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The Battlestar Galactica Fan Club had the pleasure of speaking with Fred Armisen, an alumni of Saturday Night Live as well as his new series Portlandia.

Fred also was featured in such films as Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo & Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy with Will Farrell.

Here's another little thing to throw into the mix, he is a BIG Battlestar Galactica Fan & if you tune into the show this (1/13) Friday night you'll see just how big a fan he is....

Shawn; I hear that you are a really big Battlestar Galactica fan?...

So what's the history on that?

Were you a fan of the orignial series to start with?

 

Fred: A few years ago, somebody told me to watch it.  

They insisted.  

And I started and totally loved it.  

I continued on into the next year.  It was DVDs and also iTunes downloads.  

I also remember a long time ago, watching Patton Oswalt do standup at this club.  

He went on and on about how great Battlestar Galactica is.  

It's so good and I got into the humanity (?) of all the characters.  

I liked how flawed they made everyone, but not in a show-offy way.  

And they visually addressed how objects would fly through space.  

I know that's a weird thing to bring up, but the way the vipers move through space, they stop and turn so quickly.  

It makes sense that it would be that way out there.  

And Gaius.  

It was so cool trying to figure out what he was about.  

I didn't know very much about the original series.  

I like that Richard Hatch is so present in this one.  

I like when things like that happen.

  

Shawn: What's your take on Caprica?

 

Fred: It moves everything forward and keeps it alive, and I'm always a fan of that. It makes me optimistic too that more can still be made.

 

Shawn; You are obviously well known for your comeidic turns on film & with Saturday Night Live....

Talk to us about Portlandia....

Where did the idea for this show come from?

 

Fred: I used to make these short videos with my friend and musician Carrie Brownstein.  

They were just these weird little videos, not quite comedy, and we called it "Thunderant".  

We shot them in Portland which is where Carrie lives.  

After a while, we had enough to try to think of another venue for them.  

So we pitched it as a TV show.  

 

Shawn You think you'll be using the BSG theme on Portlandia in the future?

 

Fred: I'd like to.

 

Shawn: Anything you'd like to say to the folks in the Battlestar Galactica Fan Club & out there to the World directly?

 

Fred: I just want to say thank you for reading this and for having me on here.

I will tell you first hand that meeting the people from BSG was a HUGE thrill and I was completely starstruck.  

They are really cool.  

We got the crew of Portlandia hooked on the series too.  

On the episode, which comes out this Friday night, we built it so that the tension is like BSG.  

We cut it similarly and added that tense music.  

I love the show (Battlestar Galactica I mean) and this is a great site!  

Thank you!

Fred!