Kate Vernon & Ron Moore: The secret is revealed

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[Kosh GTO]

One of the greatest and best kept secrets in the world of sci fi is no more.  On the January 16th, 2009 episode of Battlestar Galactica, “Something of a Great Notion”, it was revealed that Ellen Tigh (Kate Vernon) is the last and final Cylon.  Ron Moore, show runner and executive producer directed the episode which also featured the tragic suicide of a long running and much loved character, Anastasia Dualla.




Ron and Kate recently spoke to MediaBlvd and other press outlets about the return of Ellen and her status as a Cylon, the dramatic episode in which it was revealed, and what can be expected from the final episodes of the hit SCI FI series.

Question> Ron, at what point did you decide Ellen was the Cylon, and why did you pick her?

Ron Moore>  I was trying to figure out exactly when I picked Ellen, and I’m not quite sure exactly.  It was some time in the third season.  I think the option of presenting her as one of the final Cylons was sort of kicking around for a while, but we really didn’t have an intention of revealing all four of the - the final four Cylons in the season finale until we were breaking that actual episode.  So there wasn’t really a focus on delineating exactly who the final five were for quite a while, but I think Ellen’s name was kicking around the office in terms of, well who could the remaining Cylons be, and maybe it would be Ellen.  And we kind of put a pin in that. “But yes, that might be cool.  Maybe we’ll get back to that some day.”  And it wasn’t really until after we had decided to reveal four of the final five in that season finale that then it become, you know, a more pressing question.  And then in-between the two seasons we went on a writers' retreat and talked about everything in detail, and Ellen was the primary candidate to be the fifth Cylon, but we were very open to sort of, you know, a wider discussion.

 “Well we think it’s this Ellen.  Let’s say with - let’s say she’s the leading candidate.  But who are the others?”  And we talked about other possibilities, but none of them really held water.  None of them made sense, and none of them really gave us much, so we stuck with Ellen.  And I would say it worked primarily because of her relationship with Tigh.  It really sort of anchored that couple as something that was very special.  And I liked the fact that, you know, Ellen as a character was an off-camera presence right from the beginning of the show in the mini-series.  We started hearing about Tigh’s wife, and it was one of his key defining characteristics, and so we knew she was important in the mythology of the show.  And I liked the idea of saying that this couple had been together a very long time that this couple was something special, that they were sort of this eternal romance and this eternal love, which I really thought was real interesting and cool.  And it completed sort of the framework of the final five.  And it just fit, you know, it all kind of fit.  It also made the fact that Tigh had killed his wife back on New Caprica even richer and more complicated and filled with more ironies and more, you know, conflicted feelings about what was happening and what the story was.  And so that’s essentially how the process went.

Question> Who was the first runner up?

Ron Moore>  Oh, I knew you were going to ask that.  I think we, you know, we just kind of threw them all out.  I don’t know that there was a second - I mean we talked about Dualla we talked about Gaeta.  We talked about, you know, all the - all of our regulars, and we talked about - we dismissed Eddie and Mary pretty quickly, because we kind of say, “Well it could be - what if it was Adama, what if it was Laura.”  And then we kind of - I felt that that took something away from the show -- that that was - actually would hurt us, because it felt like once they said Adama was a Cylon, it just felt like part of the journey itself wasn’t right and didn’t have the same meaning that I wanted it to, so they kind of fell out early.  And then we talked briefly about Dualla and Gaeta and just didn’t - they were interesting characters, but it didn’t feel like it’s - it jumped - it didn’t feel like it heightened the stakes.  It didn’t feel like it, you know, just bumped everyone to a different level.  And with Ellen it did.

Question> How hard was it to keep this a secret?  Was it difficult not to just blurt it out every time you talked to anybody?

Kate Vernon>  Oh gosh, this has been - yes there were waves of intense agony and frustration, and then I would completely forget about it.  I mean I had two years to ride the - I think we decided it was around that long - that amount of time, Ron.  I’m not exactly chronologically sure, but it was a really long time.  So within that enormous amount of time, I did actually forget about it for a minute.  But for the most part, this was something I wanted to talk about desperately just because it was such an honor to have been given this role.  When Ron, you know, when they killed me off, I went up to Ron and I looked him straight in the eyes and I said, “Isn’t there any way I can come back?  Is there any way I’m coming back?”  And he just looked at me very gently and assuredly said no.  And so I was done, you know, in Ron’s eyes.  And - but in my heart, I, you know, I personally had a love affair with Ellen as an actress and this show, and so I never let go of it.  And Ron can attest to that, because I called him several times.  And bless you Ron for talking all of my phone calls.

