manage more than once. Actually though, I think I’d be so panicky the time would go and I wouldn’t have done anything.

There’s a female President on the show. How near do you think we are to seeing a female American President?

I think we’re pretty damn near. I mean Hilary Clinton is the obvious contender. And I think the way poor John Kerry’s getting on, it’s going to be up to her to save the world, as it were. We just need the right person to get into the right position and I think that’s pretty hard. Having said that, I don’t know how George Bush managed to get himself in the right position, it can’t be that hard.

Is the state of the world today – the climate of suspicion and the ‘enemy’ that we can’t identify – mirrored in Battlestar Galactica?

Definitely. There’s an enemy within, without, there’s an ‘other’ enemy…you can draw the parallels quite close. The Cylons are man’s creation, and if you want to take a very facile example, the Taliban are the West’s creation. There are suicide bombers in the show, there’s an Abu Ghraib element. The show’s producers and writers have been very bold with using current affairs, and the freedom a different context allows you, to comment on stuff like that. I’m really excited by that because that’s not the remit of television sci-fi; this is a much more social, political Orwellian view of sci-fi. We’re taking the world and twisting it rather than looking for things that are going to wow you with their strangeness. Everything’s quite familiar.

So if you were part of a team of the last remaining humans, who would you want alongside you?

I’d want someone just stupidly practical. I suppose a great mind like Brunel, someone who could sort things out and build things. And I would want the best handyman there’s ever been.

You’ve worked on American and British productions – which do you prefer?

American TV has always made the distinction between daytime and primetime, and the soap is always daytime. In that regard I think American television definitely interests me more. I think things like 24 and Six Feet Under are really strong. And American actors are a bit more serious about acting; I think we tend to be a bit apologetic about it here.

You’re on The League Of Obscure British Actors website. How do you feel about being termed ‘obscure’?

That site’s always tickled me. Well I think it’s fair, I am fairly obscure. But the fact that it’s a league – I wonder what position I am… Maybe I’ll get promoted out into the World league, like the Davis Cup. Then maybe I’ll get out of ‘obscure actors’ altogether and become ‘slightly shadowy bloke that you might recognise from such works as…’

On "Band Of Brothers", you must have met Tom Hanks. What was he like?

Well he had a big beard so I didn’t recognise him for ages. He seemed very nice. But I worked with his son for ages. He was amazingly similar. It was like watching Big.