James Marsters, Patton Oswalt land recurring roles on Caprica

Buffy and Angel veteran James Marsters and comedian Patton Oswalt will appear in multiple episodes of Caprica.

Oswalt will play Baxter Sarno, a popular Caprican comedian talk show host on whose show the Graystones ultimately appear. If the casting call (below) is anything to go by, the character will be introduced in episode 1x02, "Rebirth."

The star of "Backtalk With Baxter Sarno," he's a very bright talk show host similar to Letterman or Leno, but with the political intelligence of Jon Stewart and a retro feel that could belong to Dick Cavett or Jack Paar. He is seen delivering his nightly monologue on the topical events of the day.sptv050769.. (25) RECURRING ROLE. PLEASE SUBMIT NAMES AND NON-NAME ACTORS. MUST BE ABLE TO AD LIB.

Marsters will play Barnabus Greeley, a dangerous terrorist leader, in at least three episodes. EW's Ausiello, who broke the news earlier today, says "Driven by desires both moralistic and carnal, Barnabus is as lethal as he is unpredictable. And no ones does lethal and unpredictable better than Marsters."

The casting call for another recurring character, Graystone's rival Tomas Vergis, was posted on SpoilerTV last month, but still no word on who will be playing him. Vergis will appear in episode 6, "Know Thy Enemy," which is currently in production.

Caprica and BSG: The Plan panel at Comic-Con

SyFy has posted a video of the Caprica and Battlestar Galactica: The Plan panel at the San Diego Comic-Con. Here is the event in full:

Caprica to premiere on January 22

SyFy announced the premiere date for Caprica last week. The two-hour season opener will air on Friday, January 22, 2010 at 9 PM and subsequent episodes will be on in the 10 PM slot.

Here is the press release:

Syfy has announced the airdate for its highly-anticipated upcoming series Caprica. On Friday, January 22, 2010 @ 9 PM, the show will kick off with a 2-hour premiere and will air regularly on subsequent Fridays @ 10 PM.

Humanity's storyline takes completely new twists with Caprica, which follows two rival families and their patriarchs Daniel Graystone (Eric Stoltz) and Joseph Adama (Esai Morales) as they compete and thrive in the vibrant realm of the 12 Colonies, a society recognizably close to our own. This original, standalone series will feature the passion, intrigue, political backbiting, and family conflict in an omnipotent society that is at the height of its blind power and glory and, unknowingly, on the brink of its fall.

Caprica also stars Paula Malcomson (Amanda Graystone), Polly Walker (Sister Clarice Willow), Magda Apanowicz (Lacy) and Alessandra Torresani (Zoe Graystone). The series is from Universal Cable Productions and is executive produced by Ronald D. Moore, David Eick and Jane Espenson. Jeffrey Reiner (Friday Night Lights) directed the pilot.

Interview with Caprica designer Richard Hudolin

Den of Geek has a new interview with BSG & Caprica production designer Richard Hudolin, whose credits also include Doctor Who, Stargate SG-1, Dead Like Me and Reaper.

He talked about his work on Caprica among other things:

Was it refreshing to have a slightly cleaner slate for Caprica in terms of design?

Well, I shot the pilot while I was finishing off Battlestar, last season. It's fifty-eight years before the Cylon war, so we're kind of re-inventing what Caprica was. It's a lot of fun and a great challenge. Dealing with Ron Moore and David Eick and the writers, we can actually get on the phone and say 'What do you think it should be?' [laughs]. And we come up with all these different ideas...we try and actually bring some of the Battlestar feeling into some of the designs in a subtle way, because by the time you get to fifty-eight years later, these are things that would have evolved. It's kind of like you're retro-fitting something, but you have to make the sense and the logic work for stuff that's going to happen sixty years from now. So it's a real little mind-twist to get some of the stuff right. But if you've seen the pilot, I thought everybody did a really great job on that.

Do you think you'll be sticking with sci-fi? You seem to be doing a lot of it now...

[laughs] Here's the story: I did Doctor Who, which I didn't know was sci-fi - to me it was just a great show to work on. And I had done a whole lot of other shows that weren't science-fiction. Lot of film work, drama, comedy, musical and so on. So I did the pilot for Stargate, and that was a huge success, and then I did five seasons of it. Then I said to myself that I had to get out of here in case people started saying 'All you do is sci-fi'!.

