SciFiAndTvTalk

Riverworld's Peter Wingfield - Not So Mr. Nice Guy

Peter Wingfield as Richard Burton in Riverworld. Photo by James Dittiger and copyright of the Syfy Channel.

Peter Wingfield is just itching for a fight today, but, in fact, he is not the only one. It is a warm and sunny Friday in Vancouver, British Columbia, and one of the last days of filming on the Syfy Channel miniseries Riverworld (Sunday, April 18th from 7-11:oo p.m. EST). Inside the warehouse studio, a two-level platform with stairs has been erected in front of a huge green screen. This is where Wingfield, who pays Sir Richard Burton, and the show's leading man, Tahmoh Penikett (Matt Ellman), have spent the better part of the day shooting a fight that took quite a bit of time to prepare for.

"Last Sunday was the first time that Tahmoh and I actually looked at this fight," says Wingfield during a break in filming. "There are several fights in our story and the stunt guys as well as Tahmoh have been really busy all the way through. The stunt choreographer had gone off and created this fight with his guys, and then last Sunday, Tahmoh and I spent two hours at the gym working through what the fight would look like. This week we've tried to find time during lunch breaks and such to, not practice it physically, but just sort of talk through the shape of the fight.

"Now here we are on set-today and because of the constraints of the location, we have to change bits of the fight. So things that we learnt, we've now got to wipe those from our minds and stick something else in there instead. We're also dealing with time constraints, so we're shortening the fight, which is comprised of 60 or 70 moves, in one of the parts.

Burton (Wingfield) plots his next move. Photo by James Dittiger and copyright of the Syfy Channel.

"This is a big throwdown, knockdown, smackdown conflict, and that makes sense given that it's the end of our characers' journey and their final conflict. We have a quick exchange at the start of the story, then we have the journey, and now we get to this point and this fight is absolutely personal. My character surprises Matt, and he could have simply knocked him out and killed him, but doesn't. Burton chooses to get into a fistfight, the reason being that he wants to cause Matt pain, and he wants to see it, too. Burton wants to relish the physical contact and the suffering. It's all rather dark and ugly," says the actor with a smile, "but it's also a really good, really cool, intense story."

In Riverworld, Sir Richard Burton is among the countless human beings who, following their deaths, have been reborn on the riverbank of a mysterious new world. Intent on reaching this great river's headwaters and destroying this place, Burton hijacks a riverboat being captained by Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens (Mark Deklin). Clemens and his passengers, including an American war correspondent, Matt Ellman, and a 12th century Samurai warrior named Tomoe (Jeananne Goossen), have been searching for Matt's missing fiancée Jessie (Laura Vandervoort). Carrying on with their search, they must now also deal with this unwanted adversary and any other dangers that await them along the way. Like a few of his fellow Riverworld actors, Wingfield's character is, in fact, based on a real-life individual.

"In-between putting a couple of audition scenes on tape for Riverworld and receiving a call to meet with the director, Stuart Gillard, I was sent the script," he recalls. "I read it and did some research on Victorian explorer Richard Francis Burton, who was quite an extraordinary guy. He spoke 25 languages and, with dialects, was probably fluent in 40. Burton was also an explorer and visited several countries. He went on a pilgrimage to Mecca disguised as a Muslim from Afghanistan. This was at a time when if they had known that an infidel was in the holiest of holies, they would have cut him up into little pieces and eaten him.

Vivienne (Meg Roe) has a rather unsettling exchange with Burton (Wingfield). Photo by James Dittiger and copyright of the Syfy Channel.

"Burton translated The Kama Sutra as well as One Thousand and One Nights, what we know now as The Arabian Knights. He seemed to be interested in so many different things. Burton was an explorer in the most general of senses, but not just of the physical lands but the emotion and cultural landscapes as well. He was a poet, too. However, the thing that struck me was the sense of danger about this guy. He was a James Bond-type character, not only going undercover, but dangerously undercover.

