Edward James Olmos, Katee Sackhoff, Jamie Bamber, Tricia Helfer & Grace Park l Interviews
By: Melissa Perenson
Source: scifi.com

As the third season of Battlestar begins, the cast looks ahead to what promises to be a season of change

Battlestar Galactica roars into its third season this Friday. The politically nuanced, multilayered story is set four months after last season's cliffhanger and begins by checking on the Colonials and their life as it's transformed by Cylon rule on New Caprica. In our second installment of interviews (we also spoke to executive producer Ronald D. Moore), we talk to cast members Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, Katee Sackhoff, Jamie Bamber, Tricia Helfer and Grace Park. Like Moore, the cast is cagey about specifics of season three, but all offered interesting insights into where their characters have been—and where they might be going.

Edward James Olmos, how do you top the conclusion of season two?

Olmos: Third season is the best season we've ever put forth. It's devastating what happens this year. It reads like today's news. The storytelling that was done [in the first four hours] is memorable. The opening of the show is going to rock; it's just so honest to itself and so finely attuned with what we've been working towards. It's worthwhile television to watch. And being a part of this, I'm very proud; this is a proud moment in my career.

What direction does this season go in?

Olmos: Over the last three years of experiencing this world that they're in, it gets worse; every year it gets darker and darker. This year is truly the most difficult year of the show's existence. It is really painful. I just recommend to anyone who's reading this, and has notice of the show, please consider this to be like a book. Do not start on page 79 or 130, or chapter 7 or chapter 15, or chapter 33 or whatever. Start from page 1 and move forward. You'll appreciate the time you spend, the time you give towards understanding what's going on, because this is not just your normal entertainment. This is pushing the envelope on the usage of the medium of episodic television. And I think Time magazine really said it best when they said it was the best television today in the world. And they normally don't give those kinds of accolades to science fiction, either.

In a twist, Battlestar will be shown this year at the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival (which runs from October 5th through the 15th).

Olmos: The first two hours of this show will be projected at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, on the big screen. And for those 610 people that get there and buy their ticket, they will be able to see the opening episode—the first two hours of the show, on the big screen, which is the first time in the history of this program that it's going to be aired on the big screen like this for public consumption. It should be quite a memorable event. I think [the series] plays much better on the big screen. You should see it when it's projected—it's amazing.

Mary McDonnell, at the beginning of this year, Laura Roslin is back in a familiar position, teaching. The path to this point was a tumultuous one last year.

McDonnell: Well, for me, it's funny. At the end of season two, the last two episodes, 19 and 20, felt to me it was the end of a very long arc; at least an arc, for my character, the arc of coming fully into the position of being president. It took the condition of the threat of losing the presidency and being willing to try and steal it in order to protect the fleets to really bring home to me exactly what this woman was made of. I so admired her strength and courage in those episodes—she had come so fully into taking utter responsibility for the survival of the fleet that no longer were her personal, liberal ethics or ideas as important as what she needed to do to maintain the safety of her people. When I saw her go there and I felt that in her, I thought, "You know what? She really is completely there now." I feel like [that experience] changed her.

Did you have any sense as you were doing the miniseries that Battlestar was going to be as successful as it has been?

McDonnell: I knew that [going to series] was going to be a possibility and a probability, because I felt that the script was begging to have a lot of story be told. I mean, I thought it was a perfect beginning. Let me go back a step. I met with David Eick, Ron Moore and Michael Rymer; all three of them at once—because I felt if this goes to series it would be very important for me to know that I was working with people that I felt a kindred sensibility to. So I met with those three men, and I was very impressed by their talent and their foresight and who they were. And they were funny, and very smart, and very political. And I thought, "This has all the potential in the world if these are the three people leading us." And then of course, Eddie [Olmos] came on board. I would have been very shocked if it didn't go to series.

There just seemed to be a phenomenal synergy among the people who were drawn to the project. And when you have that kind of synergy on a set you can see the potential inside of it. And it's not something you can actually attach a formula to. You don't know what television shows are going to hit or miss. [But this] felt like we were inside something that was going to land in people's hearts and minds, in the culture, exactly in the center of where it needed to land. You could feel that it was the kind of story that people are longing for.

Battlestar has really evolved into an allegory for what's going on in the world today, with humanity fighting for itself.

