WARNING: This interview contains spoilers if you haven’t seen Battlestar Galactica Season 4!

Michael Hogan, the surly Saul Tigh from Battlestar Galactica, answered a few questions during his guest of honour appearance at the recent MCM Expo in London. He talked to Den Patrick about eye patches, the end of the CIC and being a frakking Cylon.

What’s it been like meeting the UK fans?

It’s been great! But I’d rather stand there and talk rather than doing Q & As! Also, when you’ve been asked questions for a while you wonder, ‘Did I just say that? Stop me if I’ve just told this story!’

Have you been happy with the progression of your character throughout the series? Especially now that Tigh has been revealed as a Cylon…

I’m definitely happy with the progression of the character throughout the series… until he became a Cylon [laughs].

Ron Moore and David Eick have always picked up the phone when I’ve called with a concern throughout all of the five years. So I’ve learned over time to go with them if they insist on something.

The issue I’m really talking about is when they send Tigh down to New Caprica. Well, Tigh wouldn’t leave that ship, and for very good reasons. But they insisted Tigh go down to New Caprica. Well, look at what they wrote for season three; as an actor, you couldn’t get a better meal than that.

So with the Cylon thing, I did initially think it was a cheap shot. Someone told me that there was this poll on the web and people voted on who was most likely to be a Cylon on Battlestar Galactica. Saul Tigh was the second from the last!

Now that’s pretty cheap. I mean, do you make him a Cylon just because it would be a surprise? But, no, they [Moore and Eick] had thought it out. And knowing, after all those years, when they said they wanted me to be a Cylon, I said, “OK, I’ll argue it, but I don’t have any facts to argue with.” This was just a gut a thing.

Do you miss the eye patch?

No. I hated wearing it. The mornings weren’t that bad, but the afternoons… [shakes head]. You can imagine your depth of field and sense of balance goes. But that was another brilliant stroke from the writers.

When I’m on hiatus I go off and do other things, or just get my head completely out of Battlestar. Then I think, ‘OK, we’re going to shoot Battlestar again in a month, I’d better call Dave [Eick] and Ron [Moore] and see what I should be up to now’, because I do a lot of research.

So I called Dave and asked him what’s shaping up [for season three]. And he says, “Well, gee now, let’s see, you’re on New Caprica, Tigh is going to be incarcerated, and he’s going to be tortured by the Cylons. And we’re thinking of maiming him.” And I say, “You’re maiming him! Well, if you’re going to decide to maim him, phone me right away, because I need time. I’ve got to go into a hospital, you know, I can’t just limp. If they do something specific then we owe it to the torture victims of the world to do it properly.” So he says, “We’re thinking of removing an eye...” And I laughed, and said, “Well OK, as soon as you decide give me a call.”

So three weeks later I got the script. You know, it opens with me and Dean Stockwell in the prison cell. Tigh’s there, no eye. So I called David and said, “Hey, you’ve taken an eye away!” and he told me, “Yeah, Ron wanted something that was permanent.” He wanted a form of torture that Tigh wouldn’t eventually get over. He wanted something where you look at Tigh after all the number of years and you think, ‘Oh, the occupation’, which was brilliant. Every once in a while you’re doing a scene when you can’t see the eye patch and then you can just see it and it’s like, ‘Whoa!’

So what started as me asking “What are you doing to me?” turned out to be a gift.

The first half of season four ends on another cliffhanger. Any hints on where the story goes from there?

I can’t say too much, but I can say it ends. You know, over the years when we first started doing this, I myself told them my passion as an actor is doing different things. And this has been one long five-year movie.

I’ve said to Ron a few times over the shooting, “You said at the beginning of the show there’s going to be a beginning, a middle and an end. Are you going to stick to that?” And he’s replied, “Yeah, we definitely intend that it finishes.” Even though the network is putting on great pressure because, you know, it’s a money making thing; it’s a licence to print money.

I think it’s pretty nervy of the network to let them pull the plug before the mandate is over, because we all have a year left on our options. But the story of Battlestar will soon be over.

But [the Battlestar TV movie that will follow the final season] The Plan is one of those things where you go, “Wow, they’ve got this huge movie now." So even though they’re not going to go beyond this end point, they can go back to a lot of different places and shoot stories within that.

But as far as you know The Plan is going to be the last TV movie?

Yes, that’s as far as I know. There are no rumours of any new films coming out. The rumours were gone when they tore the sets down.

It was amazing to go and stand and watch the sets come down, the CIC [Combat Information Centre, or the bridge] especially. You don’t realize how much a part of the fabric of your life this show has become until you wander into the studio and see it halfway torn down. There are just the steel girders in half of the CIC there now. So, they’re not going to go back and shoot a movie in the CIC. Tigh’s quarters are gone, Adama’s quarters are gone, all those great sets are gone.

Have you got to keep any souvenirs?

Some people over time have taken souvenirs. But they’ve had people from the network and an auctioneer there. These shows auction props, and there’s a lot of money in it. So I suppose if I did have any stories about souvenirs I shouldn’t tell them!

Battlestar Galactica returns in 2009.