Alessandro Juliani starred as Lt. Felix Gaeta in Battlestar Galactica from the start of the mini-series through the show’s four seasons.  He was also the central character in the recent Galactica web series The Face of the Enemy.  Gaeta earned the trust and respect of the Galactica officers, especially Admiral Adama, throughout the series.  But on a recent run of episodes, Gaeta found himself the leader of a mutiny against the command crew, and would give the order to execute the admiral.  In the end, however, it was Gaeta who met his demise at the receiving end of a military firing squad.

Juliani, who has a Bachelor of Music in Vocal/Opera Performance, got the chance to explore his vocal skills on the series in a recent episode after his character lost a leg.  He recently spoke to MediaBlvd Magazine about how Gaeta ended up at the head of the mutiny, and about the depths of his character that were revealed in the web series, literally the last film to roll on the Galactica series.

MediaBlvd> Hi Alessadnro, how are you?

Alessandro> I’m really fine thanks.

MediaBlvd> I wanted to thank you for taking the time to talk to me today.  I know it’s been a long while since you wrapped filming on Galactica.

Alessandro> It’s all still pretty present in mind, as it’s sort of coming to its culmination.  So I’m happy to do it.

MediaBlvd> Are you in the loop?  Do you know how it’s all going to end?

Alessandro> I am in the loop.  I sort of made it close enough to the thrilling conclusion that I decided I might as well read the last few scripts as they were coming out, and I was on set for a little bit of the finale.  I’m in the loop, but it has been long enough that the script is a bit of a vague memory, so I’m sure I’ll still be surprised by a lot of what happens.

MediaBlvd> That’s awesome!  And I’ll try not to pump you for a lot of spoilers today!

Alessandro> Do your worst, good luck!

MediaBlvd> What do you think about the character and the way he evolved though the mini-series and all the way through?  Are you happy with where they went with Gaeta and where the character ended up?

Alessandro> Ultimately I am really content, similarly to how he felt at the end of his life.  I’m at peace with the whole thing.  When I cast my memory back to where old Felix began and where he ended up, it’s been quite a ride.  What an arc for him to have gone on.  And over five years of life as an actor, Felix has grown up a heck of a lot, as I have myself.  I feel really happy, as happy as one can be with an execution.  I’ve really come to terms with it.  It was a great way to go out.

MediaBlvd> Were you surprised at all when you read those last few scripts for your character?  He’s been kind of the right hand man, and maybe the one that everyone really relies on.  For him to come up and betray Adama…

Alessandro> Well, the makers of the show are really smart, and there has never been any doubt in any of our minds as to their genius when it comes to crafting this whole series.  When I read those scripts, of course, I was taken aback initially.  But it all made such perfect sense.  Given all of the pressures that Felix had been under lately, and given his position where he had so much control over so many aspects of Galactica, when I watched those episodes, it was even clear to me watching them, more than when I was shooting them or reading them, there was no better character to put in this position.  He was so trusted, and he was the last person that most people would have thought would turn as he did.  It came as a great surprise to the other characters too and I thought that was fantastic.

MediaBlvd> In an interview a few weeks ago, when the series first came back from hiatus, Ron Moore said something interesting.  It was an interview also with Kate Vernon talking about Ellen Tigh being the last Cylon, and he mentioned that both you and Kandyse, or rather Gaeta and Dualla, were considered for the final Cylon.  Was that something that you were aware of on the set, or did everyone know that?

Alessandro> No, I wasn’t aware of that at the time.  I guess he didn’t get my check.  Or I didn’t write it for enough.  No, that’s interesting.  I’m not totally surprised.  There were a lot of rumors going around and a lot of speculation among fans that I was a Cylon for a long time, and that may have been why it ended up that I wasn’t chosen.  I may have been too obvious a choice.  There was a funny moment, a few episodes before the mutiny when I lost my leg, and I had the now infamous “stump serenade”.  There’s a bead at the end of the episode where Felix looks directly at the camera and sings the last line.  At that moment, I have to admit, that I got a little excited and thought that maybe I was the final Cylon.  It just seemed so kind of out of left field and out of whack to have someone do that.  I, of course, fell for that red herring, like I’m sure a lot of audience members did as well.  But ultimately, the choice of Ellen was bang on.  I think it had far more a ripple effect through the fleet with the final five, for her to be the one.  It made a lot more sense.  But I was happy to go out with a bang in another way!

MediaBlvd> Now with the leg, how did they film that?  Did they have you wearing a blue sock or something that was edited out?