McDonnell: We're trying very, very hard to maintain life. And yet what is being asked of the characters and what's happening in the show is that there's a consciousness that we cannot grasp. And that seems to be the thing that perhaps is going to ultimately save us. That's the sensation you have inside of it. There's some other level happening here that clearly.

Since the show is presented in a documentary-style format, its shooting style varies from the norm. Do the jarring, multiple camera movements impact you during filming?

McDonnell: At the very beginning it did. There was a lot to adjust to because the camera guys were like right next to you. Or they're in your face, or they're over here, and you never know where they were, and they're moving all over the place. And that was hard to get used [to]; that and the fact that it's high-definition video, which is a little different. The director's out and off the set, you know, in front of monitors, watching, as opposed to being on the set where a film director might be near you. And as the actor you had to get used to that. As the season kept going on they pulled back a little bit on the constant movement of the camera. And so now it has a little bit more of a stable feeling. But in the beginning it was as disconcerting as the story of Battlestar Galactica—so you really sort of did feel like you'd become ungrounded. So it was a very useful [approach] in the situation.

Katee Sackhoff, you voraciously pursued the role of Starbuck. What made you know this role was the one for you?

Sackhoff: I think that there are roles that you know you can play. I know that there are roles I know I can play. But then there are also roles that are pretty much tailored made for you, almost like the writer sat down and took a side of yourself and said, "OK, I am going to turn that into a character." Starbuck is actually completely unlike me, but she just seems like such a fun, easy [person] to play. I don't know what it was about the character. And I got to shoot a gun. And I was really excited about that. That was honestly one of the things that drew me to the character to begin with. I have been playing all of these sweet little innocent people for so long that it was interesting for me to be able to hit people and have a weapon.

Did you expect the show to do so well after the miniseries' success?

Sackhoff: This is my fourth series, and every show I had been on before had always been canceled. I mean, even the shows that I wasn't on that I guest-starred on got canceled. I was like a curse: The day I was on Boomtown doing a guest appearance, they got told they were getting canceled.

When we got picked up for first season I was shocked—completely, 100 percent shocked. Not to mention the fact that they let it go down to the last minute, the [last] second. I mean, we were supposed to know by 7:00 on a certain day, and they waited until 7:05. So I was already drinking to drown my sorrows, and then as soon as I found out we just switched the whole intention of the party.

Then I was shocked when we got picked up for a second season. I was like, "There is no way this is going to get picked up again." The show is very edgy, and I thought we had so many things stacked against us there was just no way.

How has Starbuck changed since you first began playing her?

Sackhoff: I sat down and I watched the clip show—an hourlong show that SCI FI put together to catch people up if they hadn't seen the series. It was amazing to me how we have aged—I had such a baby face during the miniseries. I've gone through that awkward adult phase on camera.

Starbuck is as lost as she was when we first saw her, if not more. This is a girl that every time she takes one step forward she gets kicked two steps back—you know, she is her worst enemy. She will inevitably cause her own demise.

We have seen her go through loss and love. And coming up in season three we are going to see even more of that, you know. She has found a man who she loves so much, but it is not the man that she wants to be with, and that is something that she may have realized too late. She has Lee Adama as one of her best friends. And she is in love with him; at the end of the day she has always loved him, and that is a very awkward place to be in. So we will see that relationship with its ebbs and flows through the entire third season. I don't know if that will ever come to a head at all.

Jamie Bamber, what's your impression of season three so far?

Bamber: I think the first two episodes in season three are probably the best we've ever done. You see a civilization trying to form itself on a hostile planet. And then the Cylons come back—and there are so many political overtones to the occupation.

Is this the year that Lee comes to terms with his destiny as a leader?

Bamber: It's like any kind of royalty syndrome, say Prince Charles with the queen, to get to the job you're born to do. He resisted it with all his brains, and for many years he didn't want anything to do with the military. But fundamentally, it's what he is good at and what he was meant to do. It's a logical progression that he should command the fleet—but that's what his father is doing. Which is an awkward place for an ambitious, vigorous young lad. The problem for [the Colonials] on every level—but especially the young people—is, where do you go? Where's your ambition? There's not much of a life to live. The two men have gone from very much a dysfunctional father-son, an adolescent son at that, to being equals. He's become a commander; his dad is an admiral, but they are each commanding a battlestar. They respect and love each other, and they've got to come together; this is the closest they've ever been, but they still have their differences ... they don't communicate very well. It's been an interesting relationship to play.

