From The Monster Island News Archives
At the Grand Slam Summit I was invited by Battlestar Galactica star Richard Hatch (Apollo) to spend Saturday afternoon with him as he signed autographs and greeted fans. Here are the highlights of our conversation.
KH - Ken Hulsey RH - Richard Hatch
KH- Are you surprised that Battlestar Galactica is still so popular today?
RH- No, because it seems to me that anything that is created by anyone who has done their job will effect people in a very powerful way. Great novels and great stories are timeless. Great art created 300 years , maybe earlier, may not have been successful, but hundreds of years later people would pay a million dollars for it. The truth is when an artist who is talented and gifted creates something, it never surprises me that people are impacted powerfully by that art, by that story, show, movie or whatever it may be. Battlestar had a great epic story and I think a lot of people related to it on a very deep level. I don't know about you, but when you grow up there are things that impact all of us very powerfully. People always remember a particular movie, tv show, actor or somebody who came into their lives at a certain time and powerfully touched them.
KH- I'm sure that many fans are wondering why such a popular tv show like Galactica wouldn't survive past one season?
RH- Many good shows go off the air before their time. Sometimes it is because of ratings. Sometimes networks don't stay with a show long enough for it to find an audience. Sometimes shows start off at the bottom in the ratings, but someone up top believes in the show strongly enough to with it. Ultimately those shows raise in the ratings. Sometimes into the top ten. Network executives normally don't always stay with sci-fi shows. If they don't do well imeadiatly they take them off. Battlestar would have stayed on except for the fact we were the most expensive show in history. We were the most publisized show in history. We had the highest ratings for a sci-fi show in history, but the technological challenges of mounting a show like that on a weekly basis were impossible.
KH- Most fans will recall that the show had virtually the same quality of special effects as Star Wars. That initially was one of the shows strong selling points. That combined with the shows strong characters made it an instant hit. The network did however try to revive the show right away with Galactica 1980. That show however went in an entirely different direction.
RH- Galactica 1980 was kinda the networks way of cutting the shows budget in half. They were trying to make the show fit a tv venue, but unfortunately it destroyed the whole epic journey to find Earth and it basically changed what made Battlestar so wonderful and so compelling. Everything was taken out once they got to Earth.
KH- I know most fans would agree with you on that. Do you enjoy doing conventions?
RH- Yes, even though it is exhausting. Every single person that comes up to you, for them, it is normally the first time you have met. Even though you are tired you want to treat everyone like they are special. People come up to you and they are vulnerable because they are meeting someone that they respect, someone they watched on tv and my feeling is that it is my responsibility to make each person feel special. You may have met a thousand people that day, but all the fan knows is that you are meeting them right now.
KH- You honestly do take the time to talk in depth with each person.
RH- You know why, I teach this in my seminars, because you are communicating every moment you are outside your house. Everyone you meet. Everyone you talk to. What you do or what you don't do. It applies to business just like it applies to life. People formulate judgements on what they see. Unfortunately people often missinterpret what you are doing. They could see you not feeling because of a cold or that you are exhausted. You may have been signing for eight hours and all of a sudden you don't even look up for the last twenty people in line. Even though you don't have any more energy left, to those people you come off as a real a-hole. They end up thinking of you as a selfish sob. They think that you aren't a very nice guy. Not a very warm guy. You may not have realised that those people just misconceived you. My thought is when you come this kind of event it is a real hard job. It's like when I go to a restaurant and my waiter or waitress doesn't smile or extend themselves. They aren't warm, they aren't gracious or bend over backwards to serve me. I feel that if I'm paying good money to come to this restaurant it is their job, regardless of what kind of day they have had, to interact with me and treat me like I am someone special. That is customer service. I feel the same way when I come to a convention. I happen to like people. Some actors don't like people.Some people get pissed off because this is something they don't enjoy doing. They do it for the money or they are promoting something, but they really hate it. I enjoy doing events like this.
KH- It is really obvious that you do. I've come to these conventions for years both as a fan and as a writer. I have met many actors who genuinely love their fans. I'll give an example, Mark Hamill, he is great with fans. . He sits and talks to every single fan. He is just like you very personable. On the other hand I have met some actors who don't want any contact with the fans at all. What does that say to the fans? It is great to meet someone like yourself who takes the time to talk to fans like you do.
I want to take time to reflect on the time you spent working with the great tv actor Lorne Greene. What was it like for you? How did he influence you as an actor?
RH - It wasn't as much the acting as it was the fact that he was a very nice human being. He was easy to talk to, very down to Earth, very real. He was a very loving and caring man who treated everyone with respect which made it very easy to work with him. He was very personable. He wasn't some star crossed actor lost in his own hype. He helped to create a very comfortable working environment for all of us, plus playing my father. I liked him as a person so it was very easy to play his son.
KH - The Galactica storyline was based on a family. Where the cast like a family unit?
RH - We all got to know each other and hung out together. We were on the set 18 hours a day so we were like a family.
KH - You really have embraced the new Battlestar Galactica series. Now a lot of fans have followed your trials and tribulations trying to keep the original series alive for years. Was it hard for you to accept the fact that Battlestar Galactica was going to be reworked?
