John Pyper Ferguson

Rugged Australian-born Canadian actor John Pyper-Ferguson established himself as a firm fan favorite within the updated "Battlestar Galactica" universe following an extensive career as a character actor specializing in playing manly men of the American West. Born in a suburb of Melbourne, Australia, John moved to Vancouver, British Columbia with his parents, where his mother Kathleen trained as an Olympic swimmer. After graduating from the University of Alberta with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Performance, he starred in the prime-time Canadian drama series "Hamilton's Quest" (1986-88) as a young man searching for his birth parents. (On this and many other of his early projects, he was credited simply as John Ferguson.) While continuing to appear regularly on Canadian television, Pyper-Ferguson made his film debut with a small role in the low-budget horror sequel "Prom Night II" (1987), but quickly moved up to larger roles in high-profile films like the Mel Gibson action comedy "Bird On A Wire" (1990) and Clint Eastwood's critically-acclaimed revisionist western "Unforgiven" (1992).

As more American syndicated TV series began filming in Canada to take advantage of tax breaks in the early 1990s, Pyper-Ferguson became a familiar small-screen presence, most notably on Bruce Campbell's cult-favorite science fiction-western series "The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr" (Fox 1993-94). from 1993 onwards. While working steadily in television during the 1990s and 2000s, Pyper-Ferguson also continued his film career, his most high-profile coming as schizophrenic punk bassist John Oxenberger in Canadian art-house director Bruce McDonald's bleak road movie "Hard Core Logo" (1996). For two seasons, Pyper-Ferguson played the recurring character of Joe Whedon, estranged ex-husband of businesswoman Sarah Laurent (Rachel Griffiths) on the family drama "Brothers and Sisters" (ABC 2006-11). However, it's within the reimagined "Battlestar Galactica" universe that John has shown his versatility. An obvious favorite of the producers (and fans) John has been cast in a number of roles: first as Captain Cole 'Stinger' Taylor in "Battlestar Galactica" (SciFi Channel 2004-09), billionaire Tomas Vergis in its prequel "Caprica" (SyFy 2010), and Xander Toth in the TV movie "Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome" (2012).