How much interaction is there between yourself and the producers with respect to your character?

Bamber: They are very open. We're quite a constructive team. Our producers listen to us when we have issues. It's really creative working environment. This last year, in particular, they've been very open to me having ideas and suggestions. I really credit them for that. I'll send them an e-mail with thoughts not just about my character, but about the way the script functions and the way the character functions within the story. The episode we're shooting right now is case in point: I had a specific thought about what the B story has to do with my character. I couldn't make sense of the original B story, and then they came up with something and they improved on [what we had]. [Lee's] been a character that we've all had problems with, because he is a moral touchstone within the show, and how do you make that moral touchstone a bit more problematic and interesting, without him being sanctimonious? We have struggled with that at times, and I've been a bit frustrated; but every time I've voiced my frustration, [the producers and I have] worked through it and come out with some pretty interesting ideas, and great scripts.

Do you have a sense of where Lee and Starbuck's relationship is headed?

Bamber: It's always been screwed up; it's always been that way. There's a dead brother between them, so there's a sibling rivalry there, too. There's a professional rivalry in that they're both pilots, and they're both battling for the same pre-eminence in the fleet. And now, in the beginning of season three, they're both married to different people, and yet there's still this attraction between them. The difference this year is that they actually deal with it explicitly, rather than implicitly through all sorts of little games and tricks, punching each other and whatever they've done in the past. This year they have to engage, in terms of what they feel about one another, and that leaves them much more screwed up, complicated, dark and difficult. From my side of things, that's what's been interesting this year—Kara, that relationship, and the problems that causes within their marriages, and when they're trying to do their jobs. [The show is] a soap opera in the finest sense, in the sense that Hamlet's a soap opera as well; it's about relationships, about mothers and fathers and daughters and wives. It's not all conceptual, sci-fi techno-jargon.

Tricia Helfer, do you ever lose perspective on which side of Six you need to bring forward for a specific episode?

Helfer: Not necessarily. I shot a scene this morning that was a difficult stunt, because I thought, "Well, it's Caprica Six, but it's written more like Caprica Six, the one that's in Baltar's head." Luckily the scene was with Eddie, and Eddie was directing, and the scene was with Mary McDonnell, and we had a little powwow over not just my story but the whole scene in general, and in the end we got it to something that really made sense. But that's where sometimes you really have to take a step back and really think about something. The important part for me is to find a connection with all of them, because I want the audience to be able to tell the difference. If it gets [to be] too many motives, it's going to get really difficult [laughs].

Also, where it gets really difficult, technically, is when you're filming all of the models at the same time. We use a motion control camera. I think there have been a few times this season where everybody involved in the scene—from the director on down to the cast, crew, everybody—has just been at their wits' end, because there were four of my characters in one scene. There were a bunch of Cylons in the room, and it's really hard because in the end, you're talking to nothing. There's barely anybody in the room, because of the passages of the motion control camera. In the first passage, you can have photo doubles in the other positions; but you can't [have doubles] when you keep doing the passages. So I end up talking to myself, but I'm talking to an empty chair; then I'm leaning around another of myself, trying to gauge how far to lean out, and then watching another of myself get shot in the head and fall to the floor. And you're watching nothing. It's really challenging when you do those particular scenes; and that's when you kind of start to lose your sanity [laughs].

Did you encounter the same sort of thing when you were playing Gina and Six last season?

Helfer: That's another one, too. It's hard to block out the scene, because you're playing both characters. And in that instance, they were both quite different characters, and you're trying to tell a photo double what you're going to do. But that's hard to do, because things are organic. Trying, towards the beginning of the day, to tell somebody what you're going to do five hours from now, when that character isn't just laying on the floor can be really challenging. And then you're somewhat stuck with [the performance] once you've done the other side of it—you've done the one standing up looking down and the one lying down. You're kind of married to that; you can't say, "Oh, OK. Here's a great new idea, let's do this." You can't, because you've already shot the other version. So that can be challenging as well.

Did you realize how versatile the character of Six was going to be when you took the role?

