Amanda Tapping.com

INTERVIEW WITH AT.COM (JANUARY 23)

Kamil Trzebiatowski: Hello, Amanda!

Amanda: Hello!

KT: Hi, for everyone: my name is Kamil and I'm interviewing Amanda Tapping for AmandaTapping.Com and on behalf of all of the fans. How are you doing, Amanda?

AT: I'm doing very well, Kamil, thank you. Cold here in Vancouver, but it's good.

KT: Good. It appears it's sort of the same around here in London... okay, my first question would be: After appearing so successful a show as Stargate SG-1 for 10 years and having recently shot the movie, you must getting a lot of appears to appear in, you know, like, new pictures. What kind of offers are directed your way and what type of characters are you asked to play?

AT: It's interesting, because the characters I've been asked to play have been quite different from Sam Carter. I've just finished a movie called Dancing Trees with the director here in town called Anne Wheeler and I play a mother of an autistic savante. It's a very nurturing role, so it's a lot different. I got offered a film that's shooting in Barcelona where I play again a mum, you know, a troubled woman, but I had to turn it down because I hope we're gonna be doing my new series Sanctuary... which is a completely different character again.

KT: I guess so.

AT: It's interesting because I'm getting offered things that I think I've been wanting to do for a long time and sort of exploring a different side of myself - and I'm getting offered it.

KT: That's wonderful! Yeah, that's great.

AT: Yeah, that's great. I was afraid to be typecast, but I haven't been, so--

KT: Yeah, that was actually my question, sort of a concern, actually, that a lot of actors get typecast after appearing for such a long time on a series.

AT: Yeah. I mean, I still get the sci-fi offers which are fantastic, you know, the strong, smart characters, but on the flipside I'm getting offered a lot of really different things. So yeah, I'm relieved to say it appears that I have not been typecast.

KT: That's great! Yeah, perfect. So fingers crossed for future productions.

AT: Thank you.

KT: And, we're talking just about two months or actually I think even bit less than that before the official US release of Stargate: The Ark of Truth DVD. What do you think were the highlights of shooting the first movie for you?

AT: Well, what I loved about it was that the scale was so big. You know, the sets were huge and the setups were huge. It felt much different than shooting the TV series because we had more time and a bit more money. It just felt big. It felt like shooting the movie. So I just mean the overall sense of it was really fun, plus it was getting everyone back together again. I had started shooting Atlantis and so I was shooting that simultaneously, but then to go over to the SG-1 set, work with Michael and with Chris and Ben again, it just felt like going home. It was really nice.

KT: That was sort of actually my another question related to that. 'cause obviously you said goodbye to a lot of friends on the set of "Unending", the last episode of... I mean the last episodic part of Stargate. How did meeting many of the same faces feel to you on the set of the movies?

AT: Fantastic, Kamil, it just felt, like I said, it felt like going home. And it was right, because it was just a short term... you know, it felt really great. It felt really great. And I just, you know, I loved walking into the make-up trailer and seeing Christopher Judge and I realized after 10 years you kinda get addicted to that moment. Or Michael coming in and, you know, just the morning hugs and, as goofy as that sounds, I didn't realize how much I missed it until I had it back again. Oh gosh, yeah. The movies were perfect for us and there is rumour that there's potential for more. I certainly hope that that materializes.

KT: That's certainly good news!

AT: Yeah.

KT: And obviously, the second movie you shot in the Arctic. What did you think for you was the most amazing experience of shooting the second movie in there?

AT: Well, definitely the Arctic part of it was the most astounding. I don't think that I will ever... I don't know, I hope I have a similar experience in my career again, but - it topped everything. Just the whole, the sense of adventure of getting up there. You know, four different plane rides where we flew from Vancouver to Seattle, Seattle to Anchorage, Anchorage to Fairbanks, Fairbanks to Burrough, Burrough to Prudhoe Bay where we gathered all of us stuff up again and jumped on a Cesna and flew two hours across the bay, landed in a camp that was on a floating ice flow. So just the adventure of getting up there was astounding. For me, I mean, I'll never forget the sort of seminal moment of getting out of the hooch which was the little plywood box that we lived in, 6 people to a hooch. It was 8x8x20 box. It looked sort of like a container and it had a kerosene heater in it, a table and bunk beds. 3 bunk beds, so it slept 6 people and that's pretty much what you had in there. But getting out of the hooch first thing in the morning and brushing my teeth and watching the sunrise over the Arctic and knowing that I was standing on frozen ocean and looking out... you know, brushing my teeth and looking for polar bears...

KT: Wow! That's just incredible!

AT: Yeah, that was just... and it was so beautiful. I mean, it was just so beautiful. I can't... it was pristine and clear and for miles and miles it's just ice and there are just like sculptures everywhere around you where the ice has crushed up together. The whole experience, and the camaraderie in the camp, I mean, you know, I think at our peak we had about 40 people in the camp, which is a lot. And that's when we had some of the guys off the submarine staying. It was pretty packed in there and just the sense of camaraderie. All these crazy, intrepid explorers in the middle of, you know, frozen ocean and having an adventure.

KT: Yeah, it just doesn't, you know, sound like this was this large budget, you know, television production when you were there, right?

AT: No. Our crew was less than half of the camp. I mean, we went up with a very skeletal crew. Everyone pulled double/triple duty. And then there was men from the US Navy and scientists and researchers, so it was a really mixed camp and after we left the camp changed over completely to the University of Washington and became their physics labs. Applied Physics Laboratory. So it was a very different feel on the camp, but it was basically the US Navy and us.

KT: Wow, this is just...

AT: Yeah. It was amazing. It was amazing.

KT: Okay, thank you very much. That's...

AT: There's just so many parts of it, I could go on for days about the Arctic. It's just the sense of clarity out there and how freaking cold it was! It was so cold! But after awhile that's sort of the least of your issues. And life is simple up there. You know, you get up in the morning and you have to make sure that you eat because your body needs fuel to stay warm and then, you know, you spend your day shooting and trying to stay warm and making sure that you're safe, so safety means not stepping through the ice and not getting eaten by a polar bear and that's essentially staying... and not getting frostbite. And then you go back and you eat and then you go out again and you do more filming where it's "don't get eaten by a polar bear, don't fall through the ice and don't get frostbite." And then you go back for dinner and you eat and you play cards and you go to bed early because you're exhausted from shivering all day and you're physically and mentally tired.

KT: It's like pure survival, actually, right?

AT: It is kinda pure survival, but it was so much fun and we had the safety of being in these warm hooches and having a warm place to go and just the conversations were amazing and I got to hang out, you know, one on one with women that I don't women that I usually don't get a lot of time to spend with away from work. So it was just... it was amazing. It was an amazing experience. If I were asked to go again, I would.

KT: Yeah, I just thought that it must be so indescribable for you to talk about.

AT: Yeah. I mean, like I said, I could go on for days and I probably will in May when I come out for AT3. Spend a large portion of that time...

KT: We're looking forward to that. Okay, thank you for that. Something for me to dream about in the future. I'm going to sort of change the topic entirely and ask you about Sanctuary, the web-based show that you're a producer of. Highly innovative for, I think, anyone who has seen it. And obviously after the first batch of episodes the fans are obviously hungry for more. So if it's possible for you to tell, what does the future hold for Sanctuary?

AT: Well, right now, we're looking at broadcast deals, so we're hoping to start shooting 13 episodes like a television format hour-long episodes and broadcasting around the world. We're just at this juncture, literally, today, working on out some of our final broadcast deals.

KT: I see.

AT: It will be coming to your television sets I would think probably by late summer / early fall. For me what it's meant is I have been executive producing on the level that I've never had the opportunity to explore. I've been recutting the pilot with Martin and breaking stories with Damian and Martin. I've been, you know, pulling together cast and starting to pull together crew, dealing with the business aspect of things and our investors, you know, getting on these crazy business calls and going to meetings. Because Stage 3 Media, which is, I'm on the board of directors for this company and we essentially own "Sanctuary." I've been doing... I've been doing business things that I never imagined that I would but it's actually been such a huge education for me. Yeah, that's my full time job. I'm sitting in an office in downtown Vancouver right now.

KT: So from the Arctic to the business. That's quite a change.

AT: Yeah. It's been quite a peak. It's been a crazy, heady year. Last year, like I said, you know, we started in January shooting the pilot for Sanctuaryand then went straight to the Arctic and then shot Atlantis and simultaneously shooting Ark of Truth and Continuum, finished up shooting Atlantis and then have spent the last three months sort of breaking new stories for Sanctuary.

KT: Gosh!

AT: Yeah. So I've sort of done everything this year. And also, you know, being a mum. I've had a lot of time to spend with Olivia, which has been really great. It's been fantastic.

KT: How do you find time to sleep, actually?

AT: That is not something I'm particularly good at. I'm not a good sleeper. When I found a continuum sort of rift through space and time. Six hours of my day personally. Being able to bend dimensional space and time. I've actually found extra hours. I'm pretty good.

KT: It probably got better over the last ten years.

AT: Yeah. Working twelve hours a day really makes a difference. I'm not good at sleeping, I have to say. That's the one thing. My level of exhaustion is probably my biggest concern right now.

KT: Well, take care of yourself.

AT: Because otherwise... I'm going to! Lack of sleep makes you giddy so people just thing I'm really happy.

KT: Uhm, you just said that there were lots of things that were completely new for you in terms of Sanctuary the business side of it. Were there any aspects of Sanctuary as in special and visual effects, although you have been acting in sci-fi for over a decade now, but given that it's such a new innovating production... has anything surprised you this way on the set of Sanctuary?

AT: Has anything surprised me?

KT: Yeah, in terms of, like, technology-wise?

AT: Picking up a little bit there. Well, it's actually an idea of creating an entire green screen visual medium, which is... we've done a lot of green screen onStargate, but to stand on a set... we only did it a few times on Stargate where we stood in a full green screen set. And it does take some getting used to. So for Sanctuary that was really like a... our shooting of the pilot was very much all about that. Getting used to the green screen, getting over the sort of a green headache that you get because that's all you're staring at. And because we had Jim Menard lighting, we were able to, you know, paint the light, he used it like an artist's brushed and he painted light in places that made it look like there was a fireplace or an open window. Once you get used to that, then it's just little setpieces that go in like a table or a chair. Once you get used to that, then it becomes really quite easy. But the initial sort of shock of walking into a full green screen stage and trying to visualize what, where you are in time and place, it takes a bit of getting used to, but by the end of the pilot -- not a problem at all. It was easy. And because we were using a system - very new system - whereby what we were shooting in terms of the actors' movement was being fed directly into a computer where there was a pre-vis effect up, we could go back and look at the computer and see, you know, essentially what the room was gonna look like because of the pre-vis that had been done on it. So, we're very lucky with this new technology that we're doing a direct link feed into the computer.

KT: Well, it looks really really good.

AT: Thank you! And you know, I have to take my hat off over and over again to our vis effects team because a lot of that was delivered in fourteen days, those special effects.

KT: Wow! That's impressive!

AT: Yeah. The vis effects team really pulled out all the stops, so now what we're doing is, because we have the luxury of time, is going through and redoing a lot of them, because some of them were, you know, rushed. So we're giving the team a chance to really really strut their stuff even though some of the stuff that came out after 14 days was unbelievable. I don't know how they did it. They worked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. That is how they did it, but that is just amazing that in such a short period of time we were able to deliver on to the net what we were able to deliver.

KT: And as I said, I was absolutely amazed. Especially the first episodes because that's obviously where we see... we could see this completely new stuff. Especially seeing it on, you know, either a PC monitor or TV screen, but because it's web based. That's just incredible.

AT: Yeah. Thank you, I thought so too.

KT: Thank you, too, for, you know, being there!... So we're certainly, you know, looking forward to the continuation of that.

AT: Yeah. The stories we're breaking are really amazing. So, you know, I have high hopes for this new series.

KT: I just really want to know what happens with the Merlin onslaught.

AT: Yeah. Actually, we're dealing with that today. We've been dealing with that for quite awhile how to resolve that storyline... yeah.

KT: Yeah, and that's it, obviously. We're not going to ask any further... Uhm... (laughter) So, by now you have worked as an actor, a director and now you're a producer. Which of these three seems the most appealing to you and which of the three would you like, you know, to choose in the future the most?

AT: Wow. You know, there are days where I miss being just an actor. Because it's a lot easier than being an executive producer.

KT: I guess so! Especially with the business!

AT: Executive producers' workload is really full. But because I'm so involved with the inner workings of Stage 3 Media, which is a studio for all intents and purposes, I find that that work is all-consuming and keeps me at night more so than being an actor did. So I miss the simplicity of being just an actor. And director is very similar in the sense that you're juggling so many balls and answering so many questions all the time. But I think, ultimately, my future will lie in producing / directing. And starring in my own projects. If I had to choose right now, I don't know that I could.

KT: Yeah, I knew that it would be a difficult question, actually.

AT: And right now for Sanctuary I'm not planning on directing, at least in the first season of thirteen episodes, but eventually I will be. So, yeah. I'm excited to explore that again. It's been awhile.

KT: I mean, we've all been impressed with your direction of the Stargate episode a couple of years ago.

AT: Thank you.

KT: It was, I mean, from my own perspective, it seemed extremely well thought of, most of the shots were, we all could see that a lot of thought went into that - and obviously you were recognized as well, so thank you.

AT: Well, thank you. Very much. Yeah, I did. I spent a lot of time going through sort of not only what the shot would look visually but where emotionally it was coming from. I don't know if that makes sense, but...

KT: Yeah, it does.

AT: You know, historically, when I was pulling certain aspects together for that show, I wanted not just to have a cool visual shot, but an emotional connection to it, too, so... And I thoroughly enjoyed being able to do that. So with Sanctuary I think hopefully I'll have the luxury of having a bit more time to be able to do it, but...

KT: Yeah. Hopefully. Fingers crossed. But that's obviously probably a little bit later down the line.

AT: Yeah. Yeah.

KT: About Stargate Atlantis, which you've been on this year. Actually, some of the visitors of your own website had several comments on how impressed they were with your performances this year in that. And it's actually a sort of a question that comes from some of the visitors and members of the site: in what ways did you think it was important to change Sam Carter on Atlantis so she would fit into the reality of that show?

AT: Well, I need to go on the sites that you're looking at, because I've obviously been going on the wrong ones! What was important for me coming on to the show on many levels, and I've said this before in interviews, but - not only for Amanda Tapping to tread lightly on the Atlantis set, because it's not my show. And I think some fans thoughts that I was just painting look service to that ideology, but the fact of the matter is that I feel strongly about that. I also felt like it was important for Sam Carter to step very lightly when she first walked onto Atlantis. A much loved leader of that expedition had gone missing, there was great tragedy surrounding the last season of Atlantis, they'd lost some key members and I think for Sam Carter it was important that she go in not with a firm hand but with a gentle touch and prove herself and prove her worth by her actions and her word, not by, you know, this strong sense of take over. And one who would jell with the rest of the team and tread lightly on their boards and for Amanda, too. It was important that the cast knew that I wasn't just coming over from SG-1 and now I'm gonna take over Atlantis. I wanted to just integrate and I think it worked out very well. I think the mistake might've been that it was a little too gentle at times, that Sam needed to show a bit more backbone. I think there's moments, especially in the more recent episodes that have just aired where Sam does actually stand up and show what she's really made up of but I think it took a little longer to get there than I have thought. So that was my only concern with that that she needed to show a bit more "umph!" and power sooner. But having said that I think the fact that she did come in as gently as she did was massively important, not just for the character but for the fan base.

KT: Yeah, I think it worked very well and it sort of showed.

AT: I hope so. I mean, I knew that there was a lot of people who had a lot of reservations about my character going over. There was a lot of people who thought that Sam Carter shouldn't have gone to Atlantis and I understood that. So that's why it was important to me that I make the transition smoothly and gently. And I have read certainly disparaging things, but I've always read disparaging things about myself and I have to learn not to take them so personally.

KT: Yeah, actually, you seem to have a little bit of "luck"...

AT: I have to spend more time on AmandaTapping.Com!

