Sebastian Spence

Sebastian Spence
PerformerRDMBAC
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Portrays:	Lt. Noel "Narcho" Allison Lt. Jim "Sunshine" Kirby
Date of Birth:	December 9, 1969
Date of Death:	Missing required parameter 1=month!
Age:	56
Nationality:	CAN
Related Media
		@ BW Media
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IMDb profile

Sebastian Spence (born December 9, 1969) is a Canadian actor who portrays the recurring character of Lt. Noel "Narcho" Allison in the Re-imagined Series, and later appeared as Lt. Jim "Sunshine" Kirby in Blood and Chrome. Born in St. John's, Newfoundland, Spence is the son of two playwrights and made his professional stage debut at age 16. He is best known outside the Battlestar Galactica franchise for playing the lead role of Cade Foster in the Sci Fi Channel original series First Wave (1998–2001), and as Cliff "Cowboy" Harting in the Hallmark Channel drama Cedar Cove (2013–2015).

Career

Early life and stage work

Spence was born in St. John's, Newfoundland, to Michael Cook and Janis Spence, both playwrights. His mother Janis Spence was an actress, director, and playwright associated with the Resource Centre for the Arts in St. John's, and co-wrote several plays with actress Mary Walsh. His first professional acting job came at age 16, in his mother's play Walking to Australia at St. John's — taken initially as a way to make pocket money, but from his first appearance Spence recalled thinking "maybe I've got something to bring to it." He went on to appear in more than a dozen stage productions in St. John's before relocating to Vancouver, British Columbia to pursue a screen career. His father, Michael Cook, died in 1994.

His first on-camera role was as Kevin Reevey in the critically acclaimed Canadian television miniseries The Boys of St. Vincent: 15 Years Later (1992), which depicted the aftermath of sexual abuse at a Catholic orphanage. His first film role was as Duke in the futuristic science-fiction thriller Anchor Zone (1994), filmed in his native Newfoundland.

A Family of Cops and early television

Spence's career gained early momentum through a trio of CBS television films. He played Eddie Fein, the younger son of a police inspector portrayed by Charles Bronson, in A Family of Cops (1995) and reprised the role in the sequels A Family of Cops II: Breach of Faith (1997) and A Family of Cops III (1999). During this period he also appeared as a guest on The Outer Limits, Poltergeist: The Legacy, and in the X-Files episode "Home" (1996), where he played a deputy leading Mulder and Scully to a farmhouse — and who is killed almost immediately. Spence joked of the role: "I played the typical Canadian — X-Files has a tendency to kill off its Canadians really quickly!" He then spent most of 1997 in Toronto playing a young race car driver named Stevie Servine in the Canadian drama series Fast Track.

First Wave (1998–2001)

The role that brought Spence to wider attention was Cade Foster in First Wave, a Vancouver-shot conspiracy thriller created by Chris Brancato and executive-produced by Francis Ford Coppola through American Zoetrope. The character had originally been conceived as older — mid-thirties — with Eddie as a young computer type; the ages were subsequently reversed, making Cade the younger alien-hunter. Casting director Stuart Aikins recommended Spence despite the reversal; his screen test in Toronto comprised twelve pages of dialogue with the first scene alone running five pages in a boardroom, and he recalled leaving the audition with no confidence he was still in the running. While his tape was being reviewed by Pearson Television, a Pearson executive spotted it and asked who the actor was, tipping the decision in Spence's favor.

The series premiered on Canada's Space Channel in 1998 and debuted on the Sci Fi Channel in the United States on March 19, 1999. In an unusual move, the Sci-Fi Channel expanded its order to a full 66 episodes across three seasons before the show's US ratings were known; it was subsequently cancelled once the 66-episode order was filled due to disappointing ratings.

Foster — a former thief framed for his wife's murder by alien infiltrators called the Gua — became the "twice-blessed man" prophesied in lost quatrains of Nostradamus as Earth's only defender against an impending invasion. Spence was drawn to the role's action-adventure scope, but was uneasy with its messianic framing from the start, telling interviewer Michelle Erica Green:

Sometimes I get a chill on the set — they're calling my character the twice-blessed man, and you get kind of caught up in it — my Catholic conscience screams bloody murder!

He pushed instead for Foster to become a leader of a resistance movement: "I'd like to see the character of Cade Foster wake up an underground movement to tackle the alien problem."

His co-stars included Rob LaBelle as conspiracy hacker "Crazy" Eddie Nambulous and Roger R. Cross as the sympathetic Gua defector Joshua; in the third season, Traci Lords joined the cast as militia heiress Jordan Radcliffe. The production schedule consumed roughly eight months of each year, leaving Spence little time for other projects. He received scripts only about a week before shooting and did not break down pages until a couple of days before cameras rolled.

Spence developed a chronic back injury during the production that required two corrective surgeries, one in 1999 and another in 2000.