Helfer: No. I certainly didn't know where things were heading or what was going to happen. I think every character goes through an evolution. With a series, things are always changing and always evolving; I learned very quickly in the first season that things started changing, that I couldn't get too focused on knowing exactly what's happening: I had to give a little leeway to the fact that things could change. And pretty much the whole first season with Number Six, the one who's in Baltar's head and no one else can see: Even to this day, I don't know why that occurs. I don't why she's in his head. But I had to let that go, right in the first season. I said to myself, "I have to trust this. I'm just going to with it and try and make some sense of it in my head." But I'm never going to have a definite answer for this. It's not like a film, with a beginning, middle and end. Sometimes you just have to float.

Was there a lot of discussion early on as to how you should play Six—how a Cylon should carry herself, behave, act or react to things?

Helfer: Oh, there were a lot of discussions. Mostly between the director and myself in the beginning. During the audition process, there was what I brought to it, and then you try out different things. And then I got up here and had work sessions with the director [of the miniseries] Michael Rymer. I love work sessions, because they're really a hashing out of ideas and thoughts.

In the beginning, there were the physical discussions of how she should move, how she should be. I wanted the Six character in the miniseries to be precise [because] we didn't know that much about her at that point. I wanted her to move because she has a reason to move. I didn't want her to be a jerky character; I wanted her to be fluid, and more catlike. I wanted her to be inquisitive, always learning, always seeing things, always drawing in her experiences and enjoying the human aspects that she has [experienced]. Enjoying the physicality of touching, enjoying being a sensual person.

When you first signed on for the miniseries, did you have any sense that Battlestar was going to become the phenomenon that it has?

Helfer: I don't think I knew at that point. I think we all felt that there was something special. There was a great chemistry between everybody involved. It's not only just what we're filming, but it's the environment that we're filming it in. We all felt it was something unique, but you never know.

Grace Park, Boomer's story has had so many unexpected turns and revelations. Are you routinely surprised by the course the story is taking?

Park: Every episode is a surprise. [Boomer] becoming a Cylon leader was really unexpected. She was at the bottom of the pile when she left Galactica; she was despised. And then the fact that she hated the Cylons and did not want to be a part of them, and yet when Caprica Six convinced her to move out of her apartment and start a new vision for the Cylons—and they actually followed. I was surprised that they did; I didn't think she had that much power.

From the very beginning, you played Boomer as if she were human—and that hasn't changed since her Cylon programming kicked in.

Park: It was much more interesting to play. Knowing in the miniseries that she was a Cylon, but playing the rest of it to that point as a total rocket jockey and being a pilot and one of the crew was very satisfying.

What impact has Caprica Sharon's pregnancy had on her?

Park: For Sharon, having a baby was of utmost importance. Initially, as her mission, that's why she went down to Caprica and pretended that she was Helo's co-pilot and tried to get him to fall in love with her. But then once her mission was accomplished, she found that she ended up being more attracted to Hiro and falling in love with him, and she realized just how important this baby was, not just to the Cylon race but to her personally. And she realized it was a gift from God. She wanted to be able to raise her family in her own way, and not to give it up for the purposes of the Cylons. She took matters into her own hands, because she knew at that point that Helo was disposable from the Cylons' point of view, and that his life was in jeopardy. And she knew that if she wanted to have any say, she would have to get off of Caprica, because there was no way that she and Helo were going to survive on Caprica. She thought she could go to Galactica and appease the humans and, if anything, woo them with military tactics of the Cylons. And sure enough, it worked. But she had hell to pay, living in the brig and succumbing to the attacks, and the whims of the president and doctors and scientists. It was very ugly for her, and I think she kept a lot of it shoved down, because she knew that there was something more important. And, it was the only way she was going to survive, anyway.

For her, [the baby] represented this whole new life, almost a new world that was going to be created between the Cylons and the humans. She knew this was a really high-level purpose that she could carry out. And with that, she stuck with it, and she grew up fast, she matured a lot. She had time to think, being in the brig. And she's come out stronger and wiser for it.

When the baby was born, and then died, that was devastating to her. She went into a lot of questioning about why was she there? Because everything she did up until that point was for the baby. There was no way to make herself feel any better at that point. She felt really betrayed, confused, and in despair. Of course, the baby is still alive somewhere, and that's going to be a whole new story when she finds the baby.\

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