Brilliant - The Luxury Lifestyle Magazine of Texas
Move over Iron Man, Spiderman, and all other Spandexclad pop culture
icons—a new kind of superhero rules the world. Hollywood has fallen in
love again with the genre—even this year’s Metropolitan Museum of Art’s
Costume Institute Gala partygoers reveled in a superhero theme. The
recent releases of the new Batman and James Bond series welcomes a
darker, grittier, but altogether smarter side of the beloved heroes
we’ve idolized since childhood. Cinematography has settled in a niche of
blacks, blues, and grayscale. Villains transcend the archetypical
slapstick neuroses into downright serious psychotics. Now, meet our kind
of heroes: strong, powerful, and strikingly handsome, yet deeply
troubled, intrinsically flawed, and hopelessly human. On the sets of
both “Battlestar Galactica” and “Law & Order: London,” Jamie Bamber
spends his days analyzing what makes a modern day hero and reflecting
the new standard in his diverse performances. With defined muscles and
pensive blue eyes, Jamie Bamber has the looks that send any leading lady
scrambling to risk death—just to be rescued by him. Except on “Battlestar,”
instead of a cape, he flies a futuristic aircraft and in lieu of a sword
and shield on “Law & Order,” he wields a gun accompanied by an arsenal
of colorful words.
In London and in between filming “Law & Order,” which premieres this
season on international television (iTV), Bamber convenes in Trafalgar
Square, amidst a boisterous crowd. It’s no Gotham City, but people
scurry around him, chatting on their mobiles while fixed on their daily
travels from point A to B. In the distance, sirens sound, and I almost
expect him to leap into action. With Bamber’s defined jaw line and
muscular frame, separating the man from the character proves nearly
impossible. “Sorry,” he offers in his proper British accent. “Let me
wait for that to pass.” Other than this polite passivity, the striking
difference between him and his character is that in “Battlestar,” as
Apollo, Bamber adopts an American accent.
“I’m not suppressing my British accent on the show,” explains the London
native. “I’m just doing something different with my mouth. It’s a
challenge, but one that I was excited about most for the show. I love
the differences in the way people speak—it’s a key ingredient in a
character and another color to play with.” It’s also in his blood. The
son of an American father, Bamber maintains dual citizenship in the U.K.
and the U.S. In addition to splitting time between both countries and
Vancouver to film “Battlestar,” he switches accents adeptly. For “Law &
Order: London,” he plays Matt Devlin, a detective native to the city
with a way of speaking noticeably distinct than Bamber’s own. “He’s from
the streets and talks in a different way than I would,” he reveals.
Bamber grew up in a comfortable, enlightened world, fashioned for him by two loving and supportive
parents. Raised in France for his formative years, Bamber returned to
England where he received a degree at St. John’s in Cambridge,
appropriately in modern languages. In pursuit of an acting career, he
attended the prestigious London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. After
scoring cameos and reoccurring characters in several popular British
television series, Bamber burst onto the American scene amidst showers
of shrapnel and bullet sprays as Lt. Jack Foley in Steven Spielberg’s
award-winning HBO miniseries, “Band of Brothers.” Perhaps fans liked the
idea of seeing Bamber in a uniform, because his biggest coup yet came in
2004 in the experimental “Battlestar Galactica” miniseries where he
played Lee “Apollo” Adama, a captain of the Colonial Fleet. Critically
acclaimed, the miniseries eventually achieved cult status and became a
weekly program.
“The show became an epic,” Bamber enthuses. “What makes it so dramatic
and compelling are the writers and the effects team. My role is immediate
and simple; it’s a father and son, a guy and a girl, a job to be done,
planes to fly, and deaths to be avoided. It’s a real world so we treat it as
real as possible.” Viewers have grown attached to the world the “Battlestar”
team has invented. Googling Jamie Bamber’s name, a plethora of websites
showcasing dates, places, and photographs of “Battlestar” conventions pop
up, rivaling the numbers of any other itlist celebrity. As evidenced by
supernatural predecessors such as “The Twilight Zone” and “The X-Files,”
science fiction fans prove the most dedicated and smitten with the shows’
stars. “Battlestar” has attracted the high caliber cult following where
people travel across the country and stand in line for hours just to catch a
glimpse of Bamber and pose for a giddy photograph standing next to him. And,
we’re not talking little boys in braces wearing space helmets. His
universally appealing pretty boy-meets-rugged rebel looks have captivated
legions of female fans, too—ordinary, pretty young women at whom who you may
take one glance and relegate to the “Gossip Girl” camp. Look again.
