Jamie Bamber

I'm not the kind of actor that can go completely cold into an emotional scene. I have to transport myself emotionally by whatever means possible, and that basically means you carry the situation with you all week, all episode or all day beforehand.

I wanted to acknowledge my U.S. heritage and to belong to it more closely. Having said that, I am certainly British by formation and education and readily think of London as home. I had never lived in the U.S. till 2007.

When I started working on 'Battlestar Galactica' in Canada, I was told to get as fit as a marine for my character Lee 'Apollo' Adama. So I did. But now I have a problem with suits, because I'm 5 ft. 9 in. with a 40 inch chest and a 31 inch waist, so I'm rather too big for that very tailored British look, and they always have to be altered.

Because of my Asian-ness, I couldn't be anonymous - what I said, what I ate, what I did at the weekend were startlingly different to what everyone else did. I was also a performer, quick and chameleon-like, good at accents, so that made me stand out.