So Im not a particularly nice piece of work.

The scientists inAlienstories tend not to be!

Ad content continues below

No, no they dont.

Im pretty ruthless even by those standards!

Do you enjoy that sort of role?

Its great fun to do in audio.

I love doing most of the roles I get, but this one was terrific fun.

Its all about the voice.

So whats your relationship with theAlienfranchise?

I mean, I assume youre a fan of the original…

Oh, big fan!

Im not a devotee, its not like I cant wait for the next iteration.

But Ill watch a new one when its on telly.

I think the originals one of the most imaginative and scary films around.

Am I right in thinkingAlien: River Of Painis a horror piece too?

Its a suspense-horror I suppose, yeah.

I think an audio piece can do that really well too.

How did you come to be involved with it?

I got offered it!

Just out of the blue.

Thats how I get about half of what I do, Im a very lazy actor.

I dont look at what might be happening and go ooh, I want to be involved with that!

and then track down producers and directors.

I just hang about and wait to see what happens.

Sometimes someone comes along and asks me to do stuff!

Have you worked with Dirk Maggs before?

Hes really lovely, it didnt really feel like working at lot of the time.

There are few better people to work with inside the medium.

Hes really brilliant yeah, Ive been very lucky with my directors in audio.

I also worked with John Dryden who was great, and recently discovered theyre really good mates.

I can see why!

Youve got to be expressIVE you dont want to waste the valuable syllables.

AndGothams just starting, thats really good fun!

I think so, I think Im fairly lucky that I get to try different hats on.

Its where I came from.

Thats probably for other people to judge, certainly from my point of view I dont feel constrained.

Obviously I was born in Africa, my mum was English and my dad was Sudanese.

So Im quite happy with how things are going.

I treasure those roles.

I find nailing a single performance in a film Ill get hung for saying this!

You just have to do your job.

Its more challenging because it can easily go flat.

I gather when you didDeep Space Nineyou had a little pushback over that character?

and the studio would be saying but hes nothing like Jason Priestley!

and Rick would say Well hes not supposed to be!

Deep Space Ninewas a television rebellion in a way.

It was so anti-glitz and glamour, it was nothing likeDynastyandDallaswith its model actors.

Audiences now seem to appreciate that, but I think they like the grittiness.

Bashir in a funny way embodies the Marmite loathing and loving of the show.

I was like Okay, thanks!

but its come full circle.

The 2000s saw the age of the nerd dawn and everyone has to be a nerd or a geek!

So Bashir was the proto-geeks.

Yeah, its everywhere.

That was nerve-racking for them, so they quickly put outVoyagerto give them something more like what they wanted.

Audiences can get their shows ways too now now its literally all there on Netflix for you to watch.

TV is huge now, its a revolutionary change.

Everythings having trouble getting made unless its a big franchise or youre Will Smith.

They actually want rich, complicated characters, and that means its a great time to be an actor.

Alexander Siddig, thank you very much.

Alien: River Of Painis due out in April on Audible.