t's hard to believe that nearly a decade has passed since J. Michael Straczynski first brought the Babylon 5 saga to television. Babylon 5's smart writing and well-executed story arc ensnared the attention and accolades of genre audiences throughout its tumultuous and exciting five-year run as a series. Ever since B5 ended, fans have hoped to see more in this universe—and we've gotten glimpses, when Straczynski brought us back into the fold with a series of stand-alone movies on TNT. Now, the SCI FI Channel dips into the B5 universe once more to bring us the original telefilm, Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers—To Live and Die in Starlight.
Rangers follows Capt. David Martel and his crew aboard the Liandra, an older Ranger ship pressed into service once more for a mission that turns out to be more difficult—and dangerous—than anyone first imagined.
With the exception of returning cast member Andreas Katsulas (G'Kar), this movie, which airs on the SCI FI Channel on Jan. 19, at 9 p.m. ET, features a young, all-new cast. Below are some snippets of conversations with Katsulas, Dylan Neal, Dean Marshall and Myriam Sirois.
Andreas Katsulas reprises his role as the inimitable Citizen G'Kar.
After you ran into Joe Straczynski at a restaurant, how did you end up getting the role in this next-generation Babylon 5 movie?
Katsulas: That is totally a fluke. He took this [chance meeting] as an enormous coincidence on a universal scale, that on the very day that he had gotten the green light on Rangers, he should bump into me that way. So he took it as a sign that I should be involved with it. He told me the situation, that he had written the Rangers for SCI FI, that he wasn't going to have any cast members from the old cast in it, but the fact that he met me, would I be interested? I said of course. I really believe he had no intention of bringing an old cast member back into the new format, but this fluke just seemed like it was meant to be. And he wrote an excellent G'Kar for this Rangers, in my estimation.
What was it about the writing of G'Kar in this movie that struck you as being particularly noteworthy?
Katsulas: G'Kar is light and expansive. He comes to the Rangers and of course they're all upset about this and that. But G'Kar seems like he takes it in such a stride, with a sense of humor about it, and really sort of a new freedom, where he's floating above all of the concerns of the ordinary folk.
Do you think it's of value to the film have your character act as a bridge between the old and the new?
Katsulas: For the fan base of B5, [it's good] to have a link with the Rangers that goes back with a real presence represented by G'Kar, so that the old story is carried forward in a sense. [The new story is] something that's not so new that we can't get into it, but it has enough
of a flavor of the past to make us still interested.
What's G'Kar's role in the events that transpire in this movie?
Katsulas: He's a consultant with the really rare and unusual experience of having visited places that no one else has visited, and seen things no one else has seen. And he has contacts in worlds that haven't yet been contacted. And so he's an asset, if someone is wondering about some
mysterious race that hasn't been charted yet, G'Kar says, "Oh yes, I think I know what you're talking about—I was there three years ago." It's that kind of experience that he's bringing, that kind of function. He also knows the territory that the Rangers are unsure of and are about to explore.
What was it like interacting with the new B5 cast?
Katsulas: That was so much fun [laughs]. First of all, Joe can't just do things in an ordinary way. He made all of them sit down and watch episodes from B5 and become familiar with the bible and the story and how it was filmed, who was in it, and what the characters were about. And from that experience, by the time I arrived on the set, they already knew their homework, and there was this reverence, this "should we talk to him or not talk to him or leave him alone" thinking [laughs].
They'd heard all of these rumors and legends about Andreas that have grown up, about how Andreas, once he's in the makeup, he's G'Kar and that's it and he sits quietly—so they had all of these notions already. And the fact that the cast is so much younger than our own—I think when we started B5 we were maybe all in our mid-30's or thereabouts, whereas this cast is barely in its mid-20s—made me feel like an older, wiser brother, or maybe an old, wise uncle or something in respect to the others. There was such appreciation that I was part of it, though, and I felt so welcomed.
Dean Marshall plays infiltration and covert-operations specialist Malcolm Bridges.
How did you get the role on Babylon 5?
Marshall: I auditioned twice. Both auditions could have been carbon copies of themselves, and I walked out of both of them feeling I did my best, now let it go. And then I got it. I started screaming on the phone when my agent called me up with the news. It was pretty exciting.
Do you enjoy science fiction yourself, or is this just another job to you?
Marshall: I've been a huge sci-fi fan since I was a kid as well, so this is a dream come true—what I call my waking dream.
Do the detailed sets help you get into the mindset of being on a spaceship?
