So Say We All

by Mark A. Altman

  Bringing the character to life is Edward James Olmos, whose credits include acclaimed roles in the TV series Miami Vice, the original Blade Runner (1982) and its sequel, Blade Runner 2049 (2017), Stand and Deliver (1988), Selena (1997), and Jack and Marilyn (2002). To this day, he considers playing Adama, and the show itself, to be one of the greatest experiences in his life.

  RONALD D. MOORE

  The first thing I’ve got to say about Eddie is that he was the one who came up with “So say we all!” in the final scene of the miniseries. I had written it into the script as just a line, but in the moment on the set, when Eddie said “So say we all” to the cast, he thought that they didn’t give him very much back. So he said it again. You can see it in the take; they all kind of glance at each other and go, “So say we all.” And then he insists. He says it louder and he just pushed them and pushed them until it became this big thing on the soundstage. But it was just something Eddie came up with on his own in the moment, and then it became a signature line in the series after that. That was a big thing.

  MICHAEL HOGAN

  (actor, “Colonel Saul Tigh”)

  If you remember, that was a gigantic scene with hundreds of extras, and Adama gives his speech … and it took forever. We set up for hours, of course, and it was the beginning of Battlestar Galactica’s long dolly shots, Steadicam, shaky cam. It was blocked and Eddie was up at the podium, and then as we were rolling, Eddie walks down and you could see the director of photography and people going, “What the frak is happening here?” We weren’t saying “frak” steadily yet.

  DAVID EICK

  (executive producer, Battlestar Galactica [2004])

  Michael Rymer and I had a different reaction to that scene being shot initially. Eddie says his speech, which ends in the script with “So say we all,” but he says it in a solemn way, and everyone else says it in a solemn way. But Eddie, in the moment, didn’t like it. He just didn’t like it. He thought that their performance could be better, so he said it louder and it becomes kind of like a football game of “I can’t hear you!” Michael Rymer is about to cut, because he figures Eddie doesn’t like the performance, and I’m going, “No, no, no, no.” Because I can see this is all going to build in real time, and then Michael got it after a couple of seconds. But that was all improvised and driven by his need to get them into it. It really is a metaphor about Eddie sort of leading the spirit of the show in a way that says, “Hey, I’m up here doing this, and I love it, and I’m giving it everything I’ve got, so don’t you guys fail me.” And they didn’t.

  MICHAEL RYMER

  (director, “33”)

  It was written that everyone’s very downtrodden, and so he inspires everybody, right? But Eddie went into a rage and started shouting, and attacking, and we’re all like, on the day, going, “Oh my God, what’s he doing?” And as soon as he did it, all the cast and extras burst into spontaneous applause at the end. That happened spontaneously as a result of Eddie, the actor in the room, taking a group of people to a place emotionally for real. David Eick is a big football fan or something. He’s like, “Can you get them to cheer and high-five?” And I’m the Australian going, “Oh, please. Let’s not be so gauche.” But it happened and I turn around and David’s grinning like a cat. I can’t deny a spontaneous emotional response that occurred in front of me. Now, that’s challenging and exciting stuff to be on set with as a director. That’s what you want. You’ve got a great script. You just want to take it up those extra notches and you want to find the friction and the intensity and you want to capture that in a bottle. Particularly on a show like this, where we just didn’t ever want it to be too clean.

  EDWARD JAMES OLMOS

  (actor, “Commander William ‘Bill’ Adama”)

  Now, you’ve got to remember that was the very first time we all were together. It was frightening. It was very intense and it caught everybody by surprise, because no one knew that I was going to repeat it. When we broke off of that scene, I remember David Eick talking to me about it, and I saw him shaking, because it was incredible. We all felt it. We all went there. That was, to me, probably the most penetrating moment, because it really set the whole tone for the rest of the five years.

  MICHAEL HOGAN

  You can watch the scene; you can see people looking around, going, “What the?… Oh!” So we were all on the same page by the end of that, you hear “Cut!” and you’re like, “We are in for quite a ride here.” And that certainly came true.

