Echoes of All Our Conversations, Volume 1

• The part of his contract that Peter Jurasik felt he had to negotiate before he even discussed his salary.
• Find out why Stage A was called the "opera set," the definition of "wild" when referring to sets and why Sinclair got a "captain's watch" when the show went to series.
• The joke Michael O'Hare and Pat Tallman snuck into the pilot.
• Why Warner Bros. said "Don't f--k with G'Kar."
• The details on the "screaming match in the parking lot" between Andreas Katsulas and the makeup designers.
• The writer who wrote his script parked in a car in Beverly Hills...for 8 hours a day.
• Which of the stars enrolled in a real estate course right before their big break.
• The no-detail-spared description of the holographic games played in the casino in "Survivors."
• The poem that JMS says is "very important to the tenor of the show."
• Why Bill Mumy was glad that Lennier was not "Kato to Delenn's Green Hornet."
• Why Stephen Furst prefers working in TV to film, and why he specifically asked his agent to focus on small-screen roles (much to her surprise).
• Why the pilot originally ran 25 minutes too long.
• How the death of Jerry Doyle's 41-year-old dad impacted his life choices.
• Why it was decided that G'Kar would wear gloves...and it's not because Andreas has "really big hands."
• The actress who was hoping her character would have a relationship with G'Kar.
• Why Jerry Doyle never sat in his trailer between scenes.
• The reason why Mira Furlan would have to look to the left or right when talking to another character...who was standing right in front of her.
• The situation in Andreas's personal life that made G'Kar's makeup look different.
• Why G'Kar's makeup did not make Andreas unrelatable.
• The context in which Peter Jurasik refers to the "sick little mind of J. Michael Straczynski."
• Who designer John Iacovelli considered the biggest villain on Babylon 5, and it wasn't one of the characters.
• Claudia's favorite episodes from Season 1, and why.
• Why Peter Jurasik believed that he would not be returning to the show after season one.
• The situations in which JMS would tell the crew not to do a "walk-and-talk" scene with the characters.
• Why the makeup artists on the pilot waited years and years, and then, when they got the green light, only had three weeks to complete the look of the makeup...from scratch.
• Why the production design team believed it was OK to change the Babylon 5 sets between seasons.
• Director Jim Johnston's reasoning for always wanting to spend more time in casting...even if he found the perfect actor for a part right away.
• Why Claudia Christian, after 15 feature films, was totally OK working in television.
• Why the SF element of Babylon 5 was difficult for Stephen Furst.
• What the makeup designers would do when everyone else was asleep.
• How the key makeup folks spent five years designing Delenn, and how they changed the look with only three weeks' notice.
• How the producers telling the makeup designers to "make anything you want" motivated the team in unexpected ways.
• The crew member who confessed that he thought Londo's hair was "dumb."
• Who said, "All the interesting things that happened in that show were all within Sinclair's mind or memory." (Hint: It's not Michael O'Hare.)
• Which behind-the-scenes crew members got the scripts before the directors.
• How eskimos living in Los Angeles influenced the approach to the alien costumes.
• Why director Richard Compton agreed to direct the B5 pilot even though he directed an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation and didn't like the experience.
• The kind gesture Peter Jurasik made to the makeup artists that most actors will never consider.
• The promise that Michael O'Hare made to the crew if the show got picked up for a second season.
• What you would find if, walking through the halls of Babylon 5, you popped off the head of one of the aliens.
• The situation on the Babylon 5 set that would cause Claudia Christian to scream, "Isn't this glamorous?"
• What was considered the goal of episodes that had nothing to do with the arc.
• How actor Andy Griffith made it so that Peter Jurasik had extra time to design Londo with the hair and makeup people.
• What Jerry Doyle believes is the reason that actors who are more talented than him don't get the jobs.
• Exposed: The episode Bill Mumy doesn't like that is considered a Babylon 5 classic.
• Why G'Kar's makeup design contains more foam than normal.
• How Babylon 5 is more New York than Las Vegas.
• Why Londo was made to look younger for the series than he was in the pilot.
• Why Caitlin Brown would confront J. Michael Straczynski and exclaim Na'Toth "wouldn't say that."
• Why the furnishings in G'Kar's quarters are stone and why there are so many trunks in Londo's quarters.
• How G'Kar's makeup forced Andreas Katsulas to "stay as human as possible."
• Why one of the makeup creators compares Star Trek's makeup designs to an M.C. Escher painting.
• Why Claudia Christian refers to the Babylon 5 set as "the most unhealthy" she's ever worked on.
• Why the first reading of the pilot script was a total "deja vu" for Andreas Katsulas.
• The instance where Andreas Katsulas "freaked out" and screamed "that's too old."