"Riverworld is based on the books by Philip Jose Farmer, which use the idea that Burton, along with the rest of humanity, has been reborn again on this other planet. When I read the script it had this interesting Sci-Fi flavor and an alien-created world, but the concept allowed you to bring in these various characters from human history, which seemed like a neat idea. So for instance, we have Mark Twain, or Samuel Clemens, and the Spanish explorer Francisco Pizarro [Bruce Ramsey]. I really liked that because it means you can bring in anybody, and you can also kill them off and then decide to bring them back again. How perfect is that for TV?"

Burton (Wingfield) decides to take the upper hand. Photo by James Dittiger and copyright of the Syfy Channel.

Having done all this research, there was only so much of it that the actor could apply to his portrayal of Burton. "The thing is, there are several different [research] sources that are not identical," explains Wingfield. "You've got the real person, then the character in the novels, and finally Burton in this miniseries. While they're related to each other, they are not the same. The novels aren't about the real Richard Burton. They are taking the idea from the historical facts of his life and how he might have lived in this fantasy world. Meanwhile, the miniseries is not a literal translation of the novels, but rather a reinvention of them. So there are some things that you can take with you, and others that are not the same.

"Ultimately, the story that I have signed up for and that I'm telling is of Richard Burton on the miniseries," continues the actor. "All the information that is significant is in the script of this four-hour TV movie. So there's a lot of juggling going on. I've taken inspiration from a number of different places, but the facts that I have to work with are just those in the script. And to me what is, I think, the most powerful and demanding of these facts is the darkness of my character. Burton is a scary guy. He's a really dark and violent man, and yet he is also tremendously witty as well as charming and sexy. I mean, he has love scenes with the two major female characters in the story, and they're both very different and tell you a great deal about the character.

"I've always felt that love scenes, just like fight scenes or a dance, reveal aspects of a character. Very verbal or very intellectual characters have some sense of control over what they're saying and what they reveal to you when they're speaking. However, when you watch them doing something physical, particularly something where they have to some extent lost control, such as a love scene or a fight, they reveal different things about themselves.

Burton (Wingfield) and Allegra (Romina D'Ugo). Photo by James Dittiger and copyright of the Syfy Channel.

"One of the great joys about playing Burton is that there are two dissimilar stories involving the two women with whom he has liaisons, and I was quite interested in just the visual imagery of that. One of them is a very verbal scene, and the other is completely without words. I spoke at length with our director about this, because we wanted to be telling very different sides of Burton's story. And that's been both the challenge and the thrill of playing him, those extremes that are within him. He has a high level of culture and education, but then there's a brutality and connection with an almost animal-like quality and rage inside him. It's been quite a trip for me [acting-wise]. I've tried to make him the most complex character that I've ever played because, again, I feel the Richard Burton who genuinely lived was an extremely complicated individual."

Although this is Burton's first encounter with Matt Ellman and vice versa, Wingfield's character seems determined to get rid of him. Why? "I didn't realize when I began this project how simple the heart of this story is," he muses. "It's a love triangle. When it all comes down to the final showdown, it's a woman who has very different sides of herself fueled or expressed by Burton and Matt. However, both men recognize something in each other. Yes, they have a conflict because of this woman, but they also see the world almost the same and yet slightly differently.

"It's that slight difference that has taken Burton and Matt in opposite emotional and spiritual directions. From the outset, Burton has been described as a bad guy, but having read the script I thought, 'In what world is he the bad guy?' There is a part of Burton who wants to see the world the way Matt sees it, and there's also clearly a part of Matt that wants to see the world the way Burton does.

Determined to be the victor in his "final conflict," Burton (Wingfield) prepares to strike. Photo by James Dittiger and copyright of the Syfy Channel.

