Meeting Richard Hatch

I had the fine opportunity at a conference this past weekend to meet and see a presentation from Richard Hatch, best known for his roles as Apollo in the original Battlestar Galactica and as the terrorist-turned-politician Tom Zarek in the new Battlestar series.

He is one of the most amiable people you'd meet, very kindly answering many of the group's questions, including mine asking about how he got into his role as Tom Zarek--one of the most complex and "gray" characters in the reimagined Battlestar series. He went on to explain how Tom Zarek believed that everything he did was right, that he was something of a Nelson Mandella character, challenging the status quo. Later in the presentation, he also noted that Ronald Moore told the writers of the new Battlestar that Tom Zarek should always speak the truth, no matter how difficult. He pointed out the irony of how Zarek was viewed as a terrorist earlier on in the series, but after the New Caprica occupation (where Zarek's naysayers were forced to commit their own campaign of terrorism against the Cylons), he was seen in a better light as someone who had to do the necessary things. Another interesting point he brought up was that most viewers of the show don't know the background of Tom Zarek: that he blew up the government building on his home planet because the government was despotic and gave no legal or political recourse for the members of its society.

Richard Hatch also showed us the trailer for his original push for a Battlestar sequel, named Battlestar Second Coming. This was originally shown to Universal Studios in a proposal to create a sequel series to the show. While disappointed that the sequel series never caught on, Hatch was approached by Ronald Moore to appear in the new Battlestar as Tom Zarek, and Hatch accepted, even though he would vastly have preferred appearing in a sequel series (instead of a reimagined remake).

Another great aspect of the presentation was Richard Hatch's trailer of his newest project: The Great War of Magellan book series. He told us about the series and how one of his marketing strategies is to create as much of a community for an intellectual property as possible. So it seems he will not only be creating books for the Magellan series, but also graphic novels, websites, paraphernalia, and other mixed media. Hatch is a savvy entrepreneur in his vision of a good story's potential.

Richard Hatch conducts acting and other seminars and presentations, along with a lot of other really neat pursuits. For more info, please check out his main website.