A classically trained actor, spirited fight arranger and successful screenwriter, Peter Woodward chats exclusively with Blockbuster.co.uk's Mal Simons about his life and career, his famous dad Edward and returning to the role of Galen in Babylon 5 - The Lost Tales.
First featured in the Babylon 5 TV Movie '
A Call To Arms (1999)' and short-lived
Babylon 5 spin off series
Crusade (1999), technomage Galen, as played by charismatic British actor Peter Woodward, is a firm fan favourite and an integral part of creator J. Michael Straczynski's ever widening B5 universe. "For years I asked Joe, says Woodward of Straczynski, "who is Galen? What is he? Is he human? Is he alien? Why does he do the things he does? What's with the science and the magic? Is he on our side, humanity's side, or is he a double agent of some sort? But I never got any answers.
"Joe just wanted me to play what was on the page because the mystery is part of Galen's appeal. That worked for me, because frequently what was written for Galen was so clever and interesting, plus there was always some humour, even in the darkest situations. He's by no means a purely altruistic force of good. There was an episode of Crusade where he tried to take over the ship, so obviously he has huge power and sometimes abuses it. But he is incredibly loyal to the human friends he makes.
"I know a little bit more about him now, though. Just before The Lost Tales was about to happen, I e-mailed Joe and asked if he could please tell me a little more about this character I'd been playing all this time? He e-mailed me back and said, 'OK. I'd like you to make some guesses and will let you know if you're close.' So, I made a couple of guesses and he confirmed that one of them was correct. So I now know what Galen is," says Woodward, breaking into a laugh, "and if you pay me a very large amount of money I might tell you!" Calling his bluff and offering him the cash, Woodward nevertheless declined to spill the beans. "I share the secret with Joe," he says, smiling and shaking his head, "and I'm afraid it's going to remain our secret."
Getting the original gig on Crusade, remembers Woodward, was ". a combination of the right time, the right place and extraordinary luck. It was great fun and we all got on really well. We were working with the entire B5 technical team, and they'd been together for years already, so it was more like joining a family than creating a new one."
Speaking of family, Woodward was delighted to play alongside his father
Edward in an episode of the show. Dad had always wanted to come back to the States and do some more work and I suggested it to Joe and the others. They said they'd love to but wouldn't be able to afford him, but I told them to ask him anyway. Like I said, he wanted to come over anyway, and this was a perfect excuse so we got to do a show together. We'd worked together on stage before but this was the first time we'd worked alongside each other on screen. And it was great. I have a lot of fond memories of that time."
Though all good things must come to an end, in the case of Crusade, that good thing ended all too quickly, after just 13 episodes. "Everyone was very upset when the series didn't continue," says Woodward, "and I was too, but I knew how lucky I'd been just to get in it and that it would unlock doors for me to go on and do other things, which it did."
Reunited with a familiar cast and crew on Babylon 5: The Lost Tales, Woodward reveals how the project came about. "We'd stayed in touch as friends over the past few years, and Joe had always said that he'd been trying to get something else together. He's one of the few people you can believe when he says that, because he has such an extraordinary amount of drive and determination. Deep down we all knew that something like The Lost Tales would happen because the people involved in it, and the fans who love it, all wanted it to happen so much. And when we got back together, it was as if we'd never been away. The extraordinary thing was that I still fitted in to my old costume, which was something of a miracle!"
Integral to the critical success of Crusade and Babylon 5, says Woodward, is Straczynski's writing. "With most TV these days, the characters are literally sketched in and the scenes speed by too fast to me. The idea being that you cannot hold a single shot for more than a couple of seconds, and no scene can last more than a couple of minutes, otherwise the audience is might lose interest. What this does, I think, is treat the audience like a bunch of idiots.
"As Joe knows, the audience loves a long scene, they loves real, strong, intellectual content. The danger is that any kind of long scene or deep character work could get boring, but with Joe you know the writing is going to be so good you could never lose interest. It's a huge privilege as an actor to be able to play these characters with a writer who really cares about what he's doing and takes the time to get it right.
"What's really extraordinary about Joe's writing is that he covers subjects few other writers will touch. He's not afraid of talking about spirituality, about lust, about personal weaknesses, about what we want from life and universe, and what we're afraid of. He always asks the big questions."
Let's not forget that Woodward himself has had his fair share of success as a writer. "I have been writing for many years," he confirms. "I used to write for the theatre. I started to write for television and film and I got a movie here that I wrote and co-produced and then I thought that if I wanted to do this seriously, I'd have to move to the States, which I did, and started to write for television, documentaries mostly, gradually moving towards the movies."
Woodward's first feature, Closing the Ring, is due out soon, directed by Richard Attenborough with an all-star cast. "I wrote a lot of drafts and finally got one to Richard, who grabbed it and shot it last year with a fantastic cast -
Shirley MacLaine,
Christopher Plummer,
Neve Campbell,
Mischa Barton and wonderful Irish and British actors including
Pete Postlethwaite. It was a fantastic thing that really came to life.
"It's a beautiful love story set in both Ireland and America between the second world war and today. It's a good, old-fashioned weepy love story, and it was great fun to do. I've since written more movies, one that's being shot next year called Unthinkable, one that I've been commissioned to write and two others that I have high hopes for. So things are going well for me with writing at the moment and that's what I spend most of my time doing."
Available now to add to your list,
Babylon 5: The Lost Tales is not only a must for fans but also perfectly accessible to newcomers looking to explore Straczynski's universe for the first time. For more on Peter Woodward, just keep going to the movies.