re”We are an integral part of the creative process. We are evolutionary creatures capable from and mediating between both the highest and lowest aspirations of life. The spiritual and the physical. We are sacred artists capable of translating that which (ideas, concepts and creative vision) into  tangible, concrete physical expression. What a gift and what a great and wondrous responsibility the universal presence has bestowed upon us.” Richard Hatch, actor, writer, director, producer, acting and self-help teacher, can indeed be considered a true visionary who is deeply fascinated by the mysteries of the universe and one’s connection to it”.

   – Richard Hatch

With an impressive acting career spanning more than four decades, Hatch knows all too well the harsh reality of show business with its rollercoaster ride of ups and downs, and admits to having to “learn the hard way” with many missed opportunities and choices made earlier on in his career. This Golden Globe nominated actor who began his career in Off-Broadway starring in several plays and musicals, including James Kirkwood Jr.’s Obie Award winning play, PS Your Cat is Dead, then went on to establish a successful television and film career.

He first gained notoriety in 1970, playing Philip Brent for two years on the well-renowned soap opera drama, All My Children, ultimately leading him to be cast as Michael Douglas’s replacement in The Streets of San Francisco (1976-1977), which would in fact be Hatch’s first major television role. In addition to this, Hatch has made numerous appearances in many iconic television shows such as Dynasty, Murder, She Wrote, Fantasy Island, Baywatch, Barnaby Jones, the original Hawaii Five-0, The Waltons, Jake and the Fatman as well as several made-for-TV movies including Last of the Belles with Susan Sarandon and Deadman’s Curve portraying Jan Berry of the musical duo Jan and Dean.

However, it was Hatch’s portrayal of Captain Apollo in Glen A. Larson’s sci-fi series, Battlestar Galactica (BSG) (1978), although only lasting for one season that he is best known for. Despite BSG’s short run, it can be in fact considered as one of the best sci-fi shows to grace the small screen. It was Hatch’s overwhelming belief in BSG, which ultimately led him on a lengthy crusade to revive the original series. Having fought a long and hard battle in a relentless campaign to revive this cult fan favorite, and ultimately make his vision come to fruition, Hatch had to endure bitter disappointments, frustrations and resentment, which he has expressed in the past over seeing his vision rejected in the likes of a remake by producer, Ronald D. Moore. Despite Hatch’s past resentment, in 2004 his unwavering belief and his deeply immense dedication saw him being offered and accepting the role of Tom Zarek for five seasons of Battlestar’s re-imagined series. Richard Hatch is indeed a true testament of an extremely passionate, dedicated, highly influential and intuitive individual driven by his life’s passion.

In fact, he feels a true calling to inspire and motivate aspiring young actors and as such encourage performers to work from their gut instinct rather than intellectually through his deeply profound acting classes and self-help workshops. He uses his profound knowledge, wisdom and extensive experience to inspire, motivate, encourage and empower other individuals to unlock their hidden potential and move past fear and low self-worth, to ultimately obtain success and fulfilment in their life’s endeavors. In this revealing and candid interview, we are able to gain a greater insight into a true artist’s imagination and creativity that will truly inspire many. Hatch illustrates how other artists can in fact learn from his past experiences, both positive and negative.

 

Natalie: Richard, you have had a very impressive 44 plus year career in the entertainment industry, as an actor, writer and producer. What was it about show business which essentially drew you to it?

Richard: Well, I don’t think I was drawn to show business, specifically. I was drawn to movies. I love television. I was one of those who read a lot of books including sci-fi/fantasy books, and so I love the world of imagination. Disneyland growing up was probably my home, because Disneyland was so magical. All the things that they created on that show. I’ve always loved the kinds of shows that stretch and step out of the current world that we’re in and explore other probabilities, possible realities, and universes. Obviously, I’m not alone, because a lot of people read comic books and graphic novels, and are really into superheroes. And obviously, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter are hugely successful. So, all of that was magical for me.

But I thought people that did the acting, singers or performers were really amazing people. I just thought what an amazing gift. I was always drawn to that, but I never thought of myself doing it. But my grandmother and everyone in my family were classical piano players and teachers, so I studied classical piano when I was about 8 or 9 years old. I was supposed to have gone back to a school and study classical piano, but I got involved in sports and ultimately I met a girl who went to Marymount High School up in Hollywood, and I started dating her over the summer. I starting meeting all of these people who were part of the entertainment business, and ultimately an agent tried to handle me and I had no idea what all that was about. I couldn’t put it together. You know, see myself doing that. Then all of a sudden a good friend that I had met who became very famous as Yoko Ono and John Lennon’s press secretary, and Don Johnson’s and Paris Hilton’s press secretary, Elliot Mintz became like a very good friend of mine, and he was a PR guy back then and radio disc jockey, recommended that I go to this class. It turned out to be an acting class, and I really thought, what am I doing here? But I found the class to be kind of extraordinary.

There were so many New York actor types in there. Jack Nicholson would stop by. You would have people like Sue Lyon, [who was] the original Lolita, Hampton Fancher who wrote Blade Runner. All these people in there, and I was like the surfer boy, a Californian surfer boy with bleach-blonde hair. But I was attracted to all the exercises that they did. All these acting exercises, and I didn’t think of it as an acting thing. I didn’t think of myself in that context. But I started taking the class and it was really helpful for me as a person because I was all locked up, inhibited, shy and self-conscious, which by the way wasn’t the way that I always was. I used to be a reverent comedian in class. I was the storyteller, I used to write commercials and get up in front of the class and do them until the fourth grade and my teacher shamed me in front of the class when I brought two dollars to a class outing that I was supposed to bring one dollar to, and she didn’t realize what she did.

That took me from this very outing character to this very inhibited, scared, nervous person. I have to tell you that I started studying every philosophy, every religion trying to find a way out of the abyss. My mom went through three different stepfathers, and that was never a good thing. So, I didn’t have a father for a lot of that time. But nevertheless, the acting class became a sanctuary place where I found a home to help me, and then it turned into something that I never expected. I started doing some scenes, monologues and I started enjoying the acting process. That led me into going out and getting an agent that set me up for commercials. I did print modeling, and then ultimately I went to New York with an acting company. I got into plays and ultimately a soap opera, All My Children. Ultimately, I came back to LA and got The Streets of San Francisco replacing Michael Douglas, and then onto Battlestar Galactica. And then a thousand other television shows, and then writing novels, teaching and lecturing and directing, and everything else that came from it. It wasn’t a career that I planned for and I never planned on fame or any of that stuff. I didn’t think about that. I didn’t think it was even possible. Even people laughed at me when I told them that I was studying acting. They thought I was crazy. My own parents didn’t take it seriously, until all of a sudden I was on television and then it was like “Wow!” They didn’t know how to quite handle that.

 

Natalie: Richard, before you embarked on a Hollywood acting career, what were you doing for a living to make ends meet, so to speak?

Richard: I have to tell you that my story’s probably similar to some others. I was going to college. I was a surfer, lifeguard. Then ultimately as I started studying acting up in Hollywood, I was living out of my car, on people’s couches. I would paint. I would mow the lawn. I was a short-order cook. I would do anything and everything to make money, plus the modeling started helping me because I was getting a lot of print jobs and then I started getting a lot of commercials. I got like a close-up commercial, Maybelline, Rice O Roni, Coca Cola. I got a lot of TV commercials early on, and then ultimately like I said it led into more of an acting career because that’s really what I was interested in. But at least it was helping to pay the bills. I lived in garages.

In fact, my friend Elliot Mintz [who] became so well-known as a press secretary, at one point was living in a garage behind a house, and I [then] moved into that place after he moved out. I then ultimately went back to New York and lived in an empty ballet studio with thirty actors. Living on the floor in sleeping bags, eating Campbell’s soup. One of the guy’s father worked for Campbell’s soup, and gave us a barrel of about a thousand cans of Campbell’s soup. And I tell you to this day, I love Campbell’s soup. But I lived on that, and like I said it was ultimately my first real breakthrough was with the soap opera All My Children, which was just starting back then. I got to be one of the major characters on that show in New York, and that kind of really started people taking me seriously. It was also the first time that I made enough money to get really my own apartment. That really kind of became the lynch-pin to my whole journey in this business.

Natalie: Richard, what would you say it was about the performing arts that appealed to you most?

Richard: Acting, performing, music, singing, dance. I actually got involved in studying ballet as well for three years, and I thought that I wanted to be Baryshnikov. I wanted to be able to jump or leap a mile high (laughs). I was really into the gymnastics side of it. But I’ve always loved dancing. My brother and I were dancing fools. So, I got involved with taking dance classes. For an acting thing, to help develop as an actor. I also sang and wrote songs on the soap opera, and I really did a lot of studying voice. Studying all of the various aspects of the acting process. Once I got into it, I really dedicated myself. But I have to say, really what it was about and probably what it always has been about was never the fame.

There’s an amazing experience and I teach it. I teach a very deep, profound, intuitive process of acting that helps people to break through all their fears and inhibitions. All the things that get in the way of expressing, of communicating, of learning how to channel and let out what you feel, learn how to tap in and connect to a hypothetical probability. A circumstance that you explore with your imagination, which is the acting process. And learning how to make that a more powerful experience for yourself, rather than acting out of your head, intellectually. You step into the deeper, more intuitive part of yourself. But acting really brings up all your fears, inhibitions, and insecurities. All the issues that you have that block you. And most people are blocked. Most people can’t express, can’t communicate. They hold everything inside. They suppress all the bad feelings that they don’t want to deal with. They self-medicate.

But acting requires that you have to deal with it all, because scenes and the characters that you play, will tap into a lot of deeper issues that you have. The process that I follow is a deeper method of connecting to your talent, connecting to the material, and learning how to make more powerful choices. But all of it, makes you have to deal with your stuff. Process through it. I found it [to be] a more powerful healing modality than just about any kind of therapy. In fact, good psychologists these days use role playing. A lot of acting exercises to help the people that they work with. And you know, painting, music and art is all a healing modality. So, for me I integrate [them] because I consider myself to be an artist, healer, and teacher. I’m an actor, writer, director.