  MARY MCDONNELL

  (actress, “President Laura Roslin”)

  I want to comment on that moment. First, I found out that my character was dying, and then it’s “So say we all,” and I was, as Laura Roslin, going, “This is the man that I have trying to save the rest of the human race? Oh my God.” You know, such an interesting revelation as to what that was going to be about. Learning his power. Learning his rage. It’s, like, “Where have I landed? This paramilitary nightmare.” Yet it was just extraordinary.

  ANGELA MANCUSO

  (former president, Universal Cable Entertainment)

  Eddie brought a seriousness to the part that it needed. We didn’t want to make a joke. I mean, the first Battlestar Galactica was a knee-jerk response to Star Wars. That’s all it was. When we hired Ron, we knew we were going to get something that had a little bit more believable, this-could-happen characters in it. Eddie represents that, and we all agreed on him right off the bat. Everybody wanted him.

  TAHMOH PENIKETT

  (actor, “Captain Karl ‘Helo’ Agathon”)

  He’s one of the first people that ever made me want to act. I remember my father taking me to Blade Runner when I was, like, five or six and being absolutely captivated by his character onscreen. His character in that film is so small, but so relevant. It’s so enticing, provocative and compelling. You can’t take your eyes off of it. It’s amazing what he did with so little. And from that moment on as a kid, I was always attracted to Edward James Olmos’s projects. I’ve told this story a million times, but to ultimately see and to end up working on a project with the man, and to call him a dear friend and a mentor, I can’t express to you how much that means to me. He’s family. And his work ethic, his loyalty, his character, never ceases to amaze me. Anyone who knows Eddie well will tell you that.

  JAMES CALLIS

  (actor, “Gaius Baltar”)

  When I first met Eddie, I was pretty scared, to be honest. The conviction.… Eddie knew exactly what he was doing and where he was going, which I must say was totally opposite to me. I remember we were all called into his trailer. It wasn’t the first day, but it was in the first week or something, and that was the day Eddie sat us all down as the cast and went, “The show’s going to go for five years. Five years. Every episode is going to be like a movie. Keep your powder dry. We’re in here for the long haul. Nobody’s to make fun of this. There’ll be enough people anyway who want to cut a swath in us some way or rubbish the idea, or they’re not going to be fully on board, because we’ve got this title. Battlestar Galactica—that’s a blessing as well as perhaps a bit of a poisoned chalice. Nobody needs to take this as seriously as we do.” I thought Eddie was raving mad. I was like, “Five years? I may not be here five minutes.” The thing that I really did get was the passion and the commitment. For all of us, we were really led through example by Eddie and Mary. These two incredible professionals who gave us everything.

  EDWARD JAMES OLMOS

  For some of the younger kids it was their first time and it was heartbreaking to tell them, “I’m in my fifties, guys. Michael Hogan, Mary McDonnell, myself—we’ve had a lot of experience. We’ve been very fortunate and we’re proud to be part of this with you guys, but I’ve got to tell you, this has never happened to us, and we never felt this way about anything we’ve done in television like that. And I’ve got to tell you, it’s once-in-a-lifetime. I’ve never had it before and I don’t think I’m going to have it again.”

  It was hard, because a lot o
f them were starting their career. They had never been on television, had never done an episodic television show, and if they had it’s been just playing minor roles. None of them had ever done a recurring role. So they had no experience on what was going to happen, and I’d tell them, “We’re going to be here for five years. And we’re never going to receive any kind of recognition as actors, because they will never give it to us. But we will receive the highest awards possible in the understanding of the electronic worlds and video and cable and the usage of television.” And we did. We won the Peabody, and that is so unusual and we were very grateful we won it. We also won so many Primetime Emmys, and we’re grateful for it, but won them in special effects and that kind of thing. None of us won Emmys as actors. We weren’t even nominated. Neither were the writers or directors.

