asher553 | Richard Hatch 1945-2017

Don't know how I missed it at the time, but Richard Hatch - a veteran of both iterations of 'Battlestar Galactica' - passed on last February. He was Captain Apollo in the original series, and terrorist Tom Zarake in Ron Moore's 2003 remake.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/07/tv-shows/richard-hatch-dead/index.html

'Hatch died at around 1:30 p.m. in Santa Clarita, California, with his son, Paul, by his side, Kaliski said. The 71-year-old actor had been battling pancreatic cancer, according to a statement from his family.
In the original "Battlestar Galactica" series that ran from 1978-1979, he played Captain Apollo and in the 2003 remake, he played Tom Zarek. He received a Golden Globe nomination for his role in the first series.

"In my case, 'Battlestar Galactica' was a milestone," he wrote on his personal website. "It afforded me the opportunity to live out my childhood dreams and fantasies. Hurtling through space with reckless abandon, playing the dashing hero, battling Cylons, monsters and super-villains -- what more could a man want?" ...'

Hatch led an unsuccessful attempt to revive the original series, and even after being cast in a major role in the RDM remake, remained critical of the new version.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hatch_(actor)#Battlestar_Galactica_revival_attempt

'In 2004, he stated to Sci-Fi Pulse that he had felt resentment over the failure of his planned Galactica continuation and was left "exhausted and sick ... I 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."[13]

Despite his resentment, Hatch developed a respect for Ronald D. Moore, the remake show's head writer and producer, when Moore appeared as a featured guest at Galacticon (the Battlestar Galactica 25th anniversary convention, hosted by Hatch) and answered questions posed by a very hostile audience.[13] Later, in 2004, Hatch was offered a recurring role in the new Battlestar Galactica series, which he accepted. He acted out Tom Zarek, a terrorist turned politician who spent twenty years in prison for blowing up a government building. After Zarek's death, Hatch commented that "never did I play this character as a villain nor did I think he was one and I still feel that way," and that he considered the character to be a principled figure who is driven to violence after being "blocked in every way possible" by Roslin and Adama.[14] "Zarek, Adama and Roslin all wanted power for the same reason, to make a positive difference."[14]

Even so, Hatch remained harshly critical of Moore's remake of Battlestar Galactica.'

So his career was a remarkable case of both an actor and his character having a radically different vision of a fictional world - and thus playing the role of antagonist both in the story and in life.