• The scene director Jim Johnston refused to rehearse.
• Why Peter Jurasik felt he was never really done for the day, even after the director called "wrap."
• Find out who said, "Actors are not puppets."
• The different ways Jerry Doyle tried to play Garibaldi.
• Which character pleased JMS most during the pilot.
• The importance of "Universe Today" in the pilot.
• The one piece of criticism about the pilot the producers took the most seriously.
• Which prosthetic made Andreas Katsulas feel like the Pillsbury Dough Boy.
• How Cheers and Seinfeld gave Jerry Doyle perspective about Babylon 5.
• Why Claudia Christian was shocked to find out that Ivanova was Russian.
• The situation in which Harlan Ellison told one of the writers "break our hearts."
• The thing that really drove Claudia Christian "crazy" on the set.
• Why not having a big budget is often more fun.
• How director James Cameron influenced the design of G'Kar's makeup.
• Why the producers of Alien Nation asked Andreas Katsulas to wear earplugs, off the set, when he wasn't in make-up.
• Who said, "There's an alarming lack of imagination in this town known for its creativity."
• What Bill Mumy considered the hardest part of playing Lennier...and it was not the 3+ hours in make-up.
• Why Jerry Doyle and Peter Jurasik might not see each other on the set for two months while filming Babylon 5.
• Details: Caitlin Brown's complete backstory for Na'Toth.
• The quirky movement used by Soul Hunter Morgan Sheppard that would make you think he was on wheels.
• What director Jim Johnston would do when Mira Furlan's makeup would pull away from the sides of her face because the lights were melting the adhesive.
• The aspects of the pilot that J. Michael Straczynski did NOT want changed in any way.
• How The Empire Strikes Back influenced the makeup department to NOT do something.
• The one character in the pilot whose makeup JMS did not like.
• The actor who insisted the makeup department redo their character's prosthetics over and over and over again.
• The character Claudia Christian played that was "a lot snippier than Ivanova."
• Why Deathwalker was female, and why writer Larry DiTillio put a lot of women in his scripts.
• Why Jerry Doyle and Peter Jurasik would just say, "Do whatever you want to" to each other before a scene.
• Why Doug's Dugout was created and what it really symbolized.
• The reason Peter Jurasik believed that it was important for the look of a character to change.
• How Bill Mumy came to rely on Huckleberry Finn and the TV show Kung Fu to fill out his perspective of Lennier.
• The original story to "Survivors," and how it was massively changed from first draft to production...and the door left open in Marc Scott Zicree's script that was closed in the version that aired.
• The genesis of Londo Mollari's accent, and how Woody Allen influenced it.
• How the talking cat from the movie Hocus Pocus influenced the B5 makeup creators.
• How Jerry Doyle's Wall Street background influenced his acting...and why acting is "like a vacation."
• Why Andreas could watch the dailies of his performance of G'Kar when he couldn't stand to watch any other parts he had played.
• Why Andreas Katsulas would refer to G'Kar as the "J. R. Ewing/Captain Hook of Space."
• The one job Andreas Katsulas has his heart set on when he was a kid.
• The look that made Peter Jurasik's wife's heart stop.
• Why Babylon 5 audiences never got to hear Londo say, "It doesn't matter whether you win or lose; what matters is the nobility in the struggle rather than the success."
• Andreas Katsulas's reaction the first time he popped in his contact lenses.
• The one quality every actor had to have to be cast by Janet Greek, even more important to her than how well they could act.
• What Andreas Katsulas loved that Pat Tallman said would have made her crazy.
• How the phrase "Hey, isn't that the guy from Gremlins?" would haunt the makeup designers.
• Why Andreas Katsulas didn't think Babylon 5 was going to be anything significant when he auditioned for G'Kar.
• How Bruce Willis indirectly helped Jerry Doyle get his first role.
• In what circumstances Andreas Katsulas said he could never play G'Kar.
• Andreas's all-or-nothing proposition to play G'Kar for the entire series.
• How Bill Mumy found Babylon 5 similar to shooting Papillon with Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman.
• Which character the makeup department considered the most full of "crazy, harebrained ideas" and why the costume weighed over 40 pounds.
• Why JMS did not like the delay from pilot to series but believed, in the end, it helped the show.
• How Peter Jurasik and Stephen Furst were friends long before Babylon 5.
• Why writing even one line of dialogue for Kosh was a "difficult job."
• Why Peter Jurasik thanked J. Michael Straczynski for the episode "Born to the Purple."
• The truth about the Grey Council...well, the chamber, anyway.
• What the entire Babylon 5 crew would do each time G'Kar had a scene.
• How Andreas Katsulas's personality was completely different as G'Kar, according to Claudia Christian.