Marshall: Yes, it creates the magic for me. It's like I'm Peter Pan that way, I want to be a kid forever and play dressup and go fly in space. I get in there and I'm transformed; I'm morphed as soon as I walk in through the doors. It helps immensely—especially what they did for the ship, which is just beautiful. [Pauses], And then you get a little bit closer, and you see, and you say, "Is that a sprinkler head" or "Is that a Frisbee?" Because there's all of this metallic silver paint covering up [such ordinary items] to make them look like some technical aspect of the ship itself.
How much direction did Straczynski give you on how to play your character?
Marshall: He thought I had a good sense of the role right off the bat, and I think he cast well that way. Everybody played to their strongest points, and the characters felt like they were right for us for different reasons. Joe did let me know about where the character came from as well, and he was willing to offer as much history as possible—but nothing about the future [laughs].
Dylan Neal portrays the Ranger Capt. David Martel.
What did you have to do to come up to speed on Babylon 5?
Neal: As each day went by, I started getting the impression that I'd walked into something a little bigger than I'd thought [laughs]. I was just expecting a sci-fi movie and that would be it. But obviously Babylon 5 is a very in-depth series with a real mythology behind it. I went to the Internet because I had no idea who Joe and Doug were; I'd seen them at the audition and assumed they were the big guns, but didn't know who they were. And that's how I found out that, ironically, I'd worked with them 14 years earlier on one of their early series, Captain Powers and the Soldiers of the Future; I was a recurring character on that, and it was my second job ever. The fans had found that out before we'd figured it out for ourselves.
I did research on what a Minbari looked like, who's a Centauri; I didn't know what any of these aliens were. I was on the Net as much as I could, and talked to Joe [about B5]. And each day I find out a little bit more about the mythology of Babylon 5.
Tell us about who David Martel is.
Neal: Well, I guess he's a little different from your typical Ranger as established by Babylon 5. As I understand it, Rangers have a very strict code that you follow, and they don't deviate from that. David is, I'm not going to say he's a loose canon, because he's not, but he's human, he's not Minbari. He has human flaws. He is different, he is unpredictable, and the High Council
can't assume David will do this or that. With this character, you're going to see flaws, and you're going to see mistakes that are made—but he's a well-rounded character.
When we first meet David, he's showing exactly how different he can be. How does his role in this film evolve?
Neal: That's where we join him at the beginning of this saga. David has wanted to be a Ranger his whole life, ever since he was a little kid. And he's devoted himself to that, becoming a captain. And while as second-in-command of another ship, because the captain gets injured, he's suddenly in command. He makes a decision that's contrary to the rule of the Rangers, where we live for The One, we die for The One, and we're supposed to pursue until death. He gives the order to stand down, which shocks everybody, and he's sort of in jeopardy of being tossed out of the Rangers. G'Kar steps in and helps him stay within the Rangers, but everybody in the High Council is keeping an eye on him now. He's
been given a second chance with the Liandra.
Myriam Sirois plays the Liandra's weapons specialist, Sarah Cantrell.
Tell us about who your character is.
Sirois: She has military background; you can throw her into almost any situation and she can get herself out of it. There's no fear with her. She's also trying to find her own way; she's introverted and keeps to herself. But the one thing I'm trying to establish with this character more than anything, and hopefully this will come across, is that she's very layered. It's not just about brawn and being tough—of course that's a part of it—but she's also got a lot of heart, and there are layers to her. She's not one-dimensional, and hopefully that comes across when people see here. There's a lot of stuff going on inside her—pain, laughter and joy—but because of the work that she does, she tries to keep a strong face toward everyone. She's not one-dimensional at all.
How does she interact with the other crew members, particularly in terms of her role on the ship?
Sirois: I think she interacts very well, actually. Business is business with her, but she's quite quick-witted and smart and clever, so I think there's a rapport between the captain and her. There's quite a back-and-forth with the two of them, and there's a lot of mutual respect for what he does and what I do. It's very much about being a team in that sense. And then with the other characters, we're all there to support each other. It really is like a family. We feel off the set that way about each other, and on the set, we feel like a crew. And I think it's going to read really well, because people are going to see that, and you can't really fake that at the end of the day.
Was this the first time you were doing stunts of this nature?
Sirois: It was the first time I had the opportunity to work in a harness or do stunts of any kind. The physical nature of the character has been the most fun, actually, because I've been able to do stuff I've never thought I'd be able to do.
What has it been like working on the gunnery pod sequence, in which Sarah's abilities as a weapons specialist are brought to light in a unique special effects display?
Sirois: Rehearsing in the harness didn't take too long. It was just about trying to find your balance and improvising and experimenting with different things.
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