Alessandro> I looked sort of like a strange remnant from a Pride parade or something like that.  I had fluorescent green screen neon tights that I’d wear under my uniform.  Then they had cut off one leg of my uniform so I looked like a Peter Pan reject or something.  For the high-fi version I’d stumble around like that, and they’d strap me into this harness where my leg would be at a right angle.  Then they could paint it out.  Truth be told, most of the time they just sort of did it old school, “Let’s put Felix behind this piece of furniture.” Or, “Let’s make sure he is sitting down most of the time so we don’t have to pay for the visual effects.”  I think that little plot point instantly made me the most expensive actor to shoot, which may have also contributed to my early demise!

MediaBlvd> That’s one of the most frequent questions we’d get with the live radio show.  “How did that actor, Alessandro, loose his leg?  I didn’t know he had an artificial leg?”

Alessandro> All that time, through those seasons, acting with a disability!  What an amazing story.  That’s funny.  It’s pretty magic.  I, of course, hadn’t seen the finished product until it aired, and it does give you a start when you see yourself so transformed, and it looks so completely real.  They are magic makers over there, no doubt.

MediaBlvd> The episode you just mentioned with your singing, I think that was the first time you got to bring your musical background into the show.  Was that a good experience, or something you wanted to do, or was it a surprise?

Alessandro> It wasn’t something I wanted to do, No.  It wasn’t something that was even anywhere on my radar, that I’d ever be expected to bring to this show.  It really just happened quite by chance.  I think that someone heard that I could sing, or had done a degree in music and opera, and that trickled it’s way to the writers room, and that seed was planted, but not by me.  Then next thing you know it was in a script. Again, that was a hilarious moment when I opened that script and read that.  I thought it was a bit of a joke.  Then I realized they were serious.  I thought it was one of those decoy scripts they send out to throw people off the scent.  But they really wanted to do it, and there was a fair amount of collaboration, as there always was, between the departments to make that moment fly.  I think it could have backfired; it could have been almost disastrous.  But I think in the end, everybody pulled it off really well.  It proved to be this really unexpected, but haunting moment in the fabric of the show. 

MediaBlvd> Let’s talk about the web series, The Face of the Enemy.  I enjoyed those very much.  Were those filmed after the final episodes wrapped?

Alessandro> Yeah, you bet they were.  They were initially meant to be filmed earlier, during the finale, or when we were shooting the last two or three.  But for scheduling reasons and various other things, they weren’t able to cram them in.  So at one point we were sort of concerned that maybe they would never happen.  But then they found a time while they were shooting The Plan, the prequel movie that is going to come out after the series has aired.  It was pretty hilarious; we were shooting right down to the wire.  In fact, it was the last film that ever rolled on Galactica was the webisodes.  And there was not much left of any of the set at that point, it was just me and Grace in a little pup tent, pretending to be New Caprica, finishing off the whole show.   It was kind of not with a bang, but a whimper.  I was really grateful to have all of that attention to Felix, so it would support his decisions leading into the mutiny.  I was really happy for that, and for some of the other plot developments that were included in that little series.  It was crazy to shoot, but I was really happy with how it turned out.  It was a testament to everybody, to Wayne Rose, the director, particularly.  He had to negotiate a lot of different factors.

 MediaBlvd> I really thought that without the webisodes, or without having seen those, that the mutiny may not have made much sense. 

Alessandro> I agree yeah!  I agree.  I think it would have seemed far more random that Felix was the guy.  I think perhaps that was something the writers realized after that whole arc had been shot, that it would be great to tie up a few loose ends, but also to give Felix a little more justification.  When I was shooting the mutiny arch, I didn’t feel like I didn’t have motivation to be a part of the mutiny, and it still made total sense to me; particularly with witnessing Dualla’s suicide, it made sense to me that he would be in a pretty dark place.  But in the context of those webisodes, it’s a slam dunk.  How much can one guy take?  How much betrayal can one guy take?

MediaBlvd> One thing that there has been a lot of question about amongst the fans, is the timeline of the webisodes.  I don’t know if they told you anything about this or not.  Did the webisodes take place after Dee’s death?

Alessandro> My understanding is that it happened after Dee’s suicide, that Dee had killed herself very soon after the discovery of Earth, maybe a couple of days.  Don’t quote me on this because it’s all a distant memory, but that then subsequently that was sort of why at the begging of the webisodes, Tigh asked me if I was sleeping much.  I had sort of fallen into a bit of a funk and he tells me to go off and get some rest.  That was always my understanding.  But I could be completely wrong about that.

MediaBlvd> I think that was kind of the consensus among everybody, that it must have been a little out of sequence.  Now one of the things the webisodes introduced, obviously, was the relationship with Hoshi.  Was that something that was talked about, or known when you were filming the final episodes, that that would be there, or did that come after?

