After a brief guest appearance on Star Trek Voyager in 1998, Louis Ferreira swore he would never do another science fiction series ever again. Two days of work playing a holographic tree was enough to convince the actor that sci-fi was not his genre.

“It was pretty bizarre. I was completely latexed up, from body to branches and everything,” Ferreira remembers. “I can only tell you how much admiration I have for people who can sit in a chair for four hours to get ready and another two hours to undo it. I’m not that guy. And they didn’t give me any way to use the bathroom!”

But when the opportunity to join the cast of Stargate Universe came along, Ferreira saw his chance to do something different – with very little makeup involved, luckily. As Colonel Young, Ferreira plays the de facto leader of a group stranded on an ancient space ship stranded billions of light years from Earth. The spinoff of the popular Stargate franchise is markedly darker and more dramatic that its predecessors, delving further into what it means to be marooned in space.

“One of things I love about it is that everyone’s label is in question – even for the Colonel,” Ferreira says. “What does it mean to be Colonel when there’s 80 people stuck on a ship? Does any of that stuff matter? What works for us on Earth is not the case up there, and all those things start coming into question. Your own identity and your egos get checked and challenged and redefined, and I think that’s what makes the show interesting.”

Of course, a complex drama set in space naturally invites comparisons to Battlestar Galactica, but Ferreira doesn’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.

"Battlestar, I think it was an amazing show. And every idea has been recycled and peppered and made slightly different,” he says. “So for them to see that genius show – I mean, come on, it won the Peabody award! – and to say, ‘Let’s go towards that a bit more than what we’ve done,’ I think it’s admirable. If you’re going to be compared to some show, why not compare it to the best of that genre?”

But, he adds, Stargate Universe is far from a Battlestar copy.

“I think we’ve found our own style and our own look, and I think the ship is its own character,” he explains. “I think all the relationships between the characters on our show are so deep-rooted and just get richer and deeper with each episode. I think we’re on our own track, but I think those comparisons are fair to make, just because it is a darker, edgier sci-fi show.”

Another big pull for Ferreira was the addition of veteran actor Robert Carlyle, who plays the secretive Dr. Rush. On camera, Ferreira and Carlyle are frequently at odds, but behind the scenes, the two became fast friends.

“He’s the dream actor,” admits Ferreira. “These guys do exist. There are people who can ruin everything for a cast and crew, and sometimes it becomes difficult to have someone who is all about ego. But Robert is so humble and is such a brilliant actor and has his priorities in check; he’s kind and real and he realizes it’s not brain surgery. Working with someone who gets that is a real privilege.”

Joining Stargate Universe was also something of a rebirth for Ferreira. Previous to the show, he went by the stage name Justin Louis; following the death of his mother last year, the Portugese-born actor decided to go back to his birth name. Stargate Universe marks his first job as Louis Ferreira.

“I’d been going by Justin Louis for 25 years and I felt it was time to start using my real name. There was something about having my real name at this point. Symbolically, it represented a starting over point,” he explains. “And the last simple thing is that I have two kids, and I would like them to see their surname up there, associated with their dad.”

And, if Ferreira is to be believed, there’s no other show he’d rather hitch his name to: he can barely stop gushing about every aspect of Stargate Universe, from the executive producers to the hairstylists.

“I’ve never worked with a better group of people, from top to bottom. The people in the visual effects department, or the people in the office, or the producers or the actors and the makeup and hair people. Everyone is just a great person and they do this job. We’re lucky to have this kind of job,” he gushes. “I try to enjoy my jobs because at the end of the day, you know how quickly it can go away - and does go away. I think everyone on the show has that perspective, which makes it more fun. We’re there 15, 16 hours a day; people aren’t with their families and they’re missing their kids and lots of things are happening.”

Ferreira admits that he’s gung-ho about Stargate Universe because he wants it to attract viewers beyond Stargate’s built-in audience. It’s deserving of a wider audience, he says, and he hopes viewers don’t turn away from it just because it’s set on a space ship – even though he once turned away from science fiction for almost the exact same reason.

“My hope is that people who would normally not think of watching a show called Stargate will give us a shot,” Ferreira says. “People who maybe don’t think of sci-fi as a genre they’d be interested in, maybe they start watching us. For the most part, it is essentially a drama set in space. This is just a well-written, good show, set against this sci-fi backdrop.”

The mid-season finale of Stargate Universe airs Friday, Dec. 4 at 10 p.m. ET on Space.

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