I really like to help people unlock their talent, tap into a deeper part of what they’ve got and then learn how to step out into the world and be more successful because a lot of people struggle. Not because they’re not talented, but just because they’ve got too many blocks in the way. They don’t believe they can. They never got the support that they needed. And I feel a calling. It’s always been a great joy for me to help people realize what they’re capable of doing, and help support them in going out there and accomplishing their dreams. I’m really talented. I’m really gifted into tapping in what’s blocking people and helping them move past it and move through it and get out there and be more successful in their life.

Natalie: Richard, was there any actor in particular that admired, and as such wished to emulate as an actor, and if so, why?

Richard: I grew up with Al Pacino, Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep. All the acting greats. Daniel Day Lewis, for me is one of the most extraordinary actors to be on the American scene. I was in New York as a young actor studying acting and then on All My Children, and I used to go down to The Actors Studio and I saw a young Robert De Niro doing three one-act plays with Shelley Winters. I saw a young Al Palcino doing The Local Stigmatic, an English play. Then I saw El Camino Real at Lincoln Center. All before he became famous on The Godfather. His first movie being The Panic in Needle Park. I knew all those actors. There’s so many young actors that were hanging out in New York trying at that time and all trying to make their way.

Like I said, I love the deeper aspects of the acting process. We call it the method. But for me, everything in life is a method. The method has to lead to your own unique method. The method that works for you. You have to learn how to push those buttons, how to connect the dots, how to move through and create whatever it is that you want. You have to also learn the business side of the equation, which is what I also teach. I learned a lot about the business side, and the business side connects the artist side because the artist gets abused and misused a lot, unless they develop a strong business sense. I teach all those elements as a result of me having to go through it and find my way through my own stuff. All my own blocks, all my own insecurities, and then all the craziness of the business. I mean, getting taken advantage of, making money and losing money, having people really misrepresent you. All the disappointments that I had. It all taught me a lot about life.

But ultimately, I couldn’t blame anyone but myself because I realized that I’m the one who makes the decisions. I’m the one who’s choosing, and I’ve got to go do my research. I trust my own integrity, my own intuition. As you know, I mean even as a girl you meet somebody. Everybody gives you a story. Everybody tries to seduce you with their story, their thing. Whatever they got. Then you’ve got to trust that deeper part of you that knows it’s bullshit. Know that somebody is trying to manipulate you, use you, and get you. Whatever it happens to be. Then you also know when it’s a genuine person that’s really connecting to you on a genuine level. You’ve got to build that radar system, so that you really learn. I bought into a lot of stuff as well. Managers and agents and friends and people. I lost a lot of money through having bad managers and people that really misrepresented me and really didn’t care enough about me, and it was all about them. But again, I’ve learned to no longer blame anybody. I realize like every artist had to learn how it works. Learn the business side of it, and then you need to learn how to protect yourself so that you make more informed, empowered choices and decisions about how you want to live your life and how you want to progress in this business.

Natalie: Richard, you began your acting career on stage in the 1960s at the Los Angeles Repertory Theater starring in many Off Broadway plays and musicals. Can you describe what it was like to perform on stage in front of a live audience compared to film and television screen acting?

Richard: Well, the first things I did were theatre. I remember auditioning for community theatre, but this happened to be a community theatre that was the most professional community theater that I had ever seen. It was the Theatre Le Rond. It was a new playhouse. It had five hundred seats. It was a beautiful theatre run by Mormons, believe it or not. They did a lot of original plays. They also did traditional plays and I auditioned for that. They did seven or eight performances a week like every other professional theatre. I didn’t get paid for doing it. But I did two plays there, and it was the most extraordinary experience to play in front of an audience. Theatre Le Rond is surrounded by the audience, so you learn how to move and choreograph the scenes so that you’re never standing in one direction for very long. But I love the energy of the theatre, and it led me into doing The Glass Menagerie at the Callboard Theatre. I remember the audience was almost two feet away from me. The stage was very close to the audience. But I love creating a reality on stage where there’s a continuity. In a play, you really get to immerse yourself into the story, into the character’s journey and lose yourself in that story. It’s a really profound experience for an actor to be more self-immersed in the character of the story and the situation. You really get to such a level of letting go of trust, of really being in the moment. So, I love the process and I looked forward every night.

I did a rock musical, Love You, Love My Children off-Broadway while I was on All My Children. I did that for almost a year. I did another musical out here called Pepper Street, which ran for almost three years and was on its way to Broadway. Through the years, I’ve done plays here and there. But most of the plays I did was probably early on for the first five to ten years, and then I started doing more television and movies. Projects like that.

But whenever once in a while I ended up doing a play. There’s a sci-fi theatre group made up of all professional actors. But they do all new plays, and it brings a lot of actors from sci-fi shows. When you say sci-fi shows, these are actors that are Shakespearean trained. That are classically trained. That are very, very powerfully skilled actors, and they’re doing a lot of really interesting kinds of pieces. I was going to play a character like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. Some one that was kind of autistic. But I just had too much on my plate. I’m learning the script that I’m going to film in July, and then I’m preparing to do this, I call it ground-breaking, epic Trek indie film (Axanar) that they’ve raised over a million dollars for. They’re filming that. They’re building the sets. They rented the studio, the sound stages for three years and they’re going to be developing a lot of things there. They’re shooting out in Santa Clarita, and so I’m involved in that.

Then I’m developing my own project. I’ve got a project called Guam: The War of Magellan. I’ve had it for twenty years. It’s a labor of love. I’m talking to some game companies that are very interested in doing the game. Then I’m going to do a high-end web series to launch the novel. The novel of my story which I’ve been developing for a long time now is finally going to come out this year. So, I’m going to do a high-end web series which is a good way to test the market, and to promote and energize the marketplace and see how the audience feels about the story. There’s a lot of things in the works.

I’ve been asked to direct this movie called With Honors, which is about a Vietnam vet that’s been on the street for thirty years. I love the story, especially after you watch American Sniper. This really tells the story of what vets go through after they come back from war, and they don’t get the care that they deserve. They don’t get the attention that they deserve. Many of them end up with all kinds of psychological, physical, and mental problems. Many of them end up becoming alcoholics, drug addicts on the street. This is the story of one who is a Medal of Honor winner, who literally walked away from the war because he couldn’t take it anymore, it really catches up with him thirty years later. It’s a powerful story and I can’t wait to direct it.

 

Natalie: In fact, you received the Obie Award nomination (awarded to Off-Broadway Productions) for your work in PS Your Cat is Dead in Chicago. Was this prestigious honor an affirmation that a professional acting career was indeed in your future?

Richard: I was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actor for Battlestar, and then I was nominated for that award in the Chicago theatre area at the Pheasant Run Playhouse. I didn’t win but I was nominated for Best Actor. PS Your Cat is Dead, I did that for six weeks. It was at a dinner theatre. We filmed it every night, and basically it was a two-man play by James Kirkwood, Jr. An extraordinarily funny play, I must say. It’s a hilarious play, and it’s always fun to do a comedy when you’re doing something for a long-run. It was eight performances a week, and I’ll never forget it because I’ve never had to learn so much in a short amount of time. It was basically long dialogue sequences. We had a week of rehearsals before the play went up. So, that was a lot of fun. I did Barefoot in the Park. I changed my name so I could actually go onstage at the Glendale Center Theatre again. I called myself Jim Beam like the scotch (laughs). I wanted to do Barefoot in the Park, and my friend directed it and I got a chance to do that, and that was a lot of fun. Like I’ve said, I keep my hand in theatre. I love theatre. I used to work at the Renaissance Fair as a juggler and a wire-walker, which I did a lot of. I really wish now that I had joined one of the theatre guilds part of the Renaissance Fair and perform in the Shakespearean comedies because they’re absolutely hysterical.

 

Natalie: Richard, were there any times when you were first starting acting where you perhaps questioned your decision to make acting a career?

Richard: Yeah, I mean after Battlestar I was really angry and pissed off. I did The Streets of San Francisco, and I felt that all the promises promised to me were not kept. I never had an ego about parts and roles. I want to play roles that meant something to me. Stories that meant something to do me. I was really idealistic as an actor, which by the way I must say wasn’t the best thing to be because I said too many “No’s” instead of “Yes’s”. “No’s” lead to nothing. “Yes’s” lead to more opportunities.

Just like relationships, things don’t have to be perfect. It’s all six degrees of separation. If you’re hiding behind walls and saying “No” to everything, nothing ever happens. I had to learn to really move past that. But I honestly went through two or three times in the acting thing, after Battlestar where I was disappointed. I was frustrated with the experience. I think that’s the writer, director and producer in me. [But] I always thought that Battlestar was capable of doing so much more. The networks were too rigid and just too uncomfortable with science fiction. I was frustrated with my role on the show. I thought that they weren’t developing my character, and giving my character anything interesting to do.

[With] The Streets of San Francisco, I had honestly been not even sure that I would take the role, which everybody would probably say that you’re crazy. The reason that I didn’t want to take the role, is because I felt that it was a guest star show. The guest stars had more to work with. The stars of the show were kind of seen to be a little window-dressing. But the guest stars got to play the major roles, and I had always wanted to play something that had a bit of meat to it. But of course, any actor would tell you being able to be the star of a show and have that kind of resume is going to help you get a lot of those other roles, which it did by the way. But after Battlestar, I just kind of crashed and burned. It was just like I was angry at the business. Angry at everything and I kind of went away after a couple of years.

I did Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen with Michelle Pfeiffer and Peter Ustinov. I did several other projects, and then I just really burnt out and I kind of slowly started to let it go. I went away from the business and I did more teaching, and still once in a while someone would ask me to do something. But I no longer was pushing a career. I was just really disappointed and frustrated. Then, I think in my early forties I went to a class that once again someone mentioned that I should go to. I was on a TV series and I met this girl. She said that I should come to this class, and I went to it. It was the Acting for Life Organization, and again it was a process for acting, as well as a process for life. It kind of reinvigorated and it woke me up back into the joy of acting instead of the crazy Hollywood business of acting.

