Q: You mentioned The Wire - and your show has been compared to that series. Do you see those comparisons?
A: I do. They're very similar, in the sense that every character is both good and bad, and the complexity of the characterisation. And the fact that the audience is not patronised with pat resolutions of plot points. The way stories are told is very similar to the way we do it on Battlestar. And The Wire is political with a small 'p'. It's about the contradictory forces at work within a community of people trying to do a job. The police really fighting themselves, in trying to police, and similarly within the drug-dealing community, there are opposing forces at work, there are good and bad, people trying to make a difference and people trying to stop people making a difference in both worlds. And I think that's something we try and do on Battlestar. We're a political show and a social show, with a small 'p' and a small 's'.
We deal with how people deal with the most horrendous situations, and try and put them right and often make them worse. It's about how you can do the wrong thing with the right convictions and you can do the right thing with the wrong convictions. You can make a difference in both ways completely different to your motivation. And they're complicated stories about complicated situations. Obviously, they're very different. The Wire is literal, it's Baltimore here-and-now. But it approaches the premise with respect, understanding there is no right-and-wrong here, there is only procedure, and these individuals are not right or wrong, just motivated by a, b, or c. And the same is true in Battlestar. It's a nightmare situation, which is difficult to steer through. They're also serialised shows where every episode doesn't resolve everything - and we involve the viewer and invite them into the world that we create. We deal with archetypes and mythological situations and they're deal with actual, literal situations.
Q: How was Edward James Olmos, who plays your father, to spend time with?
A: Words fail me in terms of the appreciation of what it's been like to get to know Eddie. He started as a very tough, very male taskmaster. And it entirely fitted our character relationship. He was quite challenging and categorical in his every pronouncement and quite difficult to understand. I remember as a pragmatic Brit, I found it very difficult to relate to him. And I think that wasn't done accidentally on his part. He was being my Dad - and we didn't get on initially. I was scared of him and I think he was trying to scare me. Then that disappeared when we started Season 1 and we all stepped up to the plate. Eddie and Mary really created this family environment of mutual collaboration, of being in the same thing together and telling a serious story. They' could've been these older actors...you see them all the time, these great actors who are just into themselves and when they do sci-fi, it's to take the money and get the hell out and they don't want to give of themselves too much because they don't care too much.
Q: Obviously that wasn't the case here...
A: The opposite was true of Eddie and Mary. They gave everything and they cared ultimately and they impressed us all with the nobility of our adventure. Eddie is now one of my closest, dearest friends, and I spend half my time at his house surrounded by his huge, extended family. And in LA, we live just down the road from each other. He will be a lifelong collaborator, friend and mentor to me.
Q: Will you watch every episode of Battlestar back-to-back, now it's over?
A: Maybe when I'm 75 and I've never worked again, I'll sit back and relive past glories! I'm more into the relationships that I've made on the show, which are more real to me.
Q: Did you meet your wife on the show?
A: No, I didn't. We were engaged before we started shooting. We're both in it because Eddie and Mary created a family and she was invited into the family, because we were all there. It was really that kind of creative atmosphere which doesn't feel like the corporate TV world. It was really that intimate.
Q: You did a lot of British shows like Hornblower. So was it good for your career to come into an American genre show?
A: Oh, definitely. It definitely moved my career into an area that I'm much more excited by than I was before. British actors now are two-a-penny in Hollywood on TV shows. There's like 35 or 36 on prime time shows in America right now. But when I went over, there were very few. It was very exciting. I remember feeling really apprehensive and exhilarated by the idea of playing a lead role in this American epic and working with American actors. And I've learnt a tonne from working with American actors. I think the television coming out of the States right now - particularly on the cable networks - is truly groundbreaking. They're telling stories that the movies aren't telling at the moment. In fact, they're telling dramatic stories that are not really being told anywhere - even on the stage. The plays that seem to work on the stage at the moment seem to be very literal at the moment. New writing seems to be based very much in the here and now. But there's something almost Shakespearean about Battlestar, which is unparalleled.
Q: There is a spin-off in the works called The Plan. Are you involved?
A: It's a one-off film, which they shot soon after... I'm not involved. Most of us aren't involved. Eddie directed it - and it's really about the Cylons. But I look forward to seeing it.
Q: You're now on Law & Order: UK. What was the attraction of that?
A: It was different enough. I was not looking to come back to the UK really. I was in love with the whole idea of staying in America. But the idea of bringing an American show to the UK... I'm a bit evangelical about the way American TV is run. They really do facilitate creators to really create these ambitious stories, in the way that we don't quite do here.
The only on-going yarns that we tell, for twenty episodes across multiple years, are the soaps. We've never really done it with anything else. To make TV financially viable, you have to create a product that's really attractive to a global market, and the way to do that is with quantity of good storytelling - and we limit ourselves to good mini-series. Six episodes of something like State of Play. We make iconic TV but we lack the financial wherewithal or the balls to make something that's really going to cash in on the long-run. And I thought this was an opportunity to do that with Law & Order: UK, with a franchise from America. It's sort of worked and it sort of hasn't. I'm very proud of what we're able to do in this country but I wish we could make it pay off. To see TV in such trouble is really sad to me.
Issue: 133 | February, 2012