KT: ... finding a little bit less fortunate things while there are so many good things about you out there. So, please find the good ones because they are actually sort of prevalent.

AT: Yeah. I hope so. I mean, I think it's part of, you know, being an actor and specifically, I think, to sci-fi, too, to fans, God bless them, it's part of the reason why the sci-fi shows are as successful as they are, because sci-fi fans are so...

KT: Loyal, I guess?

AT: So loyal. Loyal in their like of you and loyal in their dislike of you.

KT: Oh God!

AT: But they have opinion. And I totally respect that. And that makes sense to me. I respect that people have an opinion and certainly I'm not out to change the world or make everyone like me. I just have to get used to the fact that not everyone likes me. It's just sometimes a hard pill to swallow when you are... but I am nice, I am a nice person!

KT: You are! I hope I don't need to convince you of that!

AT: You sort of have to. You have to just kinda shut up the emotional part of it and go, "Of course fans have opinions and some of them don't like me and that's okay." But I was painfully aware going into Atlantis that there was a lot of talk on the Internet, you know, positive and negative, about me going over.

KT: The transition was very smooth and she integrated very well and very fast.

AT: I thought so, too, and I credit the cast for just being so welcoming. I mean, they were just wonderful. Everyone.

KT: Hopefully that helps, yeah.

AT: Totally helps. The cast was great and the crew. I mean, everyone, they were fantastic. David Hewlett coming into my trailer and saying, "Really, really glad you're here," and I just, that meant so much to me to have him say that. Everyone was wonderful.

KT: Okay. You've started with Children of a Lesser God, something that I think you started with when you were still acting on stage. And my question is: what kind of character would you still like to play that you haven't had the chance... and I mentioned Children of a Lesser God because that's apparently playing a role of a deaf person. Is there still something that you really want to do but haven't had the chance?

AT: I still want to do period work. I mean, I still would love to do more Shakespeare. I just love the sense of grandeur when you do period pieces. And it feels more like a total immersion into a role because of the costume and the set. I love it. I mean, I've been watching, The Tudors and I would've loved to be in that series. Things like that totally appeal to me. So I will always look for a good period piece. Unfortunately, I don't get asked to do that very often! I spent most of my time in another period.

KT: Oh, I guess you did get to play a little bit of that on Sanctuary.

AT: Yes. Very much enjoyed that. So I think we'll still be exploring the history aspect of Helen Magnus and I'll always look forward to that, but on a big scale I would love to do more period work.

KT: And I seem to remember you have wanted to do Lion in Winter?

AT: Oh, Eleanor of Acquitaine! I still think that, you know, twenty plus years from now, twenty-odd years from now I could do that. I would love to do that part. I still think it's one of the best-written plays.

KT: It's an amazing play.

AT: It's wonderful. It's wonderfully well written. The dialogue between Eleanor and Henry is so acerbic and smart. And yeah, some time in my life I will play Eleanor of Acquitaine.

KT: Fingers crossed.

AT: Yes.

KT: Okay, so from Children of a Lesser God through Stargate to Sanctuary. So you have obviously come such a long way in your life as an actor. And I am sure you would love to, as you just said, to come back and do some stage work. So what kind of strengths do you think you have now that you could use on the stage that you sort of didn't have when you first stepped onto the boards back then?

AT: I think I have a better sense of who I am and therefore a bit more confidence. I am still idealistic enough to buy into the whole fairy tale, to buy into the whole imagery of doing a play. I'd still buy into, even though the audience is there, I put up a fourth wall and I'm there. So I'm still idealistic enough to love that whole aspect of it. I love the thrill of a live audience, but I think now I have a bit more confidence and a bit more sense of who I am that maybe I have a bit more to bring. You know, when I started out, I was so... I was so young and I think I used to equate confidence with arrogance and the two are so completely different and now I understand it's okay to be confident and feel strong in yourself. It doesn't make you an arrogant human being. It's how you deal with your confidence. So having learned that over the course of, you know, my many years, I think I'm better equipped to step on stage with a bit more sense of self.

KT: Sort of along the same lines, actually, you're doing a convention in London this year in May. We're looking very much forward to that...

AT: Yeah! I am, too!

KT: Thank you. First of all, how did you feel in the first place, couple of years ago, when the first edition of AT3, which was back then AT1... I mean, how did it feel to have your own convention?

AT: Well, I am still scared out of my tree that it's just me there. The first one, I honestly thought, "There's not gonna be people who are gonna come just to see me... will I possibly entertain them?... will they get their money's worth?" At the end of AT1 I was so astounded by the generosity of the people that were there, the way that girls run the convention, the way GABIT ran it, girls and John, the way everyone ran the convention, the way that it was intimate and yet big in its scope that I felt like I had the opportunity to really meet each individual fan. And that meant so much to me. So by the end of AT1 I was so bolstered by how smoothly it had gone and how much fun it was and how everyone really did seem to have a good time that AT2 seemed like such a great idea. And then, of course, when it came close to AT2, I was scared again, I was like, "Oh my GOD! (...) to entertain these people and they put all their money and they plan vacations to come here. And then we raised such a phenomenal amount of money for charity that I just thought, "Oh my..."

KT: Oh it was. It was amazing!

AT: Yeah. I was blown away. And I think, now AT3 is coming up and again I am questioning my self-worth, whether or not I have, you know, enough to give and make the weekend worthwhile. What I realized is that's not just about me that people go. And that's a big lesson and that's an important thing to understand that fans come together at these conventions often to see each other and the fact that there's a guest there is kind of a nice side, but it's the fan connection, it's the... I'm trying to think of a... it's the social network of...

KT: It is. It's true. And, actually, to say what I have actually heard myself at the first one and at the second one. I think there's a general connection in terms of people being really lovely. I really really do mean that.

AT: I think I am really lucky in that sense that my fans, the people that come to these events and the smaller events are... genuinely wanna be there and enjoy each other's company. What I wanna say is that even though it's called AT3, I feel as much a guest as everyone else. Like I'm just a part of that social network. Just because I'm the one who stands up on stage and tells stories and hopefully makes people laugh and God, don't make me sing again... truly scrumptous if I am cornered. But I am just a part of that network. I am not the main attraction. I'm just a part of the network. And that takes the pressure off a bit and it makes the whole idea why I love the event because it's so interactive; that makes the whole experience so much real. Does that make sense?

KT: Yeah, it does, actually. I think there's that connection between your personality and the people who come to that particular convention. And I think it's sort of a little bit of a reflection there. It's like, you know, people thinking the same and having the same sort of opinions get together and I think there's a connection there between sort of who you are and the kind of fans that you have.

AT: Yeah, I'm very lucky.

KT: And to boost your spirits today, at both of these - because as you know I've been lucky enough to be on the staff of both two so far and I've also been invited to the third edition of that... lots of people have been coming to talk to me from time to time obviously when there was time and all of them were saying how impressed they were with you as a person.

AT: Oh, that's lovely.

KT: So I just thought I would say that!

AT: Thank you.

KT: You're very welcome. Yeah, looking forward to that. Do you get recognized in Vancouver streets as a person from TV?

AT: I do, sometimes. Now that my hair is longer, it's funny because people do double-takes, but they don't always necessarily know who I am. When my hair was short, I was recognized a lot more, but now that I've grown it out, Atlantis is now starting to be shown, so people are getting used to seeing me with longer hair, I do get recognized. But not as much as I used to when my hair was shorter.

KT: That's probably better.

AT: People don't really care. I mean, an odd person will come up and say, "I really like your show," and that's lovely. But it's not like... I don't go to a lot of industry events and I don't do a huge amount of publicity, so I get to, you know, walk through the park with Olivia and be pretty anonymous. It's kinda the best of both worlds. I get to do what I love to do for a living, meet with a really nice group of fans every now and again and still live a very, you know, sheltered life. So it's the best of all worlds for me.

KT: Yeah, I can imagine so, 'cause it's all positive, isn't it?

AT: It really is. It really is. Knock wood. I just... aw, I just hit myself on the head. Seriously, it is. It's really good. And I don't worry as much about Olivia because I'm not in the public eye.

KT: Good. That's certainly good, yeah. Well, good luck in all of your projects...

AT: Oh, of course you and I will be in touch, Kamil, and I'll keep you posted.

KT: Thank you. Again, good luck with everything, you know, in your personal life and everything you do for us and thank you for sharing your talent with us and your personality and coming to those conventions...

AT: Well, I have to say publicly again, Kamil. Thank you for running my site. You do an amazing job and don't cut this part out of the interview, because I know you! Yeah! See, I'm telling all the fans now - don't let him cut this part out. You do an amazing job and you have always been so lovely and so gracious to me and I totally appreciate it.

KT: I'm just trying to think of what I could say to this now, but nothing comes to mind!

AT: You can't say anything and you can't get out of it! Post that part up on the website!

KT: Thank you so much. You've been such an amazing support over the years. Thank you for that.

AT: Right back at you.


As Colonel Samantha Carter on Stargate SG-1, Amanda Tapping journeyed to distant planets, faced countless alien threats and more than once helped save Earth from destruction both Man-made as well as extraterrestrial in origin. On this particular morning, however, she is facing one of her most difficult ‘missions’ yet – making her little girl Olivia’s Hallowe’en costume. The actress is up for the challenge, though, and, in between cutting fabric, takes time out to talk about her work on Season Four of Stargate Atlantis and Sam Carter’s first year as the new commander of the Atlantis base.

“It’s been a very simple and smooth transition for Sam,” notes Tapping. “They [the writers] haven’t spent a ton of time on her this year, which in a lot of ways has been really good because I don’t think we’re ruffling any feathers here and haven’t had her ‘take over’ in any grand way. Carter just comes in quietly and sets about doing her job. They brought Teal’c [Christopher Judge] over in an episode [Midway] to help out with Ronon [Jason Momoa]. So it was nice for Sam to have her friend back, even for a short time, and Teal’c comments on her command and how well it seems to be going. Really, though, the only story this year that’s shown a bit more character development for Sam is one entitled Trio, which focuses on my character as well as David Hewlett’s [Dr McKay] and Jewel Staite’s [Dr Keller]. It’s basically a three-handed play on one set, so it was a cool episode to work on, and also a very character-driven story.

“But in terms of the overall arc for Carter this year, I think if anything what Season Four will show is a quieter, simpler version of the character. She allows the people under her command to shine. Carter isn’t into creating any waves while she’s on Atlantis. She’s taken over very quietly as a leader, and in a way that’s been a curious transition. What I realized at the end of this year is that Sam has been rather lonely because they haven’t developed a lot of relationships between her and the other characters. That’s partly due to the fact that she is the new leader, and because of that she can’t have many familial relationships with those she’s in command of. I mean, yes, they’ve developed a bit of a relationship with her and Colonel Sheppard [Joe Flanigan], along with the obvious one with McKay, and also given her some scenes with Dr Keller, but there hasn’t been a huge amount of relationship-building. So it’s interesting because it feels like I’m playing quite a different character.”

Tapping faced up to a very real-life fear while filming the fourth season Atlantis story Trio. “Not only were the three of us, David, Jewel and I, acting in one location for the entire episode, but it was a really tough location,” says the actress. “It was a large and very dirty box that was on a gimballed set and at an angle, which meant we had to do heights. We had to climb up onto the rafters of it, which, for me, is a big challenge because I’m terrified of heights. Of course, my character is the only one who’s not supposed to be afraid. So there’s David and Jewel lolling about on these rafters, and meanwhile I’m practically wetting my pants and trying to look confident.

Live in Vancouver long enough and you'll eventually stumble across a weedy crypt resting by a curb, a snow-covered lawn out of season, a New York cab parked in front of a bistro that wasn't there yesterday, or the remains of a downed fake airliner strewn across Spanish Banks.

If you're lucky, you may even find a portal to the farthest reaches of space.

That's what happened to a co-worker of mine who one day came across a familiar, yet unexpected, decorated arch in the middle of the North Vancouver woods he visited regularly.

He had found a Stargate.

Before he was eventually shooed away by a security guard, this co-worker took the liberty of posing with his small dog inside the large set piece for a series of photos, one of which later found its way into the North Shore News.

Finding remnants of TV and film productions about town is nothing new, and odds are you or someone you know has a tale to tell about Stargate. The long running, popular sci-fi drama has been shooting here for more than a decade -- starting with Stargate SG-1 and continuing with Stargate Atlantis -- and one of the show's stars, West Vancouver resident Amanda Tapping, says that's a good thing.

"Aside from the fact that our funding comes from the United States and our first-window broadcaster is in the U.S., other than that it's fully Canadian. This is really a local show. And all the ancillary, all the post-production is done here. Over the course of 11 years now that the Stargate franchise has been operating in Vancouver, it has employed a lot of people. I'm pretty proud of that," she says.

Currently shooting season 5 of Stargate Atlantis at The Bridge Studios in Burnaby, Tapping finds a short window of time between scenes to talk about the longevity of the show. She attributes its success to a gifted group of writers, who "wove this amazing mythology," and who have managed to keep the storylines fresh over the years.

"The show held up its production value, the quality was great and we had so much fun making it, and I think as hokey as that may sound it translated onto the screen, and it made it enjoyable to watch," she says of SG-1.

SG-1 lived its first five seasons on Showtime and then moved to the Sci-fi Channel. It was quickly picked up for syndication around the world, and that drove the momentum of the show, along with the legions of fans who stuck by it, explains Tapping.

"And sci-fi fans are pretty stalwart in their support," she adds.

Stargate SG-1 became the longest running American Sci-Fi series on TV, and it was the only series ever to receive the United States Air Force seal of approval. Tapping played Major Samantha Carter on SG-1 for 10 years alongside MacGyver alumnus Richard Dean Anderson, and a group of regulars who made up the military team exploring a network of Stargates that lead to other worlds.

Tapping then reprised her role for a full season of Atlantis, and is returning for a few of episodes in Season 5. She also appears in the straight-to-DVD feature Stargate: The Ark of Truth, being released Tuesday, March 11. The DVD (along with a second feature to be released in the summer) wraps up a major storyline (the Ori arc) from seasons nine and 10 of SG-1. The resolution of the storyline will allow for future stand-alone movies that don't have to keep reaching back into the mythology of the show, explains Tapping.

She adds that it was "a blast" reuniting with the SG-1 cast.

"These people become not just your friends, but your family, and such a part of your life. It was fantastic getting back together for the DVD. It was so much fun."

A native of Toronto, Tapping moved to Vancouver to shoot SG-1 and decided to stay. She has worked on various projects over the years, but admits when she first graduated from theatre school she vowed to stay working on the stage, or do only "really, really good art films." She co-founded a comedy troop in Toronto, and followed the comedy circuit there before finally getting an agent and pursuing commercial work.

Tapping describes her path to success as "a slow build" that went from commercials, to one-liners, to guest spots, and included all the usual Canadian suspects (Kung-Fu: The Legend Continues, X-Files, etc.), as well as spots on American projects from big names like Disney.

She says when she auditioned for the role of SG-1's Sam Carter in 1997 there weren't many female characters on TV at the time that were so fully realized.

"She's strong, she's smart, she's capable, she's unapologetic for it," says Tapping of the character. "I like her because she's really well-rounded. Even from the start she wasn't a stereotypical female sci-fi character. She had a lot more going on. And over the course of the years obviously the writers have really rounded her out as a human being and as a woman. And (she was) also just so physical too, which really appealed to me."

Tapping played the role for the run of the show's 10 years, and is appearing in only a few episodes of Atlantis this season.

She is scheduled to start shooting 13 episodes of a new show called Sanctuary, also a sci-fi series, at the end of March. She also serves as executive producer for the show, which had its premiere on the Internet last May, and has since been picked up by the Sci-Fi Channel and TMN.
With a $4 million budget for the pilot, Sanctuary earned a nod from the Guinness Book of World Records for having the highest cost for a web-produced show.

"It's such an interesting model. And I think it is the way that things are going to be going. We were riding the crest of that wave," says Tapping of using the web to broadcast the pilot. "And I'm not going to say that TV will ever become obsolete because I don't think that it will, but a lot of people are going to the web for their entertainment. We just wanted to try it out."

