Selected from Cult Times Special #19

Warrior Monk

They said it'd only last five years. Well, guess what...Babylon 5 is back with another TV movie. Alex Zahara shares his experiences of getting into the Minbari mindset...

• Feature by Steven Eramo

Although he has been working in the profession only a short time, actor Alex Zahara has already made a name for himself, especially with fans of TV Sci-Fi. The fair-haired, ebullient Canadian has guest starred on such shows as Dark Angel, Millennium, First Wave, The Immortal, The Outer Limits, Andromeda and Stargate SG-1. His latest out-of-this-world gig is the made-for-TV movie Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers. The actor plays Dulann, a member of the Minbari race and first officer aboard the starship Liandra. According to Zahara, he did his best to get into the Minbari mindset prior to auditioning for the role.

"I was so excited," enthuses the actor. "In fact, I still get goosebumps just thinking about it. My agent faxed me the sides for the part on a Friday afternoon. A good friend of mine, Stephen Park, came over and he worked with me on the material for the entire weekend to get ready for my audition on Tuesday. In the end we must have approached it from at least 50 different angles!" laughs Zahara.

"Luckily, one of Stephen's friends, Kevin, is a huge Babylon 5 fan. I wanted to make certain I was on the right track insofar as the Minbari and the Rangers were concerned, so I phoned Kevin and asked him to tell me all he could. He loaned me tapes and, in between learning lines, I sat down and watched them as well as going on the Internet to look up whatever I could about the show."

Doing his homework paid off for the actor, as he was hired for the role. However, Zahara later discovered that he had an ally at the audition. "One day I happened to be talking with Joe [J Michael Straczynski, Babylon 5 creator]. He told me, 'I knew you were the one I wanted to play Dulann in the first 15 seconds of the audition. There was nobody before or after who came close.' I thought, 'Wow, what a great confidence booster for an actor.'"

Fans of Babylon 5 are familiar with the Minbari and know that they have played a crucial role in the Babylon Project and in the success of the Rangers in the Shadow War. The race is advanced both technologically and spiritually and is divided into three castes - religious, warrior and worker. They have a strict code of honour and no Minbari has killed another in over one thousand years. The Minbari believe in reincarnation, view love as a force unto itself and enjoy a good laugh. Zahara took all this into consideration when fleshing out his character of Dulann.

"I think of Dulann as a warrior monk," says the actor. "He has that quiet core or an inner calm and stillness, almost like a Buddhist monk, you know? It's only through calmness and stillness that you can achieve clarity of thought and action. When you go into battle you must be completely focused. That's what I find interesting about Dulann. He's so focused in everything that he does. He really strives for that. At the same time, he's not willing to accept the status quo. Dulann believes there's something more to life than what he and his race have come to know. The character's angst about Minbar, his homeworld, is reflected in the movie and via the other characters, in particular G'Kar [Andreas Katsulas], the Narn ambassador. When I first read the script I thought, 'Jeez, he really feels strongly about a variety of issues. So Dulann is a very passionate character who shares a deep sense of friendship, trust and loyalty with his friend, Captain David Martel [Dylan Neal], and the rest of the Liandra crew."

"Shooting this film was a pleasure, and that was true from the get-go," notes Zahara. "On the first day, when I did the read-through with Dylan, Myriam Sirois [who plays weapons specialist Sarah Cantrell], and the rest of the cast, there was an immediate bonding. I felt as if we were old friends getting together to work on this project. It was the same feeling with the crew. They were really amazing. A lot was asked of them and they delivered every single time..."

More from Zahara in Cult Times Special #19: available in shops or from VI Direct.

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Feature © Visual Imagination Ltd 2001.
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