"So once they're in absolute conflict with each other, there is a sense of recognition insofar as the equality of both these warriors. Here are these two adversaries who are worthy of the fight, and that has very much developed throughout the filming of Riverworld. I didn't see that initially. However, as we've gotten towards the end of shooting I could see that that was where it was going. I looked back at the story we told during the filming and realized it was there all the time."

Wingfield recently guest-starred on the TV series Human Target and Caprica, and can be seen in the upcoming Syfy Channel Saturday Night Movie Stonehenge Apocalypse. Prior to shooting Riverworld, he played a multi-episode arc on 24 as well as reprised his role of Dan Clifford back in his native UK in the TV medical drama Holby City. The actor also appeared as Dr. John Watson in the first season finale of the hit Syfy Channel series Sanctuary.

"That was a great character," says Wingfield. "In Sanctuary, John Watson was supposedly a real person who had inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to write Sherlock Holmes on the stipulation that he would also write the detective a sidekick and call him John Watson.

Burton channels his not-so-nice side when threatening Hal (Matt McCaull). Photo by James Dittiger and copyright of the Syfy Channel.

"So he was a brilliant man from Victorian times and Watson and Dr. Helen Magnus [Amanda Tapping] had a history together in that they were part of a group called "The Five." In this episode,  the four surviving members reconvene and we learn that through his brilliance and ingenuity, Watson has kept himself alive by creating a machine that could fight off aging.

"It was such a fun part to do. I'd known Amanda Tapping from Stargate SG-1 years ago, but I hadn't worked with Chris Heyerdahl [John Druitt] before and it turned out to be a real pleasure. There are some actors who you just connect with and it works, and Chris and I had a relationship where we immediately trusted one another and could play with the scenes - not just get through the lines, but mess with them and change the intention. So they would always remain alive, interesting and fun.

"There was this one really powerful scene that we were shooting. It must have been two in the morning and the end of what had been a very long day. And I remember it with great affection because once we finished, the crew, who had probably done a 17- or 18-hour day, were all totally focused and concentrating on this scene. Over the next few days, one after the other said how great it was to have been a part of shooting it. That doesn't happen very often."

Allegra (Romina D'Ugo) and Burton (Wingfield) appear surprised by someone's unexpected arrival. Photo by James Dittiger and copyright of the Syfy Channel.

While working on Riverworld, Wingfield had the chance to spend some time with his young son. Of all the roles he has had, the actor considers this one to be his most important. "Fatherhood is the only thing of significance I've ever done in my life," he says. "It's the real thing, and all the rest is just mucking about.

"I love being a father and it's tough in this business to be a solid fixture in your child's life. I have a fabulous wife, though, and whenever he's able to, my son comes to visit me if I'm away filming. He's had his Spring break while I've been doing Riverworld, so he was up here in Vancouver for a week, which he absolutely adored. We still have family here - his grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins - and he spent a couple of days here on-set hanging out with me along with the rest of the cast and crew on a paddlewheel steamboat. His favorite department is props because he gets to see all the guns and swords. He especially enjoys hanging out when we do the special effects, like blowing stuff up and setting fire to things. It's tough to impress nine-year-old boys, but if you can blow stuff up they're usually interested," notes the actor with a smile.

Steve Eramo

As noted above, all photos by James Dittiger and copyright of the Syfy Channel, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!

Human Target's Mark Valley - Chance Encounter

Mark Valley as Christopher Chance in Human Target. Photo by David Gray and copyright of Fox Television.

MARK Valley is a versatile film and TV actor who is known equally for his comedic, witty turns as he is for his dramatic, weighted performances. He is a familiar face to Fox viewers, having appeared as FBI Agent John Scott on the hit drama Fringe. His additional television credits include a three-year run as Brad Chase on Boston Legal, starring roles on Keen Eddie and Pasadena as well as recurring roles on Once and Again, ER, The 4400 and Swingtown. His film credits include John Schlesinger's The Innocent, The Seige with Denzel Washington, John Frankenheimer's George Wallace, The Next Best Thing with Madonna and Rupert Everett and Shrek III as the voice of Cyclops. Valley also wrote and performed in Walls, Wars and Whiskey, a one-man show about his experiences growing up in upstate New York and serving in the military.