After three sci-fi series, Tapping is looking forward to possibly more Stargate features, and says she is also itching to do a period piece.

"I'd love to do a period drama. Starting out on stage and doing a lot of classic theatre, I'd love to get back to that."  

ARTICLE - ING (March 20)
http://uk.tv.ign.com/articles/861/861274p1.html

Amanda Tapping must have the biggest and best office in the SCI FI Channel building… or at least the nicest pension plan. For the Canadian actress has proven to be a huge asset to the network, anchoring not just the long-lived Stargate SG-1 series as Colonel Samantha Carter, but also jumping in as a regular cast member on that series' spin-off, Stargate: Atlantis, and now appearing in the direct-to-DVD movies that are based on the franchise as well. Additionally, she's got a new series coming to SCI FI in the fall called Sanctuary. IGN TV caught up with the actress at this week's SCI FI Channel upfront event in New York to discuss her current career path towards absolute SCI FI dominance.

"Sam Carter, after [the DVD movie] The Ark of Truth goes to Stargate: Atlantis," explains Tapping. "So for all of season 4 I was the commander of the base. And then at the beginning of season 5… I can't tell you what happens! But I'm not going to be as regular on Atlantis, so I can do my new series Sanctuary."

Sanctuary, which began as a web-only series, was recently picked up by SCI FI for a 13-episode commitment for cable broadcast. She'll be recurring on Atlantis for a time while focusing mostly on the new show.

"We shot a pilot that went on the web for eight webisodes," says the actress, who adds that production on the proper series begins next month. Tapping stars as a character named Dr. Helen Magnus in the new show.

"She's awesome," says Tapping. "She's 157 years old, a doctor from Victorian England with a very interesting past. She's eccentric and very sexy and she runs a sanctuary for abnormals, which is what she calls them, all the disparate and strange creatures out there. She studies them for scientific purposes and is aided by her daughter, who is a kick-ass babe, and a young psychiatrist that she brings onboard."

Naturally, though, a character who is 157 years old is going to have at least a bit of baggage that they carry around with them…

"Her backstory is that she was engaged to Jack the Ripper, as you do," laughs Tapping. "He was actually one of her first patients. So there's a lot of mythology woven around her. She's been around for so long, so we'll dive into different decades."

The show will be shot almost entirely on greenscreen, ala 300, bringing a fantastical feel to the proceedings.

"It's not quite photo-real," she says. "It has a very gaming, Sin City quality to it. So it's got this cool sort of comic-book aspect. It's very dark, and it's unlike anything that's ever been done on television."

In fact, the new show represented a conflict for Tapping, despite the fact that it and Atlantis are both SCI FI properties now.

"I wanted to go back to Atlantis and they offered me a very nice contract," she says. "But I have to go with my new show. So I found myself in the unenviable position of having to turn down a contract!"

Anyway, Tapping says that the success of The Ark of Truth and the fact that the Stargate team has already shot their second direct-to-DVD movie means that Sam Carter isn't going away any time soon…

"Stargate: Continuum comes out in July, and we're hopeful [there will be more]," says Tapping. "I think in a perfect world we'll see more. I gotta love sci-fi fans, man! They went out and bought this one, God bless them."

Sanctuary begins airing in October and Stargate: The Ark of Truth is out on DVD now. Go pick up a copy -- for Amanda's sake!

ARTICLE - Daily Press (March 22) -
http://www.thedailypress.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=953457&archive=true

Next to giving birth to daughter Olivia three years ago, shooting "Stargate: Continuum" in the Arctic Ocean was the most extraordinary experience of Amanda Tapping's life.

The 42-year-old Canadian actress found herself with limited cast and crew on a drifting ice floe for eight days in March of 2007 to shoot scenes of a nuclear submarine breaking through the ice. It was frigidly cold. They were all wary of polar bears, which had been spotted nearby and were the reason co-star Christopher Judge refused to participate (he claims to have an aversion to be eaten by bears). They lived in plywood shacks. It was the ultimate in roughing-it.

Yet Tapping found herself humbled before the magnificence of nature. "It was just a really rugged, beautiful, harsh, pristine environment," she tells Sun Media.

"The clarity of thought to me up there is amazing, because there are no planes flying overhead and no cellphones and no sirens or car horns. There's nothing. It is just absolutely pure. So it makes you focus, which allows you to have these profound moments to realize our very important insignificance, if that makes any sense. You realize we are nothing."

Humans need to be reminded of that nothingness from time to time, Tapping tells Sun Media.

"I had a lot of those moments because there was little to distract me. It was life altering. It was unbelievable. It was the most exciting thing I've ever done in my career, by far."

INTERVIEW - SCIFI TV (April)
http://www.scifitv.com.au/blog/2008/04/
amanda-tapping-interview-the-ark-of-truth-sanctuary-and-more/

Amanda Tapping, who plays Samantha Carter on Stargate: SG1 and now on Season 4 of Stargate: Atlantis, has also been burrowing away on her new show, Sanctuary, which was once the most expensive web-exclusive show ever produced, but has now been picked up by the SCI FI Channel US. Before she started working on that, though, she had to tie up a few loose ends on Stargate: The Ark of Truth.

The Ark of Truth is the DVD movie that ties up the final story threads of SG1's tenth season, it's joined by Continuum, the next SG DVD movie, that has fans slathering at the bit. The Ark of Truth is out now, and has recieved a tremendous reception. Check out our review (and our fan forum) for confirmation!

Hello Amanda! It's been quite a year for you!

It has in-deedy-doody! The last thing we talked about when last we spoke was you cooking.
You'd been smoking some fish and were coming up with some new recipes. Have you come up with a new specialty this year?

(laughs) No I haven't! I've been too busy making movie and TV shows. But I have a wicked dialling finger, for ordering.

Can you tell us anything about more Stargate movies and TV series?

Well, nothing as yet, but we've been really bolstered by Ark of Truth sales, so we're hoping that will sway the higher-ups decisions for more movies.

If Continuum had some more sequels, you'd definitely be on board?

Oh, in a heartbeat!

What can you tell us about Stargate: Universe?

I've heard about it, there have been talks about it, but I don't know any details about it. They're not talking to me, when they're talking! (laughs) Everything I know - I read on the internet.

ACTING, DIRECTING AND PRODUCING

Let's talk about things you DO know about. With your move into directing and producing, (on Atlantis and Sanctuary) you're getting to the stage where you're no longer one of these childlike actors...

(laughs) I'm playing with the big boys now!

Is that frightening? Do you now go look at your previous producers and say 'oh my god, I had no idea!'.

I actually went up to Joe Mallozi and Paul Mullie on my first day of Atlantis because I was directing an episode and went 'I just want to apologise unequivocally for every time I came in to your office and asked a stupid question!' I get it. It's been a huge and very fast and very bumpy learning curve. But as I got into it I actually realised I knew a lot more than I thought I did. And I also know a lot more than I ever wanted to. (laughs!) It's an interesting business, I have to say. There were times when I went 'man, I wish I could just be an actress again - I used to think that was stressful'. (laughs) Not so much!

What about Sanctuary? People are very excited. Last time we chatted, it was on the internet, and now it's been picked up by SCI FI (US).

They've ordered 13 episodes. It's been picked up in Canada and in the UK. So next we'll be selling it across the world. We've actually had a lot of interest from Australia, so hopefully you'll be seeing it there.

Congratulations. Fingers crossed.

Thank you.

Do you see yourself heading more and more behind the camera?

For the first season, no. But I've been doing a lot of breaking the stories and being in the writing room with the guys. I've been very hands-on with the crew, and getting the show up and running. Once we get the season up and running I'll just be focusing on the character, but hopefully after that I'll be directing in the next season.

ATLANTIS SEASON 5

Season 5 Atlantis has seen some changes, to say the least, encouraging some fans but outraging others. What's your take on the Robert Picardo controversy?

Well, first of all, I love him. I can't back off from the fact that I really like him as a human being. And I think he's a wonderful actor. I think he's the perfect addition. The character of Woolsey creates such great character tension which is what the Stargate writers are so good at. The banter.
Making it not only poignant but funny. It's what makes people love the Stargate franchise. It feeds perfectly into that, in my opinion.

You've got Woolsey inside the Wraith outside, what more do you want?

(laughs) Exactly! It's like a perfect balance of tension.

Stargate: The Ark of Truth seems to have worked well - it's a bit like a Stargate Greatest Hits mix.

That's true. I never thought of it that way. Yes, we pulled the best and the biggest and went for it!

'ACCORDING TO A POLAR BEAR YOU'RE AN UPRIGHT SEAL' And Continuum looks set to be hugely popular as well. Beau Bridges didn't get to go to the North Pole, but you did.

I did.

But did any of the Canadian actors actually notice the change in temperature?

(laughs) Ohhhh, believe me, you could tell.

Is it true you had to bunk with, shockingly enough, other actors?

It's true! We were in these 'hooches' which were 8 feet by 8 feet. Boxes. Which we lived in with kerosene heaters and three bunk beds, so it slept six. That's where we made our own drinking water, in the hooches, melting the snow.

Is it true that Christopher Judge didn't get his own private hooch and that's why he didn't go?

(laughs) No. It's because Christopher has a huge aversion to cold and being eaten by polar bears. It was when we had our 'prep' meeting. Four or five hours, before we went up north. Two guys were talking about what to expect and what the dangers were. It was not a funny meeting.

Things came up like 'according to a polar bear you're an upright seal', 'this is what happens if you fall through the ice', and as the meeting wore on I kept looking over at Christopher and he shook his head and said 'no way'. 'No waaaay!' (laughs) After the meeting I went up to him and said 'you're nto going up north are you?' 'Not a hope!'. (laughs). So it was just Ben and I for the whole time, and then Rick (Richard Dean Anderson) came up for the last three days. But honestly, I wouldn't trade the experience for anything. And I would go back in a heartbeat. It's just a year ago today that we were coming back from the shoot.

A WORKING MUM

These days, with your life spiralling out of control, or should we say, rocketing into the stratosphere of success...

I prefer spiralling out of control (laughs) but I'll use the other one!

Are you going to have any time at all to romp in the woods with (dog) George and send time with (daughter) Olivia?

Well, actually, the last 6 or 7 months when I haven't been shooting, it gives me a lot more time. I've been picking my hours and maximising my time with Olivia so it's been the perfect balance for me. Once we start shooting, it becomes a lot more hectic, but we have weekends. It's about
time management. It's about hitting the driveway at home, making sure the cell phone is off, and just being fully engaged when you walk in the door. So maybe there's not the same quantity of time once I start shooting but the quality is full on. It's the best you can do, being a working mum!

COMING TO AUSTRALIA

A lot of local fans are wondering if you'll ever come down to Australia. Would you come down given a break in your schedule?

I've actually been once before, quite a few years ago and Alan (husband) and I have often talked about going back. I would love to take Olivia there, which means a longer trip. But given the chance, I would go back to Australia in a heartbeat. Australia and the Arctic. The two A's. So yes, I hope to see the fans in Australia one day soon.We can all hope.

And I just want to say thank you to all the Australian fans too. I get such wonderful letters and huge support from them. It doesn't go unnoticed or unappreciated. I'm very grateful for it.

INTERVIEW - IGN (April 10) -
http://uk.dvd.ign.com/articles/865/865943p1.html

The woman who has made smart sexy for the past decade is once again fighting brutal enemies in distant galaxies as Stargate SG-1 returns with the ultimate voyage, Stargate: The Ark of Truth. Award-winning actress (Edit - the seasoned pro he is, Beau Bridges won the Emmy awards, not Tapping) Amanda Tapping, is back as Sam Carter; the sexy scientist with one of the bleakest romance histories in space.

The final series of Stargate SG-1 may have drawn to a close but that is not the end of the story. This week sees the Australian release of the first of two DVD feature-length adventures. Stargate: the Ark of Truth concludes the series finale and sends SG-1 on their final mission to defeat the sinister Ori force.

Tapping talks to IGN AU about sci-fi women, shooting in the Arctic and over ten years of being Carter.

IGN AU: Where does the Ark of Truth fit into the Stargate universe?

Amanda Tapping: Ark of Truth is the perfect big bang round up to Season 10 of SG-1. It follows up the Ori story line in a huge way and takes place prior to me going to Atlantis.

IGN AU: The character of Sam Carter has been a part of your life for over a decade now, how has she developed over the years?

Amanda Tapping: I think it is safe to say she is a fully realised woman without being apologetic for it; without being afraid of who she is. She has a much better sense of humour than she used to as well. She has warmed up a lot and grown into her own skin which is not dissimilar to what has happened to me and what happens to a lot of women in their thirties. You come into your own. She doesn't feel like she has to explain herself as much and she is comfortable being part of a team; she is comfortable being a leader; and she is comfortable being a follower. There is no ego to that. I also think she is a bit more aware of people's feelings and not as scientific as she used to be. I like her a lot more now that she has become a fully realised character than I did at the beginning.

IGN AU: Did you go into this role with preconceptions about the portrayal of women in the sci-fi genre?

Amanda Tapping: I found the portrayal of women quite stereotypical particularly early sci-fi. Women either played a very sexy alien or a bitchy leader. It was pretty one dimensional and linear to be honest. Uhura was the first character where you sort of went ooh she is intelligent but she still had to wear the short skirt. I think Captain Janeway blasted it out a lot too in terms of being a strong leader. I went in feeling that sci-fi had been very linear in its thinking, television in general can be very linear in its thinking.

Tapping in her form-fitting fatigues.

IGN AU: What do you think it is about Stargate that has given it this phenomenal longevity?

Amanda Tapping: This is going to sound like the most esoteric answer in the world but it honestly just felt like there was some sort of magic when we all got together, There was something about the chemistry between the four actors and the writers and the mythology they were able to weave. At the end of the day, we all had a good time. I honestly think that that joy about our work translated onto the screen and made it kind of fun to watch. And I know that sounds really flaky but we did have a lot of fun making this show and I think that made it a lot of fun to watch. The writing was amazing, the mythology was great, the production values, the special effects they all helped make the show what it is.

I can honestly say there was not a single day when I didn't laugh. That is crazy after ten years of shooting a series. It wasn't always sunshine and roses, we had out moments, but still, even when we were in the throes of those moments, we could still laugh.

IGN AU: You obviously have a very healthy online fan base. Do you Google yourself?

Amanda Tapping: Yeah I have in the past, but I don't any more. You know, when people compliment you, you don't really pay much attention but when people say something nasty you carry it with you! I read a couple of not so terrific things and immediately thought, oh they hate me…I can't go on the boards anymore. Then I had some people send me some nice things and show me the nice things people were saying about me which is great but it is just so much easier to believe the negative than the positive. I have to say that the people who are Amanada Tapping fans, and I have had the opportunity to meet quite a few of them, are really incredible. God bless them because they really give me the strength to carry on which again is a hokey, esoteric answer. You are my hokey, esoteric interview! They are funny and generous and all those things that you really hope you reflect. I see that in the fans that I meet and I am so thrilled. I have been very lucky in my personal interaction with the fans.

IGN AU: Does working on the movie feel like another day at the office or is it a very different experience?

Amanda Tapping: It does feel like another day in office in that the chemistry is still there and we are still having a great time doing it. In some ways it is heightened. It is like another day at the office but on steroids. The sets are bigger and the scope of the movie is bigger and the budget is bigger which mean we can take more time. And because it is such a short shoot time we all really wanted to enjoy it. This was especially true shooting Continuum because we didn't know if there would be another one. We just soaked up every ounce of the experience.

IGN AU: And I imagine that shooting in the Arctic was indeed quite the experience.

Amanda Tapping: It was the best experience of my career, by far. We shot one year ago exactly and it was unbelievable.

Amanda Tapping off-duty, in her civilian gear.

IGN AU: What is a typical day like when you are shooting in that kind of environment?

