Spike’s ‘Tut’: Alexander Siddig Learns To Preach Like An Egyptian

Preacher Man, Egyptian-Style

But the details of many Egyptian rituals — or at least how they played out in real life, instead of in tomb-wall paintings — are a bit of a mystery. That posed a challenge for Siddig, who had to take a mass of research and translate it into action.

“What do you think would be going on, if you were a high priest?” he asked himself. “Obviously, you’re going to be very beady about money, trying to hold onto as much, make as much, as you can, just like any other corporate oligarch. We’re talking money on a vast scale; money that’s way beyond anything Bill Gates could imagine. These people would have been phenomenally wealthy.

“They would also have been primitive. They would try to entertain their congregations and be mystical and kind of trippy. So, I tried to picture a cross between a guru and a politician, which is a trippy high wire to do.

“That was interesting, to come up with an order of service, the way he entertained his crowds, what he would do when he was marrying people, how he would incant, how he would appeal to the gods.

“I’m an actor, so I feel like I”m in the same business that he was.”