So Say We All

by Mark A. Altman

  Most of the time as a commander you don’t really want to know your military. You want to be able to look at them as nothing but soldiers. You don’t want to know them personally, because it becomes too difficult when you lose them. But on this show we were very tight with our military. We were very tight with our entire crew, so when somebody passed, it was deadly. When Dualla commits suicide, it’s just very, very difficult for everybody. When we lost Starbuck, it was unbelievably difficult. When we thought that Lee had gone down with the president and everybody that blew up in Colonial One, it became very difficult to take. But there were so many moments where you just lost total hope and were just completely consumed by the reality that this is unbelievably difficult to take, but this is exactly what these people are living. And the challenge was to try and overcome that.

  Laura Roslin was the secretary of education of the Twelve Colonies when the Cylons launched their genocidal attack. Through the rules of succession—despite the fact that she was forty-third down the line—she finds herself president of what’s left of humanity. In the series bible, Moore adds about her, “Laura is an introvert by nature who’s served in the public eye for most of her adult life. Uncomfortable with pressing the flesh and asking for support, she never considered a run for office, even though she has the rare ability to make a person feel as if what they’re saying is the most important thing in the world at that moment. She listens extremely well, takes her time making decisions, and understands what makes people tick on a gut level.”

  Mary McDonnell was Moore’s first choice for the character. With a background that has ranged from her Academy Award–nominated role in Dancing with Wolves to playing the first lady in the disaster film Independence Day, and her work on television in Major Crimes, she brought a combination of strength and vulnerability to the role of Laura Roslin.

  ANGELA MANCUSO

  My first choice for Laura Roslin was actually Alfre Woodard, because, besides her being one of the greatest actresses of our time, I really wanted diversity in the show. But she knew we were shooting in Canada and she still had kids in school and didn’t want to go to Canada.

  RONALD D. MOORE

  I put Mary McDonnell at the top of the Laura Roslin list, because I had been watching Donnie Darko. I got turned on to that film and I was like, “Oh my God, what an amazing film.” So I was watching Donnie Darko while I’m writing the mini, and I just fastened on to Mary, thinking she would be the perfect Laura Roslin.

  MARY MCDONNELL

  This is very cliché, but I was having lunch with my agents at Spago. I had gotten there early, which is highly unusual for me, and I saw Sidney Poitier there and had done Secrets with him, so I had been talking to him and was in a really good mood. I sat down; my agents came and said, “We’re so sorry we’re late, but an offer just came in for you and we wanted to get some information about it and bring it to lunch. We got on the phone with these people and the script isn’t here yet, but there’s an offer.” I said, “Oh, great, what is it?” They kind of giggled and everybody pauses. They said, “Well, they’re doing a remake of Battlestar Galactica.” I just started giggling. I said, “Preposterous. First of all”—not that I had that much knowledge of Battlestar Galactica; I’d maybe seen one episode, because it aired during my theater years in New York and I didn’t have a TV—“why would anybody want to cast me in a show like that?” In anything remotely having to do with the pristine elements of outer space, I’m the Earth Mother. The Prairie Queen. They said, “We kind of thought the same thing, but they reassured us that it’s actually quite amazing. It’s a reinvention. The writer is excellent. We know his work. They’re asking if you would just give it a chance. Give it a read.” I said, “Of course. I think it’s hilarious. Let’s see what they want me to do.”

  I went back to their office with them after lunch, because Ron Moore’s office said they would send it right over, and in fact it was there. I took it home and I read it that night after the kids were in bed. And I was absolutely floored. I could not believe how ridiculously ignorant my response had been. I’ve forgiven myself for it, but, honestly, it was just so delightful. I called my agent that night and said, “I want to have breakfast, or lunch would be fine, as soon as possible. Before we talk about this any more, I would like to meet Ron Moore and David Eick and Michael Rymer,” who was already set to direct the pilot, “because this means me going to Vancouver. Leaving my home. I still have a son in middle school, a daughter in high school. This is going to be a lot of separation.” This was going to mean a huge change, and even though it was just a miniseries, it was still a chunk of time. I said, “So I need to know that I like the people I’m about to work with, otherwise I’m not leaving L.A. under these circumstances.” Two days later we had breakfast at the W in Westwood, and I loved them all.

  RONALD D. MOORE

  I started writing the part literally with her voice in my head. And then she agreed and that was fantastic. We had a great meeting with her. She brings with her a sort of innate intelligence. There’s something very smart about Mary, in person and on camera. That was one of the reasons why I thought she would be a great president, because she just seems like a really smart person. A lot of her strength as a character flows from how smart she is. She’s sexy and capable and can be fierce. If she yells, it kind of gets your attention. She just had all the perfect characteristics of the president. There was just something ideal about her. She was a great, lovely person. She laughs easily, she’s funny and she liked jokes.