Ron Moore>  Well I, you know, on my side of it, you know, killing off Ellen was great creatively.  It was one of those big sort of like, “Whoa, that’s a great ending.  Man, that’s going to be powerful.”  And it was a great excitement about what it was.  But, you know, it was hard to let go of the character, it was hard to say that, “Oh, Ellen’s not going to be in the show anymore.”  And the hard - and I would say legitimately probably the hardest moment or one of - probably the hardest moment of my experience on the show was calling Kate Vernon and saying, “We’re killing off your character.”

Ron Moore>  It was really - it was just - it was a really emotional - it was really heartbreaking and it was painful.  It was painful to do that, and it was - I think that on some level I carried that with me a lot, and I think it certainly gave me impetus to want to bring her back.  Let’s put it that way.

Kate Vernon>  I thank you for that.  That’s a compliment.

Question>  A lot of the fan sites out there and a lot of the online communities are just insanely following the show.  Sometimes the secrets slip out.  And this one was really pretty suppressed.  Did you do anything special or was there a lot of extra-special precautions taken to try and keep that secret as well as it was kept, I guess.

Kate Vernon>  Oh I’m sorry.  Well I think on my, you know, what was asked of me was just basically - and I understood it - was, you know, was really to disappear, you know, and to kind of go invisible.  And my character came back a few times.  And when people found out I was working in Vancouver on Battlestar, it, “Yes, of course I’m coming back to torture my husband who killed me off.  What, you know, what do you - what else - why else would Ellen be back?  That’s her…”

Ron Moore> : …her vision.

Kate Vernon>  That’s her thing.  You know, she’s coming back to torture her husband. So that’s how I played it off.  And I know NBC and Ron asked me just to lay low really, and to honor and respect this enormous hit that was going to happen eventually.  And I had, you know, part of it was to keep it quiet.  It was a thrill.  Of course I was going to keep this quiet.  This isn’t one secret you wouldn’t want to blow.  You wouldn’t…

Ron Moore>  Oh, and then for our part, it wasn’t - we didn’t have to do too much work to keep the secret, because there were - there’s just so much information - bad information out there about the show generally.  There’s all kinds of speculation, you know, posing as fact for people that say, “I know exactly how the shows ending.  I know who the fifth Cylon is.”

 And occasionally, you know, one of them would say Ellen.  And we’d all kind of go, “Oh shit, it’s out.”  But then, you know, either on the same site or in a site it’s linked to, there’s somebody who’s saying definitely that it’s Boxy, and we’re bringing Boxy back.  I mean the - always - there was so much bad information out there, that our hope was that the few nuggets of truth would just, you know, be hard to sift out of the rest of it.  And that’s what happened.  It was just so much speculation and some people trying to convince you that they knew what was happening, that this few people who had sort of figured it out where just lost in the mix.

Question>  Ron, Coming full circle, was there ever even a minute where you were tempted to have a crash in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947 for the end of the show?

Ron Moore>  No.

Question>  Kate, can you give us any idea of what Ellen is going to be doing in these last episodes?

Ron Moore>  Talking.  Lots of talking.

Kate Vernon>  Yes, I’ll be talking.  I’ll be walking and talking.  I get to reunite with my husband in the good old fashioned way that they do.  Let’s see, I can’t really talk too much about that without spilling something right, Ron?

Ron Moore>  Yes, I think that’s - just saying that you reunite along is - it’s probably enough.

Kate Vernon>  Okay.  See I’m a little nervous about talking about anything.

Ron Moore>  Yes, it’s - the trick is from now to the end of the series, it’s pretty much one continuous story.  And so it’s - we don’t want to give any of the building blocks away, because then you’ll kind of know where the current story (parks) too.  So we’re just trying to be as opaque about what’s left as we can.

Question>  Ron, what was your reaction to the reaction of these deaths last week?  Obviously the fan base went kind of nuts.  Some of them thought it was the most brilliant thing, some of them saw it coming.  Some of them said, “Why did you kill the one black character?”  I mean it was all sorts of interesting response to it.  What was your reaction to the reaction?

Ron Moore>  Oh I’m pleased.  You know, it got a huge response, and that’s what you go for.  You try to get a response out of your audience.  You know, you try to go out every once in a while you want to reach out and grab you by the throat and say, “Feel something,” you know, “Have a reaction.  Get involved.  Think.  What does this mean to you?  What does it mean for Dualla, you know, blows her brains out suddenly, you know, shockingly.  What does that mean?  Do you care?  Are you paying attention?  I mean I think it’s great.  And people can have whatever the specific reaction is, is fine with me as long as they have a reaction; as long as they’re emotionally caught up in a show and it means something to them.

