Jamie Bamber on Apollo & Battlestar Galactica
By: Julia Houston
Source: scifi.about.comME: A couple weeks ago, I got to talk with Kate Sackhoff [Starbuck], and she's a hoot. How did you like working with her?
JB: It was great. She was a lot of fun on the set with her cigar. She's a little younger than I, and she brought that energy, a real scream.
ME: Do you share her hope that Battlestar Galactica will go to series?
JB: Definitely, yeah. I enjoyed doing what we did very much. We had great writing, and we've got a lovely cast together. I'd love to see us go further, and bring some more lightness and levity into things. I mean, my idea of the series at the moment is that it's very bleak and dramatic. You really can't really sustain that kind of urgency without dealing with it, making it a part of life. I see a lot of room to explore what it would be like to be this band of space refuges trying to have lives while in this situation.
ME: Sounds like some good stuff. Kate mentioned ideas she has for Starbuck and talked about how she was welcome to make her own suggestions during the production. Do you share that?
JB: Definitely. Although the script is fantastic, it wasn't cast in stone. We did a lot of working through things as a group. That scene when Apollo meets his dad, we sort of rehearsed it loosely, experimented. It's a tough relationship in a scene with a lot of starts and stops. The rhythm would change with every go we had. [Edward James Olmos, who plays Adams] can really arrest you with what he does.
ME: You liked working with Olmos?
JB: Very much. He's a very challenging person to work with, and doesn't take any shit. He's a guy who knows what's good and what works and he knows what's true. He's a little intimidating, I must say, but I just used that natural presence that he has in the relationship between our characters. [Olmos] is a very large presence, and his CV of great work, the uncompromising nature of his approach, was all so useful to me. My character is definitely trying to rebel and is threatened by his father's self-assurance and position in the military, So Edward's natural authority made it easy for me.
ME: You see that father/son conflict as central to Apollo's character?
JB: Yes, absolutely. It might be surprising to people who saw the original, because --
ME: Oh, you saw the original version?
JB: Yes, but I remember it through the eyes of a seven-year-old. I loved it, but I remember the father and son there were very close. Original fans will question this new version, definitely, but most fathers and sons I know don't have straight-forward relationships, so I thought this take was interesting. We meet them at this non-communicative stage, and a lot of people can relate to that.
After all, if the end of the world happens, it's a little dull to assume to everyone's in the same happy frame of mind. It's more interesting to see them dealing with problems during a normal day, and then this string of events happens. Here Apollo is, trying to figure out what happened to his brother, blaming his father, and then everything changes.
Good sci-fi is fascinating because of its philosophy and the way it can reflect social and political times. I just saw Gattaca, and it takes elements of Brave New World and others, and I think that this is really saying something about us and our time. I've always loved seeing characters in imagined situations that just inform our own situation. Sci-fi often just takes the world as it is and then goes to an ultimate and often dark extreme. That tells us a lot about the world we live in.
So here we are with this story where the Cylons are bent on mankind's destruction. There's so many possibilities.
ME: So you're a sci-fi fan?
JB: I was as a kid. I loved William Shatner's Star Trek, and Buck Rogers. But I don't think I'm a genre freak.
ME: Are you prepared as an actor to become a sci-fi idol?
JB: I'm not sure I know what that means.
ME: You will. (I let out a maniacal laugh here, and Mr. Bamber displayed his professionalism by not hanging up on me. I think he even gave forth a polite chuckle.)
Now, before doing Galactica, you had just done a stint as Prince Hal in Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2 at the Bristol Old Vic, a character I just finished teaching in a class and so is very much on my mind. There's some fabulous son/father stuff in that! Do you think you brought anything from playing Hal into your role as Apollo and his dealings with his father?
JB: Hmm. You're absolutely right. I didn't use it day-in, day-out. The relationship is very similar. When I played Hal, his relationship [with his father the king] was never fully resolved, even as he's dying. It's one thing I did bring to Battlestar Galactica: there was some pressure to make everything okay, but I was very keen to keep things problematic -- not to sugar coat it and repair all the fractured relationships.