  MARY MCDONNELL

  I loved Ron’s modesty, and his soft-spoken intelligence. He was definitely not a Hollywood type-A showrunner, although he’s an extraordinarily strong human being. His intelligence has wisdom to it, so he’s humble. He listens deeply, which is not necessarily a quality that goes with a Hollywood showrunner. He’s just a beautiful spirit. That was delightful. David Eick was hilarious; very funny, very smart. Very interested in talking about the politics of the Laura Roslin situation, so that got me excited. Michael Rymer conveyed that everything was going to be a lot of fun, and edgy and cool. I was like, “Okay, these guys are very hip. Very young and very smart. It couldn’t be better.” It was pretty much that simple. I drove away from that breakfast knowing I was going to do it; I wanted to bring Laura to life. I wanted to be that reluctant president.

  DAVID EICK

  One of my faults is that when I talk about things like leadership and setting an example to the rest of the cast, I tend to talk about Eddie in that context, because I’m sexist and he’s a good person. But the truth is, it really was Eddie and Mary. Eddie was louder and more aggressive about what was important and why it was so important, so I tend to kind of talk about him first, but we needed the balance of Mary, who is every bit Eddie’s equal in terms of career accomplishment. Therefore, how she behaved and what she said and her reaction to material and all that kind of stuff was every bit as critical in terms of setting a tone and creating a sense of boundaries for the rest of the cast as how Eddie reacted. I think everyone fell in love with her on the pilot, and when I say everybody I just mean everyone who wound up staying involved in the show.

  MARY MCDONNELL

  I talk about this ad nauseam, but it was very important to me to explore a woman coming into power without a cultural training or support behind her as many women my age have experienced. Then it went from there in terms of Hillary Clinton and we were shooting this when Hillary was running [against Obama] and it became a very timely event for me. We started it not too long after September eleventh, so there was a deep emotional connection as well.

  KATEE SACKHOFF

  (actress, “Kara ‘Starbuck’ Thrace”)

  One of the fears I’ve always had in my life was how do you juggle motherhood and work? Mary was very honest about it. She said, “Sometimes you can’t have it all. Sometimes you’re going to have to choose your children.” And that’s what she did. She chose the kids, she walked away from the business, she disappeared for a
while and raised her kids. And then she came back with Battlestar, because her kids were at an age where they were old enough to understand where she was going and come and visit her. She made that choice, because this business is not kind to aging women. Not only is it not kind to them, it’s also not kind to women who disappear for a year, have a baby, and then want to come back. It’s as if they’ve committed a terrible sin, and God forbid they need to breast-feed their kid at work. This is not a good business to try and age in and have children in. It can be done, and it has been done by so many women at a ranging level of success. But the beautiful thing about Mary was she was very honest about what it took from her, and her children are phenomenal. They’re absolutely amazing kids. Granted she did it with her husband, but she was home with those children when they needed her, and she was willing to risk it all for her kids. I respected the fuck out of that.

  REKHA SHARMA

  (actress, “Tory Foster”)

  On my very first day as Tory, Mary was so generous and so open. I remember we did one or two takes and she just looked at me with this twinkling, expansive, Buddha-like love in her eyes and she just said, “You are so good.” Very unusual in this world where people are so small-minded—not everybody, but you come across it where people are very competitive and small-minded. She was the antithesis of that. Everybody on this show was the antithesis of that, actually. I had never experienced so much fun on set working with someone the way I did with her. I learned so much from her in the years that we worked together, but on that first day, I went to my trailer at the end of the day when we wrapped and literally cried tears of joy.

  MARK VERHEIDEN

  Mary McDonnell is an amazing actress, and at first she brought that sense of, “I’m going to step up and I’m going to do this, but, oh my God, what world are we in now? This is uncharted waters. How do we even begin?” That determination that she had to hold on to the things that made these people human as opposed to giving it all up and just saying, basically, military law; you do what Adama says. Holding on to the things that made their civilization a civilization. She was able to just give such great voice to that feeling and that passion, which, frankly, as a writer, I very much agree with: Without really maintaining the humanity that you have, what are you? You’re just out there going through the motions.

  DAVID EICK

  When she took the oath of office in the miniseries, there’s something so terrified and brave about the way she stands with her hand in this very odd kind of position as she raises it to take the oath. It was like she really did have to become a leader, which was really weird, and I just remember people treating her differently. There was a little bit more awe around her, like, “Wow, you’ve really had to step in.” It was like the story was informing the experience, and it was because of her performance. It was because of how compelling she was at delivering the reality of what the fuck would a schoolteacher do in this position. I think the love for Mary, and this is to take nothing away from just how she is as a person, came from her craft initially. I remember people gathering around the monitor when she was on, wanting to watch her prepare. She just really was a captivating actor, as a craftsperson. She was amazing to watch. And she was the most willing to struggle openly, and by that it’s another way of saying complain. But I never felt it was complaining. She would question the material, but never in a judgmental way or with the assumption that she was somehow being shortchanged. Her questions were always extraordinarily thoughtful, painful. About the cancer, about the loss of life, about having to restart humanity, having to restart the human race.