Amanda Tapping: There is no typical shooting day up there. We would just grab shots when we could. Sometimes the wind was way too strong to shoot. We hit -68 degrees one day with the wind chill. It was blowing white and the cameras were freezing up. It was crazy. We shot a couple of shots at sunset because the winds had calmed down but it was literally guerrilla shooting. It would be like 'Get out there now and shoot shoot shoot…the sun is setting" and as prepared as you are every day, and we were prepared, it was unpredictable. We would have these meetings every night where we would say if the weather is good and the submarine can surface and this happens and that happens, then we will shoot this scene. And if this doesn't happen we will shoot that and if it all falls apart then we will just have a very heavy day the next day.

It was pretty crazy. There was one day when the submarine couldn't surface because the wind was too strong. You would wake up every morning and not know what was going to happen. And the weather changes on a dime up there too so it starts out sunny, you get all the gear out there and you will shooting the first scene after breakfast and then suddenly the wind picks up and its all over.

IGN AU: Can you give us any hints about the future of Stargate? Are there any more films to come?

Amanda Tapping: I would love to be able to give you a hint but I just don't know. Certainly the strength of the sales of Ark of Truth have made us all quite hopeful that the Studio might look at producing another couple of movies. We would all be more than willing to shoot another one so here's hoping. Fingers crossed is all I can tell you.

IGN AU: I am interested to hear about your work with UNICEF.

Amanda Tapping: What I do with UNICEF is more of an educational angle. I go right into local schools and talk to the children about what a quarter means to a child in Tanzania; how much fresh water that buys, how many medical supplies that buys, how much penicillin that buys and how many pencils for the school. I put it into concrete terms for them. I will stand in front of an assembly and say, split yourselves into two groups and the kids will shuffle over. And then I will point to half the room and say that all of you guys are sick because you do not have enough water. And those of you who are healthy, split in half and half of you are in danger of losing your eyesight because of this reason and then break it down until there is only one tiny group of healthy children. They can then relate it to themselves on a more intimate level. I like to go into the schools and speak one on one with the kids. It is very hands on for me.

ARTICLE - Daily Press (April) -
http://www.thedailypress.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?archive=true&e=953454

Proud Canadian actress Amanda Tapping has been playing the same American sci-fi character - Samantha Carter - for 11 years. That covers two TV series and now two direct-to-DVD movies. The risk of tedium and burn-out is obvious.

"Absolutely! Of course," Tapping tells Sun Media about the possibility of getting bored and being boring to fans. "Actually, that is the biggest challenge in playing somebody for so long. The beauty for me is that the writers have always given me something to work with. The challenge for me is to not go on auto-pilot. It would be very easy. So you have to find a whole new way into the character and, every couple of years, you have to do that."

Sci-fi geek boys and fan chicks already know who Samantha Carter is and they love her for it.

For the uninitiated, Carter was one of the core characters throughout the 10 years of the "Stargate: SG-1" series, which docked in 2007 after 211 episodes. She is also featured in "Stargate: Atlantis," the spin-off series.

In addition, Carter is a key player in the two feature-length movies, which Tapping says is her new way in to the character again. The first one, "Stargate: The Ark of Truth," arrived on DVD March 11. The next one, "Stargate: Continuum," is due in the summer.

"The Ark of Truth" gives lie to the notion that all direct-to-DVD movies are crap, throw-aways that could not make it into theatres. While I would not compare it to top-flight, mainstream sci-fi such as the best "X-Men" or "Star Trek" films, it is well made, looks great, is mildly amusing and wraps up the religious fanatics Ori storyline that was left dangling in Season 10 of "Stargate: SG-1."

"The last year has been incredibly challenging, doing both the movies and the new 'Stargate' series," Tapping says from her permanent home in Vancouver, which is also the production base for all the 'Stargates'.

"And I'm involved in a completely different series as well (the all-Canadian "Sanctuary"), which is not at all the Sam Carter character. That is another way to open up creatively.

"So, some actor friends will say: 'Oh my god, how can you do that for 11 years?' And I say: 'How can I not?' I have fun. It's a great gig. It's an interesting, informed, sexy and intelligent character. And I get to stay in a country that I love and raise my family (she shares a three-year-old daughter with her husband of 14 years, Allan Kovacs). Hello? I love living and working in Canada. I'm really proud of that!"

Tapping was born in Essex, England, but arrived in Toronto at age three with her family.

Now 42, Tapping studied drama in Windsor and established her TV career in the 1990s with shows such as "Street Legal," "The Newsroom," "Due South," "Kung Fu: The Legend Continues" and even an episode of "The X-Files."

"Stargate: SG-1" brought her cult stardom.

"I think our fans will embrace them," Tapping says of "The Ark of Truth," much of which was shot around Burnaby, B.C, and "Continuum," which has Arctic scenes shot in March of 2007 on a drifting ice floe in the ocean north of Prudhoe Bay, Alaska.

"They are huge, huge stories and beautifully shot. I mean visually stunning.

"They were shot as films and they were shot on film. We've been used to shooting on HD the last few years (for the two series), so going back to film was really nice. I'm a film purist. I prefer the richness of that."

Richard Dean Anderson, a "Stargate" original who dropped out of the series, is back for "Continuum" and Tapping is delighted. She is also keen on all of her on-going co-stars.

"Ark" features Ben Browder, Christopher Judge, Michael Shanks and Claudia Black. There is a real friendship circle among them.

"I think there was just some sort of magic fairy dust in the air when the whole show came together," Tapping says. "Without sounding trite or hokey about it, it has been a magical experience from Day 1.

"I sound like I'm giving the typical Hollywood actor answer: 'We're just lucky and it's a great show and I love everybody!' But, in fact, that's not far from the truth."

 

About.com -
http://scifi.about.com/od/sanctuary/a/SANC_preview.htm

In advance of the premiere of Sanctuary on Sci Fi, star and executive producer Amanda Tapping talked with reporters about what viewers can expect from this incarnation of the show and how it evolved from a web-only series to a big television production.

On setting up the show for those who missed the webisodes: It's centered around my character, Helen Magnus, who is a 157-year old doctor from Victorian England who runs a sanctuary for all manner of abnormal creatures.

She's pulls into the fray a young forensic psychiatrist named Will Zimmerman who has always sort of thought outside of the box and has therefore been shunned by regular law enforcement agencies but in fact now realizes that the things that he's sort of tried to investigate are now real.

You're kind of seeing a lot of the Sanctuary and a lot of the creatures, and a lot of the mythologies through his eyes as sort of the everyman. But the show has a very graphic novel feel to it.

We're shooting almost photo real, half the time you're not sure if what you're looking at really exists or whether it's a visual effect and sometimes it's very obvious that it's a visual effect and we're shooting with a real graphic style.

I have this really kick ass daughter, Ashley, who is a weapons expert and a martial artist. And, you know, she's kind of the cool factor.

And we draw from characters in history and from this incredible mythology of my back-story.

On the season as a whole: Totally, totally proud of it. I'm really thrilled. I think we have some really killer episodes and I'm proud of the fact that our crew stuck around. We wanted to start in February. We didn't end up starting to shoot until May.

A lot of the people we have are feature quality crew members and features have tried to lure them away and they stayed with the show. And I think it speaks volumes about how much faith people have in this project. So I'm proud of the look of the show and the feel of it, and the attitude on set, and the fun that we had.

There's an episode called "Requiem" which for me personally was the bravest work I've ever done as an actor. And I don't think I would've been able to do that had I not felt so safe. So I mean, I credit the crew and the cast for a phenomenal experience.

On balancing effects versus story: That's the joy of working with people like Damian and Sam Egan because at the heart of it they write really great character centric shows. And Damian and Sam will often go to Lee Wilson, our vis effects producer, and say this is what we want to do. How doable is it?

And, you know, the vis effects sometimes -- and more often than not -- will take a backseat to what's really happening. And when we're shooting in the catacombs under Rome, it's basically it's, "Hey Lee, can you build the catacombs under Rome? Hey Lee, can you build a cathedral?"

But what's happening is really what's happening to the characters. So the hard thing, I think for the writers is sort of marrying more of our creatures and how to make that work because they're interacting with the actors.

And that's the hard thing. But really like I said before, at the end of the day it's about these people -- and even the creatures themselves are heartfelt and intelligent creatures.

So it's about them. It's not really just about the cool effect or what they look like. It's about what's at the heart of it. That sounds kind of hokey, but it's true.

On Helen Magnus's appearance: It was a really conscious choice [to maker her look different from Samantha Carter]. When I first decided to do Helen Magnus it was a real conscious choice to have absolutely no vestige of Sam Carter in this character in terms of everything from her
appearance to her voice, to her walk, to her wardrobe, everything.

I just felt the end to completely reinvent. Partly as a woman, I just felt it was time and as an actress I just felt it was time to just try something completely different. And it's kind of great because I go places and people don't recognize me; people that I've worked with for ten years don't recognize me.

I just shot the final episode of Atlantis last week and I walked onto the set and half the crew didn't know who I was. And I was like sweet, I have accomplished what I set out to accomplish. And then of course I came back with a blonde wig and they went, "Oh hey, Amanda." It was funny.

On how Helen looks so good at age 157: She bathes in Botox. Actually, I'd tell you but I'd have to kill you. Wait until the episode, "The Five," and you'll get it -- you'll get the full meal deal on Helen Magnus and how she came to be who she is and why she's still around.

The beauty of being given a 13-episode arc for our first season is that we've been able to sort of pull these stories out, like just create this huge mythology that we couldn't do in, you know, the two hours of webisodes.

We sort of packed a lot into those two hours. But now we're able to sort of draw that mythology out.

On involving real historical characters: It's part of the mythology. The episode of "The Five" deals with these five characters from history who have come together, these forward-thinking scientists and how they've come to be who they are; Jack the Ripper being one of them, Helen being another one, and a few other very cool characters from history. We also bring in, and it's now common knowledge, Nikola Tesla is one of the characters that comes to light in the Sanctuary.

So we start with that as a jumping off point. But the main focus of the show is the creatures within the Sanctuary. And it can be anything -- we have a beautiful episode called "Edward" where it's a young boy who is an autistic savant and his ability -- he's like a human camera. Every episode has a very interesting focal character that we're dealing with.

So we're pulling from that. We're pulling from sort of the things that go bump in the night mythologies that we've all grown up with. We pull from that. We pull from history.

And then we're also just taking really remarkable human beings and sort of shedding a light on that idea.

On the family storyline with Helen and Ashley Magnus: It's really an interesting relationship between these two. I mean, first of all -- and this is something that I'm still trying to wrap my head around how to play this out but -- Helen made a choice to bring this child into the world knowing that she could quite possibly watch her grow old and die -- not knowing if Ashley has the same gift that Helen has, not knowing if Ashley will have the longevity.

So she brings this child into the world knowing that she may lose here which as a parent is like the worst thing ever to imagine your children dying before you.

So starting from that as your jumping off point of a relationship is just a weird place to start. And then what happens is they're comrades. They're colleagues.

She'll fight to the end of the earth to protect her daughter but in the end of the day, it's often her daughter protecting her. Which again turns the whole mother/daughter dynamic on its head. There's a huge amount of respect and there's a huge amount of chemistry between these two women.

And then there's times when the mother/daughter dynamic flashes up and it sort of feels weird. It's like Ashley be careful out there, you know, and yet you're sending her out to fight a, you know, an invisible monster in the caves underneath the city. It's like this weird dynamic.

So at the end of the day there's a huge amount of respect but there are times when you'll see flashpoints between the two of them and it makes sense only because they work so closely together.

And because of what they're facing everyday, there's these flashpoints. But at the end of it there's a massive amount of love. But again, I have to stress that it's a weird jumping off point because she's made this choice to bring this child into the world.

On whether the web series was intended as a springboard to TV: Well we, in our infinite naivety, actually envisioned staying on the web. We never really set it up to be a model for a television series.

Our initial hope was that the shifting paradigm that this convergence of new media, we were going to do games and having, you know, a full social networking site so that Sanctuary for all became a place where fans could go not just to watch the show, but to get involved in other aspects.

And in ideology it's great and monetization not so much. And we wanted to make a really spectacular show. We spent a lot of money and it needed it. We wanted to do something that was really big and really flashy, and that we would all, you know, be proud to watch.

Now we're on TV and it makes sense. And we're all very happy to be here. But I think still our goal is to get back onto the web in a different presence.

On whether they have a multi-season plan: We don't actually. I'm sure that Damian actually in his head has a grander scheme for the whole thing. But at this stage, we've sort of started mapping out where we want certain character relationships to go.

It's that superstitious feeling of let's not plan too far ahead because we may be derailed, you know. Like let's think really intelligently how we want this series to move forward.

We don't want to be rushed into anything but also by the same token, people are like, "What would happen in Season 2?" and I'm like. "I don't want to talk about Season 2."

Let's hope next year we get a pickup for Season 2. Let's get through Season 1. Come on everybody, just calm down, calm down. I'm a bit of a fatalist.

We've all been in this industry long enough to know. I mean, I just kept thinking Stargate would get canceled and it never did. And the one year that we thought it would get picked up again we got canceled.

So I'm of the mind that I'm just going to think that -- you know, think the worst and be really pleasantly surprised. But I think Damian has a grander scheme for it. We just have to dig it out of his little brain.

On mythology she wants to do: I've always loved the vampire mythology and I've always loved the idea of that kind of creature, a sort of totally without social conscience and how that works. Vampires, they're the scariest thing I can possibly think of. And so we sort of explored that
mythology actually already in the first 13.

But I like that idea. I like the idea of what happens with a creature that seemingly has no social conscience, seemingly has just a selfish agenda and then you find out that maybe it's not necessarily that at all.

On whether Helen thinks her longevity is a gift or curse: Both. I think ultimately she still sees that there's work to be done and she still sees that her quest is worthy, so she needs to be around for it. But she often talks about the curse of it and that's what I alluded to before, this swing of
incredible loneliness.

When you watch everyone you've ever known grow old and die -- all your lovers and your friends -- I think that her heart is very well protected now because if it wasn't, she would be heartbroken all the time, watching these incredible people that she spends time with. So I think she's very guarded because she doesn't want to give people too much for fear that it -- you know, she'll be heartbroken in the end.

On the secret of who Ashley's father is: Ashley does find out. She had to. I mean, that's not something that you can just keep playing out. It's like beating a dead horse after awhile, the idea that Ashley doesn't know who her father is. So she does, she does find out who her father is.

And it's interesting because it dealt with by not being dealt with, which means that it's something that's going to come up and bite Helen in the ass.

On differences between the webisodes and the show: What the move to television has done has given us a lot more freedom and a lot more room, and a lot more time to be honest, to spread out this mythology and to open up the mythology.

The web series was so compact and so much information was given in that short period of time that I don't think the stories were given as much breadth as they needed.

And so here we're able to breathe a lot more life into these - into specific areas of the story. I don't think that people who have watched the web series will be disappointed.

TAPPING EXPLAINS
STARGATE ATLANTIS DEPARTURE
OFFICIAL STARGATE SG1/ATLANTS MAGAZINE JUNE 

To everything there is a season... With Colonel Samantha Carter not staying on as leader of the Atlantis expedition, Amanda Tapping recently discussed the decisions which led to her leaving the series, the largest being the opportunities of Sanctuary. Tapping will both star and executive-produce the SCI FI series.

"I just want to address this right off," Amanda said. "It was a very difficult decision, not to say that I walked away from Stargate: Atlantis, because I haven't. I still want to be a part of the show. They offered me a very nice contract with the caveat being that I had to make Stargate: Atlantis my first priority, and I totally understood why in terms of timing and scheduling, but I couldn't do it because I knew there was a good possibility thatSanctuary would get worldwide television broadcast. Had I said 'Yes' to what the folks at Stargate: Atlantiswanted, I would've essentially shut down Stage 3 Media and Sanctuary. So, as much as we tried to make it work, and executive producer Joe Malozzi and I were on the phone a lot trying to work things out, we just decided at the end of the day that the timing just was not going to happen. He was very cool. They were wonderful."