Valley graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, and began his acting career while serving overseas in the Army. The Gulf War veteran is a native of Ogdensburg, New York, and these days divides his time between Vancouver and Los Angeles. Currently, he stars as Christopher Chance in the Fox action TV series Human Target. On March 8th, I and other journalists had the pleasure of speaking with the actor on a conference call. The following is an edited version of that Q & A. Enjoy!

When did you realize that you had lightning in a bottle with the chemistry between you and Jackie Earle Haley (Guerrero) and Chi McBride (Winston)? When did they come into the project? I'm sure you got the script first and then they were added.

MARK VALLEY - Yes, I got the script first. I was the first one cast, I know that. I think we all realized that we had something pretty amazing when we were shooting the pilot in downtown Vancouver. I think it was at the very end of the episode. It wasn't the end of shooting, but it was the end of the episode, and rarely are the three of us together in any episode, but in this instance we were. They were getting ready to set up a shot, and we were sitting around in our chairs and started talking, as actors do. Suddenly we just realized, my God, we all come from different places in terms of parts of the country and experience in the industry and so forth, and the three of us just kind of clicked. The thing I liked about Chi and Jackie is that I was just really kind of curious about them and wanted to get to know them better and thought they were both quite interesting. I think the three of us had that same feeling about each other, which is kind of cool and rare as well. And that kind of shows up on the screen and, perhaps, makes the viewer wonder how did these characters meet up, or come together, and what's their history.

I know that you cannot possibly take risk taking and thrill seeking to the extreme that your character of Chance does, but how much of a daredevil do you allow yourself to be in real life? What are some of the more outrageous adventures that you might have taken? Have you ever jumped out of planes for  fun, or any of those things?

MV - Yes, I've done that. I'm a little more now into taking calculated risks. I like to mountain climb, and the better prepared you are, the safer it is. I don't just run out and climb a mountain with a T-shirt on, you know? That would be kind of foolhardy. There are some inherent risks, you know, with mountaineering and stuff, but yes, I generally like to be well-prepared. I had parachuted. I did it in the Army and I also did it trying to get my certification to parachute down in Paris Island. I did it a few times, and that was pretty exciting, but for the most part, I'd say now the biggest risk I take is probably every once in a while I forget to put my seatbelt on. That's about the limit of it these days.

How much has your military training helped you with acting, especially with Human Target?

MV - It's funny, because they lay out all these weapons and talk about the ammunition and its effectiveness and so forth, and you know, we worked with weapons obviously in the Army. It's actually something, though, that you can pick up pretty quickly. The hand-to-hand fighting, I learned a little bit of that in the Army, along with boxing as well as wrestling and those sorts of thing. But I think for the most part it's working as a team under extreme circumstances with a limited amount of time to get something done. That's probably the biggest experience I got from the Army that applies to this job because we're really making a little movie in eight days, and that's an awful lot of work that has to be done. So yes, it's sort of that kind of teamwork and camaraderie that I experienced in the Army that seems to be showing up again here in this show.

So far your character has had cases in Los Angeles, Canada, the Russian Embassy, an airplane and South America. Is there anywhere in particular that you'd like to see Chance travel to?

MV - I would like to see Chance go to Paris. We do go to London in one episode. Where else? Africa, I think, would be kind of an interesting place. There are all kinds of places he could do. Somewhere down south, maybe Texas? I'd love to do an episode that is sort of a quasi-Western. That would be interesting. There's Vietnam and all these other places in Asia that he could go, and there are things going on in China. You name it. We could even write an episode that takes place inside a contained area, like the airplane episode, for example. We really didn't go anywhere for that. That all took place inside the fuselage of an airplane, so maybe we'll be doing something like that as well.

