James Callis says he's learned a lot over the last five years of "Battlestar Galactica," and hopes he can apply that experience to future work.

As Gaius Baltar on the signature SciFi Channel series, Callis has spent a lot of time working directly with one-time model and current "Burn Notice" actress Tricia Helfer, and the separation for both of them hasn't been the easiest.

"I have done so much crying, and so has Tricia, for five years," Callis told IGN's Eric Goldman. "It's slightly run out of me. So I can see all the other people around, who haven't been through that kind of emotion. It's like leaving your family. It's sad."

As they started the final days of filming, Callis said he would get pep talks from director Michael Rymer, who helmed the miniseries that launched it all. According to Callis, Rymer would tell the cast, "We've come this far, let's all be generous with each other. Let's all understand where people are coming from. Let's make this thing happen together, and let's try and get through it with an understanding that we're all trying to help each other make something wonderful, rather than get screwed up by somebody."

However, true to form, it only took five hours for Rymer himself to go "crazy at somebody," Callis joked.

Now that production on "Battlestar Galactica" has completed, Callis says he'll take his experience and his own personal growth he gained while portraying Baltar to anything new he may work on. He hasn't ruled out doing more science-fiction in the future, but it may take a while.

"I'll work on anything were I love the script, but I think it's a bad idea to immediately do science-fiction, only because it's the same genre and has all the same audience going, 'Yeah? What else does he do?'"

In the meantime, don't expect to get too much out of him over the fate of Gaius Baltar, except that he was "very surprised." Even then, that's all he's willing to say.

"Battlestar Galactica" returns Jan. 16 at 10 p.m. ET on SciFi Channel.

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