The death of Apollo's brother is the big difference between him and Hal. But when I played Hal, he was very much enjoying the moment, reveling in being young, knowing full well he'd have to give up to be king. There's a sense of not wanting to think about things.ME: Again, if this goes to series, you see this evolving on Galactica? I mean, it's not something we really knew too much about in the original version, how Apollo felt about one day perhaps having to take over Adama's leadership role.
JB: Definitely, for the reasons I mentioned. The dead brother thing will always be there as tension. Apollo blames himself and he's venting anger towards his father. That scene with Apollo and Adama is very harsh precisely because he's got that self-loathing. His father is a mirror, and he is his father's son in that they're both successful in the military and very correct in their actions. In peacetime, Apollo is questioning the role of the military. He's questioning his own position.ME: Well, we certainly have reason these days to think about the role of the military. A friend of mine just loaned me the DVD set for Band of Brothers, in which you played 2nd Lt. Jack Foley [of Easy Company of the US Army Airbourne Paratrooper division and their mission in WWII France during Operation Overlord.]. Did that experience playing a soldier influence your take on Apollo?
JB: Definitely. I've done a number of roles which have informed my opinions on the military. I mean, we're shooting this scene with horrendously difficult tasks in feet-deep snow, artillery going off, and all. And while it's only make-believe, it was pretty real when we were doing it. That was an experience that you try to imagine -- absolutely terrifying. I remember a line from the work when the soldiers have to confront finding that ability to make it through despite everything:"Just remember you're already dead." It may be a very pessimistic approach, but that must be how you get through it.
ME: And highly relevant. I'm doubtlessly going to end up doing an article contrasting the way the '70s version reflected its political/social context and Ron Moore's changes in our time.
JB: Yes, even in terms of fashion -- those haircuts in the original and the suede boots --
ME: I love those boots!
JB: The way we filmed it, it's meant to look as familiar as it can be in this parallel universe. We were shooting it while the Gulf War was going on, and we looked so similar in our jumpsuits. I mean, we had this green sneakers I could have worn walking down a London street and no one would notice.
And if we do go to series, there's just so much to explore about the role of the military. Perhaps the most fabulous character for that is the President Laura Roslin [played by Mary McDonnel], who just wants to preserve what you have, as opposed to Adama's attitude. Apollo finds himself caught between the President and Adama. Do you fight, or just try to save what you've got left?
ME: Speaking of the original, I want to ask you the same question I asked Kate about her approach to Starbuck. In the original series, there were buckets of love and affection between Apollo and Starbuck, enough that even now we've got fanficers exploring that more sexual side. I love Ron Moore's work, because he's the best writer for Picard and Q, one of my all-time favorite duos. Moore said that he envisions Q as being in love with Picard, and certainly the way he writes them together creates a love of sparks. Do you think perhaps Moore saw some of that in Apollo and Starbuck and sort of resolved it by making Starbuck a woman?
JB: Well, we did a boot camp before we started shooting, and they showed us a couple of episodes, and I have to say that Starbuck and Apollo were definitely in love. There are so many scenes where Starbuck is talking with some women and Apollo gets so pissed off, and then when Starbuck is in trouble Apollo is giving a hard time to his wife. I mean, there's just obviously something going on there.
Guy/guy buddy relationship have been a staple in movies for so long/ Think of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid -- and in that movie, they share a woman, and there's definitely a similar thing going on with Apollo and Starbuck. And there's Top Gun with Tom Cruise - that movie is just homoeroticism on the screen. All these pilots in suits and they just want to play volleyball and rub baby oil on themselves.
I see what Ron Moore's done; what you have is a very professional relationship between a man and a woman. They're in a very macho role and they work great together, but you have the potential for a sexual relationship, which is always there in real life. Of course, that's furthered by the fact that Starbuck was Zak's fiancé.
ME: Ack! Spoilers! LALALALALALALA! Oh, I see we're almost out of time. Anything to say to the people who loved the original and are already bashing the new version?
JB: It's very easy to hate something you haven't met.
ME: And here's the final and most important question...When they make the Apollo action figure, what will his accessories be?
JB: A lighter for Starbuck's cigar.