Razor's Edge Part Two

In the second part of this Q and A (Kindly provided to us by Sky One), Jamie Bamber talks about the after-effects of Razor, his thoughts on working in the science fiction field and, amongst other things, Blade Runner...

Operator: Your next question comes from Jennifer Godwin of E! online.

Jennifer Godwin: Thank you, Jamie. The Razor movie is mostly in flashbacks, but there also seems to be some hints of what’s to come, particularly when the Starbuck prophecy that you - we hear from the hybrid Can you talk a little bit about if you’ve seen elements from Razor in the episodes to come that you’ve shot already?

Jennifer Godwin: It’s really good. You should take a look.

Jamie Bamber: Well I’ve got it in my bag and I do mean to watch it, but I haven’t had time. So - and I know they had to make some pretty big changes with the editing, so I - everything that I say is based on what I shot and what I read in the script. So it may not be 100% accurate.

Jennifer Godwin: Okay.

Jamie Bamber: But yeah, I know they are, you know, very conscious of fulfilling the hybrid Starbuck element. And that - I think that was the main thing that they introduced, which was a new seed about the direction that we’re going. And obviously Season Four opens up literally seconds after the strange reappearance of Starbuck that happened at the very last couple of frames in Season Three. So it’s very much the first question served up to the audience, is, you know, what’s going on with Starbuck? And that sort of occupies a good chunk of the drama and the interpersonal relationships in at least the first half of Season Four. So, you know, that’s not shrugged off. It’s definitely addressed.

Jennifer Godwin: Cool. Thank you very much.

Jamie Bamber: You’re welcome.

Operator: The next question comes from Rick Bentley with Fresno Bee.

Rick Bentley: Hi, Jamie. Thanks for the time.

Jamie Bamber: Sure.

Rick Bentley: Hey listen, you’ve talked very eloquently about what science fiction has been able to do to this series. Were you - did you have that same feeling before you took on this show? Were you a fan of sci-fi or was it something you thought, you know, that may be so special effects heavy it would not allow me to be an actor?

Jamie Bamber: Yeah. I did have reservations about doing sci-fi. And when I first got the script, it definitely didn’t make me leap off the seat and grab it. I really did think - sci-fi, in my mind, had been reduced to sort of post Star Trek sort of kind of goofiness on TV. I would never, ever watch it - not in a million years. So it was something that was definitely - was a leap for Stephen to pick up the script and to sort of think of it as something that I would want to do. But I really can’t stress enough, as soon as I did pick up the script, open the first page and read that mission statement that Ron had written at Dave Eick’s behest to try and sort of temper the bitter taste of reading a script called Battlestar Galactica. I was enthralled by the ambition, by the - just the chutzpa really of what he was trying to do. And then as I read the story, it wasn’t about special effects.

It was about - it could have been a US Marine aircraft carrier in any conflict of the 20th Century. And it just gripped me, the idea of this ship lost at sea and all hope of landfall is gone - and the people on board desperately trying to make sense of the bigger picture. So as soon as I read that, I - we really all kind of latched onto that element of truth in the story. And we’ve all, I think, forgotten that it’s space or we tried to. I mean, I have to be honest, there are elements in this show that still sit uneasily with me because they smack too much, too readily of sci-fi and I think we could have been even more bold at times. But it’s also very important to bring in the core sci-fi audience who are an audience that I’ve now come to know and really appreciate. They’re very inquisitive. They’ve got tremendously interested in our show and their opinions and arguments are fascinating, and educative. And, you know, they’re quite a bunch to sort of be involved in a dialogue with. So the whole thing has been a revelation on that level for me. And I think sci-fi has got a lot to be said for it as a genre. I just - I sort of get a bit disappointed when people talk of it as a genre because it’s, you know, it’s a pretty heavy little niche in literature and filmmaking. And at its best, it does - it’s not worthy of just being marginalized as a genre. It’s just good storytelling, good character writing and good situation plotting, and using situation as plot device. And, you know, you think of Blade Runner and nobody really thinks of Blade Runner as a genre film. I certainly don’t and I think - hopefully our series has done that - dissolved the boundaries and the ring fence around sci-fi, and made it a bit more appealing to the mainstream. And that’s certainly my little personal odyssey through this, is that I don’t, you know, I don’t marginalize sci-fi anymore. I just look at the story and see what’s there.

Rick Bentley: But you could - you said there were elements that you - that sit uneasily. Could you give me one example?

Jamie Bamber: Yeah. I mean, you know, the whole - the Cylon world, every time we delve deeper and deeper into that it - to me, it just becomes a bit reductive and, you know, these many copies of the same preacher having conversations on these futuristic looking ships which are so different from the sort of moth-eaten and dinged up interior of the Battlestar, which just works for me. There are elements like that. I’m not - I don’t particularly like the kind of - the mystical deus ex machina process. It seems to happen with the plotlines of the show - suddenly revelations are made and people seem to be seeing visions, and dancing to some kind of distant, preordained, you know, sort of almost mythical journey. I think our show works best in the cut and thrust of sociopolitical drama, and the decisions that humans have to make rather than suddenly, you know, feeling like we’re all on some preordained odyssey through space and time to the founding of humanity as a dictator, some, you know, monotheistic creator that we haven’t yet met. Those elements of the show are interesting as long as they are also inexplicable and open to being questioned, and doubted. And I think sometimes in the show, that sort of miraculous event has been somehow too miraculous to be readily deniable, you know. There was an episode in Season Two where the skies - we were in a cave and then the skies opened up, and you can see the constellations, and it’s the map to Earth -- and it’s all stuff like that. Those sort of moments to me - I don’t think are my favorites in the show. But I know some people love them.

Rick Bentley: Good. Now one last thing with - technical thing - how far along are you in shooting this last season? How many episodes to go? How far - about halfway, a third, two-thirds?

Jamie Bamber:We are just over halfway. We embark on Episode 12 on Friday.

Rick Bentley: Okay. Thanks a lot for your time.

Jamie Bamber: Pleasure.