So after I left Stargate I made a big point of taking shows only like drama. comedy, western, whatever...anything but sci-fi. So I then did the pilot for Haunted with Michael Rymer, and that got picked up and shot in LA. Then that went by the wayside, and while I was working on something else, Michael Rymer rang me inviting me down to meet David Eick. When he told me had Battlestar Galactica going, I went 'Oh shit!' [laughs].

And then I said to myself that if I don't take this, it's not going to come around for another forty years, and at that point I probably won't be able to do anything [laughs]. So I took it, and that went for five seasons, and between seasons I would do other things like Painkiller Chain and Eureka, and that evolved into Caprica. It's just one evolvement after another that keeps me in this world right now, but it's nothing that I actually planned.

Drew Z. Greenberg joins Caprica staff

From Jane Espenson:

Big Caprica writing staff news. Now joining us on the staff will be... Buffy alum and all-around great guy DREW Z. GREENBERG!

Other than Buffy, Greenberg's credits include Firefly, Smallville, Dexter, Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Warehouse 13.

Caprica starts filming next week

From Jane Espenson:

Still in pre-production, but it's getting close -- shooting starts next week. Excitement in the air. Even the robots are nervous.

New interview with Bear McCreary, from Examiner

Examiner talked to Bear McCreary recently. The full interview is here, some quotes below:

Regarding your latest release, Caprica, it sounds to me more emotive and character-centric than the Battlestar scores, which are very atmospheric, encapsulating all the action and drama of the environment.

Well, Caprica has a much smaller cast, and that cast can essentially be divided into two families – The Adamas and the Graystones. So I wrote two themes, one for each family, and they serve as the thematic thread that ties the Caprica score together. Battlestar, as you mentioned, tends to be attached to arcs, subplots, and sometimes thematic ideas. There are also themes for every single character on the show, and there are at least 50 of those alone, not that they all get used all the time. So Caprica was a very different approach.

Was it difficult at all to pull back from the expansiveness of Battlestar and hone in on this smaller story?

It was a bit of a relief, honestly. If the producers wanted Caprica to sound bigger, I might have died. The Battlestar score has reached a point where it is so unwieldy and massive, in terms of the amount of instruments in it, the style it encapsulates. It’s difficult to work with this language, and Caprica was like a breath of fresh air. I got a small chamber-sized orchestra together, and I was able to fall back on just writing, technique, and ideas, and the spectacle of the score wasn’t part of it.

Did you approach it more as a classic drama than as a sci-fi epic?

Well, I don’t approach anything as a sci-fi epic. I look at everything from a dramatic standpoint. Battlestar is certainly no exception to that. There are more family-drama storylines happening in Caprica, and Battlestar certainly does have its share of big, sci-fi plots that are not solely character based. But I have to admit that I try to ignore them, from a musical standpoint. What can one do to write science fiction music in the first place? I write narrative music. So, in that regard, it wasn’t any different than doing Battlestar. But I think the biggest difference was the ensemble, which was much more traditional, more contained, and much more classical. And the signature instruments like the ethnic drums, Middle Eastern flutes, and whatnot that are all over Battlestar, only make sporadic appearances throughout Caprica.

Something I found puzzling, given your credentials, was that in the press surrounding Caprica’s development, you weren’t even originally considered to do the score. I read something about the director having conversations and you were eventually suggested. What happened there?

Well, they honestly wanted a very different sound. And the director, Jeffrey Reiner, who had never previously worked on Battlestar, came in to direct Caprica, and wanted to go in a completely different direction. He didn’t want to re-create Battlestar… none of us did. So, I wasn’t an obvious choice, because I WAS the guy who did Battlestar. I had a meeting with Jeff, and we realized immediately that we were both on the same page about how the music should be. In fact, we had an incredible relationship artistically; he and I really got along, so it worked out for the best. But no, I wasn’t the obvious first choice. But like I said, the producers were concerned; they wanted something different, so I had to prove that I could deliver it.

How often do you have to go back to the drawing board and do rewrites for something that doesn’t work for you or the director?

In my entire career working on Battlestar and Caprica, I have only ever done one rewrite. It was in one of the very first episodes of Season 1, and I’ve never done one since. That’s for two reasons: one, the producers and I have worked together for a really long time and we see eye-to-eye. Generally I know what they want, and they trust my instincts. And two, there’s no time for rewrites. I had to write the entire score for Caprica in nine days. So I was just churning out cues as fast as humanly possible. I turned out between five to eight minutes of music for nine days straight, and on the tenth day, I was in front of the orchestra conducting it. So we definitely make revisions, tweaks – Jeff and I worked together on it very closely. But as far as going back and rewriting something from scratch; there was no time for that.