I got into a musical, Pepper Street there and I did a lot of scenes there, which I really loved. I just loved the process of it. But I really wasn’t pushing a lot for the acting thing outside of it. I just was really into the class thing. Then slowly I started to get a lot of movie roles. My agent had connections overseas, and I traveled the world, doing movies all over the world. A lot of Italian movies. They bring American stars. I filmed in Italy, Africa, and Sweden. I filmed everywhere. So, for several years I did that and then ultimately like I said, I moved back to really teaching more and I kind of was like I said at this in-between place between the industry and also with what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

Then I got involved in trying to bring Battlestar back. I started writing stories. I started submitting them. Battlestar was coming back on the Sci-Fi Channel. A lot of companies were interested in the product again. I got to know Universal and they involved me in a lot of different companies that were doing merchandising and creating a lot of new toys and games. Then ultimately, I pitched a new Battlestar series which they didn’t know what to do with. This is when I got involved in directing, producing and writing. I wrote a trailer back in the day when nobody did trailers. Today everybody does a trailer to sell a project. Back then, nobody did. You only made a trailer if you had already made a movie, and then you would cut a trailer from it. But I created a Second Coming trailer. It got a lot of attention, and it took me around the country playing it at sci-fi conventions. I got involved in a lot of conventions, and realized that there was a huge fan base. A lot of companies got involved with me because I was at these conventions and they were merchandising Battlestar stuff. So, that got me back [to being] kind of really involved in the industry. And then out of that came this chance to go back on the new Battlestar series and play Tom Zarek, because I hosted and produced the 25^th Battlestar Anniversary Convention at Universal City Walk. I met Ron Moore, the producer of the new Battlestar, and he ultimately offered me an opportunity to come on the new show and play Tom Zarek. What was a one shot role turned into an ongoing role for five years.

 

Natalie: Richard, the term “starving artist” has been culturally used for many decades. In fact, it has sometimes been romanticized. In your own personal experience, can you describe the reality of one trying to fulfil their own life’s passion or desire, whilst also trying to materially provide the necessities of life?

Richard: The lesson that I know is, that whatever you’re doing to make money becomes your priority, then your career goes to the side. So often you start moving down another road to make more and more money at whatever it is that you try to decide to do. Some people get involved in a company. They work their way up. Some people go back to school, and you know develop their skill set. All of that stuff is good. But for me the process of acting and expressing myself, and the healing aspects of it was so important to me. That was number one. That was my most important thing. So, that meant that I had to take jobs and create jobs that would support that. Whether it was going to class or being open to auditions and doing plays. I couldn’t do an eight to five job. So, I literally was working independent jobs. Like I said, I’d paint, vacuum, clean the yard, and haul trash. Do whatever I needed to do. I was willing to live with a low-overhead, sleep in my car, sleep on someone’s couch, and live in a closet. I lived in a closet for a while. I was willing to forgo making more money and living a higher quality of life, because I wanted to focus all of my energy and money on my life’s career, which was for me was this acting process.

So, again I never thought of it so much as a profession. To me it was a pathway. It was a pathway of an artist, and so when you are dedicated to something it’s amazing how motivated you get to go out and support yourself in order to support your habit. If someone’s a drug addict, that’s number one. They’ve got to get drugs. So what do they do? They go out and do whatever they have to do to make money to in order to buy the drugs. So, for me my habit was the professional show business. Exploring my acting, dealing with my own personal issues, working through them, learning how to free myself. All of that was of such importance to me. It was never the fame thing. That would’ve never motivated me enough. It wasn’t even the money thing. It was the deeper journey for me that was so important. That I was willing to do everything and anything to support that, and I was motivated. I was proactive. I didn’t wait for things to come to me. I was constantly going out, looking where I can make some money, where can I get a job, where can I fix something, where can I make a deal with somebody and barter. Whatever I needed to do, I was willing to do it. Half the problem is motivation.

If you’re not kick-ass motivated, if you don’t believe in something strong enough, you’re never going to put the time, energy and commitment to going out and making it possible. A lot of people are apathetic. They just want it to come to them. They’re lazy, which is usually fear. I call it “hidden fear”, which is laziness. For me, I think when someone’s really willing to work their ass off and do anything to support what they believe in, you’ll sell lemonade, you know. You’ll shine shoes. You’ll look for opportunities, and believe me they’re all out there. But you have to be really dedicated to going out and finding it. But most people, they’re not going to be willing to do that. Most people want a higher quality of life. So, if the acting thing doesn’t come quick enough or soon enough, and they don’t make enough money, for them, it’s not important enough for them to stick with something. I know women who will not date an actor guy, because if they’re an actor they don’t date another actor who may be struggling. They want to date a business guy or somebody who’s actually making money. You know, who can help them. Like I’ve said, I was never motivated by the money or the fame, because honestly I had never thought about it. I didn’t think that was possible. I looked at acting as a healing modality, and I needed a lot of help. I was really locked up and inhibited, so I could feel it on a deep, intuitive place that I needed this. The most important thing of my life. I was willing to live with a really low overhead, and I was willing to do whatever was necessary to earn a few bucks here and there in order to do that. Then I got some help through doing modeling and commercials. That started to help me. Then ultimately the big breakthrough was the soap opera, All My Children.

 

Natalie: Richard, you made your onscreen television debut in 1970 on the popular daytime soap opera drama, All My Children, playing the role of Philip Brent for two years. How difficult was the transition from being a stage actor to acting on the small screen?

Richard: There’s a lot of bad stage acting, and a lot of what I call too much acting and too little experiencing. Some actors, think of stage acting as being big and over-dramatic. The truth of it is, that great stage acting can be just as subtle, just as enounced as movie acting. Great movie acting. Great actors who are capable of doing both demonstrate that. The only difference is that you learn through your intention, and this intention when you’re performing is to reach the back of the room. I don’t look at it as an audience that I’m trying to reach. I look at it as I am sharing this journey that I’m on as this character with everybody in the room. So, if the people are twenty rows back, my intention is to share it with the last person in the last row. Even when I’m whispering, even when I’m talking, that intention will project your energy, your voice back to the back of the room because that’s your intention. When you learn how to do that, you could do it in the simplest way without having to overact, which by the way is just bad acting. Over-acting is bad acting. Great actors bring the same craft, the same process to the stage as they do to the movies. The only difference is that stage does require certain physical and technical things, such as some people don’t have a voice that’s very developed. Their physical self is not very developed. Stage is a more rigorous, physical experience and so therefore, you do have to train and build that part of the equation in order to be able to operate on stage.

When I had gotten on stage sometimes, in the beginning I’m exhausted. I remember when I was on a soap opera and I did Love Me Love My Children which was a musical from Canada. Here I was acting everyday on a soap opera, and then at five I would get on the train or subway, go down to the East Village at go to the Mercer O’Casey Theatre and go have a quick dinner, and jump into costume and get ready for the play. I did eight performances a week. I remember when I first started, I was so exhausted after the play. I couldn’t even move. I had to lay [down] for an hour. When I had matinees, I swear I didn’t ever think I’d get up between the matinee and the first show. But after a couple of weeks, my momentum, my stamina and my energy started to build. Then as I did it more and more, it got easier and easier and easier. But I really wasn’t in that shape to really perform on stage eight performances a week. But I got into shape. It whipped me into shape pretty quickly. But for me, I make the transition during rehearsal. During rehearsal, I don’t start trying to project to the back of the audience. I start working out the logistics, the choreography of the scene, finding organically where my character would go, and working with the director to build that equation so it’s balanced and it works for that scene. Theatre directors have to make sure that the characters don’t block up each other, and don’t dominate one side of the stage and that they’re not turned to the wrong side of the stage. You have to work it out so that you’re flowing, you’re filling the stage and the energy is moving onwards towards the audience. And so, you have to work out all those logistics.

But I work on building the relationship to the character, to my home on stage, to whatever set I’m in. Building that relationship. Then slowly as I get into more and more rehearsals and I start getting into dress rehearsals, I start giving myself that intention. A couple of weeks in, I start really focusing on reaching the back of the room. I don’t try to act big. I start using my intentions, so even when I turn my back I’m always talking to that person at the back of the room. You start building, and slowly you build your stamina, you build your energy. The voice is so important for stage. But these days they do a lot of mics and amplification, so it’s gotten easier and easier for movie actors to go on stage, and not really have to project so much because of the technical breakthroughs that we now have. But back then it was just a process of rehearsal and just doing it and building those muscles. Building that technical aspect of it. So often with theatre acting as well, you really have to learn how to lean on the vowels, so that the sound as it moves to the back of the room, you don’t close the sound down and chop the vowel and get to the consonant, which squeezes the word and therefore somebody hears you but they can’t understand your words. Learning how to lean on the vowels and allow the full breath of the words to be expressed, learning how to do that even when you’re talking fast, you can learn how to lean on the vowel. Therefore the sound carries to the back of the room, and it’s just as clear at the back of the room just as it is in the front of the room, in terms of hearing every word that somebody is saying.

These are technical things that actors need to learn on stage, but the process of connecting to the characters, to the situation, to the story, to the back story, to the subtext, to all of that is the same craft as it is for movies. The only difference is that in movies you don’t get a chance to build a momentum like you do on the stage, where you step into a piece and you’re in the story for the next two hours. And so, you really start to flow into it and you really have time to get involved in it. Usually you have a lot of time before to prepare for it, before you even step on to the stage. A lot of times with acting in movies, you know it’s stop and go, stop and go. You could be sitting there and waiting, and they tell you it could be two hours and all of a sudden they go, “You’re up”. Then you’ve got to come and do some powerful scene and you’ve got to learn how to move faster, how to make powerful choices, do whatever preparation you have to do, and be able to jump into a performance as if you had been doing it for days, weeks and months. You have to find that level of aliveness, the connection. Theatre is challenging, and also the technical aspects and the preparation for movie acting for me is just as intense.

