There are a number of actors who feel that if they're in a
story, then they should be at the *center* of the story. Andrea seemed
to feel that if she was in an episode, the episode should be about her
character, and was consistently lobbying for this, despite the fact
that it would cut into the arc, and time for the other characters
on-screen. Babylon 5 is an ensemble show; time on screen is determined
by the story, not by whim or personal insistence.

Yes, we used her 8 or 9 times in a given season; but by
contract, we paid her for a full 13 episodes, whether she appeared in
them or not. We were never under any obligation to give her *any*
guarantee; we did so to make her feel comfortable taking on the job.
For the first year he was on the show Jeff Conaway didn't have a
guarantee of episodes; he was used as he was needed, and that grew with
time. Andrea wanted time away from the show to do other projects; we
accommodated where we could, as we do with all our cast members, but if
a request comes in at the last moment, or conflicts with our schedule,
we can't comply. We feel that if we're paying someone a great sum of
money to be available to us, for episodes they may not even appear in,
this is not unreasonable.

Finally, it was never Warner Bros. who hired her or pushed her
on me. WB didn't care one way or another. I was the one who hired her,
with Doug Netter. If I hadn't felt she was right for the role, I
wouldn't have hired her. But I was also under no constraint to make
the show into the Andrea Thompson Show. Andreas and Peter have often
appeared as many times in a season as Andrea, and didn't even *have* a
guarantee for the first two seasons. (Now they do.)

We did what we could to accommodate her without destroying the
story arc. I regret that she has taken out her frustrations in this
way. Either one is a team player, part of an ensemble, or one is not.
We are very proud of the fact that the cast members as they stand now
are all ensemble, team players.

jms