Question>  Kate, I wanted to ask you a question about as an actress when you find out, that your character is something very different than what you’re, you know, you’re originally asked to play, how did that change your approach?  Were you like, “Oh wow, like I’m uncertain,” or did you have to do a lot of thinking or need a lot of direction?

Kate Vernon>  I had a lot of time to do a lot of thinking about it.  And really I needed a - I needed the material to see what direction Ellen was going in. And the writers are so brilliant on this show, and the imaginations are so incredible that I really just had to open up and trust these words and trust this concept.  And I had a couple of talks with Ron and couple, you know, talks with the directors about where we were going, but I’m a feeling actress.  I don’t necessarily just go in there intellectually and break it down on a mental level and that.  I just - I know who Ellen is, you know, and I took this new information, which was so rich and deep and profound, and I don’t want to say too much about it, but the material is so well written that it guided me to through this - the change that Ellen goes through.

Question>  Ron, Ellen is one of the most morally ambiguous characters on the show.  Did that play in, her shady side, to the decision to bring her back?

Ron Moore>  It was certainly one of the things that made it an interesting choice.  I mean I always - I liked Tigh and Ellen both, because they were both flawed and noble characters who tended to get in their own way.  And I liked the bad choices they made as much as I enjoyed the good choices that they made.  And I wanted - I loved watching them claw at each other, and I loved the fact that they just couldn’t bear to be apart from one another.

Kate Vernon>  Yes.

Ron Moore>  And it was just such a complicated relationship -- that bringing her back and revealing her to be a Cylon and he’s a Cylon and they’ve always been Cylons and that there’s something profound about that relationship.  I just thought that was fascinating in that it says something about, you know, the two lovers.  Usually the two lovers that transcend time are, you know, the - they just long for each other and they’re just such good noble people that you hate them.

Ron Moore>  And Ellen and Tigh feel like a legitimate couple.  They’re a married couple who just, you know, have to go at it periodically and just have major issues and major problems and this and that.  But the bond between the two of them was something that literally could not be broken.  And I though that that was a really interesting and ultimately very positive thing to say.

Kate Vernon>  And longest-standing relationship in the universe, right?

Ron Moore>  Yes, that’s right.

Kate Vernon>  Two thousand years when you get we’re going strong.

Question>  Ron, what was the experience like directing this episode?

Ron Moore>  I had a tremendous amount of fun.  You know, it was great to do it on a show that had been my show for several years.  And I, you know, knew the cast and the crew intimately and there was a lot of support and a lot of people wanting me to succeed.  And I got a lot of extra special attention, you know, and I would - they would help me figure things out.  And it was an environment where, you know, I could just say, “I don’t know what to do here,” or “I’m confused about this terminology” or “What should we do here,” and, you know, there were people what would help.  And then, you know, things that I wanted to do, they would snap to and make it happen.  And it was an incredibly collegial, very, you know, very welcoming kind of atmosphere to step into. And it was also really gratifying, because I had an opportunity to do the thing that I had never done, which was, you know, you write it on the page and then someone else realizes it.  And then I would edit, or, you know, be very involved in editing the pieces together.

Ron Moore>  And I was always missing that middle step.  And now I had a chance to shoot the movie that was in my head because I write it whenever I write themes to the script, I’m always playing the movie in my head -- how I think this would play out; where they would stand, what they would do, how the team would be blocked and choreographed and sort of where is - we put the camera and all that to just kind of flows in my head as I’m writing it anyway.  And this is the first time I could actually go make that movie.

Ron Moore>  And I found that really, really fulfilling.  It was just really fun and, you know, it’s like, you know, I will be doing it again.




Sorry this site won't allow long articles so it had to go to the second Page. GTO

[Kosh GTO]

And here are we again read on. GTO



Question>  Were there any scenes that you had an idea what you wanted to do on the page and in your mind, but it just wasn’t possible and you had to do a change up?