What were some of the acting challenges you found first stepping into the role, and how have you seen the Chance character grow and develop in the episodes you've shot so far?

MV - When I first read the script, which is based on a comic book character, there are certain things that comic book characters can get away with that regular actors can't really do, or at least do convincingly. One is to hold a pose for a long period of time, or to look concerned as if you're in a comic book. So there was that. The show sort of had a feel of a comic book, so there was a challenge of trying to find a way to bring a real person into this. It wasn't written in any sort of hyper-reality. I mean, there's kind of a casual thing that can exist in John Steinberg's [series creator/executive producer] writing, so it's not that hard to kind of do it. It's not complete melodrama or anything. That was the biggest challenge. Reading it and enjoying it like it could have been a comic book, and then thinking, "OK, wait a second, this is me now. How am I going to do this?" It's kind of hard to explain, but that was the biggest challenge. And maybe picturing all the other actors who could do better at it and thinking, "OK, so I'm going to do this?"

As far as development, the way I've grown as an actor is that I've become much more comfortable with some of the action and fighting scenes, and the way Chance's relationships with Jackie's and Chi's characters are starting to become a little bit clearer. And with Chance's development, I'd say he's beginning to come to terms with his past. He made a big change in his life about six or eight years prior to the present that we have now on the show. And I think the reality of why he made that choice and the repercussions that it's going to have is starting to come back to him, so essentially his baggage is starting to arrive.

A lot of shows spend their first season throwing things against the wall to see what sticks. Do you feel like Human Target has found its groove and, if so, was there a particular moment for you when you felt like it really clicked?

MV - I think when it really clicked for me was probably the episode Rewind, where we didn't have a lot of locations or big set pieces going on. It all took place in an airplane and you got an idea of, OK, very simply, this is something that has to get done in this plane. And it was broken down and all our characters were - well, Chi and I were in the same location shooting as well, which was kind of cool. Then I think it was the second or third episode in, and the pace that we came up with as well as the shorthand that we developed with the crew and the cameras was pretty amazing. We realized, "Oh, wow, this is what we can do. We've really got something here."

Did you have a vision for what you expected the show to be when you first came onboard, and has it lived up to that?

MV - I didn't have that clear a vision of how it would be. I'd been on shows before that have been new, and with this one, not only is it new, but I'm new to this genre, and Chi is kind of new to it as well, and even the show runners are sort of new to this. So I went into it with an open mind and thinking, "This is going to be exciting as to how it's going to come together" And it has been. It is sort of a collaboration in some ways, where everyone's influence is, if not heard, then it's felt and reacted to, and the end product is something that everyone feels a part of.

How do you balance comedy and drama on the show? Particularly in your performance, you always seem to bring the humor to certain scenes where other  people wouldn't, but then it doesn't get too serious, either. How do you guys manage that?

MV - Something I really love to do is find the lighter moments. A lot of it depends on the scene and the person you're working with and where the jokes can come in or seem appropriate. So there are a few elements that come into that. And, of course, there's the way that the scene is written as well. Maybe it's my soap opera background, where there were no jokes at all. It was all complete melodrama and I wanted parts of it to be funny, so I remember searching and combing through the material and saying, "Well, there's this moment or that moment." I was just so hungry for something to be funny, that I developed, perhaps, a perceptive eye for it.

What's it like to play a lead character when you don't have all the pieces of his background? Is that more difficult for you at all?

MV - Well, it's definitely easier to have some of the pieces. It's somewhat of an advantage to have a bit more of an idea because as actors, we create characters and create things in our imagination, but, ultimately, we're interpretive artists and interpreting what the writers have created. Some people will say that doesn't matter. If it's not in the script, it really doesn't exist, so don't make a big deal about it, but I think in television, it's different. Yes, it would be nice to know, but there are two sides to that. It would be nice to know ahead of time because then maybe I could plan a scene or have that in mind if this might have happened before. On the other hand, it's pretty exciting to find it out as you go along with the rest of the viewers. So not only are you working on a show and acting in it, but it's also fun to be experiencing it as a viewer as well and finding out things as they reveal themselves.