Tapping has been part of the Stargate franchise for well over a decade. She will make more than one appearance in season five, but still, her central role in the franchise has come to a close. "The last time I got off phone with Joe I was just bawling. I hung up and started crying and my husband said, 'What? What?' And I said, 'Oh, my God. 11 years. This is huge.'It's been my life, my home, my family - literally - for well over a decade. But the beauty of it is I haven't walked away from it completely. It's not like I turned my back on Stargate: Atlantis. I said, 'Let's see what we can do to make this work.' I will make myself available."

Tapping has always felt that the fans are the life-blood of the franchise, and she has been concerned with their opinions. "I had this whole thought that, 'Oh, my God, the fans are going to hate me,' When I went on to Stargate: Atlantis, in a lot of people's minds I took over for another character, which is an unfair assessment because that's not exactly how it came down. That my going to Stargate: Atlantis precipitated other people leaving is a popular misconception. And now I'm walking away. And I worry they'll think, 'Who the hell is she to do that?' Maybe I concern myself too much with what the fans are saying because I take it so personally, and I've always believed that the fans are the heart of the show - and that's not lip service. I truly believe that. I played out the worse case scenario in my head. As soon as this announcement is made, there are going to be people who are going to slag me off, 'You abandoned this. '"Still, Amanda believes now may be the proper time to move on to other projects, while still keeping her foot in Stargate: Atlantis's door. "I think at the end of the day it's a perfect compromise," Tapping told us. "I'm moving on to my own series. It's a whole new role for me. It's exciting, and it's an interesting show, and I think the fans will love it. I'm not turning my back on Stargate. I'm certainly still a part of the franchise. Sam Carter is still very much a part of me. I think my Polyanna view of things that's the perfect-case scenario. And I just hope a lot of the fans will eventually see it that way, too."
 

ARTICLE - IGN (July 21) 
http://uk.tv.ign.com/articles/892/892480p1.html

With her Stargate days (mostly) behind her, Amanda Tapping is coming back to Sci Fi Channel. This time it's with Sanctuary, a series that is pioneering some new techniques for television production. Tapping plays "Dr. Helen Magnus," who "has dedicated her life to tracking abnormals, exotic creatures that hide among us. Aided in her mission are her fearless daughter Ashley, her new recruit, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Will Zimmerman."

The panel featured Tapping and Robert Dunne who plays Zimmerman, producers Sam Egan, Martin Wood and Damian Kindler. Sanctuary is notable because of its production method. The show will shoot on a green screen stage and utilize digital sets much in the way Sin City and 300 were made. It's a revolutionary step for television, and one the series employed when it began as a web series before making the move to Sci Fi as a TV series.

Tapping talked about working in this way, and how it "ups the stakes" for her as a performer. "It's huge," she said. "It's not that much different than actually shooting on a real set, once you get over the chroma key green headache, which lasts about three days.Our director of photography David Gettis is an artist, and he paints with light. It's the best way I can describe it. You don't feel like you're standing in front of a greenscreen. You actually feel like you're in the catacombs under Rome or on an island off Scottland. We go everywhere. Once you get used to it, it doesn't feel like you're on a sound stage anymore."
- Sci Fi

Amanda Tapping and Robin Dunne of Sanctuary.

Kindler talked about the shows origins as a web series and the evolution into a cable TV series. "We basically introduced the concept of the series with the webisodes and really kind of cut our teeth on how we'd like to try to shoot it," he said. "The series on television is a complete overhaul, like a re-boot of the concept. Even though it has the same cast and the same concept, it's much broader in scope and deeper and the characters are more dimensional. I think it's for more accessible to a wider audience. We're really proud of it because the concept withstands all that brilliantly. In fact, it absolutely flourishes when you begin to add all these dimensions to it. It doesn't need to stay this sort of rainy, dark thing. You can do all sorts of things with it and it begins even cooler."

Tapping plays Magnus with an English accent, and she takes about how this came about and what it reveals about the character. "It's part of her history," she says. "Helen Magnus dates back to Victorian era England, and it's an important part of who she is. It informs a lot about her eccentricities and where she came from. She's from that era. She's was one of the first females who was allowed to audit the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons. She's one of those people who just pushes theenvelope and the boundaries of science and technology and thinking and has always done so."

"So it was important to me as an actor that she stayed true to that part of her lineage, and one of her eccentricities is that she fiercely holds on to the Britishisms that she was born with. So she will only drink tea, and she speaks with the Queen's English even though I've tried to broaden the accent a little bit because she's lived around the world and is 157 years old."


Although Tapping has said she'll likely play Samantha Carter in some iteration of Stargate in the future, she talked about what it was like to leave her regular role behind. "It's like leaving home. I used this analogy earlier today. It's like you have the option of—and I did have the option of going to a community college and staying in my parents' house, i.e., the Stargate franchise or traveling across the country and getting a dorm room and going to a different university, which is what I've chosen to do. I've just chosen really weird roommates."

"It was a huge emotional thing," she continued. "Honestly, many tears and many "Oh, my God." It was a huge leap of faith, and when I chose to sort of embrace the idea that Sanctuary was where I wanted to be, we didn't have a television pickup at the time, and I was offered a very nice Stargate contract, but it really was time to make a leap. And I so believe in this project, and I so believe that if, you know, it weren't SCI FI, which was the network we were hopeful for, that somebody would embrace it, and so I turned down Stargate before I knew where we were going to end up. And we ended up exactly where we hoped. It was a very soft landing for me because I know this network well, and I'm really comfortable here."
- Sci Fi Sanctuary

The producers talked about the large canvass the green screen method allows them to use. Wood said "One of the fun things about it, too, is that the difference between doing a television series on green screen and doing a movie on green screen is you tend to be—a movie tends to be a one-off kind of set. You're in this set, this is what happens, so if Robin runs too far, it doesn't mean he's run through a wall. It just means you don't put the wall there when you're actually creating it."

"When you have standing sets that are virtual that you have to keep going back to, that's when it becomes tricky for the actors because now it's like there's no door. So even though you want to exit that way, there's no door there. You have to come this way and go around here, and you're going around little tiny pieces of green tape on the floor."

Egan added "The real joy of green screen, for me, happens not on the stage, but in the story room where fundamentally as a producer, writer, storyteller, you're not bound by what you can build, but only by your imagination."

ARTICLE - IGN (July 22)
http://uk.tv.ign.com/articles/892/892480p1.html

Inside Sci Fi's Sanctuary

With her Stargate days (mostly) behind her, Amanda Tapping is coming back to Sci Fi Channel. This time it's with Sanctuary, a series that is pioneering some new techniques for television production. Tapping plays "Dr. Helen Magnus," who "has dedicated her life to tracking abnormals, exotic creatures that hide among us. Aided in her mission are her fearless daughter Ashley, her new recruit, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Will Zimmerman."

The panel featured Tapping and Robert Dunne who plays Zimmerman, producers Sam Egan, Martin Wood and Damian Kindler. Sanctuary is notable because of its production method. The show will shoot on a green screen stage and utilize digital sets much in the way Sin City and 300 were made. It's a revolutionary step for television, and one the series employed when it began as a web series before making the move to Sci Fi as a TV series.

Tapping talked about working in this way, and how it "ups the stakes" for her as a performer. "It's huge," she said. "It's not that much different than actually shooting on a real set, once you get over the chroma key green headache, which lasts about three days.

Our director of photography David Gettis is an artist, and he paints with light. It's the best way I can describe it. You don't feel like you're standing in front of a greenscreen. You actually feel like you're in the catacombs under Rome or on an island off Scottland. We go everywhere. Once you get used to it, it doesn't feel like you're on asound stage anymore."
- Sci Fi Amanda Tapping and Robin Dunne of Sanctuary.

Kindler talked about the shows origins as a web series and the evolution into a cable TV series. "We basically introduced the concept of the series with the webisodes and really kind of cut our teeth on how we'd like to try to shoot it," he said. "The series on television is a complete overhaul, like a re-boot of the concept. Even though it has the same cast and the same concept, it's much broader in scope and deeper and the characters are more dimensional. I think it's for more accessible to a wider audience. We're really proud of it because the concept withstands all that brilliantly. In fact, it absolutely flourishes when you begin to add all these dimensions to it. It doesn't need to stay this sort of rainy, dark thing. You can do all sorts of things with it and it begins even cooler."

Tapping plays Magnus with an English accent, and she takes about how this came about and what it reveals about the character. "It's part of herhistory," she says. "Helen Magnus dates back to Victorian era England, and it's an important part of who she is. It informs a lot about her eccentricities and where she came from. She's from that era. She's was one of the first females who was allowed to audit the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons. She's one of those people who just pushes the envelope and the boundaries of science and technology and thinking and has always done so."

"So it was important to me as an actor that she stayed true to that part of her lineage, and one of her eccentricities is that she fiercely holds on tothe Britishisms that she was born with. So she will only drink tea, and she speaks with the Queen's English even though I've tried to broaden the accent a little bit because she's lived around the world and is 157 years old."


Although Tapping has said she'll likely play Samantha Carter in some iteration of Stargate in the future, she talked about what it was like to leave her regular role behind. "It's like leaving home. I used this analogy earliertoday. It's like you have the option of—and I did have the option of going to a community college and staying in my parents' house, i.e., the Stargate franchise or traveling across the country and getting a dorm room and going to a different university, which is what I've chosen to do. I've just chosen really weird roommates."

"It was a huge emotional thing," she continued. "Honestly, many tears and many "Oh, my God." It was a huge leap of faith, and when I chose to sort of embrace the idea that Sanctuary was where I wanted to be, we didn't have a television pickup at the time, and I was offered a very nice Stargate contract, but it really was time to make a leap. And I so believe in this project, and I so believe that if, you know, it weren't SCI FI, which was the network we were hopeful for, that somebody would embrace it, and so I turned down Stargate before I knew where we were going to end up. And we ended up exactly where we hoped. It was a very soft landing for me because I know this network well, and I'm really comfortable here."
- Sci Fi Sanctuary

The producers talked about the large canvass the green screen method allows them to use. Wood said "One of the fun things about it, too, is that the difference between doing a television series on green screen and doing a movie on green screen is you tend to be—a movie tends to be a one-off kind of set. You're in this set, this is what happens, so if Robin runs too far, it doesn't mean he's run through a wall. It just means you don't put the wall there when you're actually creating it."

"When you have standing sets that are virtual that you have to keep going back to, that's when it becomes tricky for the actors because now it's like there's no door. So even though you want to exit that way, there's no door there. You have to come this way and go around here, and you're going around little tiny pieces of green tape on the floor."

Egan added "The real joy of green screen, for me, happens not on the stage, but in the story room where fundamentally as a producer, writer, storyteller, you're not bound by what you can build, but only by your imagination."

ARTICLE - Zap2It (July 29) 
http://www.zap2it.com/tv/zap-story-stargatecontinuum,0,6074447.story

On Monday, July 21, now-brunette "Stargate SG-1" and "Stargate: Atlantis" star Amanda Tapping appeared in Beverly Hills, Calif., at the Television Critics Association Press Tour to promote her new Sci Fi Channel series "Sanctuary."

But in May of 2007, Tapping was still a blonde and still hard at work in Vancouver, Canada, playing Air Force Col. Samantha Carter in "Stargate Atlantis" and two "Stargate SG-1" movies, "Ark of Truth" and "Continuum."

"Ark of Truth" was designed to wrap up storylines from the end of the show's 10th season, but "Continuum," due out Tuesday, July 29, on DVD, represents the first stand-alone movie based on the long-running TV franchise (started on Showtime and continued on Sci Fi Channel), itself based on the 1994 movie "Stargate."

And, speaking to crowds on Friday, July 25, at Comic-Con International in San Diego ("Continuum" premiered in San Diego on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Midway on July 24), executive producer Brad Wright hinted that more movies might be on the way.

For the cast, more movies mean more adventures; although it would be hard to top the trip a couple of them took to a location on the ice of the Arctic Ocean, at the northern reaches of Alaska, during the filming of "Continuum."

Speaking in her trailer during work on "Ark of Truth," Tapping recalled, "It was life-altering. It was so beautiful up there and so clean. No airplanes overhead; no microwaves; no cell phones; no electrical anything. It was just so pure. You felt really clear-headed up there, and everything was simple.

"You got up in the morning; you ate your meal; you chipped ice to make water. You went off and shot a couple of scenes, came back and ate lunch, helped to clean up. Days were simple. I loved being part of the camp. I loved helping out. I loved KP duty.

"I did dishes, stuff like that. The worst part of being up in the Arctic was the toilet situation."

More on that a bit later.

Ben Browder, who plays Air Force Col. Cameron Mitchell, had a somewhat less romantic view of the Arctic, saying, "We arrived in Prudhoe Bay on Alaska Airlines. It was 35 below. It was cold.

"We flew 200 miles out onto the ice and landed in a little cargo plane, on the ice. The base which is there basically wasn't there two weeks before.

"We landed on three feet of ice, which I thought sounded thin for a plane toland on, but three feet of ice was pretty thick. The only thing we had to worry about was whether our ice floe separates from the runway, and they have to send the raft there to get us out.

"So we're over 3,000 feet of freezing water, on an old ice floe. The camp was constructed on site, with basically insulated plywood."

According to Browder, the camp was built for the Applied Physics Laboratory Ice Station, a joint venture involving the University of Washington and the U.S. Navy.

"They're working on sonar systems and submarine communications systems," he said, "and all kinds of things we're not really allowed to know about."

Other than the secrecy, Tapping said the Navy was very accommodating, "(They said), 'We'll pop a nuclear submarine up on the ice, and let you come on board and film.' Uh, OK! Go, Navy! They were awesome.

"Three times we did a surfacing on different days. The third time, they actually hit the mark perfectly, which was amazing. We're on an ice floe, and it's moving. It's just a mark chiseled out of the show, so the sunlight comes through."

They also went on the sub, and Tapping said of the atmosphere, "There's a distinct smell to submarines. It's sort of a combination of food and socks, and it's got a texture to it. It's almost oily, but you get used to it super quickly."

Getting back to the toilet situation, Browder said, "We were there for a week. We had the benefit of a couple of outhouses, unheated at 35 below, interesting. Things they didn't tell you before you get in -- toilet paper doesn't work at 35 below. You use wet wipes."

Apparently, accommodations were snug.

"We were in huts," Browder says. "There would be six of us sleeping in there, six bunk beds, so I had the captain down there and [director] Martin Wood over there. I was on the top bunk."

Not on the trip were Michael Shanks, who plays Dr. Daniel Jackson (and was filming a stint on "24" at the time), and Christopher Judge, who plays the alien Teal'c.

"I don't know why anyone would miss it," Browder said. "It's a once-in-a-lifetime chance."

Judge knew why he didn't go, saying, "I've never even been camping in my life. I didn't think my first camping experience should be in the Arctic.

"I actually said yes, and then we had an orientation. In an orientation, you want to hear that you're going to be perfectly safe. There's nothing to worry about. Let's just say, that's not what I heard."

Turns out there was a chance of polar bears.

"There was actually one safety meeting," Tapping said, "about, if the polar bear comes from this end of the set, it's smelled us, and it's coming in to investigate. If it comes from this end, we're going to surprise it, and that's dangerous.

"Either way, if you see a polar bear, make a run for the guy with the gun, be as loud as you can and congregate."

Upon hearing this, Judge said, "Yeah. That's things I don't ever need to know."

Since the end of "Stargate SG-1" wasn't really the end (as "Continuum" may itself not be the end), Browder was philosophical about saying goodbye.

"I'll cross that bridge when I come to it," he said. "We don't say goodbye. 'Stargate' means never having to say goodbye."

ARTICLE - I09 (August 1) 
http://io9.com/5032177/io9-talks-to-ben-browder-and-amanda-tapping-about-stargates-legacy

We caught up with Stargate stars Ben Browder and Amanda Tapping at the Sci Fi/EW party at Comic-Con, and got a chance to ask them some fun questions. We talked to Browder about what it's like to embody the heroic archetype, and whether he'd ever want to play a supervillain. And Tapping told us the difference between Stargate and her new show, Sanctuary.

