JMS on Usenet

Message

Subject: Re: new interviews of Jerry Doyle and Peter Jurasik
Date: 07 Dec 2002 02:12:17 GMT
From: jmsatb5@aol.com (Jms at B5)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated

>JMS hasn't said anything of a negative nature that I know of about Pat
>Tallman
>(Lyta).  During Crusade there was to have been a part for her in the episode
>"The Path of Sorrows" but they weren't able to come to financial agreement. 

Which, obviously, was not my call, but hers.  Her work would have taken just
one day (closer to half a day, actually), and the fee was based on what we'd
paid her in her last season.  She felt she couldn't do it for less, we didn't
have the budget to give more, it's a fair disagreement, she opted out, so I had
to revise the script accordingly.  This sort of thing happens all the time.

>Yes, there was some disagreement over who said what, when, but
>nothing I ever read from JMS indicated that he would never allow her to work
>on
>his stuff again.
>
>The only thing I can think of that would have caused people to decide that
>JMS
>would be so spiteful is that when another actor (Gen. Hague, don't remember
>the
>actor's name) bailed on them to do DS9, JMS re-wrote the script to kill off
>the
>character.  He said online the one 'should never honk off the writer' and
>people seem to have decided to take this as a serious statement of 'policy'
>instead of being playful.

At the end of the day, however much one might grump, you have to do what's
right, otherwise the whole thing goes pear-shaped, as the Brits say.

Case in point: Foxworth, as noted above.  We needed someone for an important
part in Jeremiah this season, and his name surfaced as one prospect.  I'll be
honest: when that happened, I kind of got my back up over the Hague situation. 
But then, at the end of the day, you have to say, "Okay, he pissed you off, but
does that mean you don't hire the right guy for the job?"  

So we hired him for that episode, "Letters from the Other Side," part one of
our series premiere (with a quick shot also in part two).

Because you can't sensibly run a show in any other way.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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