 

Natalie: Richard, do you believe that your time on All My Children played a crucial role in launching your professional acting career, and ultimately gaining you recognition in the entertainment industry?

Richard: Yeah, it did. First of all, it developed an audience. When I left the show, ABC got over fifty, a hundred, thousand letters, so all of a sudden ABC took me seriously. When replacing Michael Douglas with an actor, they wanted an actor that had popularity, had some clout. That two years not only gave me confidence as an actor and developed a persona as an actor, and allowed me to pay my bills as well and pay back my mother everything I ever owed her. All that stuff was nice. But it gave me like I said, it was my first real connection to the audience, and beginning to become known out in the audience. That built up like I said a queue. It built up a level of recognition that could be traded upon. So, when the networks are casting they’re looking for actors that are not only right for the role, but for actors that are going to bring some notoriety to the character and PR to the character. So, that definitely helped me get The Streets of San Francisco to replace Michael Douglas.

 

Natalie: Richard, what was it like working on daytime television?

Richard: All I can tell you that for me back in that day, we filmed it like a play. Therefore, all the actors were basically theatre actors in those days, and they all do theatre. They all had families. Soap operas was really a career where you could actually have a career for your entire life. It was one of the few places where if you played a character on a soap opera and you broke through and you were known and kept on the show, you established a character, you could be on for the next thirty years like Erica Kane was and many other actors. You would have the most secure job in acting. An ongoing job each week, and you would work from two to five some days. You would have an average on your contract of two days a week or three days a week. For me, they were working me four to five days a week. But even the minimum guarantee allows you to make a certain level of money where you could live a life, have a life, have an apartment, get married, have children. So, you were able to make enough money to have a life. Most actors never know where your next job is coming from. Even if you’re on a TV series, you don’t know if it’s going to last six months, a year, [or even] go off. But soaps have a longevity to them. But soap operas, again, are filmed like a play. You would have rehearsal, run-through, dress, and then you would film the whole thing from beginning to end with four cameras. It was blocked, so it was non-stop. You had two minute commercial breaks, and you had to run into the next set, throw on different clothes, and be on the set. It was called a live tape. There was no second chance. It wasn’t like today where they film multiple takes and decide what they want and edit it together. Back in that day, it was filmed live.

 

Natalie: Richard, you then went on to make guest appearances on numerous primetime series such as Cannon, Nakia, Barnaby Jones, the original Hawaii Five-O, and The Waltons, as well as several made-for-TV movies including The Hatfields and The McCoys with Jack Palance, Addie and the King of Hearts with Jason Robards, Last of the Belles with Susan Sarandon, and the 1978 TV movie Deadman’s Curve in which you portrayed Jan Berry of the musical duo Jan and Dean. Having appeared on these shows, did this at all help you to gain other roles, especially seeing as you had been thought highly enough to be cast for these renowned shows?

Richard: Well, yeah. I mean everything that you do. First of all, you wouldn’t get a TV movie unless the studio and network thought highly of you, and you had built enough of a rep out in the TV industry as well as the fan base out there that knew about you. That’s what The Streets of San Francisco and All My Children had done for me. So, it set me up to get offered TV movies. Then of course, depending on how well you did in those TV movies, you got offered other TV movies and other series. Every great acting job that you do will inspire other producers and directors to hire you. Just like actress Jessica Chastain says, if you keep bringing a high quality of performance to everything you do, sooner or later the doors will open. And if you keep bringing a high quality of performance to everything that you do, more opportunities are going to come. It’s when you start phoning it in and stop doing the work and take it for granted, that it begins to go away.

 

 

Natalie: Richard, it was not until 1976 that you landed your first major television role on the crime drama, The Streets of San Francisco playing Inspector Dan Robbins, replacing Michael Douglas in what would be the final season of the show. What was the pressure like for you to essentially carry on the legacy that Douglas had left?

Richard: I felt a lot of pressure because it was my first night time television show. I felt a lot of pressure because I’m replacing a known actor that was very much loved by Karl Malden, and the two of them had a great chemistry. They were best friends. Their families were best friends. Then all of a sudden when you’re replacing a hit show, stepping into a starring role, there’s a lot of pressure on you to live up to expectations. So, it was a really challenging thing for me. I have to say one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done in my life. It took me a few episodes to calm down and not be so nervous and so afraid. Ultimately, about three or four episodes into our filming schedule, we did this two hour which was going to be the pilot for the opening episode, and Michael Douglas was in that one. It’s the episode where he leaves the show. He took me to lunch and we had a long talk, and he was very helpful and instrumental in making me feel more comfortable about being on the show.

But like I said, it was one of the more scary challenges that I’ve had in my life stepping into that. But I loved living in San Francisco. It was nice to move out of a kind of hovel, a little broken down apartment in Beverly Glen with twenty other actors sleeping on the floor. Tons of cats and dogs. To move from there to all of a sudden Pacific Heights and to live in a mansion, and have a car and a driver, a motor home, it was like a paradigm shift. For me, it was so weird to go from one extreme to another. But the first couple of months were really challenging, and then slowly I started to get into the rhythm of it and felt more accepted in it. But honestly, I never felt fully accepted in it because I never got to know Karl Malden that well, and I think it was very hard for him to replace Michael who was almost like his godson. Michael’s like a second son. He loved Michael. It was very hard [for him] to see him go, and be replaced by some strange actor that he didn’t know. That was not the easiest thing.

 

Natalie: Richard, what was the audience’s reaction to your character as a replacement for Douglas’s Inspector Steve Keller, and how did this impact on you, emotionally and professionally?

Richard: I don’t really know. I mean, I certainly had some positive feedback and even the producer told me, especially several episodes in, [that] he thought that I was going to be very successful on the show and that my character would be very well accepted. But I really didn’t know. All that I know is that during the time that I was on The Streets of San Francisco, I did a thousand night time interview shows. I was on Battle of the Network Stars. All these network, promotional kinds of shows. I was appearing all over the place and I was getting all other kinds of guest star jobs and things. So, The Streets of San Francisco got me a lot of notoriety, got me a lot of opportunities, and it built my fame and relationship to the network and to the audience, which is what set me up for Battlestar.

 

Natalie: Richard, despite your limited time on the show, you won Germany’s Bravo Youth Magazine Award for the role, which is in fact one of the largest teen magazines in the Germany-language sphere. In fact, it could be said that you became something of a pin-up, regularly appearing in many American teen-oriented magazines such as Teen Beat, 16 Magazine, and Tiger Beat. How did it feel to be recognized in this way by the youth culture during this time?

Richard: Well, I didn’t think about it all that much. But I was in every kind of teen magazine. You know, Seventeen, this and that. I was all over the place. It’s weird to have that kind of fame, and everybody has a fantasy about you. But the reality was that you never are what people think you are. Fame has a kind of two-edged sword. Part of it’s really nice and you get all that feedback. The other part of it is that people have unrealistic expectations of you, and you feel pressure to live up to their expectations. A lot of that was not the easiest thing for me, but part of it was enjoyable. I got to travel, got to be a part of so many different things. I got invited to the Playboy Mansion. I had never been there. I went to a couple pajama parties up there. It’s kind of an interesting time in my life where your press agent gets you passes to all the different shows. You don’t have to stand in line. It’s weird, but I never had an ego about it. It always felt a little, I don’t know, like a game to me. I never took it seriously. I never took fame seriously. As I’ve seen over the years, fame comes and goes. People who know you think you’re famous, and people who don’t know you have no clue who you are. Fame is a relative thing. I kind of put it in its proper context. I know that there are people out there who appreciate my work, and I’m more interested in people appreciating my work than just being famous which today everybody wants to be famous no matter what.

 

Natalie: What do you think it means to be a teen idol in today’s celebrity culture?

Richard: You know, I could tell you that a lot of teen idols would tell you what happened when they were in school. Girls weren’t crazy about them. They were no teen idol when they were in school. It was once that they were on a TV show and were out there in the press, all of a sudden all the girls were interested. Well, where were they before they got famous? So, you know I don’t think that they take it very seriously. I mean, I could tell you that most teen idols do not take it seriously.

 

Natalie: Richard, in 1978 you gained a starring role in Glen A. Larson’s sci-fi series, Battlestar Galactica as Captain Apollo, which aired for only one season before being cancelled. Nonetheless, this earned you a Golden Globe nomination. What was it like for you to be bestowed such an honor by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), and would you say that this was indeed a defining moment in your career at the time?

Richard: Well, I wouldn’t say defining moment because I didn’t think that I did my best work on Battlestar. I always give my best to everything, but I didn’t think my work on Battlestar was the best work that I had ever done. That’s why I was so frustrated with so many of my starring roles on TV series. When I was guesting on show, I think I got better roles. As an idealistic actor, I like more deeper, more substantive roles that have more meat, more heart, and more soul. So often, [with] the starring role you’re kind of like the hunk, you know, the good-looking guy. But I like more deeper, more challenging character style roles. Like I said, I didn’t think that my best work was on Battlestar. It felt kind of strange. It was nice to be nominated for a Golden Globe, and it was certainly nice to be one of the presenters. To get up in front of the room and talk. I never took that seriously, because again I thought that there were other performances that I gave that were far better than the one of Battlestar Galactica. So again, same thing with the award over in Germany. You know, you get awards for all kinds of different reasons. So often, you’re not even nominated for your best work. So, I think again actors take it all with a grain of salt. I never thought of it in defining terms, or that this is the coup de grace. I think that if I did the best role of my life in the best movie of my life, and I gave the best performance of my life, and I love the story and I love the character that I played and I did my best performance and I’m winning an Academy Award, yes that would be a defining moment.

 

Natalie: Richard, despite Battlestar Galactica’s short run, it developed a cult following and fandom. In fact, you were one of the main supporters to revive the premise. In your personal opinion, what would you say it was about Galactica that appealed with the cult fandom?

