What the Battlestar Galactica Cast Really Thought About the 2000s Series: ‘It’s Nothing like Star Trek’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Sometimes it's hard to believe that the critically acclaimed 2004 to 2009 version of Battlestar Galactica — with its gritty focus on the remnants of the twelve colonies in a distant star system trying to survive extermination by the robotic Cylons — was born out of a glossier 1978 single season television series created by Glen A. Larson.

 At the same time, there's no denying that while that show, which starred Lorne Greene and Richard Hatch, has enjoyed a cult following in all the decades since its cancellation, its cultural impact is incomparable to the newer take that is currently celebrating its 20th anniversary.

 "From the outset," explains Ronald D. Moore, who co-created the 2000s TV series with David Eick that aired on the Sci Fi Channel, and has since gone on to create Outlander and For All Mankind, "one of the first things we talked about was the fact that we wanted the show to be relevant. We didn't want to do a science fiction show that's pure escapism, that isn't about people and civilizations that meant nothing to us. Let's do a show that's more along older and more traditional science fiction that's sort of common to the audience and contemporary society through this interesting prism.

 "Battlestar Galactica," he continues, "is bigger than all of us. It really touched people and challenged them. It's not like any other program. It was and is unique. It's just a special piece. When you watch it, you're sort of pulled into this other world and it's nothing like Star Trek, Stargate or Star Wars. It's its own unique animal and people really responded to it and got emotionally involved with those characters and the story. It just really touched a nerve."

And it certainly touched the ensemble cast, who, in this exclusive excerpt from So Say We All: The Unofficial Oral History of Battlestar Galactica, share their thoughts on what the show meant to them.

EDWARD JAMES OLMOS (Admiral William Adama)

"The connection I felt and feel with everyone involved with the show is something I’ve never felt before, and I’ve been in some great ensembles. This became something else; we went to another place. The feelings were real. We lived it. Okay, we’re actors and we have to do that. That’s part of the whole experience, and you hear it from everybody. I mean, Hill Street Blues, ER, The West Wing — they all have incredible feelings about their relationship to one another and to the show. But it's because of the nature of what we experienced and where we took it in respect of the responsibility of really understanding that we were documenting human behavior in one of the most difficult situations known to humankind: the extermination of humanity."

 JAMIE BAMBER (Captain Lee ‘Apollo’ Adama)

"The show was like making an independent film where our voices as actors were appreciated and heard and we weren’t just hired and told to stand in the right place and say the words. We were on this journey with everyone else and we were all there to make it better. So it really taught me a lot of things about this business and storytelling and acting and responsibility to those around you. For me, it was right place, right time, right moment in my career. But also an experience the like of which I haven’t had since in terms of the media and the public response and the way it just seemed to just fire people’s bellies."

TRICIA HELFER (Number Six)

"The show represented a combination of things between the incredible writing and the story that is actually there, and knowing you are doing something special. And knowing you are doing material that, even though it’s fiction it has a heavy core to it, it means something. When you are talking about the annihilation of human rights and what it’s like to be in war and what it’s like to be fighting for your lives and all that type of thing, it hits you heavier. Mixed in with that is a team that just really bonded together. We became really close and it became a special project for us all. Children were born during the beginning of Battlestar and during the run of Battlestar. You’d all have birthday parties and the kids’ parties and Sunday barbecues. Just amazing."

AARON DOUGLAS (Chief Tyrol)

"I’ve got about a hundred credits, give or take a few, which means that I’ve done a lot of TV shows and films, but I don’t keep in touch with anyone from any other show like I do with Battlestar. Not even remotely close. The genuine love and the genuine affection that we all have of each other and for the show and for our share of it, is something remarkable. For some reason, the fans have that same shared love and camaraderie and sense of family that we do. I’ve seen so many other shows where you can tell that they’re just tired of doing it and there’s no oomph left. But I don’t think we ever lost our oomph, and that’s from everybody at the top in L.A. all the way down through where we were filming and down to the person guarding the parking lot. They were proud to be on Battlestar Galactica. It was a very cool thing."