Alessandro> I was a little concerned about that.  It was something that came after.  And so there was some regret there on my part, of not having had that knowledge before.  It would have layered in all of this other stuff that myself and Brad could have played when the mutiny was happening.  You can bet that if they had known that was the direction they were going to go, that they would have written a scene for us or something.  It was a little bit of a shame.  The beast that is Battlestar is all the better for being somewhat flawed, and there’s always going to be things that fall through the cracks.  In this instance, they did get to address some of those things with the webisodes.  Initially, I had concerns that kind of throwing Felix a bone at the last minute like this, would feel sort of tacked on and token.  So I had my concerns about that, which I voiced, and I talked it over with Jane Espenson.  In the end, I came around to a place where I could see that there was a greatness in the fact that it was dealt with in such a matter of fact way.  It wasn’t a big deal made out of it that he was with another man, it was just as if he was with any other person, and I think that was handled really well.  I thought that was great.

MediaBlvd> Yeah, and I really get what you are saying.  I kept expecting there to be some kind of look or special scene during the mutiny between the two characters.

Alessandro> They initially had the relationship between me and Narcho, in the webisodes.  That was when they were going to shoot it during the finale, it was supposed to be me and Narcho, which would have made a little bit more sense.  Narcho and I at least have a couple of scenes together in the mutiny, and he is on my side in it.  But there still wouldn’t have been a satisfying end to that relationship, because that just wouldn’t have been shot.  In the end, they went in another direction.  You’ll see Hoshi, a character who has been on the periphery for awhile, but he’s going to play a role right up to the end.  It’s going to be a nice story for him. 

MediaBlvd> I’ve heard a lot of other people talking about how important it was with what Gaeta did in the mutiny.  The character kind of re-invigorated both Roslyn and Adama and showed them that they do want to be in charge and see this through til the end.  Another comment I heard that seemed really interesting, during the final scene with Baltar and Gaeta, it was almost like Baltar was the priest.  But in some ways, it was Gaeta that gave absolution to Balatar.   Because of Gaeta doing what he did, Baltar is now back in the fold, back in with the President and Adama to some extent.  Did you think about anything like that during that scene?

 Alessandro> Yeah, that’s so interesting.  When we were shooting it, didn’t feel so much to me like a confessor and a man on death row, as it did these two men who had so much baggage with each other, saying goodbye, in a way forgiving each other for everything they’d done to each other.  It really did feel that way to me, and it’s interesting that people picked up that, it’s great I guess.  It was such a twisted Bond between these two men.  James and I fought hard for that last scene.  It wasn’t in the original script, or in the first draft anyway.  Both of us read it separately, and both had the exact same reaction and went to Ron individually and said, “We need a scene together.”  Without talking to each other, we both went and lobbied for that because there needed to be some closure of everything we’d been through.  Ron, of course, agreed once the idea had been put forward.  He loved it and brought it to Michael Angeli, and Angeli wrote that beautiful scene, which again was sort of classic Battlestar because it’s not what you expect.  It’s a moment of reflection and meditation kind of at the end of all of this action.  It was a great change of tempo and a great little calm moment where Felix got to say goodbye.

MediaBlvd> That’s really interesting that it almost wasn’t in.  I’d have to rate that as one of the most important of the scenes of the final episodes.  It was really touching and brought everything to a cap there.

Alessandro> Yeah, it’s cool what you said to about him having that effect on Roslyn and Adama.  The heroes of our show, and I sort of feel like Felix is a tragic hero too, he kind of sacrificed himself again for the good of everyone.  Inadvertently or not, he did galvanize everyone and wake them up because they were a bit lost after finding Earth, and it being a wasteland.  They were bit rudderless, and through this whole mutiny, I’m convinced that Felix just wanted Adama to admit that he was wrong and had screwed up; that he was fallible.  He just wanted him to admit it, and if Adama had done that, then who knows how it would have turned out.

MediaBlvd> What’s your best memory, or what do you take with you from this experience of having played Gaeta? Is there any one thing that really stands out?  And I know that is a hard question. 

Alessandro> It’s the whole thing.  There is no one moment that can stand above the others.  It’s kind of the whole five years, the whole bulk of work, and the journey of being a relatively inexperienced actor coming to the set of the CIC the first day and not believing the size and scope of the whole set.  You pushed a button and the lights went on; meeting Eddie the first day and him asking, “Are you going to be ready, this is going to be five years of your life?”  From that, and then in the blink of an eye being on that same set and taking over the ship and telling Eddie he was a tired old man; sending him off to be executed and taking control of the CIC and being, for a fleeting moment anyway, the admiral.  Did that really happen?  I guess it did.  It was a crazy journey, and what I’ll take from it is just the journey, from one part to the next, with all of the births and the deaths, and loves and new homes that occurred to us as people too.

