Mike Dopud

Mike Dopud
PerformerRDMCAPBAC
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Portrays:	Gage (RDM) Sal (Caprica) Deke "Minute Man" Tornvald (BAC)
Date of Birth:	June 10, 1968
Date of Death:	Missing required parameter 1=month!
Age:	57
Nationality:	CAN
Related Media
		@ BW Media
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IMDb profile

Mike Dopud is a Canadian actor and former stunt performer who portrayed three separate characters across the Re-imagined Series continuity, making him one of a small number of performers to appear in all three of the Ron Moore-era Battlestar Galactica productions.

His first appearance is as Specialist Gage in the Re-imagined Series episodes "Pegasus," "Resurrection Ship, Part II," "The Oath," and "Blood on the Scales." He subsequently played Sal, a television cameraman at Atlas Arena, in the Caprica series finale "Apotheosis." He was later cast as Captain Deke "Minute Man" Tornvald in the prequel production Blood and Chrome.

Dopud was born on June 10, 1968, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, to a family of Yugoslav (Serbian) descent. He speaks three languages fluently: English, French, and Serbian.

Career

Early life and sports

Dopud grew up in the suburbs of Montreal, where he took drama in high school and developed an early love of film — particularly the original Mad Max — while simultaneously excelling as an athlete. He attended Southern Illinois University on a football scholarship, where he earned a degree in physiology and international business. After college he was drafted as a tailback by the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League in 1991, but a knee injury brought a premature end to his playing career. He subsequently played in the World League of American Football before its folding, then played professionally in the East Coast Hockey League.

Following his sports career he relocated to Vancouver, British Columbia, where he transitioned into the film industry. He has noted that acting came about largely through chance — a friend who recognized his physical presence suggested he pursue it — and that the stunt work his athletic background made him employable for served as his initial entry point.

Stunt career and transition to acting

Dopud began performing stunt work in the Vancouver film industry in the mid-1990s. His acting transition was catalyzed by Vancouver stage productions; director Peter DeLuise and producer Michael Greenburg saw him in a play and recognized him as an actor beyond his stunt roles. He credits acting coaches Larry Moss and Michelle Danner as pivotal in his development as a performer and his confidence in pursuing acting rather than stunt work as his primary career.

His stunt credits include work on productions such as Walking Tall (2004), X2: X-Men United (2003), The Chronicles of Riddick (2004), Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011), and 300 (2006), among others. As a stunt double he performed alongside performers including Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Vin Diesel, and Jessica Alba.

In 2005, Dopud was nominated for a Taurus World Stunt Award in the "Best High Work" category for his stunt work on Walking Tall (2004), sharing the nomination with Tanoai Reed. In the Dial the Gate interview, Dopud described the nominated sequence: the stunt involved falling through the floors of an old building, bouncing off a pipe through cylinders, and a high fall onto steel grates that the stunt team had filed down to reduce injury risk.

Battlestar Galactica (Re-imagined Series)

Dopud first appeared as Specialist Gage in the second-season episode "Pegasus." Gage is one of two Pegasus enlisted men — alongside Specialist Vireem, played by Derek Delost — identified as having sexually assaulted the Cylon prisoner Gina. In "Pegasus" and "Resurrection Ship, Part II," Gage and Vireem assault Helo and Tyrol in the brig after the officers attempt to intervene on Gina's behalf.

Dopud returned to the role in Season 4's two-parter "The Oath" and "Blood on the Scales," in which Gage joins the mutiny led by Felix Gaeta. In these episodes Gage leads a group that forcibly removes the Agathon family from their quarters, and later takes over Gaeta's tactical position in CIC before the loyalist officers retake the ship. Dopud described the character in stark terms:

Gage was such an asshole, for lack of a better term. He was, he just didn't care... Specialist Gage was a guy that looked after himself. That's all he cared about. Shit about anything else. And that's the way I approached him, and I think it was right. That was the tone, and that was what was necessary from Gage.

