We had an interview with the director/actor/writer from Battlestar Galatica, Richard Hatch aka Captain Apollo!

In the interview he talks about the philosophy of Battlestar Galactica, Hawaii Five O and the potential it has to be made into a movie. How he worked with David Carradine in Kung-Fu. We talked about his role in TJ Hooker and what it was like to work alongside William Shatner. MacGuyver with Richard Dean Anderson and Baywatch with David Hasselhoff. Here is an extract...

Rob: What kind of science fiction stories do you think have influenced your work, I mean have you taken things like Space 2001, and used the idea of the monolith?

Richard: No, I don´t, it not about influencing my work at all, I´ve watched thousands of movies but I think subconsciously we probably learn from everything we do, everything we see, everything we read. But ultimately when I write, I write from my heart, my gut, my soul, I don´t think about topping anything, I just write from…I look at it like an actor, if this happened, if that happened, if these characters were in these situations, if this had happened over a course of time, where would they be. How would they have grown, what would have happened to these people, and I look at it in the most honest pragmatic way possible. I try to explore it as realistically as possible without imposing some off the wall concept upon it; I try to really come from a place of honest exploration. I´m always creating situations where the characters are forced to grow through life and death, decisions, challenges, and circumstances.

Rob: So you don´t think Apollo really reflected you as a person?

Richard: No it reflected some of the elements and parts of myself, but in terms of showing off my best acting work, no. I felt I´d done much better acting in other projects.

Rob: Would you ever like to see an anime version of “Battlestar Galactica”?

Richard: Yes, after watching the game animation, I thought that the game producers really, really understood what “Battlestar” is all about. I felt that the animated sequences were wonderful, and I thought “God I wish they would do an animated feature of this”. I honestly would love to see them do it 40 years later with the original cast as animated people, because I think the fans would really love to see the original cast back.

Rob: So “The Great Majellon”, it´s one of your latest projects, it´s the last thing you´ve done, so it´s a science fiction thriller or movie, what´s its about?

Richard: Its science fiction fantasy, its takes place on the Majellon cloud and explores a root race of human beings, who have evolved in that galaxy, and have gone through seven evolutions of destruction and have just about destroyed themselves. The movie basically opens up with the first manned mission to the moon of Titan, and they discover an ancient star ship is buried in the ground there and they find a holograph of this ancient star mariner named Achillian who basically tells them about the majellion cloud, about the evolution of human beings there, and the relationship between their race and the human beings on earth. Basically it begins to take us in to this epic story about what took place on the Majellon cloud, where human beings almost destroyed themselves, and where Achillian, who´s tens of thousands of years old, and is still living, basically takes us on this journey through this apocalyptic universe, searching for his own sense of identity, searching for redemption, searching for an understanding, to why the human race is on the brink of destruction. He´s searching for, in a sense, his ancient roots, which in a sense, as the story continues, unveils some of the mysteries surrounding why human beings have been destroying themselves for so many evolutions and the path that back to sanity, the way to move beyond war and self destruction.

Read the whole interview here. Join our forum here to talk about it. Due to the respect I have for Richard, I would like to redirect you away from my site, to his latest project The Great War Of Magellan. Please show your support by visting Richardhatch.com.