Is the master of disguise aspect of your character from the comic books ever going to make it into the TV series?

MV - Nobody's ruled it out. I know John's attitude was like, let's start off the show where you get to know the central character before we begin dressing him up in disguises. Chance does have an aptitude for languages and my theory with that is he doesn't use it more than is necessary. I mean, he doesn't wear a mustache or glasses or anything if it's not really necessary. or become that other person unless it's absolutely necessary. So that was an adaptation for the TV show, I think, but, again, the disguise aspect hasn't totally been ruled out.

So what's in store for the season finale, and what other guest-stars can we expect to see in the second half of the season?

MV - Well, in the season finale, Baptiste, who is played by Jericho's Lennie James, comes back. His character is Chance's nemesis and is probably the most talented assassin who's still out there working for hire. He and Chance come to blows in an episode called Baptiste and then again in the season finale. Amy Acker shows up and plays a pivotal character from Chance's past in that she was sort of the catalyst for his ultimate transformation into Christopher Chance. Lee Majors is in that episode, too. Armand Assante plays Chance's old boss, and there's a couple of major confrontations there. Emmanuelle Vaugier returns in another episode, too. She plays an FBI agent in Baptiste and Chance, Winston and Guerrero have to figure out a way to enlist her help. Autumn Reeser comes back as well. She sort of has a recurring role on our show. Grace Park is in an episode called Corner Man, and Leonor Varela is in Sanctuary. She's a beautiful and talented Chilean actress who made this one episode look and feel like a movie. She just came in and completely took on this character of an ex-revolutionary who lives in South America and is an ex-lover of Chance's. She was just fabulous.

As noted above, photo by David Gray and copyright of Fox Television, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!

Human Target's Jackie Earle Haley and Jonathan E. Steinberg - On Target

Jackie Earle Haley as Guerrero in the Human Target episode "Rewind." Photo copyright of Fox Television.

IN 1992, ABC launched what turned out to be a short-lived TV series loosely based on the Human Target comic book title created by Len Wein and Carmine Infantino. This past January, Fox began airing its version of the project. Developed and executive produced by Jonathan E. Steinberg, the series stars Christopher Chance (Mark Valley), a private contractor, bodyguard and security expert who supplies a very unique protection service to his clients. Rather than shadowing them, he becomes them, and, in the process, becomes the human target as well. Chance is assisted by his business partner, Winston (Chi McBride) and hired gun/techie, Guerrero (Jackie Earle Haley). A few weeks ago, Jonathan Steinberg and Jackie Earle Haley chatted over the phone with myself and several other journalists about their involvement in the series. The following is an edited version of that Q & A. Enjoy!

Jonathan, what turned you on to this comic book more so than others?

JONATHAN STEINBERG - It was pitched to me, actually. This was a property that had been in development both for TV and the movies for a while, and I think for good reason. It's a very enticing idea - a guy who is always looking to or is willing to become you and get into the trouble that you made for yourself, and I think everybody had tried to figure out a way to make it work. It was pitched to me as something that Peter Johnson and Warner Bros. were looking to do. And from there, it was just too good of an opportunity to pass up - to be able to do an action show and set it anywhere in the world for any given story.

Are there any clients that Chance (Mark Valley) wouldn't take on. If, let's say, Bernie Madoff approached him would he turn him down?

JS -We've played early on that there are some hurdles that you need to clear in order to gain his interest or get him to the point where he's willing to take a case for you. I don't think that means that he wouldn't necessarily take the case of somebody who he didn't necessarily agree with or sympathize with, but you definitely have to make your case to Chance when you ask for his help.

Did your work with Jericho change your approach you took with putting this show on?