Ron Moore>  Nothing radical.  There were certainly things that - just in terms of blocking and how I thought the scene would flow.  You know, when you’re standing on the set, it’s a little different than when you’re writing it.  It - even though I know the set intimately and, you know, have pictures and diagrams, the endless material available to you, especially for someone who’s on the show from the beginning like I was.  It’s still different when you walk down to the stage and you’re standing in the physical space.  And you suddenly realize that, “Oh shit, actually if he’s standing there and I’m trying to shoot this, that’s never going to work, because how’s he going to get from here to there to do this line?”  And then you have to sort of, you know, improvise.  But that’s part of the fun.  I didn’t run into anything that was radically off kilter, but there were certainly places like, “Oh well this doesn’t work.  I’m going to have to stage this somewhere else” or, “I can’t get the camera over there.”  “What were they thinking,” you know, that kind of stuff.

Question> What do you think makes this show so special?

Kate Vernon>  Well I think the work ethics on the show - I think in every department, everybody just gave their best. And the environment – the environment was really special. And it was – it was easy to show up and give you 110, it’s just what you wanted to do. I mean, to kind of match – it wasn’t hard, it wasn’t – the level that I think everybody gave their best and more; everybody pushed that personal creative envelope in every department.  And I think that’s what lended to the show’s quality from set design to sound to looks to lighting to the acting, to wardrobe, to makeup. Nobody – there was nothing chintzy in any department. And for me as an actress I just wanted to stay true, you know, just true and raw and open and show up.

Question>  Why was Dee the one to go to pieces when they found the devastated Earth?  She was one of the strongest women on TV.

Ron Moore>  I think it was because that; because she did appear to be one of the strongest ones. And ( Dee) was the one that in many situations had sort of always been the voice of reason, the one that was going to try to soldier on, the one that would buck up Adama when he was down and she would buck up (Lee) when he was down. And there was sense of her kind of being the rock. And, you know, it was – it felt important to me that when they found Earth and Earth was a wasteland that the psychic damage from that would be profound.  I mean, this was everything that they had hoped for since the beginning of the – since the mini series. And you take that dream away from them, there’s a consequence, there’s a price to be paid. It didn’t feel like they should, again, like I was saying earlier, they shouldn’t just shrug a shoulder to move on. And it felt right that, in that circumstance, somebody would just check out. And there was something shocking about it being ( Dee) because they had relied on her; because she had always been there.

 But just because a person is sort of, you know, being your rock and, you know, bucking you up doesn’t mean that they don’t have their own vulnerabilities and they don’t have their own breaking point. And that breaking point might surprise you. And that’s exactly what – why we decided to do it because it felt like they would all be shocked, the audience would be shocked, but it would be true.  That there would be a sense of Dualla, you know, on some level saying to herself but, you know, I don’t think she thought about it consciously but on a subconscious level she soldiered on and this far, no farther; I don’t want to soldier on anymore. I don’t want to soldier on anymore and I’m going to try to feel good one last time and then I’m out of here.

 
 Saul (Michael Hogan) and Ellen (Kate Vernon) Tigh.
 
Question>  Kate, what was the first thing that went through your mind when you found out you were the final Cylon?

Kate Vernon>  I was really mad at Ron. No, I was – I was wondering if he was talking to the right person.

Ron Moore>  Oh is this Kate Vernon? Oh I’m sorry.

Kate Vernon>  Right. You sure you’re talking to the right Kate here?  I just – I was stunned. I was completely stunned. My jaw had fallen open and I just was waiting for him to say nah, nah, nah, nah, just kidding.

Ron Moore>  Yeah.

Kate Vernon>  No truly I really – I had been invited back for a few shows but I – and I was kind of hoping to be invited back again but I was not expecting that so I was stunned.



Question>  Ron. Should we drawing any parallels between the sort of nuclear holocaust on Earth and the destruction on Cobol?

Ron Moore>  Yes. Next question.

Question>  Kate, how did Ron approach you about your return?

Kate Vernon>  Well how he prefaced it or the moment he told me?  Well, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to get this right. But Ron called me and, you know, his secretary said hey Katie I have Ron on the phone for you. And Ron’s voice comes through the phone and he sounded really sad and kind of morose. And he’s like hi Kate. I’m like hi Ron. He goes, well I spoke to the network and I’m just sorry to say that they agreed to green light this project and it’s just unfortunate that you’re going to have to come back to work for us. He messed with my head right up to the very minute of actually letting me know that I’m coming back. Now I didn’t know at that point what that meant. I had no idea so I was just elated that I was coming back. And then the conversation evolved that – into me being the fifth Cylon and that’s when I – I wasn’t sure he was talking to the right person or teasing me again. It was quite an amazing – very long conversation.

Question>  Ron. did you hold back at all on wrapping up the Cylon mythology to give fans an incentive to tune into the new show. Caprica? Or does Battlestar Galactica pretty much settle it for us? 