  MICHAEL ANGELI

  Where do I begin? I had never met her before, and in the beginning she would call and talk about lines and talk about the script. She made really good points. It was something that I hadn’t experienced before, where the actor actually instead of seeing you on the set or whatever, they would get in touch with you to talk about their character. At first it was a little jarring. It sort of got my back up a little bit, but then I thought, “Well, what the fuck? She really wants to mine her character and figure it out.” You know, “Why is she saying this and what is she feeling? What is she supposed to be feeling when she says this?” She makes you really nail it down, which was good. Then it got to a point where I couldn’t wait for her to call. But then she didn’t have to call as much, because what happened was you start writing for her, for her character, and figure it out. You just have to understand what she wants to be. Then it got to be she was my favorite character to write next to Baltar. I loved writing for her. It’s astonishing she was never nominated, because she was just unbelievable.

  RONALD D. MOORE

  I probably got more notes from Mary than from any other cast member. Formal notes. She would want to meet and sit down and we would sit and go through the script, go through the pages. You’d have meetings like that with other actors. Most of them would be more casual or they wanted to talk about a particular scene or you might do a phone call or an exchange of emails. Every once in a while you might sit down and talk about it with the script in hand, but Mary did it a lot over the course of the series. She was always thinking about the character, where the character had been and where the character was going; what she wanted in this scene, a lot of “Why?” Why would she react like that or, “I don’t think Laura would do this.” It always made the show better, made her character better. She was able to connect the dots between this scene and something she had done the year before, and question whether or not that made sense.

  DAVID EICK

  She would get frustrated with Eddie, but a lot of that would be an extension of Laura’s frustration with Adama. How to deal with that character would be a concern for her. She didn’t want to look weak, yet she didn’t want to pretend to be Linda Hamilton, when clearly she wasn’t. That was a very delicate thing for her to try to handle: how to maintain not only her own strength as a character, but ensure that the character maintains her own sense of strength and self-respect and, by the way, femininity, while she’s dying of cancer. I mean, the curveball you throw an actor like that, you just don’t expect to be hit back with this sort of grace and chiseled nuance, and this was just a beautiful performance.

  RONALD D. MOORE

  We started focusing in a lot about how Laura Roslin was going to become the president and making her the secretary of education. I’d always liked those stories about the person that’s designated as the sole survivor. For a State of the Union address, there’s always that one person that’s designated not to be in Washington, in case the whole U.S. government is wiped out. I thought, “Oh, Laura should be that person.” She should be way down the chain of command and just have it handed to her out of nowhere. That’s really fascinating and amazing.

  MICHAEL ANGELI

  She would say that she wanted to do justice to the script. Man, she did more than justice. She’s one character that I think was ready to go. She lived an entire life through the life of the show, from being forty-third in line to being the president to leading them to a place where they could survive. And then dying. And so brave a character. When she was sick and bald and it was all makeup, it took six hours to get her to look like that. It was stifling and hot, and she just persevered.

  DAVID EICK

  I think of the episode “33,” and her reaction at the very end of that episode is maybe one of my favorite moments of hers. It’s when she’s told that someone on one of the ships has had a baby. After all this horror and death and everyone being slaughtered, and then Billy [her assistant] comes in and says a baby was born on the Rising Star or something like that. If you didn’t have that, that show is such a nihilistic downer. You’d watch it and then want to jump out a window. The fact that she does that “Yes!” motion at the end is why you want to watch the next episode, because you find yourself saying, “Hold on, this is more interesting than that. Oh, I see, so she’ll ensure that the darkness doesn’t ever get too dark, because she’s going to be the heart of the s
how.” And then she’s suddenly throwing people out airlocks, and behaving like George W. Bush and outlawing abortion. Doing things that are not what we felt we were being set up for at all.

  RONALD D. MOORE

  I was surprised at how resolute and intelligent Laura was. You know, in my initial conception you saw more of the schoolteacher. You saw more of the secretary of education. You saw more of the woman that was like, “Wow, I wasn’t prepared for this at all.” Mary brought a deeper strength and moxie to it. She was more formidable, so that really started steering the character more strongly in that direction.

  DAVID EICK

  Mary was not a fan—maybe that’s overstating it—initially of turning Laura toward a kind of martial-law direction when it came to the Cylons, because I think she, too, thought she would be the kind of hard-core commander, and yet as she discovered the richness of what was being written for her, she was both the heart of the show and yet had a point of view that many would compare with a much more reactionary individual. Once she understood it, it became irresistible to her and she took total command of it.

  MARK VERHEIDEN

  There were also her emotional stories dealing with Baltar, dealing with Apollo, and, of course, dealing with Adama. She was able to bring the humanity to those things. I remember one of my favorite scenes in the relationship between Adama and Roslin was in fourth season in the mutiny episode where they were in bed together and talking about getting coffee or something. I just thought, “Wow, how far we’ve come from them originally wanting to kill each other and now they’re a friendly couple trying to figure out their day.” That was fun.

  DAVID EICK

  You could imagine the number of times, in exhaustion, when someone pitches, “In the teaser, Adama and Laura wake up in bed. Oh no, what do we do?” I have to say, I’m so glad we never wound up going there, because it wouldn’t have come from any place that would make sense. We were never building to that. I don’t think anyone would’ve liked it; it was just the kind of temptation that happens when you’re rowing and rowing and rowing and looking to land on the beach, so you’re reaching for anything.