JS - Jericho was actually really good boot camp for us and a number of the other writers on-staff here. It was a big show and one that we tried to imbue with some adventure. However, because we had to make it on our soundstages, we couldn't really do as much of the action as we would have liked. So it forced us to get better at doing more with less, but now that we have a slightly bigger sandbox to be playing in, hopefully we'll be able to use every last ounce of what we've got.

Jackie, what turned you on to this role in the show?

JACKIE EARLE HALEY - Jon came to me and I ready the script, which I thought was real kick-ass and a lot of fun. I liked how it was comic book-related as well as light in tone and this really cool kind of action hero character of Chance, and the Guerrero character supporting him. I also loved the idea of getting in there and working with these guys on a long-term basis and working on one specific character as opposed to what you do on a movie - you do it and you're done. This is an ongoing process, which is kind of neat.

What do you think of Mark Valley as an actor and a person?

JEH - Mark is an awesome guy. He's fun to hang around and a wonderful actor. I specifically love what he's doing with Chance. I mean, the tone of this thing is so wonderfully kind of steeped in that 80's tone, like Die Hard or The A-Team, and I think Mark just seems like he's nailing it.

Jackie, how much did you know about your character going into this project, and how would you describe him?

JEH - That's what's fun about this guy - it seems like we're all kind of learning about Guerrero together. Obviously we've shot more episodes than what have aired so far, but it seems like I'm still coming up with more questions about him than we have answers. But I think as each week goes along, we'll add a little bit more to Chance's background and the fact that there's some event in his past that was quite a pivotal one that kind of caused Chance to go from one side to the other. And I think Guerrero was a part of that. That holds a lot of interest for me; I definitely know that Guerrero has worked on the dark side of things and now he's working on the more righteous side with Chance. What's neat, though, about my character is that you never quite know where his loyalties lie. It's really fun riding that line with the writers, and the thing is I don't think we want to find out too much and too quickly about Guerrero. I'm really enjoying exploring the multi-dimensionality of this guy and seeing where it leads and what makes him tick.

Having come off doing mostly movies, what else has been different for you about doing a TV series from an acting or even a logistical standpoint?

JEH - Let's see, it's a much faster process, although these guys are really doing a heck of a job technically. It's amazing what you can do on TV now, and these episodes look like little movies. I think the biggest difference, though, is in the development of the character. So often you kind of get a screenplay and then you can work with the directors as well as the writers in learning about and developing who your character is, what his back story is, what kind of brought him to this point, etc. From there, you dive in, do the work and it's done. With TV, it's kind of the reverse of that. It's like you try to figure out so much before you start shooting, but so much of the development and answers end up coming later. So I guess instead of making one two-hour movie, hopefully we're making 100 one-hour movies.

Jonathan, as the series goes on, are we going to get more background on the characters week-to-week or might you just focus on one character one week, and another the next?

JS - From the very beginning, the back story of Chance, Guerrero and Winston was important, and not just as a mystery for its own sake, but it defines where they came from and their shared experience defines their relationships now. What was interesting to us was that they all share this one traumatic, but also very big mythic experience between the three of them, and how that experience rippled through their current relationships. And I think before the end of this season you're going to learn a lot more about them as well as that event.

Jackie, I was wondering how you balance Guerrero's darker nature with the sort of lighter action feel of the show?

JEH - It's a constant balancing act for all three characters, especially for Guerrero. The show needs to be fun, it needs to feel like an adventure in the truest sense of the word, and I think part of what that means is not just that it's light, but that there's something underneath, some gravitons to it. In some ways, I feel Guerrero is right at ground zero of that tightrope that we try to walk every week, and it's a matter of being able to have one foot in both worlds.

JS - The Guerrero character is in this show that definitely has a fun, kind of tongue-in-cheek element from the 80's. And like I said earlier, Mark Valley is just nailing that, and Chi McBride is brilliant at playing Winston. As for Guerrero, he's fun because he has one foot in that world in the sense that he kind of plays the straight guy for Chi's character. At the same time, there's an interesting addition to that tone where Guerrero is also this slightly unhinged character. His background is a little bit questionable, as are his morality and ethics. It's kind of neat how he brings this little darker tone to an otherwise lighter tone.