Dopud attributed the character's return in Season 4 in part to his existing working relationship with director Wayne Rose, noting that the production accommodated his schedule during the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike period, when several cast members had become unavailable due to commitments on other shows.

Caprica

Dopud appeared as Sal, a television camera operator at Atlas Arena, in "Apotheosis," the series finale of Caprica. Sal recognizes Daniel Graystone and Amanda Graystone in his booth, attempts to alert security after seeing a GDD alert, and is subsequently subdued by Amanda during the Soldiers of the One bombing attempt at the arena.

Blood and Chrome

Dopud portrayed Captain Deke "Minute Man" Tornvald in Blood and Chrome, a Viper pilot famed for his kills and featured in Colonial Fleet recruitment materials that had helped inspire a young William Adama to enlist. By the time of the series' events, set approximately 42 years before the Fall of the Twelve Colonies, Tornvald has become physically scarred and disillusioned, privately dismissive of his own public image.

Stargate franchise

Dopud appeared across all three live-action Stargate television series, a distinction shared by only a handful of actors from the franchise. His earliest involvement was as an uncredited stunt performer, including an appearance as a Jaffa in the first-season Stargate SG-1 episode "Within the Serpent's Grasp." He recalled that Richard Dean Anderson once noted, with some amusement, how many times he had been "killed" on the show across various background stunt roles.

His named acting roles in the franchise were Colonel Ruslan Chernovshev in the SG-1 episode "Full Alert" (Season 8), the bounty hunter Odai Ventrell in the SG-1 episode "Bounty" (Season 10), the Runner Kiryk in the Stargate Atlantis episode "Tracker" (Season 5), and Varro, a recurring Lucian Alliance soldier, in Stargate Universe (Seasons 1–2). The Varro role, which extended across fifteen episodes, was Dopud's largest part in the franchise; the character begins as an adversary during the Lucian Alliance takeover of the Destiny and gradually integrates with the ship's crew. Dopud described him as a character with latent depth: "a killer with a heart" — a phrase he attributed to writer Joe Mallozzi — which he felt encapsulated the character's arc.

Other notable television and film work

Beyond his genre science fiction work, Dopud has accumulated an extensive list of credits in both film and television. Among his more prominent roles, he played Vic Hadfield in the CBC miniseries Canada Russia '72 (2006), the Liber8 operative Stefan Jaworski in the CTV/Showcase series Continuum (2012–2014), Roy McAfee in the Hallmark Channel series Cedar Cove (2013–2015), Viktor Mikalek in the CW series Arrow (2016–2017), Michael Vinson in The 100 (2018), and the Serbian drug cartel leader Jason Micic as a series regular in Starz's Power (Seasons 4–6, 2017–2020). He has also appeared in a recurring role as Sheriff Ron Ealing in the Hallmark Hannah Swensen Mystery television film franchise beginning in 2023.

In film, he has appeared in X2: X-Men United (2003), Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011), Deadpool 2 (2018), and Violent Night (2022), in which he played the head of security Commander Thorp. In 2022, Dopud discussed the Violent Night production with Dial the Gate:

This movie is just a ton of fun. It's great, the acting is amazing, the action is fantastic… David Harbour is Santa Claus and he just crushes it.

He received Best Actor recognition at several film festivals for his lead performance as Agent Nash in the science fiction feature 2047: Virtual Revolution (2016).

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Category	Production	Result
2005	Taurus World Stunt Award	Best High Work	Walking Tall	Nominated

Personal life

Dopud is of Serbian descent and is fluent in English, French, and Serbian. He is married to Canadian actress Angela Schneider and has two children, including a son, Dane Dopud, who has also pursued an acting career. In the Dial the Gate interview, Dopud noted that he had coached youth hockey, football, and soccer throughout his life alongside his professional work. He resides in Tsawwassen, British Columbia.

References