Richard: Well, because it was a show that went beyond the sci-fi demographic. The general public loved it, because it was a show for the family. It was about family. A family struggling to survive in space, and a group of characters that everybody could relate to. Battlestar was like being aboard an aircraft carrier. It kind of felt very home. It felt like a show that everybody could relate to. It was about family issues, struggling to survive a holocaust. It had a lot of elements that everybody could get into. Then after the success of Star Wars, everybody was really into spaceships and flying vipers. So, they loved that element of it. But I think most people really feel in love with the core chemistry of the characters. They loved the backstory of a group of human beings that exist out in the stars, searching for the homeland called Earth. I think they kind of loved the premise. It was very mythological. They loved the Aztec Mayan Egyptian motif woven through it. So, there’s a lot of elements that kind of made it a show that appealed to a lot of people. That’s why 65 million people watched the opening night, [and] why it made so much money in the theatrical run around the world as a movie. A one year show went off the air not because of popularity so much, as it was such an expensive show to mount on a weekly basis. ABC was a little bit of a snob because they had seven other top ten shows, and when Battlestar wasn’t in the top ten, they couldn’t see supporting a show that was so costly. Yet other networks had shows that were thirty points below ours that stayed on the air for three, four years, including Buck Rogers. There’s a lot of politics involved in when that show went off. But the show was iconic. It had a huge fan base, and it took to this day and helped spawn the new Battlestar reimagined series.

 

 

Natalie: Richard, for many years you attempted to revive the series. In fact, you wrote many novels based on the series, as well as writing, co-directing and executive-producing a trailer called The Second Coming in the hopes of enticing Universal Studios into producing a new series which would be a continuation of the 1978 series. Clearly this demonstrates an immense devotion and unwavering belief in Galactica. What would you say it was about Galactica that made you so passionate about the show?

Richard: Well, again I love science fiction but I love visionary intelligence science fiction. So, here’s a show that explores the hypothetic premise of what if there were other human beings like us somewhere out there in the universe. We always look out into the universe and wonder is there life out there, and this explores the possibility that human beings could exist out there. What I also loved was the fact that there was possibly a connection between those human beings and Earth. I’m into history. I’m into quantum physics, and I love exploring hypothetical possibilities in science extrapolating where we might be in a thousand years, two thousand years, technologically. I kind have come to a belief that there is life out there, and not all of it is alien. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are other human civilizations. I love, like I said the core story of exploring not only that possibility, but you know, surviving a holocaust. Imagine, you know World War I, World War II, the atomic bomb, people surviving the most incredible horror that you could imagine, and here’s a civilization having had their homeland destroyed. Having to go out into space and having to find a new homeland. It’s very much like Moses and the Israelites. It’s very iconic in its story topography. So, I really kind of identified with that journey. You know, Lord of the Rings had a journey, and Battlestar was about a journey and everybody and every character is tested. Tried and tested on surviving each and every day, and that brings great drama. It’s a great challenge for characters and those are the kinds of characters that actors like to play. Plus, who would not want Lorne Green to be your father? So, that was an extra added joy for me.

 

Natalie: Richard, unfortunately Universal rejected your vision to revive Battlestar Galactica. In fact, in 2004 you stated to Sci-Fi Pulse that you felt resentment over the failure to revive the series, as you had “over the past several years, bonded deeply with the original characters and story… writing the novels and the comic books and really campaigning to bring back the show”. How difficult was it for you to be able to deal with such a monumental disappointment and frustration as you had invested a great deal of time, energy and emotion, and essentially had put your heart and soul into it?

Richard: Well, it was very challenging. I mean, it was very difficult to put so much time and energy into something that was so obvious to me, and not only obvious to me but obvious to many other companies that I pitched it to that were all willing to bring back Battlestar. And yet, Universal couldn’t see the viability of it. I was traveling to conventions and I saw tens of thousands of fans all over the world that loved the Battlestar story and wanted to see more.

I saw a vision of the landscape of what was out there and the fan base that the studios never saw. So, I could see it very clearly that Battlestar could be very successful, if done right. It was very frustrating that the studios were blind. They couldn’t see beyond their nose. But eventually, you know, when it’s not your property, you didn’t write it. You ultimately have to surrender and say “Okay, I’ve done my best”. I’ve really promoted something that I believe in. I love this story. I love the characters. I think there’s a huge audience out there for it.

So, I moved on to creating my own Magellan story which I’m developing now as a novel, as a graphic novel, and as a game. I spent fifteen years putting it all together. A labor of love. All that energy I was putting into a new Battlestar series of my own, I’m putting into Great War of Magellan (GWOM). But I did get a chance to write seven Battlestar novels, and tell a lot of my story that I’ve would’ve done with the series. So, I got a chance to do that and I did do comic books. I wrote comic books for several companies, so I’ve gotten a chance to explore where I would’ve taken the story. But again, really at the end of the day I can’t complain too much except that it is frustrating. But ultimately a lot of people are frustrated about a series that they love that gets taken off the air too soon.

These fan series like the Trek fan series they’re doing [such as] Star Trek: New Voyages, or some of these other ones that are being done, they have huge fan bases that are supporting them. Ultimately, I think that it’s great to operate in a world that you love and that has built an audience. But eventually, you have to develop your own stories and find a way to build that connection to the audience, so that you actually have a project that you believe in that’s not owned by the studios or the networks. That’s where Great War of Magellan (GWOM) comes in, and that’s why I starting segwaying from Battlestar because I said if I can’t really do what I want to do with Battlestar and because there’s a writer in me, I have a vision of things that I want to explore. Great science fiction explorers all the hypothetical challenges and questions that we have about the universe, about where mankind evolved from, where we’re evolving to. I love greater intelligence sci-fi, so if I couldn’t do it with Battlestar I started to develop my own stories.

 

Natalie: How did this failure help you overcome other challenges/obstacles in your life and career?

Richard: Disappointments are part of the acting process, because every role that you get you get turned down for ten, fifteen, twenty other roles. One of the things that an actor does is you just don’t get a job and work there for ten years like most people do. Or five years or two years. Actors get a job and work for a week, and then they’re looking for another job. So, you’re constantly looking for work and creating opportunities for work. You’re constantly dealing with the ups and downs of the business. But you have to learn to find an equilibrium. A center inside of yourself of self-love, of trust, of belief in yourself. When I realized how long I’ve been in this business, never knowing where the next job is going to come from, I’m blown away that I was able and willing and committed to going on that journey. As I’ve always said, I was driven by a deeper thing. I was never driven by the fame or money. I was driven by this deeper quest to understand who I am, the universe, my relationship in it, and to free myself of all my blocks and walls. So, it was a spiritual journey for me, and that’s why I was so dedicated to it because I went well beyond the human success factor. I teach that in my class.

Every actor has to build this powerful, loving, forgiving relationship with you, and really start to learn how to trust yourself, believe in yourself and to listen to your intuition, and begin to feel empowered to make decisions that are necessary to take you on the journey that you want to go on in life. If you’re always turning your power over to other people, which people love to do, you’re ultimately going to get into trouble and you’re going to have all kinds of craziness happening.

Natalie: Richard, in 2004 you were offered a role in the reimagined version of Battlestar Galactica as Tom Zarek (from 2004 to 2009), by the new series’ writer and producer, Ronald A. Moore. Having fought for so long to create a future for Galactica, what was your initial reaction when it was announced by Studios USA that it had struck a deal with director Bryan Singer and producer Tom DeSanto to develop a new Battlestar Galactica television series?

Richard: Well, after pitching it and doing all the work I did, I was really frustrated because I had put so much work into it. I had created a trailer like nobody else had, a theatrical trailer. I had reviews from all over the country. Really, really positives reviews. I had audience response that was so powerful to do a continuation of Battlestar. Then all of a sudden, the studio wasn’t interested. Then the next thing I hear is, Tom DeSanto and Bryan Singer are doing their own version of a continuation. But I did get to know Tom quite well, the producer. He loves the original show, and he wanted to use myself, Dirk Benedict, Herbert Jefferson, Jr., and several of the original actors in the new series. So, I got to know him and I felt positive about where they were going with it. And then that kind of got sidetracked because of X-Men 2 and the network boss dropped the Battlestar deal to do this continuation series, and ultimately got segwayed to the Sci-Fi Channel. That’s when Ron Moore came in and pitched a new idea for reimagining the series because of the network executive at the time, Bonnie Hammer was not interested in doing a continuation of the original series. She was open to a reimagined version, an updated version.

 

Natalie: Richard, in an interview with Science Fiction Weekly, you stated that it had been “painful to spend several years developing the property of the show and working to inspire studios to do new Galactica projects and then [they went] ahead and [did] it with someone totally different.” With the reimagined version of the series, do you believe that both Singer and DeSanto did justice to the new series, or do you believe that your vision could have been more successful?

Richard: All I can tell you is that DeSanto and Singer didn’t get to do their version. When I heard about the reimagining, I didn’t know who Ron Moore was, and usually studios when they bring back classics they tend to screw them up. They tend to not really understand what it was about that show that the audience really love, and so they give you this big, shining, gleaming, overblown show that doesn’t have any of the deeper elements or the care that the fans really love. But I have to say that when I met Ron Moore, I was incredibly impressed by him. I was impressed by his vision, even though it was so different than mine. But I realized that there was a real artist at work here. A real talented visionary. Then after the mini-series when it got to episode one and I saw them now in space, running from the Cylons, having to jump, jump, jump, that’s when I really feel in love with the new Battlestar. I realized that they really had a handle on the core story of surviving a holocaust, and the everyday up and down challenges of surviving that would test the mettle of every man, woman and child on the show. That’s when I really got involved in caring about the new show, and then when they asked me to come on the show I was more than blown away and felt very grateful that they were willing to give me a shot.

Natalie: Richard, throughout the 1980s and 1990s you worked on many well-known and highly popular television shows, such as Hotel, Murder She Wrote, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Jake and the Fatman, Baywatch, Santa Barbara, as well as several episodes of the prime time soap opera Dynasty. What were some of your most memorable experiences working on these iconic shows?

