NOTE: BBC America premieres their new Supernatural Saturday line up June 18, 2011, consisting of Outcasts (co-starring Jamie Bamber) at 9/8C and Battlestar Galactica (co-starring Jamie Bamber) at 10/9c.
BBC AMERICA ANGLOPHENIA: Jamie Bamber on the New British Invasion: ‘American TV Has Been Transformed’
by Kevin Wicks
Thursday, April 21st, 2011
... After a stint in Britain as DS Matt Devlin on Law & Order: UK and, recently, Mitchell on the sci-fi drama Outcasts, Bamber may return to American TV this fall. He has re-teamed with Battlestar exec producer Ron Moore for the NBC pilot 17th Precinct, an innovative cop drama with supernatural elements. Bamber plays a Yankee police officer on the series, trading in Apollo's patrician tones for a working-class Irish accent. "My preparation was pretty minimal," he says, "although I did re-watch The Fighter and The Town to absorb a hint of Bostonian Irish."
Bamber joins the likes of Minnie Driver, Ioan Gruffudd, Jason Isaacs, and Toby Stephens in the cadre of UK-based actors booking U.S. pilots this season. We had the chance to ask the 38-year-old star why so many British thespians make the westward pilgrimage each year. And he gives an illuminating look at the ins and outs of the TV business on both sides of the pond...
... British TV’s shorter seasons provide actors with a bit more freedom. If 17th Precinct becomes a 24-episode-per-season network series, you’ll have potential job security but also less time to explore film and stage roles – how do you reconcile that?
Jamie Bamber: "We all would prefer to retain the freedom to pursue different parts in different projects whenever we choose. Absolutely. Even working on 17th Precinct for my trusted friend, Ron Moore, was a dilemma for me because of the six years I had to sign away and because it shoots in Canada. But this was Ron and so I did.
So little TV shoots in L.A. now and practically every TV contract includes language that could demand you move to, say, Shreveport, Louisiana, for nine months of the year. That is very hard for a father or mother to embrace. No offense to Shreveport. But the same is true in the UK. I have recently been offered things there that ask me to spend six months in South Africa, India, Bulgaria on multiple year contracts — lovely places all, that I would dearly love to visit — but to bring up my family? On a whim? Just can't do it. If I were single and childless, I might have made more daring artistic choices but actually I am not sure. In any case I hope to be able to earn the freedom to make those choices in my 40s or 50s!"
No comments:
Post a Comment