How Pitch Black Almost Cost Claudia Black Her Farscape Role as Aeryn Sun

It’s not too tough to make a “best-of” argument for each of the three stellar movies in Vin Diesel’s dark sci-fi Riddick film series (which, by the way, is set to expand with a fourth film sometime soon!) And if you’re picking Pitch Black, the first film in the franchise, as your favorite, well — the movie’s ensemble star cast definitely has to be a big reason why.

Featuring Diesel (of course!) alongside Keith David, Cole Hauser, Radha Mitchell, and more, Pitch Black marked our turn-of-the-millennium introduction to Richard B. Riddick, Diesel’s enigmatically super-sighted anti-hero who plies the galactic skies while carrying a murderous reputation (and an enormous bounty on his head). Science fiction fan favorite Claudia Black was also a key part of the Pitch Black cast, playing a traveling homesteader named Sharon who meets a gory and untimely end on the hostile planet where Riddick and the rest have all crash landed.

Claudia Black on her Farscape close call: 'It almost didn't happen'

Thanks to her already-established presence on the sci-fi small screen, Black was familiar to tons of Pitch Black viewers upon its early 2000 release — especially thanks to her leading role, since 1999, as Aeryn Sun on Farscape on the Sci-Fi Channel (the precursor to today’s SYFY).

But as Black once shared with the BBC’s Farscape Cult fan site, being cast in Pitch Black actually almost nudged her completely out of contention for her now-iconic Farscape role, where she starred as the show’s super-stoic Peacekeeper and the future love interest of space-stranded astronaut John Crichton (Ben Browder). The two projects were filmed almost on top of each other, with Pitch Black falling first, and staying abreast of the busy shooting schedule posed a nearly-insurmountable challenge.

“I first got the news about being cast on Farscape when I was up [in Australia] on the Gold Coast filming Pitch Black,” she told Farscape Cult. “It was an interesting history for me in particular because the show had come in the form of a pilot script to some of the theatrical agencies through a casting agent, and we knew it was a Jim Henson production…  There was an overlap between finishing Pitch Black and starting Farscape and there were some complications. The producers had to liaise and I almost didn't get the job on Farscape — I'd completely forgotten about that actually!

Actors Claudia Black and Ben Browder perform in the television show "Farscape." (Photo Courtesy of Sci Fi Channel/Getty Images)

“Brian [Henson] said to me afterwards, ‘You know, we thought very hard and it almost didn't happen,’” Black elaborated. “I didn't realize how serious it had got. At one point I actually had to ring [Farscape executive producer] David Kemper — he'd left me his number — and say ‘I've heard that this may not happen and I'm about to get the news that you've had to pass and go to someone else,’ and he said, ‘No, no, no, no you'll get it. We're making it happen, so just sit tight and we'll make it work.’”

As Farscape fans know, the show did make it work, carrying Aeryn and Crichton across an epic four-season run, alongside an extended event series (Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars) that tidied up many of the loose story threads left dangling at the end of the main series’ abrupt cliffhanger finale.

Thankfully, Farscape fans don’t have to look far these days to enjoy the full series.

All four seasons of Farscape are streaming on Peacock here, alongside both movie-length installments of Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars (stream it here!)