This casting announcement is just in from Entertainment Weekly: David Blue, formerly Cliff St. Paul from Ugly Betty, has been cast as Eli Wallace (formerly known as Eli Hitchcock) for the new Stargate Universe television series, which is due to start filming February 4, 2009.
Michael Ausiello at EW stated, “Sources confirm to me exclusively that Blue has been tapped to join the cast of Sci Fi Channel’s Stargate Universe, the franchise’s third (and purportedly edgiest) live-action series.
“Blue, who joins previously announced headliner Robert Carlyle, plays Eli Wallace, a total slacker who just happens to be an utter genius with anything he puts his mind to—mathematics, computers, video games. A lack [of] confidence has left him with an acerbic sense of humor.”
Born January 17, 1979, Blue is 29 years old and is portraying a character who in the casting breakdowns is supposed to be between the ages of 20 and 25. Eli is a social outcast, does not think of himself as good looking, comes from a broken home, and claims that he has no friends and that the only person who cares about what happens to him is his mother. He supposedly dropped out of school to play video games all day, every day, but is somehow given access to one of the most classified projects in the world when he joins the Ninth Chevron Project (not necessarily the official name, but describes the project within the Stargate Program dealing with the use of the ninth chevron on the Stargate). He’s familiar with a computer game that simulates the control consoles found on the Ancients’ long-abandoned starship Destiny. During a tour of the off-world base that is home to the Ninth Chevron Project, the base is attacked and Eli and others flee through the Stargate and end up on Destiny far from home with no known way to get back to Earth.
To learn more about Blue, visit his profile at IMDb. (His official website is under construction.)
Ausiello concludes, “I’m ecstatic for David, a genuinely decent guy who displayed real star potential on Betty.”
Creative consultant Joseph Mallozzi indicated in his weblog that further casting announcements will come soon.