GRACE PARK (Sharon Valerii, Boomer)

"It was jelling with everyone and finding out how we were going to be with each other, how Eddie was leading us, how talented and supportive the crew were. Eddie had to tell us multiple times to get ready, that this was going to be the best thing we would do for 40 years, so we should make it special."

JAMIE BAMBER 

"At the time, Edward James Olmos said he felt sorry for the younger members of the cast, of which I include myself, because he said, 'It’s happened to you too early in your careers and you’re never going to have another experience like this.' He’s definitely been right. When you’re in the middle of anything, it’s very hard to appreciate every moment, but it’s wise advice to live in the moment as much as you can."

KATEE SACKHOFF (Kara ‘Thrace, Starbuck)

"Truthfully, we’re a family and I think part of it was the fact that we were all in Vancouver and it was a really good place to be. There was no judgement. It was a completely supportive environment where everyone from the grip to the director to the art department to the AV department … every single person on that set was respectful of the process that the actor needed to go through and the freedom that it required, and the time that it took. We created something really great, because everybody sort of respected that it was really great."

MICHAEL HOGAN (Colonel Saul Tigh)

"It’s just one of the shows that everybody involved is so incredibly proud of the product, incredibly proud of their work as opposed — not that there’s that many — to some shows that one is involved in where you're, like, 'Oh, you want to talk about that?” Battlestar is, 'Oh, yes, bring it on.' There’s no question, and I think that everybody involved means that. Battlestar was a movie that took us five years to shoot, and what a gift as an actor that is."

ALESSANDRO JULIANI (Felix Gaeta)

"Childhood wish-fulfillment. It’s a rare thing to get to actually become the things you played with as a child — that’s totally what it was for me. When booking the series, I didn’t really believe it. But going into my basement and finding my old Battlestar action figures, and my board game and thinking, 'This is pretty f'n cool.' So what instantly comes to mind is, “Wow, what a cool, atypical thing to get to experience as an actor.' And to then have action figures of yourself in that same universe is pretty wild."

MARY MCDONNELL (President Laura Roslin)

"Not only did we collectively engineer a whole new idea for the elegance of Battlestar Galactica, without betraying the first one, but while we were shooting and it was airing, this brand new business was emerging that we all are part of now with the new platforming and literally transitioned from film to high definition video. We also made the transition from your acting space being sacred and no one ever got to come visit you unless it was a very special event, to people sending out pictures and messages of life on the set that day. Everything was changing right before our eyes; as we were shooting it; our whole reality was changing."

JAMES CALLIS (Gaius Baltar)

"We’ve been saying this kind of stuff for a while now. Battlestar is worth more than the sum total of its parts. You only look good when you’re next to other people who look good. Otherwise, nobody’s watching it and it’s not any good. It’s one of those things that I think you’re right to highlight, because whenever I think about the show, essentially I think about all the people and there were a lot of us. The cast and the crew and the post-production and the executives who made it happen. I see faces more than anything else. I would imagine that every person in the show wants to acknowledge as many people as they possibly can, because every person in the show was so instrumental in making the show what it was and is."

TRICIA HELFER

"I hope to be working for many more years to come, but when people say, 'Do you ever get tired of hearing and talking about Battlestar,' I’m, like, 'Not at all.' Not only was it an amazing experience, but the fact is that audiences are still finding it and still passionate about it, and there are new people finding it all the time and still passionate about it, so it shows that it doesn’t have a timestamp on it, so to speak."

ALESSANDRO JULIANI

"It tapped into something deeper. Something about our basic humanity. Anything I say right now is not going to really do justice to it, but any great piece of art, or any great thing, reflects back on us. Battlestar must have done that in an expected genre, maybe in an unexpected way. We must have all seen ourselves in the show in some capacity for it to have inspired so much of life beyond its short, little run. When we go to these reunions and things, I remain sort of flabbergasted at the longevity of it. The people who watched the show when it was first out, they are now showing this show to their kids. So their kids are discovering it on their own and so now families are coming and the kids are now dressing up, or the teenagers. So there’s this sense now that it’s going to go on forever. It’s going to perpetuate itself and begot itself. What a remarkable thing. What a phenomenon."

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