We asked Browder if he'd ever appear on Stargate Atlantis, and he hauled producer Brad Wright over to help answer the question. Wright wouldn't make any promises, but did say he hoped to feature Browder in another direct-to-DVD Stargate movie soon.

When we asked Browder how he feels embodying heroic archetypes like Farscape's Crichton and Stargate's Mitchell. He was super modest: "I let someone like Brad write it, and I just say the words. My job, in a lot of ways is the easy job... my job is just the fun part. I get to go out and do the boy stuff and do the fun stuff, I don't think I think about the heroic archetype. That's something the writers take care of, and the directors and the editors."

Browder had some practice being villainous when he was being mind-controlled by Scorpius in Farscape. Would he like to play an out-and-out villain sometime? Yes, he said. "I think it'd be a lot of fun. Now, wearing prosthetics on a full-time basis — that's not fun."

We asked Tapping about the difference between the gadget heavy Stargate and the more low-tech setting on Sanctuary, and she said Sanctuary is much more "steampunk." Actually, the making of Sanctuary is much more high-tech, because it's entirely shot in greenscreen. But there's less technobabble and fewer gadgets, because her character is 157 years old, and she borrows from all different eras. She said it's a bit weird to be shooting in greenscreen all the time, and she gets a "green chromakey headache." But the good news is that the show's art department shows the actors a really good representation of what the scenes will look like when they're done, so they know what they're reacting to.

In Sanctuary, Tapping plays Dr. Helen Magnus, who protects the "abnormals" (the mutants that society has deemed deviations, but who may actually be the next step in human evolution.) So she's sort of like Professor X from the X-Men, except not bald, "and hopefully prettier," she said.

And she confirmed that she'll be in at least a couple more episodes of Stargate Atlantis this season, plus a third direct-to-DVD Stargate movie.

INTERVIEW - The Guardian (August 15) 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/aug/15/amanda.tapping
Tapping into the zeitgeist

What's your favourite piece of technology?
Right now it's my iPhone, which I just got last week. And the only reason it's my favourite gadget – I don't have the internet on it, I don't have email or anything like that – is because of the quality of the photos.

How has it improved your life?
Well, I woke up this morning because my iPhone told me to. And I'm away from my three-year-old daughter at the moment, so in the middle of the night I can look at pictures of her.

When was the last time you used it, and what for?
I used it this morning as my alarm clock.

What additional features would you add if you could?
Oh, videos. I'm sure I can download videos onto it, but I'm a luddte and I haven't figured that out yet.

Do you think it will be obsolete in 10 years' time?
Of course it will – it's technology. Remember the old cell phones that were the size of your shoe? Now you've got this, and [one day] this will be gone and we'll all have microchips in our ears.

What one tip would you give to non-iPhone users?
The delete thing – where you can push on a message and slide backwards and then press "delete". That's quite clever, somebody told me that recently.

Do you consider yourself to be a luddite or a nerd?
Definitely a luddite.

What's the most expensive piece of technology you've ever owned?

My car, an Audi S4. Oh, here's my other favourite piece of technology – Bluetooth, because I can synch this phone to my car and when my phone rings it comes through my speakers and I push this little button in my steering wheel and talk. I don't have to pick up a phone or touch anything, it's completely hands-free. My car is not really a vehicle to get me from A to B, it's just a really big telephone.

Mac or PC?
Mac, because it's simpler. You don't have to double-click as much.

What song is at the top of your iPod's top 25 most played?

It's [The Flaming Lips'] Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots right now.

Will robots rule the world?
Don't they now? Have you watched the news lately? Yes, robots rule the world now, they just look like people.

What piece of technology would you most like to own?
A new digital video camera – the Red One.

INTERVIEW - Home Cinema Choice (August 20) -
http://hcc.techradar.com/node/7697

Amanda Tapping interview

Do you remember where you saw the original Stargate film?

I saw it actually just before I auditioned for the series, I rented it. So I saw it at home, I didn’t go out and see it in a theatre.

That was a hit at the time it came out, but no-one envisaged the life it would go on to have, resulting in these stand alone features Stargate: The Ark of Truth and Stargate: Continuum?

No, I don’t think so and yet it makes sense for the film to have lived as a series the way that it did because the possibilities are so limitless.

It’s remained very popular for a long time hasn’t it?

It’s crazy when you think about it, we kept thinking we’d get cancelled. We’d done five years, and then they signed us for another season, and then seven, which is really the template. That made sense to us, and after season seven we thought we were done and then they went onto season eight, and nine. So when we were picked up for season ten we really didn’t foresee the end at that point, we’d all gotten a bit cocky about it. But we knew the conversation was going to happen eventually but when it finally did we felt nobody could complain, 10 years is a long time. In fact I think the movies are the perfect way for all of us to keep SG-1 alive in a really fun and big way.

How was it going from filming a standard episode to a feature?

In some ways it was kind of easier to wrap your head around, because when we were doing the series it was like ‘phew, it’s February, we’re going to be going at this full tilt until October,’ it’s daunting, it’s exhausting. So when you have this finite period of time to make this really big movie and take a month, it’s brilliant. It’s a great way to do it.

So were there bigger budgets, and more toys for the director to play with?

The budget’s bigger, absolutely. It was interesting because I was shooting The Ark of Truth abut the same time I was starting out on [the tv series] Atlantis. So I would go from the film set which was a much slower pace, bigger, where they did these huge crane shots and three times the number of extras on set. And then I would run over to Atlantis where it was ‘quick, quick, quick shoot’ because of the nature of a seven day shoot on a television series. And then I would run back.

[Amanda Tapping is one of HCC Ed Steve May's favourite ladies] Is it tough to get your head in the right place, on each job?

It’s what you do, you prepare yourself for it and as long as you’ve done your homework the transition should be fairly easy.

But the homework is more than just learning the lines, isn’t it?

Oh absolutely, it’s getting into the ideology behind the story, where your character’s at, what happened the moment before the scene and what you hope to get out of the scene. All that ‘actor homework’.

How different is it going onto Atlantis – are there still people on that who you know?

Yes, but it is different, SG-1 was home. I came in in the fourth series of Atlantis, where they’ve established their own home so it did feel completely different. I’m physically comfortable on the set SG-1 with all the guys, so to walk onto Atlantis it was like ‘this isn’t my home, this is somebody else’s home,’. It’s like I was visiting.

What was the timescale between the three projects?

For my character SG-1 series 10 finishes and we go straight into Ark of Truth and then I go off to Atlantis for series 4 of that. I start series 5 and then I leave to do Continuum. That’s in the big timeline. The way we did it was we shot some of Continuum up in the Arctic and then I started shooting Atlantis and at the same time I was shooting The Ark of Truth, and after that we shot Continuum at the same time as I was still shooting Atlantis. It was an embarrassment of riches for me, really.

How was working in the Arctic?

Phenomenal, I would go back in a heartbeat. It’s almost indescribable because you go there with such a sense of trepidation because it’s completely unknown. And as much as I would like to think I was a great adventurer, you’re dealing with elements that you wouldn’t deal with on a consistent basis, the real possibility of freezing. And the real possibility of falling through the ice, and the real possibility of getting eaten by a polar bear. That’s just an insane thing to wrap your head around.

There’s a real possibility of being stranded as well, isn’t there?

We had a four and a half hour briefing about what to expect, and it was ‘these are all the things that can go wrong, and these are all the ways that you can die up in the Arctic’. You’re like ‘what? Do we have insurance?’. At which point you’re sitting there in this briefing with all the crew members going up thinking ‘what are we doing?’. But then once we left Prudhoe Bay, which is the last land that you see, and you fly two hours northeast above the Arctic Circle over open water onto an ice floe. You land and you sort of go ‘here I am, I’m not going anywhere so I just have to
make the best of this situation,’. Then once you embrace it it becomes this incredibly fun adventure.

But there must have still been some hairy moments, mustn’t there?

We made a lot of stupid mistakes, your gear freezes, you forget the real elements. I was watching our DP at one point and his nose was turning white because he hadn’t pulled his scarf up. Your skin freezes in a minute in some of the conditions we were dealing with. But you also look around and as far as you can see it’s this sculpture garden of ice, and you feel you’re in the most beautiful place on Earth.

Could ecological issues relating to the Arctic be addressed by the series?

It could. In this case we didn’t because it didn’t fit within the storyline of what we were doing up there. Really we were stranded up there and then this submarine comes. But yeah, it’s something we should definitely address if we do another film, or even for Atlantis to address. As much as Stargate doesn’t try to stand too firmly on a moral soap box, we tell very moralistic stories about the treatment of human beings, and enslavement
throughout history, so why not deal with the environmental aspect of what we we’re dealing with?

There are distinct modern parallels with Ark of Truth too though, aren’t there?

Yes, the whole storyline to begin with about this fundamentalist group that rules by oppression is, I think, politically very topical.

Is it satisfying to communicate some of these ideas to a fan base that may not be that politically engaged?

I always thought that our fans kind of were, our fans are really savvy. As much as it’s interesting to hear the outside world’s perspective on sci-fi fans, as someone who’s lived in the sci-fi world for over a decade sci-fi fans are not what the outside world perceives them to be. Which is these geeky, living in their parents’ basement, computer watching, pasty – that’s the outside view of it. You meet these people and they’re incredibly savvy, incredibly intelligent, they’re online all the time so they’re very up to the minute on what’s happening. And they have an encyclopaedic knowledge of what’s happening in our series that they can relate to anything else in the world. So I find that they’re actually far more savvy than most people give them credit for.

Have you noticed changes, in all your time on the show, in the audiences who have followed these adventures?

I’ve seen the demographic change, definitely, from when we first started. And [sci-fi convention] Comic Con has just gotten bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. It’s crazy, when we went last year there were the big buses, the Stargate buses. So there was a big bus for Continuum, a bus for Ark of Truth, an Atlantis bus – seeing your face on the the side of a bus you’re like ‘ohhhh’. You can’t take any of that seriously, but there is something really cool about it too.

INTERVIEW - Pop Culture Zoo (September 15 2008) -
http://popculturezoo.com/2008/09/talking-sanctuary-with-amanda-tapping-and-robin-dunne/

At this year’s San Diego Comic Con I had the pleasure of speaking to both Amanda Tapping and Robin Dunne about their new web series turned SCI FI show, “Sanctuary.” Amanda plays Helen Magnus, who was born sometime in the Victorian era and through an as yet undisclosed accident became immortal. In the present day she hunts various terrifying monsters that lurk in the dark. In the pilot she encounters Robin’s character, Will Zimmerman, a respected psychiatrist who eventually becomes Magnus’ assistant. Though he aids her in her battle against the supernatural forces, Zimmerman still holds to a scientific explanation to all mysteries. “Sanctuary” premieres on October 3rd. Check back for our follow up interview with Amanda Tapping and possibly others in the cast and crew in mid-October. For now, here’s what we talked about back in July:

Amanda Tapping

PCZ: So, how are you?

Amanda Tapping: Very good, thank you.

PCZ: Can you talk a little bit about what sparked the genesis or the beginning of “Sanctuary”?

AT: Well, it was actually a spec script that Damien Kindler wrote about seven years ago while he was living in L.A. and instead of sending it out he shelved it. He hung onto it. I think he knew that it was something  special. He showed it to Martin [Wood] in, gosh I’m trying to think how it  goes now, January of 2006, and then they showed it to me. Then the three of us tried to figure out what we could do with it. In July of 2006 he shot a  little test scene, about fifteen minutes. They presented that to funders and investors. In January of 2007 we shot the eight webisodes, a full two hours. It’s like a little slow moving train that keeps rolling down the track Here we are now, two and half years after we first started talking about it and making a series.

PCZ: Is there going to be a lot of changes between the web series and the first episode of the show?

AT: In concept, no. In feel, no. But we’ve rewritten the entire pilot. We’re taking the first hour of the webisodes and fleshed it out to two hours. That’s our pilot, ostensibly. The second hour of the webisodes has become a separate episode. We’ve fleshed out the characters more, fleshed out the concept, fleshed out the look and the feel.

PCZ: Are you going to keep some of the same guest stars you had?

AT: Oh yeah.

PCZ: Excellent!

AT: We had to change some of them because of availability. Peter DeLuis, for example. David Hewlett. But those are characters and actors that we definitely want them back.

PCZ: You’re shooting thirteen episodes, is that correct?

AT: Yes.

PCZ: So, you’ll maybe continue some things that were in the webisodes over the thirteen episodes?

AT: Definitely. What this has allowed us to do is take the story arc that we’ve always conceptualized would play out over thirteen episodes – how our first season would play out. Now we have the luxury of being able to do that. So we’ve taken what was sort of a little nut of an idea in the webisodes and fleshed it out. Definitely, there’s things that will carry out.

PCZ: And you’re keeping your feet in the Stargate universe?
??
AT: I am. I did an episode of “Atlantis” at the beginning of the season, and I’ll be doing an episode at the end of the season. I’m due to shoot in their 100th episode, and, fingers crossed, the word on the street was that there was hope for another SG-1 movie.

PCZ: That’s what we heard in the Continuum panel.

AT: So, we’re pretty stoked about that.

PCZ: How happy are you with Continuum? I would assume quite happy.

AT: I love it. I am. You know, it’s one of those where it doesn’t – it felt like a movie. The excitement of making it was so cool. Truly getting the band back together again. If you were in the panel, you heard us say that, and it’s not untrue. We were all really excited to see each other again.

PCZ: Fantastic.

AT: To watch it last night on the aircraft carrier was a surreal experience.

PCZ: That was amazing!

AT: Wasn’t it crazy?

PCZ: That’s the place to do a movie premiere.

AT: I leaned over there to Ryan Robbins who came to the screening, and I was like “We’re sitting on an aircraft carrier and watching a movie!”

PCZ: Yeah, the was just completely surreal. Popcorn and everything. Wow. Totally bizarre. That was a great party. I thought Continuum was awesome. Ark of Truth, while it was a great movie, it still felt like an extended episode.

AT: Ark of Truth did exactly what it was intended to do, which was round out the series. Tie off the loose ends of the Ori storyline. It had a purpose and it fulfilled that purpose. That meant Continuum was a whole new ball of wax. Continuum was like here’s the blast off into the potential world of features.

PCZ: Yeah, I think Continuum kind of set the blue print to what the movies could be.

AT: Yup, I agree with you. Absolutely.

PCZ: So, assuming maybe “Stargate Atlantis” comes back for a sixth season, even if you’re still doing Sanctuary, are you still up for coming back? [Editor's note: Obviously since this occured in July, it was well before the announcement of "Atlantis" ending in January]

AT: Oh yeah, I’ll never turn my back on my Stargate family. Absolutely. ??You can’t be that embedded in a show and it’s that much of a cherished experience for me that I could never turn away from it. “I’m so over Stargate.” I could never say that.

PCZ: I can’t imagine any of you guys saying that. Just the way you talk about it.

AT: I know, its way too special. We all hold it with such reverence.

PCZ: How do you get through actually doing a day’s filming with Richard Dean Anderson?

AT: It’s very painful. It was hard getting through the panel!

PCZ: I was amazed – I was actually going to ask a question about how difficult it was to get back in the role of O’Neill, and then I realized when he got up on the Red Carpet, that that’s just him.

AT: O’Neil started out as a completely different character, and then became Rick.

PCZ: Yeah, definitely. So, with “Sanctuary”, you’re Executive Producer still? Are you also involved in doing any of the writing? Maybe possibly
directing?

AT: I’m the go-to director. So, for example, Martin was away at a television festival and I directed Sanctuary while he was away. As far as writing, I’m involved in the white-boarding of a story, and the concepts, but I leave the writing up to the people that are good at it. I don’t have the time and I don’t have the aptitude for it. I really enjoy the concept and sitting down and going “Okay, but then what if this happened, and what if this happened.” And then I let other people flesh it out.

PCZ: Excellent. Make them do all the work.

AT: (laughing) Sure! Exactly.

PCZ: I know the big thing with TV series, especially Sci-Fi series, is that “we’ve got several years mapped out.” Is that similar with “Sanctuary”? Do you have kind of an idea of where the characters are going?

