"There have been occasions where I have sensed that the character's kind of been 'dumbed' down, and I have been very keen on not making this good old Southern boy 'dumb'," he says in excerpts available at Sci-Fi Pulse. "He's commander of engineering - if you don't follow this guy, if you don't think of him as a leader, I'm polarized and I'm lost, I'm stuck in a black hole. But if we keep the character active and creative and open and intelligent, then I'm in good stead. And I think we do. We all have to stay on top of that, in terms of artists creating the show."

The actor says he isn't afraid to let the stuntmen take over if a physical scene is too dangerous.

"You have a lot of people looking out for you, and any time you find yourself in a scenario where you think it's dangerous, it's your responsibility to speak up and if you haven't, it's your fault," he says. "So any time I find myself in a scenario that could be deemed difficult, and I think it's unsafe for me as an actor, I'll say something. And I have no problem with that."

Read more excerpts from the interview here.