Richard: I mean Ricardo Montalbán was an amazing person. He invited me to a motorhome, and we had a long talk over lunch. That was extraordinary. What a gracious human being. Working with Jack Lord on Hawaii Five-O, was phenomenal because I met him as a younger actor and he had the graciousness to talk to me outside of screening. Then every time that he was directing, he would bring me over to Hawaii. For a broke actor barely getting by, to all of a sudden getting flown over to Hawaii and being put up in the Kahala Hilton and be able to live like a king for a week, was a pretty extraordinary adventure. He always treated me with great respect.

Dynasty was a classic television series, and I didn’t really get to know most of those actors on there. I would come on and do these roles with this woman, but I got to know her on Jan and Dean because she played my girlfriend later on in the movie. Susan Sarandon, I knew in New York as a young actor. She was working on a soap opera next to mine, and her husband [at the time] was Chris Sarandon, a Broadway actor and we all got to know each other and used to all go to this little Japanese steakhouse in Downtown New York there in the theater area. I did Last of the Belles with her, and that was her big breakthrough part. I almost got the second role. The role opposite her, but they gave me the Bill Knowles role eventually.

I knew Debra Winger and Sissy Spacek. All of them when they first came out. Debra Winger was playing Super Girl. I knew a lot of these actors when they were all kind of trying to make their way in the business. To have Jack Palance play my father [in the Hatfields and the McCoys]. He’s an extraordinary iconic actor. That was an extraordinary experience, although he didn’t talk to anybody. We were all terrified of him (laughs). He had such a presence about him. I’ll never forget him doing push-ups, one arm push-ups at the Academy Awards. I’ve had some pretty amazing experience with a lot of big movie stars.

 

Natalie: Richard, you attend many sci-fi fan conventions all over the United States and around the world. What is it about these fan conventions that appeals to you most? Would you like to share any memorable experiences?

Richard: I love sci-fi conventions because I never knew about them until my girlfriend at the time, who was a big sci-fi fan invited me to the Star Trek convention in Pasadena. I never knew, number one that they existed and number two, I couldn’t believe how many of these Trek fans loved Battlestar. It was an amazing experience to have so many people who have followed you and come up to you telling you their personal stories of how much they loved you on the show, and how much you made a difference in their lives. One commander of an aircraft carrier told me that they had bought the aircraft carrier into port in order to pick up the signal to watch the Battlestar pilot. Another woman had tears in her eyes, telling me how our show helped her get through cancer. I was touched deeply by having this direct contact with the fans that followed you through your career. Because I’m a sci-fi fan going to conventions, I got to meet a whole lot of these other people who love science-fiction. I realize that most of these people, they’re writers, they’re CGI guys, they’re engineers, they’re scientists. There’s lots of people, really smart people. I had some of the most amazing conversations about novels, about anything literary, movies, television. So, it was a great opportunity to hang out with people that you really felt at home with. Like I said, they come from all walks of life. They’re married, they’re husbands, they’re engineers, and they’re truck drivers. Then of course, over the years sci-fi conventions have become iconic and now you have hundreds of thousands of people that go to them from every walk of life and they have writers, directors, producers, authors from every show not just sci-fi that appear there. I’m going to Comic Con in San Diego with over 140, 000 people, doing my Battlestar panel there. I do acting workshops at these conventions as well.

 

Natalie: Richard, you teach acting classes and workshops all over the United States and internationally. How have you been able to utilize your extensive experience in the entertainment industry, as well as your knowledge and wisdom to inspire and motivate aspiring young actors?

Richard: First of all, I’ve been teaching for the last thirty years in between gigs and other things. So, for me it’s always been part of who I am. I’ve always been a teacher. It’s just what happened to me as I became more and more well known, I got invited to speak and lecture. I got invited to colleges and universities, so I taught a lot of workshops, seminars in film departments, acting departments. Then I was directing showcases for the industry. I’ve done all of it. But I think the key for me is, I’m somebody who not only teaches but I basically live what I teach. I’m in the business, I’m functioning as an actor. I’m still acting, performing, directing, producing, and putting projects together. I’m teaching what I’ve had to learn in many cases the hard way through all the years that I’ve been in this industry.

Acting wasn’t easy for me, because I was so locked up and so inhibited. The vast majority of actors, I hate to say it, they bring all their issues, judgments, and limiting belief systems. They bring it all into their acting, and they project it onto the characters that they play. Unfortunately, what happens is that it inhibits the full range of what that character could be, and they hold back their energy. They don’t know how to commit fully to a character, to the choices that they make, because again just like someone playing the piano, our body, our soul, our heart, our emotions, and our intellect. These are the instruments that we work with. If the instrument is not tuned, if the instrument is not functioning at an optimal level then we’re not able to perform at an optimal level. [Therefore] the vast majority of people, actors, by the way they can be incredibly talented, but that talent is all locked up. So, other than that, one percent of one percent of one percent of people have immediate access to their talent and don’t have to work so hard on it to get to it. The vast majority of people who may be even more talented than those actors who seem to have talent, have the ability to act and perform with abandon, with freedom and seem to be such good actors. Yet there are many other actors with incredible talent, but they have to work harder to unlock it to learn how to use it and help to move through all the stuff that gets in the way. Not only being a great actor, but being successful at life and all areas in life.

 

Natalie: Richard, how does your style of coaching differ from many other acting teachers or coaches? Do you follow a certain method of acting?

Richard: So, again I’ve gone through every form of therapy, I’ve gone through every form of acting – Meisner, the method, then this, then that. Ultimately, I use an eclectic approach to actors, because my job is not to force some technique on them but to teach them the larger picture. How it all works, to learn how their own instrument works, to learn how to find their own unique approach to acting, how to not only connect to material and make more powerful choices but how to deal with this instrument because most acting problems is what we call instrument problems. They deal with people who are blocked up. They’re uncomfortable with their anger, or they’re not comfortable with being vulnerable. They live in their head and try, you know, to get a concept on how a character should play and they try to act out the concept. They don’t know how to connect to the character on a deeper, more intuitive way.

I’ve learned the hard way because I had to go down that road, and I went through every process trying to free myself. So, I’ve been inspired to help others who are very talented, have all kinds of abilities, but they’re blocked up. They’re locked up and they don’t know how to get to that more powerful level of performance that would command not only respect but get them that attention that they really, really need.

Then I teach the business side, which I’ve learned over the last ten years of how to be more proactive, and going after creating your career and not waiting for a phone call or some agent to believe in you. How do you create your success in life? I love helping people to unlock their talent and realize what’s possible. Too many people give up way too soon. They lose hope, and they don’t realize that they’re capable. They have the talent to go out and achieve the success, but they don’t know how to get to it, how to use it, and in many cases they lose hope and they give up.

I lecture and teach in many different places around the country. I have a great joy in helping people realize hey, you’re not alone. I’ve been through all of that. I’ve gone up against all those same fears, insecurities, and inhibitions. All the things that stop people from doing their best work, and I’ve learned how to unlock it. I’ve learned the process of how to take your performance, your career, everything to the next level. That’s kind of the process by which I teach. I not only have taught at corporations and businesses, I’ve done team-building. I’ve gone in and given key-note speeches at major corporations, I’ve taught relationship workshops with PhDs. I’ve done Tony Robbins-type boot-camps, learning about marketing, learning about businesses, learning how to integrate your creative side, your artist with the business side. I kind of have a full range of experience and I bring all of it to helping people. I do one on one life coaching, and I do acting coaching, auditioning coaching, online through Skype. I teach people all over the country. I’m working with somebody in the Netherlands. I work with somebody in Australia. I work with several people here. So, I work with different people around the country and they can find that information at www.richardhatch.com. Over on my webpage they can find out about my Skype coaching, or even find out how to reach me if they want to help bring me into a college or university, or set up a seminar or workshop with me.

But everywhere I go usually for conventions, they set up acting workshops. Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Show Business, is another workshop that I do. So again, acting, writing, directing, producing and teaching – all those things for me go together. They support one another. Each one makes me better at the other aspect of it, so I’m a better director because I teach and because I’m an actor, and I’m a better director because I’m a writer. I love being empowered to go out and learn how to do it all myself, and bring together a team to help me instead of waiting for somebody to recognize me, appreciate me and do it for me, which is what I think happens with most people.

 

Natalie: Richard, in your personal opinion, what would you say makes for a great actor?

Richard: There’s a few things. The British actor that starred in Ghandi, Ben Kingsley said that the quality of the man or the quality of the woman begets the quality of the actor. Well, beyond the acting process itself, is the human being that is the actor. People have a certain something about themselves – an aliveness, an energy, a personality, a way of communicating. They have, maybe it’s a unique innocence, a very open vulnerable, luminous quality about them as a person. We meet people all the time. Some people light up a room, some people put the room to sleep. Some people, you know, have this very engaging way about them. So, the quality of the human being, how they come across, their own energy. That’s part of it. The other part of it is how they translate that into the acting experience and how they are able to connect to material and bring it to life. Usually it’s because that actor has found a way to step through whatever fears or insecurities, whatever issues that stop most people, and they’ve learned how to unlock their talent in front of a camera. Not only do they connect to the character, but in a sense they bring so much energy and aliveness to their performance that it reaches out and grabs you in the audience. They’ve got that special quality.

But I tell people and I mean this, I think that everybody has the potential for that. The trouble for most people is that they’re so locked up that their light, and I call it their “light”. That quality of light, that luminous quality is locked up in some cavern inside of themselves because of whatever disappointments, whatever abuse, whatever issues happened in their life that’s blocked them up. So, they’re disconnected from that part of themselves. They walk around in a sense half dead. Their lightbulb is turned on low, so people don’t notice them. Learning how to work through that and to turn that light on full blast, and to let who you are be more fully present and not be so afraid of life, and learn how to embrace your fears and make them work for you. And then how to learn how to bring all that energy. That energy that is usually blocked in most people. Learn how to unlock it. Let it flow into the characters that you play, and let it flow when they say Action! in front of that camera. All that brings, like I said that kind of powerful feedback from the industry. Just like Jessica Chastain talked about how to break through. Well, if you bring a high enough level of quality of performance to every audition, to every job you have. If you really bring it and you know how to bring it which most actors don’t have a craft, they don’t know how to bring it. They don’t. It may be an accidental thing and they’re really good one time, and horrible the next. But when you learn how to bring it consistently, sooner or later the door will open.