MediaBlvd> Did you end up taking home any of the props or pieces of the set?

Alessandro> Yeah, I got my leg!  I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do with it, but it’s sitting right now in my living room.  It’s a strange homage to the whole show.  I’m going to have to come up with some sort of installation piece or something, but they gave me my leg.  Maybe I’ll be able to haul it out for Halloween some time. 

MediaBlvd> What have you been doing since you wrapped up on Galactica?

Alessandro> Since Galactica wrapped, I’ve gone back to doing some theatre.  That was the world that I was immersed in when Galactica arrived on my lap.  Not necessarily by design, I’ve ended up back in that world immediately after.  It’s something that I missed over the five years, but knew that I’d always come back to.  I’m about to start a play in Vancouver and there is nothing quite like that instant gratification of an audience. 

MediaBlvd> Is that what you find the most rewarding?  I know you’ve also done the voice over work in addition to the theatre and music.  Which aspect of your career do you find the most rewarding to you personally?

Alessandro> It’s whatever I’m doing in the moment honestly.  If I had to choose, I don’t know what I’d do.  I’d probably have to flip a coin.  One thing complements the other, and I wouldn’t trade this Battlestar experience for the world. I’m spoiled for life in a lot of ways, especially for television.  Eddie and Mary and some of our veteran actors made that really clear to us early on.  We were so lucky to be on a show where we had so much input and were valued as much as we were.  It just sort of happened ten minutes from my front door in my home town.  I’m just eternally grateful for that, and I’m grateful for whatever my next challenge is that is coming down the path. 

 MediaBlvd> Now you also have a scene in Watchmen coming up, right?

Alessandro> Yeah, I have a little scene in Watchmen.  They called me in for a day of shooting while we were still shooting Battlestar.  I was totally up to it.  I had to play a scientist/technician and run on and say a few lines about Mars.  Whether I make it into the final cut or not remains to be seen, but it was hilarious and fun to be on that huge, huge, huge set.  I’m such a fan of the graphic novel and have been from my youth, so it was a no brainer.  I’ll swiffer the sets if you want me to!

MediaBlvd> And then you’ve got traveling coming up, and I noticed Reka is also in that. Is there a relationship between your characters there?  I notice you’re listed as “Tattoos” and she is listed as “Noise Ring”.

Alessandro> (Laughs)When we found out we were both in it, we decided we were going to play a couple.  The deal with that is that we were hired to play Jennifer Aniston’s kind of ethnically ambiguous and hip posse of friends.  So we hung out with her for about a week or so in Seattle and Vancouver where they were shooting.  It was super fun, especially having Reka there made it all the more surreal.  I have no idea when that’s coming out, but I’ll look forward to seeing us gallivant the rainy streets of Seattle.  It was an interesting process to, to jump from Battlestar into a big, big budget movie like that with a big star like Jennifer.  She was very gracious, but was constantly buffered by her people.  I’d imagine it can’t be an easy life.  On some levels it must be kind of lonely.

MediaBlvd> How has playing Gaeta affected your life?  Do you get recognized more now when you are out in public, or have people come up to you and want to talk about the show?

Alessandro> Yeah, I definitely get recognized more than I ever have, or maybe ever will.  For the most part, the interactions are always totally great.  Even with the people that are a little more awe struck, it’s usually totally fine.  It’s just fun because over the course of the show, the people who have stopped me have gone from being people who you would maybe stereotype as being classic sci-fi fans in their demeanor, to people in three piece suits.  They’ll come up to you in the financial district or construction workers, or nurses leaving work.  It has been a great indicator of how the show has slowly permeated to the mainstream.  It’s great and people are always so jazzed up and so positive.  It would be one thing if they were coming up to you and saying how much they hated your guts.  But it’s far from that.  It’s gratifying and I’m soaking it up while it lasts.  I think I’m at about 14:47 in my 15 minutes of fame.

MediaBlvd> One more and I’ll let you go.  Is there anything you want to say to your fans or the fans of Gaeta now that your character is gone?

Alessandro> Well, to all of the fans of the show, and to those who had a particular affinity for Gaeta, I can only say “You have made the show what it is.  We would not have had the same fuel to continue in the direction we did without all of you guys, and without your support and imagination and passion for debate.  And for talking about all of the issues the show brought up, we owe it all to you.  So thank you.  Thank you for being there so whole heartedly.  I hope to grab your attention in another little skit sometime down the line.”