Claudia Christian

[lostforever]

from rastb5.mod by Paul McElligott

Claudia was interviewed for a piece in the Sunday Orange County Register
(5/16/04) about the affect of "Reality" TV on working actors. The upshot
was that it's getting harder for them to find parts in TV. Every hour of TV
given over to crap like "The Apprentice" or "The Bachelor" is several roles
lost that could have gone to actors like Claudia.

As a result, a lot of actors you might recognize from TV have been turning
on your local theatrical stages. Claudia just finished a stint at the
Laguna Beach Playhouse in "What the Night Is For". She has decided,
however, that LA and the United States in general is not a good place to be
a working actor and she's pulling up stakes and moving to England.


Sad to see our fav. stars hitting the hard times due to silly "reality" TV ;-(

I have been looking up most of the stars on imdb to see what have they been doing since b5 and not much by the looks of things.

Patricia Tallman is just credited wiht lots of stunts and not much acting. Hope stunts pays well.

[LytaaaarGh]

She has decided, however, that LA and the United States in general is not a good place to be
a working actor and she's pulling up stakes and moving to England.

.......To film the new satirical Scifi series STARHYKE \o/\o/\o/

actually this begs the question as to whether she will be returning for the upcoming B5:TMoS??

check out the Characters to see a *hot* pic of Christina.... (good to see her without the godawful 80's makeup )

[colonyearth]

Originally posted by LytaaaarGh
.......To film the new satirical Scifi series STARHYKE \o/\o/\o/

actually this begs the question as to whether she will be returning for the upcoming B5:TMoS??

check out the Characters to see a *hot* pic of Christina.... (good to see her without the godawful 80's makeup )

None of this would necessarily stop her from being in TMoS. And if she is offered a chance to come back, I don't see her turning down a feature film part or the money that will come with it.

This StarHyke looks like it's still in pre-production. Actors do multiple projects all the time.

[Andrew_Swallow]

check out the Characters to see a *hot* pic of Christina.... (good to see her without the godawful 80's makeup ) [/B]

That picture is about 5 years old. Claudia was advertising the move of babylon 5 to the UK Sci-Fi channel.

[CRONAN]

It would be nice to see Ivoniva again after the events of 2262, perhaps in her role as captain of a warlock ship, or fleet of warlock ships.

[greenone]

I do not see what people enjoy about reality tv! I hope the fade ends soons.

Ivoniva was one of my fav B5 characters... I especially loved some of her lines.

[Leto II]

Patricia Tallman is just credited wiht lots of stunts and not much acting. Hope stunts pays well.

It does.

Here are Pat Tallman's own words, taken from the all-B5 mega-issue of Cinefantastique which came out a couple of years back:

"I was the last person to be negotiated with out of the regular cast," noted [Tallman].

"They offered me about one-fifth of what I expected. What they offered me was something clearly meant as an insult. It didn't come from Joe. I don't know exactly who is responsible for that. It clearly meant, 'We don't want you on this show!' So for whatever reason or whomever, I turned it down because I couldn't work for that. I was making more money as a stuntwoman. I wasn't about to become a pauper just to be on a syndicated SF-TV show that may or may not go anywhere. It was very hurtful and an insult. I decided not to go back there."

[JackBauer]

Was that after the pilot and the reason she didnt work the first 2 seasons?

[iamsheridan]

Originally posted by JackBauer
Was that after the pilot and the reason she didnt work the first 2 seasons?

If I'm not mistaken this was concerning Crusade, so it had nothing to do with the first two seasons of B5.

/IamS

[CRONAN]

Considering who was funding Crusade, I cant say I'm suprised.

[grumbler]

Originally posted by iamsheridan
If I'm not mistaken this was concerning Crusade, so it had nothing to do with the first two seasons of B5.

Except that she says it was "a syndicated SF-TV show that may or may not go anywhere" and Crusade was not syndicated. Either she got the reference mixed up or she was, indeed, referring to B5 which WAS syndicated.

[JackBauer]

Well obviously as things worked out if as far as the telepath on B5 os concerned if JMS could have had Pat from the beginning he would have. This would explain a lot of things, as far as why wouldnt they keep her after the pilot and why they brought in someone new. AS far as her salary goes i cant say im surprised they offered her less money than the regulars. The b5 telepath wasnt really a mainstay on the show until around the 3rd season. IN fact i would even bet Talia was on maybe 20-25 episodes in the 2 seasons she was in. Thats not being a regular. But then when Talia left JMS probably went to whoever was in charge of finances and said, "look assholes, pay her whatever she wants." or something to that affect.

[Kevin]

Originally posted by JackBauer
IN fact i would even bet Talia was on maybe 20-25 episodes in the 2 seasons she was in.

Actually, it was about half of that.

[CRONAN]

Okay according to this, the Pat Tallman quote is likely to be a referance to Crusade:
----------------------------------------------------------
>(and TNT in turn, didn't have the money to hire Tallman for one
>episode)

Also incorrect. When you do episodic TV, you look at the days per episode that
somebody works. When, for instance, we had Richard Biggs do an appearance in
Crusade, it only required being there for a couple of days out of a 7 day
schedule.

It's standard in that kind of situation to look at the actor's weekly fee and
pay them for the number of days they appear. In other words...and these are
totally bogus figures, just for ease of discussion...if Actor X gets 7,000 for
a 7 day shoot, then if you only need him on another show for 2 days, you pay
$2,000. If you need him for the whole episode, you pay the full $7,000.

That's what we did with Richard, and what we've always done. We offered Pat
the same kind of arrangement on Crusade; we only needed her for one day's work
on "Path of Sorrows." She asked to receive her usual salary for a full week.
We couldn't make that deal because it would establish a precedent that would
come back to haunt us bigtime.

[Joseph DeMartino]

Pat's comment quoted above refers to the reason she did not start on B5 with season one, after her work on the pilot. Warner Bros. was a lot more hands on with the pilot than they would later be with the seaons, and insisted on a number of changes in the pilot itself and between the pilot and the series. (Having Laurel's lines looped, for instance, and replacing Johnny Sekka's doctor character with someone younger.) JMS agreed with some of the changes, fought others and won, acquiesced in still others because a new executive producer has to pick his battles. It may be that Warner Bros. didn't want Pat for whatever reason, but understood that JMS would fight for her. So they just low-balled the salary offer (which JMS would not have been party to) and let her turn them down. Given the stated reason for making Tamlyn Tomita re-record her dialogue (that Laurel was "too hard" and "not feminine" enough) it may be that they Lyta's short hair and business suits didn't let enough of Pat's sex-appeal come through and they wanted a bit more cheesecake for the role. (Although Andrea's costumes as Talia didn't highlight her curves, either. If anything they cammoflauged them. A friend of mine who was a casual B5 viewer at the time didn't believe me when I told him that the actress playing Jill Kirkendale on NYPD Blue was the same one who played Talia. But then, Talia didn't have as many chances to go undercover as a junkie/hooker, either. )

Regards,

Joe