The unfortunate part is that so many people have so much vast, incredible potential, but it’s all locked up. They’re not willing to look inside. They’re not willing to take the steps or do they exercises, or really dedicate themselves to moving through all that gunk that gets in the way, and obscures the talent. I was. The reason I was not because I wanted to be famous or money. That would’ve never motivated me. It was because I felt like I was in so much pain. I was in such an abyss, that I either was going to self-medicate and go down that road of self-destruction, or I was going to find a way to step out of that horrible, dark place. Like I said, acting, the process of acting, at least the process I learned was more of a spiritual process. For me, it was my doorway out of the abyss, back home into my own soul and also into learning how to unlock my acting abilities and connect on multiple levels.

I think that the challenge for most people is that they’re not willing to put the time, energy or work into it. Even the ones that have that one percent, that seem to have more access to their talent, their abilities, many of them are self-destructive. You know, their success is short-lived. But there’s a few of them that go on out there and accomplish great things. But there’s so many gifted, talented people that don’t know how to unlock those gifts. So, I’m dedicated to that. I’m dedicated to helping people, both in life, relationships, and in their art, their acting, their craft, whatever you want to call it. I work with writers. I work with directors. I work with actors. I’m working with a banker in the Netherlands. I work with different people in different ways.

 

Natalie: Richard, it could be said that you are indeed a mentor for many aspiring young actors. Growing up and throughout your earlier acting career, did you have a mentor or anyone that you looked up to who encouraged, motivated or inspired you to become an actor? And if so, what was the most valuable piece of advice that you were given?

Richard: Well, I would have to say that I had the opposite. I didn’t have any mentors. I didn’t get much support. In fact, I got challenged at every step along the way. It was like, you want to be an actor? Are you crazy? You’ll never make it. You’re not gifted enough. Who do you think you are? Everybody thought I was nuts even going after a career. Although, I wasn’t even thinking about a career at that time. But they wanted me, why don’t you go back to school, get a degree, work your way up? What is this acting thing anyway? I got so much challenged, which by the way, for me only made me more dedicated. Also, I would have to say clarified for me why I was going after it, because again if I had been going after it for the fame and money, I probably would’ve given up long ago. But because the process of acting was such a deep exploration into my psyche, into my soul, into unlocking and freeing who I am. That was the all-encompassing journey for me.

It didn’t matter what happened because I was so engaged in the process that I was totally committed, totally engaged by it and it drew me. It just compelled me. I think the reason why is just because I think on every level, all of this when I discovered who are we really. What are we capable of? And how we take this “us” and move it into the world, and find our place in the world, right? How do we find our place in the world? That journey for me was my journey. Except like I said, I was compelled, motivated by my life circumstances to go after it in every way possible. Each person is wired a little differently, and we do live in a self-medicating society where people…whether is drugs or alcohol, or hyperactivity or passivity. Whatever it happens to be, people have a million ways of being self-destructive and not going after what they do want. But there are a few people who finally hit rock bottom, and make a decision and as they always say, when you’ve reached the bottom you have to a decision to live or die, to be or not to be. Sometimes that’s what it takes before somebody is willing to make a life-change, and go after their life rather than running away from it.

Natalie: Do you have a mantra that you live by?

Richard: I think that you’re either living or in the process of dying. So, to live is to each and every day fully commit yourself to taking the steps to go on the journey to discover who you are, to embrace who you are, to forgive who you are, and to celebrate who you are and your talents and to find out what those talents and abilities are. Find out what your assets are, and then take them and find a way to leverage them into the world and build a relationship. Because you know, what good is it to be talented and have all this wonderful stuff inside if you have no one to share it with, and never take it to where people can see it? My thought is, to be or not to be. And I’ve chosen to be.

 

Natalie: Richard, in addition to teaching acting classes and workshops, when you are not busy with acting, writing and directing, you conduct life changing workshops, such as Moving from Fear to Self-Mastery, Creating a more Successful Life, Becoming a More Powerful Communicator. How have these workshops been instrumental in helping many individuals achieve fulfilment, enrichment and success in their lives?

Richard: What I’ve learned is that number one, nobody’s lazy. It’s fear. It’s fear of falling down, making a mistake, making a fool out of yourself, fear of success, fear of failure. It masks itself as laziness. It’s a way of not dealing with something that you don’t want to deal with, that you’re afraid to face. Sometimes people, in fact in many cases, that never got the love and support that needed at a very formative time when they wanted to go after something, explore something, be something. They never got the support. They got lack of support, so people never fully believed in themselves. They didn’t believe that they could do it, and in many cases what they ended up getting was adversarial things, [such as] people putting them down, people not paying attention, people thinking, just like what I got you could never do that. That’s impossible. I’ve been through all of that.

So, one of the biggest things that I can do for people, is that I’m very intuitive. I see into their talents. I see into their abilities. Essentially, what I’m doing is just mirroring that back to them. I keep mirroring back the truths of who they are, as they present them to me. I see beyond their fears, insecurities, all their self-destructive tendencies, and I see their talent. I see their heart, I see their soul. I keep reminding them of who they are and what they’re capable of doing. I help them to see what’s usually right in front of their face. Their talent, their abilities. There are amazing possibilities in life that constantly present themselves to people, but they don’t see it. People only see many times what they want to see or what they don’t want to see. And so, you could have the love of your life in front of you and if you’re afraid of love, you would not see that person. You wouldn’t even recognize them, even though they’re in your life, in your face. Same thing goes for so many other areas of life.

So, I think dealing with fear, moving from fear to self-mastery, not trying to do away with fear, learning how to make fear your best friend. Fear creates energy. Energy allows you to do things that you wouldn’t normally couldn’t do. Successful people seek out the fear response. Learning how to step out of the box, to stretch, to keep growing, to keep expanding, to keep challenging yourself. Meaning, stepping into the unknown, stepping into the unfamiliar, and learning that the fear response is something that you can actually enjoy which is why people go on rollercoasters. That’s why people go bungy-jumping. They want to feel that aliveness that comes from the fear response. So, learning how to deal with fear in a positive way is one of the most important things for success.

People don’t know who they are. They don’t even know what they’re good at. They’re so busy trying to be somebody else, trying to fit into the world and please somebody else, not themselves, that they’re going after all the wrong things for all the wrong reasons. So, the key to success is first getting to know who you are, what do you really love doing, and what you are naturally gifted at. Then we’ll develop those assets that you have, and then learn how to leverage them into the marketplace, and either create a job, create a business, or go after a business or a job where you can bring your specific skill sets to bare in the most successful way possible. It’s not rocket science. It’s common sense, and yet that common sense seems to go unnoticed when people are caught up in all their insecurities, their fear, their self-destructiveness. We all learn in our own time, in our own way. Some people are willing to face their stuff sooner. Some people never face their stuff. Some people, you know, they take the slow path like a turtle, but even the turtle gets where they’re going, right? (laughs) I tend to look at life like an endless process, not as a period of sixty or eighty years. I think we’re part of something greater than that, and I think that life is continuous. I think it’s never too late to do anything.

 

  

Natalie: Richard, you have stated that, “….It takes a specific amount of belief to produce a specific amount of energy to grow anything in our life no matter whether it be positive or negative. The more energy we can access and produce, and the more specifically we can mobilize and focus it, the more power we have; the power to create our heart’s desire.” Do you regard yourself as a highly spiritual or philosophical individual?

Richard: I’ve studied every religion, every philosophy. I was a Born Again Christian for three years, but I don’t follow any specific religion or philosophy. I believe in a greater intelligence. I believe that we’re a part of a greater energy. I believe that we’re all part of God. Whatever you want to call it, God is. Every religion thinks they’re right and they interpret what they believe to be, you know, what Jesus is, what God is. But the truth is, sooner or later you’ve got to develop your own relationship with the universe, just like every actor has to find their own unique connection to their talent and find a way to bring their own creativity, power, substance, vision out into the world.

On a spiritual level, like I’ve said it’s been a life’s journey for me to ask about the mysteries of the world, about life. For me, sooner or later you get to a deeper place where it’s no longer an intellectual understanding. It’s a deeper, intuitive sensing of things. As I tell people, people can tell you anything. They can try to manipulate you, try to get to believe them. We can buy into what they’re selling. But sooner or later, you trust that deeper part and intuition part that bypasses everything and goes to the core of things, and you know when something is right and when something’s wrong. You know when it’s good and not good. I kind of trust my own deeper understanding of life.

In my philosophy, I think science and religion, or science and whatever God is, or whatever this intelligence that operates in the universe is, for me it’s one of the same thing. It operates together. There’s no separation. I certainly love all the Jesus stories. I love all the Jesus movies. I love the character of Jesus, Moses. But for me, I do have slightly different interpretations than most people do, but it doesn’t matter. The point of it is, I think there are some certain very deep truths woven throughout religion, woven throughout the Bible and then again so much of it is open to interpretation and every religion interprets it differently. But I do believe that we are much more than this physical self that we are, and I believe that as they do in quantum physics that all of life is energy. With us in a sense, if you can think of it, most people when they come home from work they’re so exhausted they don’t have enough energy to go out after a career, go to school, take a class, and even when they communicate with people they have so little energy that people don’t remember what they said. They have no impact on people.

Energy is like a currency, and the trouble is that most people have too little of it for many reasons. One [is that] they eat very badly. Two, they suppress all their emotions, their breathing is suppressed, they’re no oxygenated enough, their metabolism doesn’t operate at an optimal level. That fear response that happens when you’re growing, learning, stretching yourself, trying new things, you actually produce more energy in the body. When you actually commit to going after doing something, your body will generate more energy because more energy is needed. These are certain kind of biological truths. So, in a sense interpreting it in a more grounded, mundane way, learning how to mobilize your energy, how to use your energy more efficiently, how to produce more of it, and then where you direct that energy is what grows in your life like a garden. If you water the weeds, the weeds grow. If you water the flowers, the flowers grow. So, learning how to focus your energy in the ways that will help you build and create things that you want to create, as opposed to focusing your energy on everything that you don’t like, everything that bothers you and upsets you. This isn’t about running away from things.