Ron Moore>  Galactica is going to pretty much settle it. I mean, Caprica will be about how the colonial – the people on the colonies developed the Cylons. And that has its own story to tell about how that came about. But in terms of the larger mysteries and mythologies and hows and the whys and how everything lays out on Galactica we set out to answer as many of the questions that we could by the end of the show and that’s what we did.  We didn’t hold anything in reserve and say oh well we’ll deal with this over in Caprica.

Question>  Kate, Ellen started out as a minor character, grew into a recurring character and is now pretty much a major character in what’s going on. Besides the having to learn more lines and hit more marks what effect has that had on you?

Kate Vernon>  Well Ellen is the best role I’ve had in my career. And I had no expectations when I auditioned for the part; I was told there might be two or three shows. And they kept bringing me back. And as they brought me back with each show I couldn’t wait to crack open these scripts because these writers seemed to really indulge the naughtiness or the feistiness or the troublemaking or the, you know, the complicated relations she had with her husband.  I mean, I found her more and more and more fascinating and dark and delicious and misunderstood. So as an actress it was a very – it was pure discovery. And I was never expecting to really continue on as much as I wanted to. So it was just a wild ride. You know, I did my best to hang on to the tail of the pissed off cat and I just got whomped around but I hung on there.

Question>  Kate, in working with Michael Hogan prior to the big reveal and after the reveal; has anything changed? How has that whole dynamic worked out for you between you two?

Kate Vernon>  The chemistry is there; the history is there. You know, I mean, at one point before I started shooting I walked into Michael’s trailer and I was – I was a little stunned, you know, I’m coming back as the fifth Cylon and I felt this enormous responsibility. And not to give anything away but I had a tremendous amount of dialogue, just, you know, tremendous amount of dialogue. And Michael looked at me and said, just know that you are Ellen and everything will be fine. And basically what he’s saying is that I’m already Ellen; I don’t need to do anything, and let the words guide me. And it was the kindest and most supportive thing an actor or anybody could have said because, you know, I was very concerned that I was going to answer creatively, you know, what Ron and what the writers intended to reveal as, you know, and as the Cylon. I felt a lot of pressure. But Michael Hogan has been a tremendous amount of support – been a tremendous amount of support and very encouraging and a very safe place for me to show up every day.

Question>  Ron, now that the show is coming to an end, can you tell us, were there things you might have wanted to do that didn’t make it in?

Ron Moore>  Oh sure. There were lots of things, lots of blind alleys that you go down, you know, when you’re in the writer’s room. And sometimes on the page and sometimes even on camera and you watch it – you either watch it in the cutting room and you go oops and you cut that out or you cut it in the stage or you cut it on the script or you censor it in the writer’s room. And, you know, it’s just a – it’s part of the process.  And I think one of things I like to do with writers is to just not have any bad ideas; like throw out anything, you know, we’ll try anything. We will take any idea seriously and if it doesn’t work fine, you know, you have to be willing to take risk, you know. And the big ideas that we have that really paid off were risky ones, you know, jumping ahead a year in the narrative; revealing four of the Cylons at once. You know, there were various risks that we took that at first – at first blush sounded ludicrous, kind of crazy; you can’t do that, you can’t do that in the show. And, you know, we found a way to do it. But, you know, along the way, along the trail are various things that were kicked off the chuck wagon, you know, and just left by the wayside.

Question>  Any examples?

Ron Moore>  Oh there was a story point that I wrote in a season finale that is now regarded within fan circles as the great stupid idea of Ron Moore. In the season finale of Season 1 I had a premise where Baltar was down on the surface of Cobol, which was a planet we were involved with at that point and he was going to make his way into a – he’d found a temple there and this complicated plot.  And he goes into the temple and (head) Six is telling him, keep going, keep going, you’ll find something. And he goes through some dark room and turns around and then Dirk Benedict appears and says, hello guys; I’m god and shakes his hand. And we were going to go out on that moment.  Now setting aside the fact that Dirk Benedict hates everything about this show and would probably never do it in a million years, more fundamentally it was just a crazy concept. I was seeking in those days to try to find things about breaking reality and fantasy and what is a story; what is not a story and what is the connection of this world to our world. And I was just playing with ideas and this was like this whacky idea I had and put in the script. And there was a pretty universal reaction that everyone hated it. I quickly just said, okay, bad idea; that one’s mine and we’ll just kick that out of it and we’ll move on. And that was, you know, you just have to – you have to swing for the fences, you know.