TOTAL SCIFI ONLINE: Jamie Bamber: Castaway!
In BBC One’s new eight-part science fiction drama Outcasts, Battlestar Galactica’s Jamie Bamber plays Mitchell Hoban, the leader of the Expeditionary Force on Carpathia, who is definitely not impressed with the state of affairs under Liam Cunningham’s President Tate...
Words: Paul Simpson
...PS: What do you look for in a script?
JB: A journey to jump onto, which with series television is not like the considerations you have with a movie or a play, because this is potentially a whole life that you’re embarking on.
With Outcasts, it felt like reading the first script of something as exciting as Battlestar. I thought that was a once in a lifetime experience and the chance to get on another journey like that was pretty exciting. For me it was the story. It’s always the characters and the situation, and I could see potential for this journey to go in countless and endless directions.
The character is slightly different than I’ve played before. I was really drawn to him: he’s an individual given the opportunity of starting again in a new situation, and he’s the disillusioned element of this new utopia in space. There’s almost something American about him. He’s a dyed-in-the-blood pioneer who’s finding the new civilisation not pioneering enough for him. Something chimed with me then – maybe it’s the American side of me...
BBC's new series, "Outcasts," premieres on Monday, February 7 at 21:00 on BBCOne, and will also air in the US on BBC America [premiere date pending].