• The person who really "hated" the way Delenn looked and called her "ugly."
• How the most unlikely person on the crew wanted to play Delenn, the one thing that stopped that from happening (other than the casting of Mira Furlan)...and the Minibari he did end up playing.
• Why Stephen Furst wants to be a combination of Clint Eastwood and Woody Allen.
• Why Delenn's original contact lenses were the color blue.
• Why Pat Tallman considers Lyta a "Spock-like" character.
• An entire storyline that was cut from "Born to the Purple."
• The character whose chin was cut off between the pilot and the series...and why the actor was so happy it was gone.
• The unusual question costume designer Catherine Adair asked before she started designing the costumes.
• Why the Earth Alliance costumes had to be comfortable...having little to do with the actors' actual comfort.
• Why direct Janet Greek never "pulled Andreas back."
• Revealed: the inside jokes hidden on the Babylon 5 sets.
• The one thing that happened with the Babylon 5 cast that Andreas had never seen before.
• Why director Jim Johnston tried to stay away from the colors red and orange.
• Why the sets started as 3-walls but evolved to include 4-walls...and why this was a joy for some of the crew.
• The cast member who auditioned with a 103-degree temperature and doesn't remember a thing about it.
• How the Babylon 5 stages were a "shell game."
• Which sets were expanded after the pilot and why.
• Claudia Christian reveals why she played Ivanova as "militaristic and uptight" in the first few episodes.
• Director Richard Compton's uncensored criticism of Babylon 5...discussed after he left the show.
• The episodes which were originally titled "Raiding Party," "The Resurrectionist" and "Trick of the Mind."
• Why Peter Jurasik repeated Garibaldi's name over and over as he developed Londo.
• The reason why 15th century Venice, Italy figured so prominently into the vision for the costumes on the show.
• Why the episode "Believers" was held back after it was shot.
• What Harlan Ellison meant when he told a B5 writer to "put a spike in it."
• Why "Deathwalker" is Caitlin Brown's favorite episode.
• Why production designer John Iacovelli described the sets as Tinkertoys.
• The actor who thought his character was "one dimensional" in the pilot.
• The no-holds-barred interview with Caitlin Brown (Na'Toth) after she left the show...and why she couldn't go back after Season 1.
• Who took acting classes with Bob Dylan and Harvey Keitel.
• How Jerry Doyle sees acting as a "party he's crashing," and what one quality he believes will get you the part more than talent, every time.
• JMS's rules for alien design.
• Details of the unfilmed fight scene between Na'Toth and Deathwalker.
• Na'Toth as Ivanova? Yes! Caitlin Brown talks about auditioning for that part too.
• The person who thought that Ivanova's line "I have to go to the bathroom" was "the least favorite of any ever written by J. Michael Straczynski."

• Peter Jurasik - Londo Mollari (15 Jan 1993)
• J. Michael Straczynski - Writer/Co-Executive Producer (21 Dec 1992)
• Jerry Doyle - Michael Garibaldi (18 Jan 1993)
• Catherine Adair - Costume Designer (20 Jan 1993)
• Andreas Katsulas - G'Kar (21 Jan 1993)
• Greg Aronowitz & Rob Sherwood - Makeup (27 Jan 1993)
• Patricia Tallman - Lyta Alexander (29 Jan 1993)
• Richard Compton - Director (2 Feb 1993)
• J. Michael Straczynski - Creator/Executive Producer (7 Dec 1993)
• Jerry Doyle - Michael Garibaldi (7 Dec 1993)
• Everett Burrell - Makeup Effects Creator (7 Dec 1993)
• Stephen Furst - Vir Cotto (14 Feb 1994)
• W. Morgan Sheppard - Soul Hunter (20 Feb 1994)
• John Iacovelli - Production Designer (14 Mar 1994)
• Andrea Thompson - Talia Winters (15 Mar 1994)
• Richard Compton - Director/Co-producer (16 Mar 1994)
• David Gerrold - Writer (circa 29 Apr 1994)
• Marc Scott Zicree - Writer (28 June 1994)
• Claudia Christian - Susan Ivanova (13 July 1994)
• Caitlin Brown - Na'Toth (22 July 1994)
• Peter Jurasik - Londo Mollari (26 July 1994)
• Bill Mumy - Lennier (28 July 1994)
• Jim Johnston - Director (4 Aug 1994)
• Bruce Boxleitner - John Sheridan (5 Aug 1994)
• Julia Nickson - Catherine Sakai (5 Aug 1994)
• Janet Greek - Director (6 Aug 1994)
• Lawrence G. DiTillio - Executive Story Editor (16 & 19 Aug 1994)

Index