Other notable roles

Following the conclusion of First Wave, Spence accumulated a broad roster of television credits primarily shot in Vancouver. He played Professor Matt Freeman across six episodes of Dawson's Creek during its sixth season (2002–2003), and played Rick Ryder in the Canadian series Sophie (CBC, 2008–2009).

Beginning with Third Man Out (2005), Spence appeared as Timothy "Timmy" Callahan — the lawyer partner of the openly gay private investigator Donald Strachey, played by Chad Allen — across all four films in the Donald Strachey Mystery series produced by here! Films: Third Man Out (2005), Shock to the System (2006), On the Other Hand, Death (2008), and Ice Blues (2008). On the Other Hand, Death and Ice Blues were each nominated for the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding TV Movie or Limited Series.

Spence has made notable guest appearances across three of the longest-running North American science fiction franchises of his era: as a deputy in the X-Files episode "Home" (1996); as the Tok'ra Delek in the Stargate SG-1 episode "Death Knell" (2004); and as Ted Kord/Blue Beetle in the Smallville episode "Booster" (2011). He also appeared in Sliders, Dark Angel (2001) as Charles Smith, and had guest roles in Supernatural, Andromeda, Continuum, and The Returned, among others.

His longest recurring role after First Wave came on Hallmark Channel's Cedar Cove (2013–2015), the network's first original scripted drama series, adapted from Debbie Macomber's novels. Spence played Cliff "Cowboy" Harting, a rancher estranged from his country-singer father at the time of his father's death, appearing as a recurring character in season one and as a series regular in seasons two and three opposite Andie MacDowell. His on-screen love interest was played by Teryl Rothery, whom Spence described as an old friend and previous collaborator; he also noted that the role required him to master horse-riding properly, having previously only listed it on his résumé as a skill he could approximate.

In 2017 he played eccentric medievalist philanthropist Bill Wallace in the Hallmark Movies & Mysteries film Garage Sale Mystery: Murder Most Medieval, directed by Neill Fearnley, with whom he had previously worked on the Hallmark film Daniel's Daughter. Around the same time, he filmed two Lifetime features: Witness Protection (dir. David DeCoteau, shot on Vancouver Island), in which he played hitman Maxyl, and Deadly Attraction (dir. George Erschbamer), in which he played private investigator Dance Carol.

In 2018 he guest-starred as a senator in the NBC series Taken, appearing in the episode "Charm School" (aired March 9, 2018). The episode was filmed at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto the previous August; Spence noted that the hotel's public atrium made for an unusually exposed shoot, with bystanders watching and applauding between takes.

Outside his screen work, Spence has written and posted poetry to social media, and discussed compiling a poetry collection with accompanying photography. He also co-wrote and acted in the short film Pour Retourner (directed by Scooter Corkle), which screened at several film festivals and won awards.

Battlestar Galactica

Spence first appeared in the Re-imagined Series as an unnamed Pegasus Viper pilot in the second-season episodes "Pegasus" (2005) and "Resurrection Ship, Part I" (2005). The character was subsequently developed into a named recurring role: Lt. Noel "Narcho" Allison, a swaggering Pegasus pilot who boasts of 48 kill markers painted on the side of his ship and who mocks Starbuck's hand-built Blackbird stealth fighter as a "homemade tin can." Narcho transfers to Galactica after the destruction of Pegasus during the Battle of New Caprica and later appears as a guest-credited character in season three.

Narcho's arc reaches its most prominent point in the fourth-season mutiny two-parter "The Oath" and "Blood on the Scales" (2009), in which he sides with Gaeta's insurrection, fires a missile at the Raptor carrying President Roslin, and is assigned to command the firing squad ordered to execute Admiral Adama before the mutiny collapses.

Spence returned to the franchise as Lt. Jim "Sunshine" Kirby in Blood & Chrome (2012). Kirby is a Viper pilot on detachment from the battlestar Valkyrie, officially listed as killed in action and secretly assigned to a hidden "ghost fleet" operating in Cylon space. During the story, Kirby is reunited with old friend Coker Fasjovik, who informs him that his wife Janey has given birth to their son Anslem; Kirby participates in the Battle of Djerba, escorting young Adama's Raptor to the surface before breaking off to confront pursuing Cylon Raiders. The casting drew attention from viewers who noted the deliberate parallel of Spence playing Viper pilots in two separate eras of the franchise's timeline — Narcho in the Re-imagined Series and Kirby during the First Cylon War — calling the connection between the characters a "wasted cool" opportunity given Kirby's fate in the story.

Personal life

Spence is married and has stepchildren. He plays guitar and has cited outdoor activities including jeep off-roading among his hobbies. As of early 2018, Spence was based in Toronto, Ontario, having previously spent much of his career working in Vancouver.

His mother, Janis Spence — an actor, playwright and director who helped spark a theatrical renaissance in St. John's during the late 1970s — died on February 7, 2008, after suffering a stroke the previous autumn. She was 61.

References