While “Battlestar” occupies a futuristic world, the production careens
past the fantastical genre, commandeering the eerily relatable. “The show
focuses on the demise of the entire human race, which is unimaginable on
many levels,” Bamber explains. “But, at the same time, we have our own
planet that’s in peril on many different fronts today. We’re not aware
enough of our own growth and consumption.” When not in front of the lens, he
concerns himself with looming global issues. “My pet hobby is world
gripes—sustainability, political, et cetera,” he divulges. “Our lives are
getting so big and indulgent.”
However, Bamber won’t be seen sprinting for the next phone booth to
change into his superhero costume anytime soon. Instead, his alter ego
remains steadfastly that of a typical father. “I am very concerned as a
parent, too,” he comments. “I hate myself for not being more proactive,” he
jokingly adds. Self-deprecating humor aside, Bamber aspires to be the ideal
husband and father. “Family life is my biggest challenge,” he admits. “My
wife Kerry and I are headstrong people and the reason why we will hopefully
last forever is that we try not to have resentment, but to let it all come
out. Argument is a lot healthier than a grudge. We have been through a lot.
We had three kids in a short amount of time, and there is a lot of denial in
society about romanticizing marriage and having kids. But, we’ve grown to be
realistic and not scared.”
As a contemporary hero on “Battlestar,” Bamber’s character, Apollo, must
not only save the planet from peril, but also cope with the tension from the
strained relationship with his father, played by renowned actor Edward James
Olmos. Off the set, Bamber has forged close bonds with Olmos as well as the
rest of the cast and crew of “Battlestar.” The Bamber children consider
Olmos an uncle. “It’s not just about your immediate family,” Bamber opines.
“You discover family beyond that as well. We shouldn’t reduce life to the
immediate family. In the West we’ve forgotten this. That’s why mothers go
crazy looking after their kids, because without them, they’re alone. We
should be sharing these responsibilities with other people. We’ve sacrificed
community.” Bamber may not know the remedy for today’s political strife, but
he holds the key to unlocking the secrets to better home living.
While one can tell a lot about a person by the company he keeps, peel
back the layers and discover more depth in the company he wants to keep.
“One of my all time heroes is Giuseppe Garibaldi,” Bamber remarks, revealing
his admiration for the 19th century Italian political leader and
revolutionary whose military expeditions in South America and Europe earned
him the nickname, “Hero of the Two Worlds.” “Nelson Mandela is also a very
complicated man who explored different responses to oppression and
gracefully came out on top to question the world over. But, even heroes have
their flaws. They’re just as fragile.”
Ultimately, our focus lingers on the heroes who employ superhuman
strength. Running marathons and excelling at rugby, tennis, and golf
preserves Bamber’s impressive physique “I grew up playing every game that
involved a sphere or an oval,” he jokes. Every now and then, he steals
glances at the Olympic kayaking event flashing on the big screen in
Trafalgar Square. “Every human being is physical, mental, emotional, and
spiritual. To me, the physical side is very important because I don’t feel
complete without a challenge in every area. I want to leave my friends at
their mercy on the tennis court.”
These days, the only kind of racket in Bamber’s life is the noise on the
set of “Law & Order: London.” While many popular British shows gain more
stature when remade overseas, this time an American show will be nestling
itself in the hearts and homes of the Brits. “It’s very exciting because
it’s not a household staple here yet,” Bamber says. “It’s bringing the
format to a new audience, which makes it different. Just like in the
American ‘Law & Order,’ where the star of the show is New York, in ‘Law &
Order: London,’ the star is the city of London. It’s groundbreaking as an
idea.” After the initial shock of not seeing Bamber behind the wheel of an
aircraft, “Battlestar” fans will be inevitably won over by his edgier police
detective performance. “He’s passionate, headstrong, idealistic, outspoken,
and slightly cheeky,” he continues, describing his new detective character.
“It’s a fun departure from [Apollo’s] restrained and cerebral nature. This
guy speaks first and says what he thinks.”
Whatever roles Bamber undertakes, he gravitates toward the protagonist/
antihero characters. On a daily basis, he solves crimes and rescues a world
that proves its own worst enemy; wrestling simultaneously with the inner
demons derived from a troubled upbringing or deeply fragmented
relationships. However, in Bamber’s world, the real missions begin and end
at home. “I’m not sure if there is a meaning of life, but I’ve got a young
family and my biggest hope is to keep working and give them a safe and
secure environment and education—that’s my job as a dad and a husband,” he
says with the self-assurance of a man who relishes the challenge. In a
pressure-cooker world, forget Spandex— though he would do it much justice—Bamber’s
most heroic feat is being comfortable in his own skin.
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