  RONALD D. MOORE

  Meeting Eddie Olmos for the first time, I was still working at Carnivàle. David and I had put down names of who would be the dream cast. Eddie Olmos was the top of the Adama list. There were a couple of other Oscar winners. You kind of put those lists together and they’re usually bullshit lists. Like, this is the dream list and you’re never going to get any of these guys, but let’s start there. David calls me up and he says, “Okay, I got a meeting. We’re going to actually meet with Eddie Olmos.” I was like, “Oh, shit. Really?” “Yeah, so come down to my office after Carnivàle or get off early and let’s have a meeting with him.”

  EDWARD JAMES OLMOS

  I had a strong understanding of the [sci-fi] world, but I had gotten it through Blade Runner, so, really, when I talked to them, I said, “Listen, guys, if we’re going to really have an aesthetic, let’s go after the aesthetic that was brought forth in Blade Runner. Let’s at least, if nothing else, hit that understanding and not try to do something that’s so outlandish where we’ll be fighting Creatures from the Black Lagoon. You know, two-lipped, four-eyed, three-eared people.”

  RONALD D. MOORE

  So I go to the meeting and Eddie’s an interesting guy. He’s quickly talking about, “If there’s any green-eyed aliens in the script, I’m just gonna turn and walk off the set, you know?”

  EDWARD JAMES OLMOS

  Actually, I said, “I’m going to faint on camera and you’re going to have to write that he died of a heart attack. Thank you.”

  RONALD D. MOORE

  At some point we started talking about Blade Runner, and Eddie started telling a story about how he came up with the whole Japanese influence, using Japanese language and the Asian influences. I remember thinking to myself, “Okay, so he’s this guy. He’s just going to make up shit and take credit for an amazing thing in this classic movie.” So, all right, file that away in your head that that’s who Ed James Olmos is. I’d think that for a very long time. And then, many moons later, I’m watching the DVD special edition of Blade Runner and going through the supplemental stuff. And there’s an interview with Ridley Scott, and Ridley starts talking about how, “Yeah, you know Eddie Olmos is the one who came up with the Japanese…” I went, “Holy shit! I’ve been judging Eddie all this time. Like, he actually did that and I thought he was full of shit. Oh crap!”

  EDWARD JAMES OLMOS

  What got me in it was the writing. I think what got us all was the writing. It was brilliant from the first page. You open it up and the manifesto that Ron Moore wrote—a three-page manifesto to how you’re supposed to look at the script and what would be happening, and the way to read the script. He had three pages before you actually opened the script to get into the script and it was just beautifully written. I just said, “Well, this is really beyond.”

  RONALD D. MOORE

  What had happened is I was still at Carnivàle, and we’re trying to sell the draft. The first draft of the miniseries. David called me up and said, “Can you just write a one- or two-page document that sort of talks about your vision for the show and what we’re trying to do?” I was like, “Really? I’ve already pitched it to you. Why do I have to do this?” He’s like, “Just trust me. It’s a sales document. It helps the executives. Executives don’t remember any of this shit. Just write, like, a two-page thing. Just don’t spend a lot of time on it, just tell us your vision of the show.” “All right, what the fuck.” So I sat down and pounded out this thing called “Naturalistic Science Fiction, or Taking the Opera out of Space Opera.” And it just kind of went through the whole overview of the series. How we’re going to do it, and shoot it, produce it, the philosophy behind it and the various aspects. It was two or three pages.

  I sent it off with the draft of the script to the network executives. But then what happened, unbeknownst to either of us, was that it was essentially appended to the script from that point forward. So when the script was sent out to actors like Eddie and Mary, that document went along with it. Eddie read that first and it informed his idea of what he was about to read. The same with Mary. They both mentioned it when I met with them in person. They were, like, really taken by that document. At first I was like, “I don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. What are they saying?” And then it kind of dawned on me that somehow they got their hands on that sales thing that I wrote for the executives. But they were both really impressed by it. They both really took it to heart. And then when they read the script itself, it gave them an idea of what the goals were and all. It was just one of those great bits of serendipity that it all kind of really worked together.