AT: Yeah, certainly. We have a two-year plan for it. But really our focus, when we found out we had thirteen [episodes], it’s kind of the perfect number for us because you have a very succinct thirteen episode arc. You know, crossing fingers that we do get picked up for a second season…
yeah.

PCZ: Is it possible that season one could get extended beyond thirteen?

AT: I don’t think so. You know, we’re in a good position in terms of the timing of the roll out of the show. I think that it is – thirteen is what it’s going to be. If anything, we can hope to get an early renewal, an early pickup on season two.

PCZ: Right. So, when you’re not doing Sanctuary or doing Atlantis, what else do you have going on?
??
AT: A three-year-old.

PCZ: Me too.

AT: Yeah, so that’s pretty much it. “Sanctuary” has been all-consuming from the time I wrapped “Atlantis” through September of last year. I got pulled onto the corporate side of trying to keep “Sanctuary” alive. And the rolling out the show, we really wanted to start shooting in February, but we didn’t start shooting until May because we had so many changes to make and so much to get into line. That was like a daily thing, that was my job. My non-paid job for like a good eight months was trying to keep the show alive and get it going. I did a film [Dancing Trees] for a director called Anne Wheeler, in Canada, during the off season, but right now “Sanctuary” is my baby. Doing that and another SG-1 movie and raising my daughter.

PCZ: Congratulations on that. I think that might be all the time I have. Thanks very much for letting me talk with you.

AT: Thank you.

Robin Dunne [Note: Robin started things off by being intrigued with the
gadget I was recording the interview with]

Robin Dunne: What’s this?

PCZ: It’s a Creative Zen.

RD: Wow.

PCZ: It’s an MP3 player, microphone, FM radio, pictures, video.

RD: Very cool. I’m so not technologically up to speed.

PCZ: No technical support in your background?

RD: No. I actually got myself a Blackberry, which I’m very proud of.

PCZ: A Blackberry. Blackberries are pretty addictive.

RD: What are they called? Crackberries?

PCZ: Yeah, exactly. For a very good reason.

RD: So, how’s it going?

PCZ: It’s going great.

RD: This is fun, this is very cool.

PCZ: Have you been here long? Did you just come in?

RD: I’ve just come in, I haven’t even been to the [Comic Con] floor yet.

PCZ: It’s insane.

RD: I’m sure it is.

PCZ: Its 50,000 to 100,000 people. It’s something else.

RD: Just how awesome is it? You know, when I was a kid you kind of had to hide the fact that you were into comic books, and how great is it to be able to see that 180. Comic books, great comic books like Watchmen, winning literary awards. That’s just great. Finally, we’ve come full circle.

PCZ: You’ve got mainstream people that are like “This is the coolest thing ever! Where did this come from?”. So, “Sanctuary”.

RD: Yes!

PCZ: Can you talk a little bit about how you became involved with “Sanctuary”?

RD: Absolutely. Actually it’s a very integral part to the show I think because – you know, Martin Wood called me, we’d worked together years ago. He called me and said “Look, there’s a script, we want to shoot some scenes. We don’t know what it is.” I read the script, I said, “Look, this is
great. I’d love to be involved.” We shot, like, a promo. And we waited, you know. We got to do some webisodes. We did a bunch of webisodes and took the show to the next level. After that we waited, and waited, and kind of hung in, and turned down other work because we all really wanted to do this show. Now here we are lending it the perfect home – SCI FI Channel. It really is a dream come true, but more importantly it really galvanized in us a feeling of believing in the show. Really recognizing that this is something different, that this is not just your average job that you get as an actor or director, that this is something different. Hopefully, that feeling, that excitement that we all have – we’re working on the show, but we’re huge fans as well, and for me the excitement of talking about it that I’ve experienced this really cool thing and I can’t wait for you to as well. Hopefully that’s a feeling that comes through and people can – it’ll transcend and people will hook into it as well and say, “Hey, this is different, this is something..” because that’s how we see the show and that’s what we believe in.

PCZ: I think it was a huge risk. I think at the same time because of technology and the way the internet is doing the webisodes was really such a smart way to do it. It shows SCI FI or whoever that there’s a demand for this.

RD: Absolutely. The great response that we got – the fans are so supportive, you know, writing in. And even last year, we were here at Comic Con and the show hadn’t even really launched yet and people were here with T-shirts and they knew about the show and really that’s – that’s exciting to us. It’s also one of the main reasons we’re here because of the support we’ve had from such amazing fans. Hopefully, those fans will become a bigger group.

PCZ: Absolutely. Do you know – Amanda said you guys had a two-year plan for this – do you know where your character is going and is that something that you’re going to start feeding into some of the early episodes?

RD: Yep. Absolutely. I mean, that’s another great thing about the show is that we have a plan for all these characters and to sort of take them into different places and to create solid characters that people can play into. One of the many cool things about working on the show is that the approach is that it’s all our show. There’s no sort of creative room and that trickles down to the rest of us. It’s everybody’s show, so we all get input, we all say, “Hey, what about this, or this would be cool.” To have that involvement and to really feel like you’re part of the creative process, it makes it special and different.

PCZ: Excellent. I know you’re doing all of this on a virtual set. I know a lot of times the question is “How hard is it doing everything in front of green screens” and all that, but it seems like that would almost free you to concentrate on the character and what you’re doing and saying.

RD: Yeah. I mean, hey, I get to work with a great company of actors, and Amanda being definitely a major part of that, so it doesn’t really matter for me. And also, the great story teller. We’ve got some really great stories to tell. The fact that we’re standing in a green room doesn’t really matter. I’m getting to act with Amanda Tapping for god’s sakes. But, the cool thing about that as well is that the green screen allows us to do absolutely anything. You can go anywhere and do anything, so the possibilities are really limitless and that’s exciting as well. I get a script every week and I say, “Where are we gonna go next? What’s the adventure?”. Yeah, it’s a lot of fun. But, the weird thing about shows like this is that you could have the coolest visual effects and technology on earth, but if you don’t have really cool storytelling, you really don’t have a lot. I think that this show is that beautiful meeting of the two roads. What Martin was saying in the panel – we will send our effects guy, or part of our effects team, when they come to fix a shot it’s like “Oh, my god. That’s what we shot.” It’s mind-blowing. To couple that with such compelling storytelling and great characters. The world that Damon Kindler, and Amanda, and Martin, and Sam Egan have created, that hopefully will come through as making it something that is special.

PCZ: Fantastic.

RD: I used that word “special” like, four hundred times, but it really is. But there’s no other word to describe it.

PCZ: You guys definitely have the advantage having done the webisodes and you’ve had so much time to get to know your characters and you go into it from that strength, as opposed to starting with the pilot and taking a season to discover your characters and what you want to do.

RD: You know, developing your character for the web – the character is here. Then we get to start over in a sense, and go, “Okay, well, let’s take it to another level.” We have the luxury of time. That time was very, kind of, nerve wracking because it was like, “Well, are we going to go? What’s going to happen? Is the show going to happen or not?” But, there was a luxury in that, kind of, to go, “Let’s make this as cool and as complex and let’s make these characters really as interesting as we possibly can.”

PCZ: Well, that’s all I have.

RD: Thanks. Thank you for your time.

PCZ: And thank you for your time.

ARTICLE - Newsarama (September 22 2008) -
http://www.newsarama.com/tv/080922-amanda-tapping-sacntuary.html

Flashlights in hand, Dr. Helen Magnus, her associate Dr. Will Zimmerman and daughter Ashley search the darkened interior of a warehouse, whose floor is spotted with blood. An object on the ground catches Will’s eye and his picks it up to examine it. Suddenly, the three hear something moving behind a nearby shelving unit. Pulling out her gun, Magnus cautiously moves forward as a figure stumbles out of the shadows and knocks over various items on a metal trolley in front of him. Using a hand to shield his eyes from the probing beams of three flashlights, the man looks up at Helen. Although he denies knowing her, she clearly recognizes him.

“Cut! That was great!” says director Brenton Spencer.

The above is a scene from a first season Sanctuary episode entitled "The Warriors", in which Will Zimmerman (Robin Dunne) is forced to literally fight for his life, while Helen Magnus (Amanda Tapping) has an unexpected reunion. “This story brings back someone from my character’s past,” reveals Tapping, sitting down in a corner of Helen’s Victorian-inspired library for a chat. “It’s a weird kind of mind warp for her because nobody believes who she says this person is, and even he doesn’t believe who she says he is. So Helen must try to convince those around her of his true
identity.

“At the same time she, Will and Ashley [Emilie Ullerup] are dealing with a big threat to everything they do in the form of this not-so-secret society called The Cabal, who we’ve touched upon in previous episodes. This particular story starts out with a search for a friend of Will’s who has gone missing. In the process, Will is kidnapped and has some horrific things happen to him. It’s quite an emotional journey for him and Helen. It’s that slow burn where something is happening, no one is buying it and nobody believes us. It’s a very cool episode,” she enthuses.

Tapping first brought Helen Magnus to life in the two-hour Sanctuary Internet pilot, "Sanctuary for All", most of which was re-shot for TV and will kick off the show’s 13-part first season on the Sci Fi Channel. Looking at her, it is difficult to believe that Helen is 157 years old. A brilliant scientist, she has followed in her father’s footsteps and dedicated her immortal life to the protection of strange and sometimes dangerous creatures (or abnormals) who are living among the human population. Assisted by her daughter Ashley and resident tech-whiz Henry (Ryan Robbins), Helen also takes forensic psychiatrist Will Zimmerman under her wing. She will introduce him and the show’s audience to a world that neither ever knew existed.

“This [first] season of Sanctuary will be all about truth,” explains Tapping. “Magnus has been the master of hiding or protecting people from the truth, but in the pilot we see her actually embark on the journey of revealing secrets. This is a woman with a lot of secrets, 157 years of them. So a
great deal of her story arc this year will be about the secrets that Helen chooses to keep and what that does to her, as well as the revelation of other secrets and the implications of that.

“A big part of my character’s arc, too, is her relationship with John Druitt [Christopher Heyerdahl],” continues the actress. “This is a man who Helen thinks she’s gotten rid of, but who then comes back into her life. It’s her absolute worst nightmare and the scariest thing ever for her. What I love about her relationship with Druitt, which we’ll explore later on in the season, is why she would be with a man like him, and we see the reason for that in an upcoming episode. Something really heavy is revealed in the pilot about why Druitt is the way he is, and Magnus carries that secret. There’s a huge amount of passion and chemistry between them, and it’s such a love/hate relationship. I don’t think you could hate anyone as much as Helen hates Druitt without loving them as strongly as she loves him, do you know what I mean?

“We’ll also explore some of the history of her father’s decision to hand the Sanctuary over to her and what that ultimately did to him. So Helen has a lot of back-story, and what’s key to that story is her relationship with her daughter Ashley, which is held together by massive secrets. I think what we missed in the Internet episodes, simply by virtue of the fact that we only had a certain amount of time to tell our story, was how special their relationship is. Helen and Ashley share an incredibly close bond, and there is much more joy and comfort in their relationship than you saw in the webisodes. The maternal instinct is alive and well, and we’ll see a bit more of that. Again, though, there’s a huge secret that Helen has kept from Ashley about who her father is, and with that comes a massive amount of guilt. She’s an intense individual and a lot different than any
other character I’ve ever portrayed in terms of her singular intensity.”

Prior to Sanctuary, Tapping spent 11 years playing Colonel Samantha Carter on Stargate SG-1, followed by Stargate Atlantis and (so far) two made-for-DVD SG-1 feature films. Even with all that experience behind her, stepping into the role of Magnus was initially daunting for the actress. “It was very scary,” she recalls. “I was so nervous my first day on the Sanctuary set. I thought I had [found] my character’s voice and then began to question that along with other things. As one of the show’s executive producers I can make autonomous decisions about, for example, the wardrobe without having to check with a whole bunch of people in order to get approval. So [costume designer] Christina McQuarrie might ask me, ‘How do you feel about this?’ and at the beginning it was like, Oh, my God, I’m making these decisions. What if they’re wrong?’ You question everything.

“With Sam Carter it was just very comfortable, and after a while so easy. Not to say she wasn’t at times a complicated character, but I understood her so well. There’s still so much more for me to discover with Helen, which I love, but I feel much more comfortable in her skin having so far shot 10 out of 13 episodes. With the pilot, we were getting notes from the network about changing certain aspects of the show, so I was experimenting with all sorts of things when it came to playing Helen. Nowadays, however, I’m much more at ease with speaking as I normally do, and then slipping into Helen’s British accent and walking in stilettos.

“It was probably the same when I started on Stargate, although it was so long ago and I’m so old now and have therefore lost some of my memory,” jokes Tapping. “I remember, though, the slow reveal with Sam Carter insofar as who she was in relation to what the show’s writers were giving
me to play. However, you don’t know what truly informs your character until he or she is put in a situation where it’s a test of their mettle, and that’s basically what we’ve all been discovering throughout the course of this first season. I really like Helen, though, and playing someone so
completely different. I love the fact that I don’t look or sound like Sam Carter. I’ve reinvented myself, and that’s so invigorating.”

Tracking down abnormals is no easy task, and like Sam Carter, playing Helen Magnus means getting into and out of some tight spots for Tapping. “We recently shot an episode called "Requiem" where it was just me and Robin stuck in a submarine,” notes the actress. “It might sound like "Grace Under Pressure" from [season two] of Stargate Atlantis, but it’s so not that. If you watch the opening teaser you’re not sure who’s gone crazy, Helen or Will. For me, and I think I can speak for Robin, too, it was the bravest, scariest work I’ve ever done as an actor, and I did a lot of great stuff on Stargate. This was a very physical and emotional story. Consequently, I’m totally exhausted right now, we were wet for a good part of the episode; I spent from eight in the morning until 10:30 at night soaked to the skin, which after a while starts to get uncomfortable. At the end of the day, though, it was like, ‘Wow, we just pulled off something pretty neat...we hope,” says Tapping with a smile.

“We did a beautiful episode called "Edward", which is kind of a standalone story. We shot it graphic novel-style, and the young actor we had as a guest-star was just phenomenal. It’s about this boy who’s a living camera if you will and can pixelate things differently than the human eye does. One of the neat things about this program is that it’s not just about monsters and the typical mythology we’ve grown up with. It’s also about things that you think are normal. For instance, what if someone was an autistic savant; what does that mean in terms of the evolution of the human species? So we’re taking modern day things, shining the proverbial bright light on them, and asking the question, ‘Does this really make someone an abnormal or is just part of our evolution?’ At the same time, we’re having fun with these great characters and exploring what they’re all about.”

While their regular involvement with Stargate may have come to an end, Tapping, along with Sanctuary creator/executive producer Damian Kindler and resident director/executive producer Martin Wood, are pleased to have a brand new outlet for their respective creative energies.

“What’s been so great for me, Damian and Martin is that we’re continuing to grow,” muses Tapping. “How wonderful is it to be at this point in our lives and still be growing. We didn’t hit a rut. We bounced out of one really cool adventure into another that’s changed us. It’s not only changed the way we do business, but also the way in which we learn things about ourselves and one another. It’s been a crazy bumpy ride for the three of us getting this show up and running, and then bringing [executive producer] Sam Egan onboard, who is truly one of the classiest men I’ve ever worked with. I think the four of us make a terrific team. It’s been an amazing ride and I don’t want it to end yet. I hope people enjoy Sanctuary and that, fingers crossed, we get an early call for a second season pickup."

INTERVIEW - Media Blvd Magazine (September 27)

The Sci-Fi Channel’s newest original one-hour drama, Sanctuary, follows the adventures of the beautiful, enigmatic and always surprising Dr. Helen Magnus (Amanda Tapping). A brilliant scientist who holds the secrets of a clandestine population — a group of strange and sometimes terrifying beings that live in hiding among humans — the 157-year-old Helen, along with forensic psychiatrist Dr. Will Zimmerman (Robin Dunne), quirky tech-wiz Henry (Ryan Robbins) and her fearless daughter Ashley (Emilie Ullerup), seeks to protect this threatened phenomena, as well as unlock the mysteries behind their existence.

