Mission Starfury: The Cylon Attack / Saturday talks / BSG
Disclaimer: Transcribed from the notes I took during the talks. Quotes are not exact and be aware that transcription doesn’t convey everything (meaning: don’t take what the actors say too seriously).
Spoiler warning: spoilers for the whole BSG series, and a few from the upcoming series Caprica (related to Alessandra’s character, Zoe).
Transcript: hobbitofkobol
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Pictures: benelie
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LINKS: Benelie's Saturday talks album
Leah Cairns & Luciana Carro
Luciana’s talks are transcribed with a lot of details here at lucianacarrofans.com. You’ll find below details about Leah’s answers.
1/ About upcoming projects
Leah is not working right now because she was waiting to be able to adopt her little boy from Ethiopia. She spent last summer with him in Africa and then could bring him back with her.
She’d never been to Africa before (except Egypt).
2/ About the Mutiny arc
Leah was confused at first. Coming up with reasons for Racetrack to join the mutiny was a lot of work. The hardest scene to shoot was the one with Apollo. She had a lot more scenes originally but was not available to shoot them. She had a monologue face to face with Kara that explains why she’s doing all this, how she became frustrated following leaders that led her nowhere. But overall seeing Racetrack in the mutiny was hard for Leah. “Thank God she saved everybody in the end!”
3/ About Racetrack as a minor character who plays a big role in the finale
For Leah, Racetrack did not play a big role in the finale but one that was important to the storyline. Sometimes the writers would get frustrated with her character because she was not always available and they’d use a Racetrack-ish character instead. But she loved t he way she went out.
4/ About having more scenes with an actor on the show
Leah would have loved to work with James Callis because she finds him fascinating.
5/ About the ending of BSG
Leah loved it, thought it was genius and bawled through most of it. The extra info on the script helped understand it better.
Someone later asked details about the script and she said it had something to do with the conversation between Six and Baltar at the end. It was a bit different. She actually wanted to bring the script and forgot it when packing. She told the audience to ask James about it.
6/ About possible things that didn’t sit well with them on the show
Leah didn’t have any personal examples in mind but shared what Aaron Douglas’ views on this is: “don’t like it, not gonna do it, won’t be in the scene”.
7/ About shows they’d like to be on
Leah picked True Blood, Saving Grace and SYTYCD. Then she talked about her love for the British children’s series In the Night Garden. Her son hated it so she watched it after he falls asleep.
8/ About what they love and hate about acting
Leah became an actress by accident and is still shocked that people pay her to do it. It doesn’t feel like work, it’s like playing dress up. She hates how self-obsessed it is. She’d never noticed her nose before someone bitched about it. And “auditioning sucks balls”.
9/ About their idea of a perfect day off.
For Leah, it’s when someone cooks for her.
10/ About working with Al Pacino
Leah and Luciana have both worked with him. See lucianacarrofans.com for details.
Leah didn’t know much about Pacino’s work before working with him so she was not nervous. She watched some of his movies afterwards. “Holy crap! I worked with him! He’s really good!”
11/ Leah also shared this embarrassing (but hilarious) story
Kate Vernon & Alessandra Torresani
1/ About finding out she was the Final Cylon
Initially, Kate was “just” killed off. There wasn’t a “Fifth Cylon” at that point. She kept asking Ron Moore about her possible comeback in the show (even in flashbacks for instance) and he always answered “No. Absolutely not.”
One day she called him again and he stopped her in mid-sentence with a “Kate, look.” And she thought she’d offended him. But then he told her “I just pitched an idea to the network, if it’s approved you’ll come back.”
Ron called her back when she was stuck in traffic.
“Hey Kate…” (he sounded bummed out)
“Hi Ron.”
“I’m sorry to say…”
Then Kate started to cry.
“…unfortunately the network greenlit the idea, you’re coming back!”
“That’s… good news!” She was now crying happy tears. “What’s the story?”
“You’re the Fifth.”
“Stop it, it’s not nice.”
They talked about it for 45 minutes while she was still in traffic.
“Oh yeah, and you cannot tell anyone.”
She couldn’t tell anyone for 2 years (because of the Writers Strike it was even longer).
Alessandra: I would have twittered it in the next minute!
2/ About the convention being the first for Alessandra
Alessandra talked to Tricia (Helfer) about it. She said it was a fun and fresh new experience so far.
Kate added that this was a gentle and relaxing convention and that she was loving it.
3/ Was Alessandra a fan of BSG before getting cast in Caprica? (a question benelie asked)
She was very confused at first because she thought it was the show from the 70s. After filming the pilot she came up with the flu and spent 2 days watching the whole series and loved it.
4/ About the differences in playing Ellen before and after she was revealed as a Cylon (a question benelie asked)
For Kate, Ellen is fully realized when she comes back, she’s not in conflict. It was really great to play on that. All she wanted was coming back to Saul. And when she returned what she saw was really disturbing (he was having a relationship with his “daughter”). Their deep undying love for each other is the basis of everything for her character.
Then she added that there are no therapists in space so all they can do is drinking, burging and boinking.
5/ Was Kate treated differently as a Human and as a Cylon?
Kate: “By whom? The caterers?”
She was always herself. But sometimes with a lot of secrecy!
6/ About the episode No Exit
Kate was sent the shooting script two days before and had to memorize buckets of dialogue. She felt a lot of pressure because it was the big reveal, a crucial episode. It was like wearing a new suit: am I walking ok?
She also said that the character of Ellen Tigh was born in the dinner scene from Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down. She thought “Wow I can do anything and say anything I want as this character. I’m Ellen Tigh!”
7/ About Saul&Ellen’s happy ending
Kate was so happy that they got to end together, by themselves, with nothing.
8/ About filming Caprica
Alessandra revealed that at that time they were shooting episode 13 out of 20 and working like crazy. The crew is pretty much the same as on BSG so it’s like one big family. She mentioned that Eric Stoltz directed one episode.
9/ About the downloading scenes
According to Kate, the Cylon goo is warm and soft and made of food thickener. It was actually dangerous because it was really slippery and the edges were like razor. She had stickies on her body but they did not stick well and ended up floating in the goo so she was often heard shouting “wardrobe!”
10/ About Ellen’s wardrobe
Kate loved her character’s clothes and wondered where she shopped. She tried to steal some and was not the only actor to do so.
11/ About playing the different versions of Zoe
Alessandra said that Ron Moore explained a bit about them but not much. Zoe-A is exactly like the original Zoe but like a new born. Her feelings are brand new and yet she has a lot of knowledge. Zoe-O is a real bitch but she’s fun to play.
12/ About how BSG/Caprica is different from filming other shows
Alessandra said that it’s like a support system, a family. She finds the material challenging.
Kate agreed and talked about how BSG ended and yet they kept having parties just to see each other. She called them “Frak parties”. She also mentioned that there’s nothing like BSG on TV in terms of writing.
Alessandra added that shooting in Vancouver helps. It’s a new city for most of them, they moved there at the same time so they stick together.
nicole_anell has a good detailed report of the end of the talk here.
James Callis & Jamie Bamber
The very same nicole_anell has an extensive and really detailed report of their talk. We highly recommend to read her post!
