From: Edward_Lee_Whiteside@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv,rec.arts.tv,rec.arts.startrek.current
Subject: BABYLON 5: More Cast Details and other info
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 92 11:37:04 PDT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)


Here's the latest info on the Babylon 5 casting along with some other news
about the show.  Text is most from J. Michael Straczynski, Babylon 5
creator/co-exec. producer from the GEnie Science Fiction Round Table,
Category 18, Topic 22.


More Casting Details:

     Peter Jurasik will be playing the Centauri ambassador, Londo Mollari,
a role that calls for some degree of humor, but beneath that a layer of
something potentially not-good.  He knocked us all out during auditions.
We locked him down instantly.

Peter has appeared in films like Problem Child, Enemy Mine, Tron,
Straight Time, Mr. Jones and others, and in TV shows such as Columbo, Hill
Street Blues and Beverly Hills Buntz (as Sidney the Snitch),
Civil Wars, Remington Steele, MacGyver and others.

For Security Chief Michael Garibaldi, a series regular, we've tapped Jerry
Doyle.  Probably a number of you may not be familiar with that name, but
he's been around a lot.  He only got into the acting business about
2-3 years ago, but  hit almost immediately, with major roles in such films
as "Kidnapped" and "Being in Time," and on television in "Reasonable Doubts,"
"Homefront," appearing 27 times in "Bold and the Beautiful," and in
"Moonlighting."

     He's not only a fine actor, but a *very* strong personality, well
suited to work with the actor playing Commander Sinclair...about whom more
later.  We'd gone through a number of actors for the role of Garibaldi --
something like 25 or 30 -- many of whom were good, but he knocked us out.
When someone comes into audition, you usually do a "slate," meaning you
stick 'em against a wall and ask them their name, their height, and which
part they're auditioning for.  In this case, when asked "And which role are
you auditioning for?" he answered, "The role I'm going to get...Michael
Garibaldi."  And he did.

The Babylon 5 Manifest:

For the first time today, another writer was hired to write some material
for B5.  This for the series down the road.  Long before we can begin
hiring writers on the series, we need...well, not a bible, because that's
already written...and not a sample script, because that's already written
as well...but for lack of a better term, and since we're sticking with such
Biblical references as Babylon to start with, call it an Epistle.
Something which will spell out, for writers, what you should and should not
do in a science fiction television series...the dumbnesses to avoid, the
overused plots, the goals to aspire toward.  Call it a manifesto of our
intentions.  For something like this, I went to someone with the toughest
standards around.  So yes, Harlan Ellison has been commissioned to write it.
And has accepted. And is starting posthaste.

     If *that* doesn't tell writers we mean business, and set the standard
of what we intend to shoot for, I don't know what will.

San Diego Comic Con:

     The Babylon 5 presentation at ComicCon will take place at 11:00 AM on
that Saturday, in the main room (where Shatner will be making a
presentation/appearance at 1:00).  [That's August 15.  Filming will begin
on August 10th and JMS promises to show some film clips from the show).
                                            
Starlog Article:

The September issue of Starlog has an article on Babylon 5 written by
Larry Conley (who wrote "Silicon Avatar" for ST:TNG).  Due to some mixups
between Starlog and Newtek, the photos used with the article are either
outdated by several months or have nothing to do with Babylon 5.  For a
good picture of the Babylon 5 space station, take a look at the NewTek ad
for the Video Toaster on the back of current Amiga and PC magazines.



Lee Whiteside:  Edward_Lee_Whiteside@cup.portal.com
            or  P14942@email.mot.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv