With the official launch of Stargate Universe only 48 hours away the online promotion and advertising mill is currently in overdrive. Multiple new videos, spoilers and cast interviews are flying off the press shelf almost on a daily basis.
In this latest interview by Robert Carlyle he discusses his take on Stargate Universe and much more.
You can read an excerpt of the interview below:
Were you at all familiar with the ‘Stargate’ franchise prior to signing on with Universe? Did the producers give you a crash course in the lore, or have you watched any episodes of the other two shows to familiarize yourself with the ‘Stargate’ universe?
I didn’t know that much about it, to be honest. I was familiar with the movie, and I knew of the shows, particularly SG-1. So eventually they sent me about 200 episodes…and I was surprised that I had actually seen quite a bit of it —it was quite familiar to me for some reason. And then I realized, “Of course, it was a very successful franchise that went on for ten years.” So I made myself more aware of it as my discussions with the producers progressed.
When we were chatting with Brad and Robert, they indicated that they always had you in mind for the role of Dr. Nicholas Rush, without, of course, knowing if you would be amenable to taking it on. You’ve had the opportunity to play plenty of fascinating characters, from Begbie in Trainspotting, to Adolph Hitler in Hitler: The Rise of Evil, to Carl Benton in 24: Redemption. With such a rich diversity of character roles under your belt, what were the qualities that drew you to playing Dr. Nicholas Rush in Stargate Universe?
I guess I was personally attracted to the character, because here is a man who has propelled these people through the stargate to an unknown entity, which happens to be the Destiny spaceship, and he doesn’t want to go home. And that was the first thing. I thought, “What, he doesn’t want to go back?”
A bit counterintuitive to what you’d expect.
Absolutely. Here he is on this rusty old bucket on the edge of the universe. Who in their right mind wants that? What’s going on in this man’s mind? So the more I spoke to Robert and Brad about that, the more I realized that there’s quite a wealth of background in there, which may well indicate why he behaves the way he does. And that’s gold dust for an actor, that kind of thing.
So Rush kinds of exists very much on his own on the ship. I think he’d quite happily stuff them all into an airlock and jettison them into space if he thought he could get away with it. If he could do it all, he would. And the same holds for many of the other characters. They’d do the same to him if they thought they could. But they need this guy. So there’s a counter-dependency. And that’s interesting.