Andreas Katsulas
Feb. 15th, 2006 04:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakAfter arriving in Kiel today and getting online, I found out Andreas Katsulas has died. Like the majority of genre fans, I know him primarily through his role as G’Kar in Babylon 5. His performance was one of the most important factors that made the show the classic it became.
G’Kar, as well as Londo, is why one major red button for me is hearing someone declare one should start B5 with season 2, or end it with season 4. This shortchanges two crucial intertwining arcs and character development to no end. A friend of mine, ill-advised, started with season 2 and didn’t see season 1 until she had finished the rest of the show, and was rather disturbed by first season G’Kar. Which, you know, is the point. First season G’Kar is decidedly not a saint. More often than not, early on, he’s a blustery comic villain. There are hints at what’s to come, of course. And Andreas Katsulas brings out all these elements in full force. Take an early B5 episode like Parliament of Dreams, which has G’Kar throwing tantrums and has G’Kar going stubbornly silent rather than give the assassin who tortures him the scream of pain. (Foreshadowing. Ahem.) Or another early episode, By Any Means Necessary, which has classic first season Londo/G’Kar bickering at its best but also shows G’Kar is quite serious about his religion, and in the final scene shows him in meditative devotion to put any Minbari to shame.
The big turn for G’Kar does come in season 2, but it needs to be prepared. After preparation, G’Kar’s reaction to the message of the Centauri Emperor Franklin relates, his later encounter with Londo where he invites him to a drink, the breakdown when the news of what happened to the Narn outpost arrives, G’Kar going from “he betrayed me!” and murderous anger to sinking to his knees in broken acceptance of Sheridan’s suggestion is stunning beyond belief. And Andreas Katsulas conveys all that plastered in make-up that must have weighed a ton.
When I think about it, my favourite G’Kar moments are in later seasons, though. G’Kar’s exubarant “Welcome home, Mr. Garibaldi”, for example. And those two scenes in No Surrender, No Retreat which always make me forget that space battle thing which forms the main action. First the one where Londo makes his first pitch for reconciliaton between the two of them (as well as their people) to G’Kar, and G’Kar listens, then refills the drink Londo poured in Londo’s flask. Small gesture, but the cold anger and also the wish to hurt is palpable. And then the later one, where G’Kar does show up at the bar against Londo’s expectations, tells him he’ll sign, just not on the same page, and then has that drink. With a tiny, tiny smile. It’s the one my icon shows. In my personal fanon, that is when G’Kar accepts he’s stuck with caring about Londo Mollari, as opposed to hating him, and it’s not in the dialogue, it’s just in the looks.
Not that G’Kar doesn’t have great dialogue, and Andreas Katsulas always rendered it beautifully. Both in the serious and the silly moments, and the genius of both G’Kar and Londo as characters is that they offer both right until the end. So fifth season G’Kar, who has become a religious icon to his people, can have lines like “animal attraction, what can I say?” when a Centauri lady undresses in front of him, and both A.K’s rendition and Peter Jurasik’s look as Londo have me in stitches every time. And he can make that heartrendering pronouncement that makes Londo’s last moments in freedom so bittersweet and complete G’Kar’s arc, because for G’Kar to say them is as important as it was for Londo, earlier that same season, to apologize: “My people can never forgive your people. You understand that, don’t you? But I can forgive you.”
G’Kar, fierce patriot, pompous villain, lustful alien hitting on every woman on sight, noble rebel, raging warrior, philosophizing saint, was the role of a life time. And no one but Andreas Katsulas could have played it.
G’Kar, as well as Londo, is why one major red button for me is hearing someone declare one should start B5 with season 2, or end it with season 4. This shortchanges two crucial intertwining arcs and character development to no end. A friend of mine, ill-advised, started with season 2 and didn’t see season 1 until she had finished the rest of the show, and was rather disturbed by first season G’Kar. Which, you know, is the point. First season G’Kar is decidedly not a saint. More often than not, early on, he’s a blustery comic villain. There are hints at what’s to come, of course. And Andreas Katsulas brings out all these elements in full force. Take an early B5 episode like Parliament of Dreams, which has G’Kar throwing tantrums and has G’Kar going stubbornly silent rather than give the assassin who tortures him the scream of pain. (Foreshadowing. Ahem.) Or another early episode, By Any Means Necessary, which has classic first season Londo/G’Kar bickering at its best but also shows G’Kar is quite serious about his religion, and in the final scene shows him in meditative devotion to put any Minbari to shame.
The big turn for G’Kar does come in season 2, but it needs to be prepared. After preparation, G’Kar’s reaction to the message of the Centauri Emperor Franklin relates, his later encounter with Londo where he invites him to a drink, the breakdown when the news of what happened to the Narn outpost arrives, G’Kar going from “he betrayed me!” and murderous anger to sinking to his knees in broken acceptance of Sheridan’s suggestion is stunning beyond belief. And Andreas Katsulas conveys all that plastered in make-up that must have weighed a ton.
When I think about it, my favourite G’Kar moments are in later seasons, though. G’Kar’s exubarant “Welcome home, Mr. Garibaldi”, for example. And those two scenes in No Surrender, No Retreat which always make me forget that space battle thing which forms the main action. First the one where Londo makes his first pitch for reconciliaton between the two of them (as well as their people) to G’Kar, and G’Kar listens, then refills the drink Londo poured in Londo’s flask. Small gesture, but the cold anger and also the wish to hurt is palpable. And then the later one, where G’Kar does show up at the bar against Londo’s expectations, tells him he’ll sign, just not on the same page, and then has that drink. With a tiny, tiny smile. It’s the one my icon shows. In my personal fanon, that is when G’Kar accepts he’s stuck with caring about Londo Mollari, as opposed to hating him, and it’s not in the dialogue, it’s just in the looks.
Not that G’Kar doesn’t have great dialogue, and Andreas Katsulas always rendered it beautifully. Both in the serious and the silly moments, and the genius of both G’Kar and Londo as characters is that they offer both right until the end. So fifth season G’Kar, who has become a religious icon to his people, can have lines like “animal attraction, what can I say?” when a Centauri lady undresses in front of him, and both A.K’s rendition and Peter Jurasik’s look as Londo have me in stitches every time. And he can make that heartrendering pronouncement that makes Londo’s last moments in freedom so bittersweet and complete G’Kar’s arc, because for G’Kar to say them is as important as it was for Londo, earlier that same season, to apologize: “My people can never forgive your people. You understand that, don’t you? But I can forgive you.”
G’Kar, fierce patriot, pompous villain, lustful alien hitting on every woman on sight, noble rebel, raging warrior, philosophizing saint, was the role of a life time. And no one but Andreas Katsulas could have played it.