RH - This all started a long time ago when I was trying to revive the series and I was having meetings with Universal, investors and other production companies trying to find ways to bring the show back. I kept meeting up with resistance from a lot of people. The original actors weren't all that excited that I was trying to promote a revival. A lot of them had mixed feelings about a fellow actor trying to do all this stuff. Glen Larson got upset even though he had sold his rights to the show to Universal many years ago. He didn't like the idea of one of the actors from the series trying to do something with it. I basically wanted to follow the original story with the original actors. I didn't want to change the core story. I wanted to build upon it. He didn't like the idea of someone besides himself doing it. I understand that being a writer myself. There seemed to be more interest in doing the Pegasus (Battlestar) story and I wanted to do the Galactica story so they were resistant. Finally Bryan Singer (X-men, X2 & Superman Returns) came on board and his version was to continue the story on down the line so that they would only have three or four of the original actors in the show. I felt that was much more in line with what the fans wanted to see and was more in line with what I was doing. I was supportive of that project. The only problem I had with it was that it seemed like they were bringing some of the main characters back in main roles, yet my character was being brought in through the back door. I felt that the story Tom DeSanto was working on was very interesting. My character was to find redemption after being captured by the Cylons, maybe even being turned into a Cylon himself much like what was done in the new series. I thought that would be a very compelling story. In the opening two hour pilot, however I basically didn't have a word. I felt like Herb and Dirk were given the main roles in the show and I felt like I was being brought in through the back door. Maybe to do a real interesting role that for me as an actor I would have loved doing. As Richard Hatch, Captain Apollo, I felt my character was on the outside looking in.
KH - I can understand your frustration because your character was Galactica for all intents. Apollo and Starbuck, after all, were the focal points of the series.
RH - That was upsetting to me, but because I liked Tom (DeSanto) so much and I liked his thinking and his vision I would have done anything he asked me to do. They, of course, had their way of going about it that was different from how I was going to do it. Now we have Ron Moore's version which reimagines it totally. Everyone down the line wanted to do a different version.
KH - Everyone seemed to want to put their own take on it.
RH - Everyone wanted to put their own take on it and at the end of the day I realized that I had put a lot of time and energy in to bringing back the show. A lot of people had tried to bring it back I wasn't the only one. Obviously they weren't putting the money I was into it or going out a filming a trailer. The issue was that it was painful every time someone else wanted to do something so different. It was their vision and they were entitled to their vision. I didn't own the series and at the end of the day I realized that it was Universal who was going to call the shots. It always put me in a very uncomfortable situation. What I am trying to say is that ultimately I had to make peace with the fact that I didn't own the story I didn't create the story, even though I had worked very hard to bring it back. I had to deal with the reality that if I wanted to do something myself I would have to create my own story. I would have to step back from the Galactica story and write my own story. That is what I did with "The Great War Of Magellon". It was still very painful when they decided to reimagine, not because it was Ron Moore or Edward James Olmos or any of those people. I like those people. After meeting Ron Moore I liked him even more. I like the way he thinks he is an ingredibely smart man. He is a gifted Sci-Fi writer. Lets face it, he could write anything. He loves Sci-Fi and understands Sci-Fi. As an actor number on I felt it was important to build a bridge from the from the past to the future.
KH - They had already jumped ahead with "Galactica 1980" and you just wanted to fill in the story. As a fan myself I always felt empty because they ended Galactica with the scene were they receive the transmission of the moon landing the next thing you know the are on Earth. Where were Starbuck and Apollo? I felt as a fan that the story didn't work without the epic journey storyline.
RH - I thought that it would make a lot of sense to fill in those blanks and to bring back the original cast or at least the core group of them and build a second generation with them. Their children growing up in space. Which I felt would make for great stories about kids who didn't have parents or maybe had one parent. The second generation growing up in space.
KH - All they would know is the fleet and running from the Cylons. Their whole lives would revolve around trying to find this mythical planet they know nothing about.
RH - Exactly. You could have great stories about fathers and sons plus you get to flash back and build upon the mythology and fill in the blanks that never got tied together. To me it was important to build upon the back story, tie together the missing links and some of the story threads that never got explained and bring it all together in a powerful way. To me a continuation made the most sense. Again at the end of the day I realized Universal was going to do it their own way. With Ron Moore at least they have a quality person running it and they put money towards it. They have a great cast and crew. You can't deny the fact that they have put together a great science fiction program that they have created. Very different from the original. Still some of the core elements from the original are woven through it. The core story of surviving in space is still there. They are starting to get into the characters every day challenges of living in space. I was frustrated twenty-five years ago that we didn't get into those types of stories and now they are getting into all that stuff. Thats what I wanted to get into was the dramatic core story of surviving in space.
I want to thank Richard Hatch for taking time out of his busy convention schedule to spend time with me to conduct this interview. I also want to thank him for his open and honest answers. I t was a true honor to be able to converse with someone a lot of us grew up watching on TV. As Richard stated Galactica touched a generation of TV viewers in a very powerful way. Today a new generation is discovering that epic journey on DVD and in the form of Ron Moore's new vision of Battlestar Galactica. It is true that both great art and great sci-fi will survive for future generations to enjoy. - Ken Hulsey
However, Tennant is not his real last name. Like most aspiring actors, as a result of conflicts with other registered members of actor’s unions, they are forced to choose another name not in use. He chose his acting surname from Neil Tennant, singer with Pet Shop Boys (good choice – love the Pet Shop Boys “Very” album as my favorites). According to various sources, this came after reading an interview with Tennant in Smash Hits shortly after learning that he would have to change his professional name in order to join the actors' union, Equity, as there was already a registered member with his real name, David McDonald.
