"Casting Me Was a Huge Mistake"

Craig Bierko speaks on his role in the American Red Dwarf pilot.

11 February, 2011

Hollywood actor Craig Bierko recently appeared on Kevin Pollak's Chat Show - a live-streamed internet series you can check out at kevinpollakschatshow.com - and gave a fascinating answer to the question of his casting in Red Dwarf USA.

You can check out the entire interview, but here's the important clip:

Despite possibly the most garbled explanation of the series ever ("the ship is the size of the Beverly Centre"), referring to the original Linwood Boomer pilot as "a horrible Americanisation of a truly brilliant British show" is as no-holds-barred an opinion as you can get - and Craig is clearly a big admirer of the UK Red Dwarf.

But is the guy being too hard on himself? There's no question that a John Belushi type would have been a good fit for an American Lister, but Bierko's hardly Captain Cheese - he's got a lot of charm, but so does Craig Charles. And, as his many female admirers will attest, Craig's hardly been cursed by the ugly fairy.

And, sure, there's a Han Solo kinda vibe to his Lister. (A curious side-note: this arguably puts Red Dwarf USA in Firefly territory. Remember when that was first announced? �An inset-type ship filled with humanity's rejects in a SF universe with no aliens?') But Bierko has strong comic timing, and his Lister was still fundamentally one of life's losers.

Dude, you're being too hard on yourself. And, so long as it contains the line "My baseball cards must be worth a fortune" we'll always see the American Red Dwarf as a valiant near-miss.

Remember that you can see clips of the pilot, and hear the UK cast and crew's thoughts on it, on the Series V DVD documentary Dwarfing USA.

You can read more about the American Red Dwarf pilot here.