We need to move through, resolve, embrace, and forgive. We need not to lock up our energy, or get caught up in our anger and our emotions. We need to learn how to flow with those emotions. But you always want to maintain this openness, this flow, this open heart. Learn how to let go of anger, frustrations, learn how to keep the heart open, keep the energy flowing, so you don’t close off, you don’t try to suppress everything. As I always say, when you suppress your emotions and your feelings, you suppress your breath and thus you suppress your energy. So, again we want to move through all of that to reclaim our energy, our passion, our aliveness. Now I have all that energy to take with me into meetings, into the bank, and into putting together a business plan, and into taking classes that I need to take. Then on a more, if you want to call it spiritual level, focusing your energy on those things that I really want to build and create in my life. Focusing on those energies, you begin in a sense to magnetically draw more of that to you. For me, life is a spiritual process, not even a religion. Life is a spiritual process, and it is a process of physics. It’s quantum physics. I mean, the nature of life is quantum physics and physics doesn’t separate from whatever people think God is. I think it’s one of the same. I mean, if I was God, the language of God would be physics. It would be quantum physics.

 

Natalie: So, it’s fair to say that you believe in the power of intention, visualization and the law of attraction?

Richard: Yeah, I do very much so. I’ve learned one thing that, I realize I do this all the time anyway. When I look at people, instead of focusing on what they don’t have, focusing on all their flaws and imperfections, I embrace all of them but I see the potential in them. I see the gold. I see what they’re capable of doing and I put my energy into that. That’s where my energy naturally goes. The trouble with most of us, we focus on everything that we don’t have. We focus on judging and criticizing ourselves and other people. We see everything that we’re not doing right. So, we’re focusing all of our energy on all the stuff we don’t have. As they say metaphorically speaking, the more you focus on what you don’t have, the more you don’t have what you don’t have. So, instead of focusing on the problem, which is what we see in the political arena. Everybody focusing on the problem, but no one puts enough energy into solutions, into creating a better life for everybody. They focus on blaming everybody, and what the problem is and that’s why we have this never-ending merry-go-round of nothing ever getting done and everybody blaming the problem. The problem only grows bigger and bigger. I think it’s an almost spiritual process, but it’s really about physics, quantum physics. It’s honestly. Start to take that energy, that currency just like money and invest it in what you want to create instead of dwelling on what you don’t have and what didn’t go right, and all the people you think are responsible for all the mess, you know. Instead of blaming everybody, start taking responsibility for the power vested in you to create the life that you really want.

 

Natalie: Do you have any upcoming projects in the works, or any exciting news that you would like to share? I believe that you have a cruise coming up.

Richard Hatch: I have a cruise, Comic Con At Sea. A number of actors, filmmakers and artists are going to have panels and workshops on show business, on every aspect of show business. It starts in Barcelona and goes through the Mediterranean for a week. You can go over to either www.richardhatch.com or http://www.comicconatsea.com/ and check that out, or you can go on my Facebook page and find all the information about the cruise and who’s on it.

Also, as I’ve said I’m doing a number of conventions. I’m going to Calgary, I’m going to Dallas for a convention. I’m going to film this Star Trek fan film, actually. It’s a wonderful role and my friend’s directing it. It’s Star Trek Continues and it films in New York. They have studios there where they build sets. So, I’m going there in July. Then I’m filming Axanar which is a Star Trek indie movie. It’s a ground breaking movie. They never made a movie, a Trek indie movie on a level of a studio film. They’ve already done two kick-starters. Very successful. They’re among the top ten successes in kick-starter history. We raised almost a million on the last one, and I think they’re going to raise even much more than that on the next one that they’re doing. They will start filming in October.

As I said, I have a directing job coming up and I’m going to be filming my own. I really want to be doing more directing. I love to write and I want to have a bunch of very creative, talented people I want to bring together to start, to develop. I love bringing a team together to bring a vision to life, and I love doing projects that as Sean Penn said, movies are too important to be only about entertainment. So, for me I love to shed light, show insights into the human condition whether it’s through relationship, through history, through whatever the story happens to dwell on. It needs to be entertaining. Make you laugh, make you cry. But at the same time it needs to be about something. I love making movies and projects that are about something. There’s more substance, and yet it’s got the icing. It’s got to have the icing, you know, the effervesce. It’s got to have the champagne bubbles. But it needs to have more heart and soul to it. Too many movies lack enough heart and soul. I like the combination of both.

 

Richard, what would you like to see yourself doing in the next few years?

I want to play the best roles that I’ve ever played. I want to get the chance to play wonderful roles that my talent and abilities are wired for in wonderful stories that I really care about. Working with wonderful actors and directors that I really respect, and I want to direct. I want to direct movies that really talk about the human condition. That really deal with the challenges that we have in relationships. It can be a comedy. It doesn’t matter, but I want to deal with movies that have something to say about life, the human condition, about politics, about the world. I love movies, like I said that kind of mirror the world and yet at the same time add that extra layer of imagination that makes it a movie. A movie’s got to have that extra layer of entertainment that makes us want to watch it. So, I want to direct more. I want to act more. But not just act more, it’s acting in roles that I really want to play in movies and stories that I really want to be part of. And then the teaching. I want to find even more powerful ways, and I’m exploring them now, how to teach classes online via Skype, through creating chat-rooms and visual online seminars where I can work with groups of people through all over the world. I can teach smaller groups, larger groups. I can do lectures. Then I want to do week long intensives, like once or twice a year, or even three times a year, go to Hawaii, Fiji. Go to some beautiful place. Find a retreat [and] bring thirty or forty people there, and do a week long intensive that also includes sight-seeing and having fun. You really get much more of a chance to really do an intensive process.

 

Natalie: Richard, what would you consider to be one of your greatest achievements in your very impressive career thus far, and why?

Richard: I thought what I did with Tom Zarek in the new Battlestar was one of the most challenging roles that I’ve ever played. That was one of the best written, best acted, best directed series projects that I’ve ever been in my entire life. I got to play with a group of amazing actors. So, that was probably one of my biggest achievements.

Then, this sounds silly but I made one of the most incredible football catches of all time in this series called, Battle of the Network Stars that used to be on for several years back in ‘70s and the ‘80s, where I was with Robbin Williams and several others on the ABC team. I made a football catch that was caught on all the five slow motion moving cameras. You can see it on YouTube. I was always an athlete. You know I wanted to go to the Olympics. I’ve always loved sport. It was having one of those amazing, never to be forgotten moments for me, where I got to do something extraordinary. That was a highlight.

Working with Lorne Greene was obviously a highlight for me. And then having a few moments where I was really proud of my work. I’m not hard on myself so much, [but] I know the difference when I’m really doing great work and when my work is just okay. I have a couple of scenes in Jan and Dean, I think is the best work I’ve ever done. I’ve had some scenes in the new Battlestar, which I think is some of the best work I’ve ever done.

I live for not only helping other people achieve extraordinary work, and have those breakthrough moments where they have that experience of a lifetime. I love experiencing that for myself, and I love helping others to experience those kind of breakthroughs. I live for breakthroughs, whether it’s movies, sports, great musicians, and great art. When an artist goes beyond what people think is possible and they tap into this greater something, and they light up like a shooting star, I live for those moments. Whether it be at a concert, a play, a movie, you know, there’s just nothing like it.

 

Natalie: Describe a typical day in the life of Richard Hatch?

Richard: Most of the time, I take my time in the morning. I wake up at 6am, but I generally speaking go back to sleep and then I get up around 9 or 9.30am.

I’ve done a lot of research on nutrition. Not that I’m above having some really, really good chocolate. I’ve certainly indulged myself. I’m probably more of a carb-a-holic than I am a sugar-holic, but I’ve really, really cut down on all that stuff. I’ve always been a healthy eater from the time I was a child. So, when I get up, I fix all these kind of really healthy concoctions. I have green-tea with lemon and ginger in the morning. I take some herbs.

I get up and I do specific kinds of exercises to stretch the back, get the energy moving through my body. I’ve learned that it’s hard to get to the gym. That’s another thing. I actually want to put together a DVD of my approach to exercise, because most people, they either don’t get to a gym at all or they don’t stay committed to it. What I’ve learned is that it’s hard for me every time that I join a gym, I don’t get there consistently and I get bored in a gym.

So, what I have in my house are a thousand little workout things just everywhere. I have weighted balls. I’ve got rubber bands that stretch at different strengths. I have a back-arch. I have a couple of things in my room in the corner. And so I get up in the morning and through the day, I do five minutes here, ten minutes here, ten minutes there. When I see a set of stairs, instead of using an elevator, I run up the stairs. I’ve learned to do short bursts of everything, because if I have to do it for too long I get bored. I don’t even like a long hike, unless I’m having a great conversation with somebody, or I’m in the most pristine place on earth. Other than that, I want a short, intensive going up the hill.

In San Francisco, walking up those long hills, I love that! You know, you push through. You feel alive, you breathe deeply. You get all that energy going and then at the end the pain is over. Like I’ve said, I’ve learned to do exercises all through the day. I do real exercises for two, three, four minutes all throughout the day. It keeps you energized. It keeps your body fluid. I’m learning not to eat so much all at once. I’m learning to eat small amounts. If I’m hungry in a couple of hours, I’ll eat another small amount. It’s really tasty and enjoyable food that is nutritious. But the key is making them tasty and delicious, otherwise you’re not going to eat it.

 

FOR INFORMATION ON RICHARD’S ACTING CLASSES, HEAD OVER TO http://www.richardhatch.com or view Richard Hatch Actor Media Kit_2015

 

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