A doctor who is in no rush

Robert Carlyle's Dr Rush doesn't bother with too much grooming. Photo / SCI FI Channel

For anyone lost anywhere, be it an unmapped island or the Land of Oz, getting home is an all-consuming mission.

But not on Stargate Universe. Not for Dr Nicholas Rush. It seems he would rather probe the far reaches of science while stranded in a rattletrap spaceship billions of light years from home.

As played by Robert Carlyle, Rush is at the core of SGU, a meditative thriller which builds on the mythology of the 1994 film Stargate and follow-up series Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis.

The titular Stargates represent a perilous but potentially lifesaving transport system for the voyagers. Found throughout the universe, each is an imposing, ring-like portal that allows the brave or brash to pass through and emerge who-knows-where, like in a hopscotch game spread across the cosmos.

The Stargates offer a chance at connect-the-dots salvation. Or maybe doom.

Rush, the brilliant scientist, just wants to figure it all out. Home definitely isn't where his heart is, which puts him in regular conflict with his fellow journeyers, played by co-stars Ming-Na, Elyse Levesque, Lou Diamond Phillips, David Blue, Alaina Huffman, Louis Ferreira, Jamil Walker Smith and Brian J. Smith.

"This ship, coming here, was my destiny," Rush declares. "My life's work was to be here."

Rush is a loner, who may or may not be trustworthy. Who may be operating on sound scientific motives or, instead, in a defiant display of hubris.

"He's very isolated, very much on his own," Carlyle says. "He only goes to people if he needs them." And they don't like his neediness any more than he does.

Rush leaves viewers delightfully confused: Is this the one guy on board who, despite the others' pushback, has a handle on their crisis? Or is he a narcissistic suicidal scoundrel? Viewers don't know, and they feel for him and doubt him at the same time.

When he was sought for the role, Carlyle says he was told, "'We're looking for someone who can make dislikable things seem likeable.' I said, 'Well, I'm potentially your man'."

No wonder. In person, the Scottish-born actor is warm and outgoing and passionate about his work. A compact man, he sports the scruffy, shaggy look of his character. (What's the point of good grooming in outer space?) Before SGU, the 48-year-old Carlyle was already acclaimed for his off-centre characterisations. In Danny Boyle's 1996 film Trainspotting, he played a raving psychotic. A year later, in The Full Monty, he was one among the down-on-their-luck steelworkers who dropped their drawers to strike it rich.

He was the gay lover of a Catholic priest in the film Priest. And in the TV miniseries, Hitler: The Rise of Evil, he was twitchy, wild-eyed and ruthlessly shrewd in reconciling that despot's magnetism and depravity.

Not surprisingly, Carlyle welcomed the role of Dr Rush, a man who doesn't want to come back - even if he can conjure how.

"There are people who spend time in jail or on a desert island and don't want to come back," Carlyle notes. "That's massive! I thought there's got to be great drama in that."

But as he started shooting, Rush remained almost as much a mystery to him as he's been to the audience. That's just how Carlyle likes it.

LOWDOWN

Who: Robert Carlyle as Dr Nicholas Rush
What: Stargate Universe
Were and when: Prime TV, 8.30pm Thursdays