As noted above, photo copyright of Fox Television, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!

La-La Land Records To Release Battlestar Galactica: The Plan/Razor

Edward James Olmos (Admiral William Adama) stepped behind the cameras to direct Battlestar Galactica: The Plan. Photo by Justin Stephens and copyright of the Syfy Channel.

NBC Universal and La-La Land Records revisit the acclaimed TV series Battlestar Galactica with the release of the soundtrack for the two extended TV events, Battlestar Galactica: The Plan and Battlestar Galactica: Razor on February 23rd, 2010. Both The Plan and Razor feature music by series composer Bear McCreary. La-La Land Records is releasing The Plan/Razor soundtracks through a license agreement with NBC Universal Television, DVD, Music and Consumer Products Group.

Battlestar Galactica: The Plan/Razor composer McCreary's Galactica score has been described as "sharp and sensitive" (The Wall Street Journal), "a key element in establishing the show's dark, complex tone" (The Hollywood Reporter) and "rich, raw, oddly stirring...kick-ass and powerful as hell," (E! Online). It "fits the action so perfectly, it's almost devastating: a Sci-Fi score like no other" (NPR). McCreary has performed sold-out shows with the Battlestar Galactica orchestra during Comic-Con in San Diego, and in Los Angeles at the Grand Performances series and at The Roxy.

McCreary currently scores the new FOX series Human Target, NBC's Trauma and two series for The Syfy Channel - Eureka and the Battlestar Galactica prequel, Caprica, both of which are produced by Universal Cable Productions. McCreary's credits include the Capcom video game Dark Void and the feature films Wrong Turn 2 and the Rest Stop films. McCreary was among a handful of select protegés of late film music legend Elmer Bernstein and is a classically trained composer with degrees in Composition and Recording Arts from the prestigious USC Thornton School of Music.

"After finishing my four season journey scoring Battlestar Galactica and releasing four remarkable albums with La-La Land Records, I am thrilled to be able to return to this musical universe," said McCreary. "These two scores make any fan's album collection complete."

Edward James Olmos (Admiral William "Husker" Adama) directed Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, which was released on DVD and Blu-Ray in 2009, and aired on Syfy in January 2010. The Cylons began as humanity's robot servants. They rebelled and evolved and now they look like us. Their plan is simple: destroy the race that enslaved them. But when their devastating attack leaves human survivors, the Cylons have to improvise. Battlestar Galactica: The Plan tells the story of two powerful Cylon leaders,working separately, and their determination to finish the task.

Battlestar Galactica: Razor also tells the story of what happens on the eve of a devastating Cylon attack, this time from the perspective of Officer Kendra Shaw - who reports for duty on the Battlestar Pegasus. When mankind's future is forever changed on that fateful day, Kenda is reshaped into a "razor," a tool of war, under the ruthless guidance of her commander, Admiral Helena Cain. Battlestar Galactica: Razor tells the untold story of Pegasus and provides chilling clues to the fate of humanity as the final chapters of the Battlestar Galactica story unfold. Battlestar Galactica: Razor originally aired on Syfy in November 2007, and was released a week later on DVD and Blu-Ray.

"When I compiled the Season 4 soundtrack, it became clear that there was not enough room on even a two-disc set to accommodate cues from Razor and The Plan," said McCreary. "Combining them on one album made perfect sense, because both narratives flashback to the same time period within the larger BSG story and offer different perspectives on the same events. The scores to Razor and The Plan are two sides of the same musical coin." Also available from La-La Land Records are McCreary's soundtracks for Battlestar Galactica seasons 1, 2, 3 and 4, Caprica, Eureka, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Wrong Turn 2 and the Rest Stop films.

As noted above, photo by Justin Stephens and copyright of the Syfy Channel, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!