With the eye-popping 300 having gloriously ruptured March box-office record numbers last weekend, people witnessed a rather faithful comic book adaptation of ancient Grecian pageantry; but, we mustn’t forget the other comic book-related pageantry that recently paraded itself at the buzzed-about 2nd annual New York Comic Con. Alongside the silly costumes, graphic novels and strange toys, NYCC featured some very cool ‘genre’ panels. Chief amongst them was the Battlestar Galactica panel with Tricia Helfer, who plays the Cylon Number Six, and James Callis, who plays Gaius Baltar; it was chaired by popular Clerks director, and BSG fanatic, Kevin Smith. In addition to taking questions from the audience, the stars were treated to a special sneak peek of upcoming episodes.
Helfer is slowly developing into a female version of Monsieur Multiple Identity, himself, Peter Sellers. Since her character of Number Six is a Cylon, i.e. a robot in human form, she has played numerous copies of the original. Incarnations of Number Six have included: Gina, who was imprisoned and subjected to torture and violence by members of the Battlestar Pegasus crew; and of course Caprica-Six who originally engineered the destruction of Earth. Of course the near genocide of the human race would have been impossible if Number Six hadn’t seduced Callis‘ Dr. Gaius Baltar, who then gave her access to the information which led to the annihilation. After the NYCC panel, Hollywood.com was given some one on one time with the Battlestar Galactica stars.
Hollywood.com: At what point did you realize that Battlestar Galactica had become such a big deal?
James Callis: I don’t know when I realized that, but having just been on the panel and seen all those clips, it made me realize how watchable it is. It keeps getting better and we collectively know we’ve got our sh*t together. This season we all know where we’re going and what we’re doing. The writing is incredible. I feel like this is our ‘home run’ season. It’s like we’re knocking it out of the park.
Tricia Helfer: You can never really know what to expect in this business. When we were doing the miniseries we all felt we were doing something great. But we didn’t really know and you never do. It was a long time in-between the miniseries and when the series got picked up so it wasn’t an overnight success like Heroes. We had time to get into it. Then more and more people would start coming up to me and saying “We enjoy the show.” So it wasn’t a big surprise.
JC: We won a Peabody [Award given for excellence in radio and television broadcasting], but I’m from England so I didn’t know what that meant. I wrote a stupid note to Jamie Bamber [who plays Captain Lee “Apollo” Adama] about how many ‘pea brains’ are there in a Peabody. He told me, “Listen, you idiot, this is the most amazing thing that’s ever happened.”
HW: For a narrative TV show, it’s unbelievable.
JC: Yeah and in that fashion it was really well deserved. Now we’re going to do our fourth season which is just amazing.
HW: James, did you and Tricia have to develop a rapport beyond the set?
JC: Tricia is a phenomenal actress. Actually one of the problems is that since she’s so beautiful, people don’t realize that she’s a brilliant actress. A lot of people don’t know that I couldn’t do half the things that I have to do without her. She’s smart and brilliant and warm and kind. It’s important to be kind and it’s important to be warm with people. People are like, “you’ve got a chemistry.” I’m like, “Tricia could have a chemistry with a planter. Put a planter next to Tricia and she would be like ‘What a beautiful planter.’” When you don’t know somebody and you have to snog them the next day, you get close pretty quick. You can’t really be awkward after that. They know everything about you. They’ve seen every little whatever, all your imperfections. It’s very exposing.
HW: Tricia, did you have any inkling you would see every range of emotion within this character?
TH: I hoped it was going to be a complex character. I really did feel that she was very intelligent. I hope they keep writing her as more and more complex, because my worry is that she will become a little one-note. You always want the character to become more and more complex. I don’t see them going backwards anytime soon.
HW: I know that the world of Battlestar Galactica is expanding with comic books and videogames, do you feel like you would ever have ideas for you character outside of the series?
TH: At this point I’m still new in this business so I’m not really pushing my ideas too much yet. I’m just soaking it all up and taking in ideas right now. I like the idea of writing but I don’t think it would be science fiction just because I don’t think I’m creative enough. So I leave that to [executive producer] Ron [Moore] and the staff of writers. Certainly if I have an idea about something I will say something.
HW: James do you ever think about how the script relates to real life?
JC: It’s more like this show is always relating to real life. We had a joke on set recently with Ron Moore about how O.J. [Simpson] wanted to write a book called If I Did It. I said, “Next season perhaps Gaius should come out with a book, What If I Did It?” We had a laugh because when you’re thinking about making it [the concept] a fictional thing, then you’re laughing at it because it’s so funny and so crazy. We are informed all the time by things that happen in the real world. We couldn’t be otherwise. It’s the only reality we know.
HW: Are there ever political references in the show you might not get because it is talking about American politics?
JC: There are a few things that do not translate across the Atlantic. What is it they say about America and Britain? Two countries separated by a common language… I believe that when Mary [McDonnell] is president of the colonies it means a big deal to her because in some fashion, even in our sci-fi show, it is emblematic of being the president of the U.S. That doesn’t mean anything to me because where I’m from we have a prime minister. So I could be slightly light-hearted about it because I’m not American.
HW: After Heroes became a big hit, one of the cast members said everyone was very happy and relaxed on set. How is it on your set?
TH: I don’t think anyone of us thought this was going to be a hugely long running show. I don’t think we thought that–from the beginning–because of what Ron had told us. I think all of us would rather have it short and strong, than draw it out and be searching for storylines. That being said, I have no clue how long it’s going to go. We all really enjoy working on the show so everybody is calm in that respect. It’s been great for us all individually and it’s been great as a collective. We just take it day by day.
HW: The show is not Law & Order but do you guys feel like you stay very current?
JC: I don’t know how current they are but essentially there are universal truths that don’t change with time: be good to people, don’t rob your heart of love, don’t be hateful–that never changes…There are things that are current. But I didn’t think that when we were in New Caprica that it was supposed to be Iraq. I know Ron and [executive producer] David [Eick] are so smart. So it’s not about this occupation, it’s about any occupation and there’ve been so many throughout history. We were totally informed by the Jews in the ghetto and the Nazis and all that stuff. It’s not about just Iraq right now, that would be dumb on some level and they’re not dumb. Throughout history there have been the subjugation of one people, somebody else comes in and occupies and they run the place down. It’s a historical thing chronicling man’s inhumanity to man. What’s wonderful is that in our show we can put out an interesting ideal because we’re fighting robots. Therefore we constantly have to address what it is to be a human being, which is essentially what the show is about.
HW: Tricia, you’ve gotten to play in a few different Cylons on the show. How do you bring nuance to each one?
TH: I think in the beginning it was a little bit more on me to bring that. It was more my choice in the beginning. I talked to Ron Moore about it, I said “I want to make her a little bit different. I see her as more of a sleeper agent.” That’s how it evolved. Then Gina was different again, obviously because of the circumstances, but I wanted to make her quite different. I think now when they introduce a new character they expect me to want to find an angle to it. It is a more collective situation now.
HW: It seems like you guys have done quite a few conventions. What do you like about doing them?
TH: I love the Q&A sessions. I really love being on stage and talking to people. Sometimes I find the autograph sessions a little offensive, and a little awkward; because of how many people there are I feel like, you don’t have time…
HW: To make any real connection?
TH: Yeah, I like looking them in the eye and having a little time with them. But normally that can’t be done because then you’d be there all day and there needs to be more circulation. So that’s an awkward thing sometimes because you feel like people are being rushed through.