  EDWARD JAMES OLMOS

  Not even Blade Runner was this well-crafted, because the story was very deep, very quick, and it was so long. I mean, it was four hours. That’s a lot of writing, and a lot of story, and it just held true from the beginning to the end. Now, I had said no at the beginning. I said, “Thank you very much, but I’m working. You know, I have things to do rather than do a Battlestar Galactica remake. It’s not for me. Thank you very much.” You know, thinking, “Jesus.” But they asked me to read it and immediately I said, “I want to meet with them. Let me do this.” When we met, we got into it right from the very beginning. There was no two ways around it. It was right just into the aesthetic, into the understanding of what the power was, and he had it. He really meant what he said, that he was going to reinvent the journey, and I believed him. I said, “Okay, I’m in,” and that was it.

  ANGELA MANCUSO

  There’s a naturalness to Eddie and the believability of him as a leader, as a father … He brought a life experience to the character that was partially him. A depth of emotion. The great thing about someone like Eddie doing television is that they actually bring all of that feature belief in character; digging deep into the character that they’re trained to do.

  RONALD D. MOORE

  But Eddie and Mary were the only two real casting pieces that I have to talk about. I met Aaron, met Eddie, had that meeting. Went very well. Had breakfast with Mary and David, just a get-to-know-you meeting to talk about the character and the idea. And we scored and signed them both. David and Michael Rymer cast pretty much the rest of the show. They kept me informed of who they were looking at and I would see audition tapes and this and that. But they get the credit for casting pretty much everybody else.

  DAVID WEDDLE

  (producer, Battlestar Galactica [2004])

  One of the most amazing lead actors I’ve ever worked with. He is an incredible leader on the set and he knew from the beginning, and was very articulate about it, that this is a series for all time. He said over and over again, “This is the best thing I have ever worked on, bar none, and I have worked on a lot of great things.” Which is such an amazing statement. He said it particularly to the younger actors: “You don’t realize it, but you will never experience this again.”

  MICHAEL ANGELI

  (co–executive producer, Battlestar Galactica [2004])

  He was the one who constantly talked about family. He told me a number of times when we’d be together, “You know something? You are on a show that many, many people wish they could be on. You’re on a show
that’s going to be historic. Catching lightning in a bottle twice is really difficult. Live it up.” And he was right. A lot of times you would think, “What a blowhard,” but he was right. He’s right about a lot of things.

  DAVID EICK

  Eddie isn’t afraid to be a little corny. He’s not afraid to make speeches that maybe, if you’re a teenager, you’d roll your eyes at or you might snicker at a cliché. But he just goes for the heart. When he would talk about the show and talk about us as a family and talk about how we’d never have this experience again. When you’re willing to speak with such vulnerability, it shows you’re not playing games or holding things close to the vest hiding agendas. It’s just infectious and kind of contagious.

  RONALD D. MOORE

  Eddie was a consummate pro. It’s hard to say enough about it, you know? His integrity as a person … He and Mary both just kind of became the parents of the cast. They set a certain tone of professionalism and dedication that then the rest of the cast picked up on. Because, if you remember, most of the cast was very green, especially compared to Eddie and Mary. I’ll never forget, during the shooting of “33,” I came to the set. We were shooting in Colonial One, and there’s a scene where Laura’s on the phone and talking to Adama on Galactica. And usually how that scene plays out when you shoot it is she’s on her own side of the phone talking and then the script supervisor is giving her the line from Adama on the side. But we’re sitting there getting ready to set up the shot and Eddie walks into the soundstage. I was a little surprised, because I knew he wasn’t on the call sheet that day and he didn’t have anything to do. But he was there. He showed up just to give Mary the other line, to play his lines to her off camera. That was a big thing and everybody kind of noted it. It filtered out to the whole production that that’s how seriously he took it, that was the respect he would show for the other actors. They set a certain bar of professionalism that then really became the way we did business. Everybody took it very seriously. Nobody goofed off. I mean, there was a lot of joking around. It was a very fun, very loose set, but they all took the work very seriously.