Following a record-breaking 10 seasons as Air Force Colonel Samantha Carter in Stargate SG-1, as well as a season on the series’ popular spin-off series Stargate Atlantis, Amanda Tapping is branching out as both executive producer and star of Sanctuary. The British-born Vancouver resident recently spoke to MediaBlvd Magazine about the extraordinary visual effects of this new series.

MediaBlvd Magazine: How did Sanctuary come to you?

Amanda Tapping: (Executive producer) Damian Kindler wrote the script in 2000, as a spec script when he was a writer living in L.A., and he shelved it. Then, in January 2006, he brought it to (executive producer) Martin Wood and I. He brought it to Martin first, and then said he would like to give it to me to look at the part of Helen, and Martin said, “Yeah, absolutely!” From there, it was just this massive snowball. We shot testings in June of 2006, got funding, and then shot two hours of Internet material in January of 2007 that premiered in May of 2007. By July, we
were starting to get interest from broadcasters, and then, in May of 2008, started shooting 13 episodes of the series. (Producer) Sam Egan got involved in the beginning of 2008. We needed another shoulder. Since then, it’s been the four of us, battling it out. It’s been amazing! I’m so
proud of this team. Not to hang a lantern on it, but as a woman in this unique position, to work with three men that have such integrity, such honor and such grace has been a real treat. I didn’t know how it would be. It’s a big learning curve for me. Sam’s a pro. He’s been doing this for so
long. I didn’t know how I would be able to fit into it, but I was able to hold my own, and I was able to make mistakes and fall flat on my face, and have them pick me up and dust me off and say, “Good on you! Keep going!” It’s been an amazing experience!

MediaBlvd: What intrigued you about Sanctuary that led you to direct all your energies toward this?

Amanda: When I first got approached with Sanctuary, in January of 2006, I didn’t know what the future of me and the Stargate franchise was going to be. I was going to be doing Atlantis, and I didn’t know what was going to happen with SG-1. So, we shot this little test scene and then we got the funding. In January 2007, we decided to do a web series, which didn’t seem at all to conflict with Stargate. The timing worked out perfectly. And then, when I had finished Season 4 of Atlantis and I got offered Season 5, it was a really lovely contract. It would’ve been very easy to say yes. But, I had to make this enormous leap of faith because Sanctuary was waiting in the wings. We didn’t have a broadcast deal yet. We had a lot of interest from different broadcasters around the world, and we were hoping that we would get picked up. Had I said yes to Atlantis, I would’ve basically killed Sanctuary where it stood because I wouldn’t have been available to do it, and it would’ve gone away. But, I felt really strongly about it. So many people had put their time and effort, and money and support behind it that I thought it was time to make this leap. And, I love the character and I love this show. Stargate was very gracious and understood my need to move on. The fact that there was still the possibility of Stargate movies, and that I would definitely be involved in them, made it a soft landing because I wasn’t actually saying goodbye. I was saying, “See you later.” I did make this enormous leap of faith, whereby I said, “Okay, I have to stand beyond this project.” I put my money in it, I attached my name to it and I’m executive producing it. And, shortly after turning down the Atlantis contract, Sanctuary started to get its broadcasts picked up, around the world. I just felt I had to stand behind it. It’s a beautiful project, and I’m so proud of it and the people that are involved. It just felt like the right time.

MediaBlvd: Was it important for you to be completely different in your appearance for this, or is that second nature for you, as an actor?

Amanda: It was a really conscious choice. When I first decided to play Helen Magnus, it was a real conscious choice to have absolutely no vestige of Sam Carter in this character, in terms of everything from her appearance to her voice to her walk to her wardrobe, and everything. I just
felt the need to completely re-invent. Partly as a woman and partly as an actress, I felt it was time to just try something completely different. It’s great because I go places and people don’t recognize me. People that I’ve worked with for 10 years don’t recognize me.

MediaBlvd: This series isn’t just science fiction and fantasy, but is a combination of a lot of things. With your previous background in sci-fi, including The X-Files episode that you did, and then the different Stargate series, were you interested in sci-fi or fantasy at all, prior to all of this?

Amanda: I would say more fantasy. I wasn’t a huge sci-fi fan. I appreciated the genre, but I honestly was more of a Little House on the Prairie girl. But, I grew up with three brothers and they were into all the big sci-fi shows. And, I actually really got into Star Trek: Next Generation and Babylon 5. I guess I slowly got indoctrinated. I pulled away from the prairie into space.

MediaBlvd: As you have become encompassed in sci-fi, what do you find interesting about being in that genre instead of a different one?

Amanda: As hokey as this sounds, there are just limitless possibilities. It’s the fact that you can go anywhere and do anything. You’re not bound by even normal human physics. You can literally do anything, and the idea of possibility is what makes it so appealing. Sci-fi, as a genre, is really not that different than anything else. We’re telling the same sort of stories, we just have perhaps a broader palette with which to tell them. Sci-fi, as a genre, is blown wide open. It’s not what it used to be. The demographic is a lot different than it used to be. We’re not just exploring space. The genre is much broader than it used to be. And, there are more female audience members. There are a lot of women watching sci-fi, which is amazing.

MediaBlvd: You’ve had experience working with special effects, but is it weird to work in such a minimalist set-up, where almost everything in the room is just a green backdrop?

Amanda: Initially it is, but it feels more like doing theater than anything else, and that was my training. It actually feels like you’re putting on a play because you don’t have a huge set to play with. The hardest thing with shooting an almost entirely virtual show is getting a sense of the scale. We’ve shot in the catacombs under Rome, and we’ve shot in huge chapels. The Sanctuary itself is this massive structure. It’s really hard to get a sense of just how big it all is. And so, when we started to see the fully finished effects, we were like, “Wow, the Sanctuary really is huge!”

MediaBlvd: How much of the show is actually green screen?

Amanda: We set out wanting to do a lot more. We’re probably at about 70/30, 75/25 with green screen to practical. We built some practical sets. Helen Magnus’ office, for example, is a practical set, except for the ceiling and what you see out the windows. Otherwise, it is entirely virtual. You get used to it very quickly. David Geddes is our Director of Photography, and he’s literally an artist. He creates this palette for you, where you believe there’s a window with sunlight streaming in, and you can tell what hour of day it is by the way he’s lit it. Those visual cues make it that much more real.

MediaBlvd: Do you want the people who are watching to be aware of the groundbreaking technology, or do you want it to be so seamless that maybe the average person doesn’t even know anything about that?

Amanda: A little bit of both, to be honest with you. Ideally, there are times when we don’t want people to know. We have this huge opening shot, which is almost entirely a visual effect until the very end, and you’re not sure where the visual effect ends and the real scene begins. That kind of seamlessness is so stunning to me. But, people will know by watching it that what they’re seeing isn’t always real, and we’re really proud of that because the visual effects are so cool looking. You don’t have to be a technology buff to think it’s really cool, or be into it to find the style of the show interesting. You can’t help but be drawn into it, even if that’s not your bent. You can’t help but notice how cool it looks. Honestly, at the end of the day, all the technology in the world wouldn’t mean anything, if you didn’t care about the characters. That’s always been the case with good television. If you care about the characters, you care about what happens to them, you’re interested in their relationships and you’re interested in how they move forward through scenes, then it doesn’t matter what’s going on in the background. At the end of the day, the audience will really like the characters on the show and will care about them. That will save us, technology aside. The fact that we happen to have some really kick-ass visual effects is very cool, but if you don’t care about the story, then you don’t care about the story.

MediaBlvd: Helen Magnus looks really good for 157. What’s her secret?

Amanda: She bathes in Botox. I’d tell you, but I’d have to kill you. In the episode “The Five,” you’ll get the full deal on Helen Magnus and how she came to be who she is, and why she’s still around. The beauty of being given a 13-episode arc for our first season is that we’ve been able to pull these stories out, to create this huge mythology that we couldn’t do in the two hours of webisodes. We packed a lot into those two hours, but now we’re able to draw that mythology out.

MediaBlvd: Over the course of the first 13 episodes, will we get glimpses of what Helen has been doing all this time?

Amanda: Some, yeah. If we do get picked up for another season, I would like to explore a little bit more of her back-story, in terms of actually going back and looking at it. I would like to see her in the different eras of what she’s done. But, you get a huge sense of her past and how she’s been
spending her time, in the first 13 episodes, for sure..

MediaBlvd: How does Helen look at her longevity, as a gift or a curse?

Amanda: Both. Ultimately, she still sees that there’s work to be done and that her quest is worthy, so she needs to be around for it. But, she often talks about the curse of it and the incredible loneliness. When you watch everyone you’ve ever known grow old and die — all your lovers and friends — your heart is very well protected. If it wasn’t, she would be heartbroken, all the time, watching these incredible people die that she spends time with. She’s very guarded because she doesn’t want to give people too much, for fear that she’ll be heartbroken, in the end. But, she still has a quest to fulfill, so she’ll continue doing what she’s doing because it’s still worthy.

MediaBlvd: For someone who is coming in blind, who hasn’t seen the webisodes, how would you explain the series, its plot and its tone? What’s exciting to you about the storyline?

Amanda: It’s centered around my character, Helen Magnus, who is a 157-year old doctor from Victorian England, who runs a sanctuary for all manner of abnormal creatures. She pulls a young forensic psychiatrist, named Will Zimmerman (Robin Dunne), into the fray, who has always thought outside of the box. He has been shunned by regular law enforcement agencies, but in fact, now realizes that the things that he’s tried to investigate are real. You see a lot of the Sanctuary, a lot of the creatures and a lot of the mythologies through his eyes, as the everyman. The show has a very graphic novel feel to it. Sometimes, you’re not sure if what you’re looking at really exists, or whether it’s a visual effect. Sometimes, it’s very obvious that it’s a visual effect. We’re shooting with a real graphic style, so it’s got a real edgy look to it. And, I have this really kick-ass daughter, Ashley (Emilie Ullerup), who is a weapons expert and a martial artist. She’s the cool factor. And, we draw from characters in history, and from this incredible mythology for my back-story.

MediaBlvd: What direction will the series be taking, over the course of the season?

Amanda: In the episode, “The Five,” we deal with these five characters from history — these forward-thinking scientists — who have come together, and how they’ve come to be who they are. Jack the Ripper is one of them. Helen is another one. And, there are a few other very cool characters from history. We start with that, as a jumping off point. But the main focus of the show is the creatures within the Sanctuary. We have a beautiful episode, called “Edward,” that’s about a young boy who is an autistic savant. He’s like a human camera. There’s actually a person like him in the world, so it’s based on pseudo fact. It’s his story, and how they get him to come out of his shell. The back-story is really explored. I’m loathed to say we have a monster-of-the week because it’s not that, but every episode has a very interesting focal character that we’re dealing with. Nikola Tesla is one of the characters that comes to light in the Sanctuary, so we’re pulling from that. We’re pulling from things that go bump in the night, and mythologies that we’ve all grown up with. We pull from history. And then, we’re also just taking really remarkable human beings and shedding a light on the idea of what’s normal. We have an endless well of material, which is great. Let’s hope we get an endless well of pick-ups from the network.

MediaBlvd: With Sanctuary starting out as a web series, had the intention always been for that to be a showcase or springboard to a traditional TV deal, or were there aspects to the web format that were appealing and interesting, in their own right?

Amanda: In our infinite naivety, we actually envisioned staying on the web. We never really set it up to be a model for a television series. Our initial hope was that we were going to utilize the shifting paradigm of this convergence of new media and have a full social networking site, so that Sanctuary could become a place where fans could go, not just to watch the show, but to get involved in other aspects as well. In ideology, that’s great, but with monetization, not so much. We wanted to make a really spectacular show. We spent a lot of money, and it needed it. We wanted to do something that was really big and flashy, and that we would all be proud to watch. We probably could’ve used even a few more million dollars to make the visual effects even better. The thing you need to know about the webisodes is that a lot of those visual effects were rendered in 12 days, which is crazy. As a business model, there were ancillary revenue streams, so we were thinking we would make money this way, and still be able to produce the show, and that just didn’t happen. The Internet being what it is, with the bit torrent sites and the streaming video, we knew it was going to be pirated, and that was cool. We wanted to get the name out there. What it ended up doing for us was bringing a huge amount of eyeballs to the show, from around the world, and we didn’t want to lose  this great intellectual property. We didn’t want to lose the idea of the show, so we decided to go back to what we know and what we’re good at, which is making television. And, we’re all very happy to be here. Our goal is still to get back onto the web, in a different presence, to make it more interactive. At this stage, however, we had a finite amount of money and a really, really short time frame, so we focused all our energy on making the 13 episodes of the show. If it’s successful, and we’re all hoping that it will be, then eventually we will branch out and try to do more interactive web  initiatives with it.

MediaBlvd: There are some differences in the web series and the first episode of the TV show. Why were those decisions made?

Amanda: The move to television has given us a lot more freedom, a lot more room and a lot more time to be honest, to spread out this mythology and to open up the mythology. The web series was so compact, and so much information was given in that short period of time, that I don’t think the stories were given as much breadth as they needed. Here, we’re able to breathe a lot more life into these specific areas of the story. I don’t think that people who have watched the web series will be disappointed. It’s just spread out. Changes were made. In part, there were network concerns about certain aspects of the story. We also had the opportunity to create a more living, breathing mythology rather than pack it in.

MediaBlvd: As a producer, and working with the writers, how do you balance things out, so the special effects don’t take over what you’re trying to do with the stories and the characters?

Amanda: That’s the joy of working with people like Damian and Sam because, at the heart of it, they write really great character-centric shows. Damian and Sam will often go to Lee Wilson, our visual effects producer, and say, “This is what we want to do. How doable is it? And, more often
than not, the visual effects will take a backseat to what’s really happening. The hard thing for the writers is making our creatures work because they’re interacting with the actors. At the end of the day, it’s about these people. Even the creatures themselves are heartfelt and intelligent creatures. It’s not really just about the cool effects, or what they look like. It’s about what’s at the heart of it. That sounds kind of hokey, but it’s true.

MediaBlvd: How hands-on are you? What kind of appreciation does being an executive producer give you, as to what actually it takes to put on a show like this?

Amanda: I’m very hands-on, more so than I probably should be. I took the mantle very seriously. I felt that part of the job was to go out and try to get us the funding to continue to make the show, so I was in touch with our financial guys, on a regular basis. I was involved in the casting and editing, and making sure that the crew is all put together. Now, I’m doing post-production, mixing shows, color correcting and working on the sound, and everything. This is a whole new learning curve for me. I do not have a spare minute in my day. As soon as I get to work, which is usually a couple of hours before crew call, if I’m not sitting in the makeup chair or actually acting on set, then I’m in a meeting or a conference call. Now, I think actors are wimps. I used to think that I had the hardest job in the world. Sam Carter was a really intense character, in terms of the volume of dialogue that I had. I used to think, “Oh, my God, I’ve got 10 pages of techno babble today. I’m working so hard!” And now, I just laugh at that and go, “Oh, my God, there are days when I just want to be an actor again!”

MediaBlvd: Is it hard to have a 3-year-old child, at the same time that you’re starring in and producing a TV show?

Amanda: Of course, yeah. It’s the great equalizer for me. Any working mother goes through the same thing. It’s the idea of trying to do what you want to do and being fulfilled and needing to work, and wanting to be home. The beauty of doing a series is that it’s a short period of time. You’re working really hard, crazy, long hours, and then you have these breaks, and in these breaks, I get to be full-on mama. But, it is very difficult. The beauty of having Olivia when I had her was that I went back to work with her. For the first 18 months of her life, she was with me everyday at work. But, that’s not possible with a 3 ½-year-old. She needs more freedom. It’s the great debate in my head and in my heart, all the time.

MediaBlvd:You played Sam Carter for so long. Is there an emotional detachment that you go through, when you’ve played a character for such a long period of time, and then move onto this whole new world that’s been created for you?

Amanda: It’s a weird disconnect that you have. Sam Carter was so much a part of me that the line between Sam and Amanda became pretty blurry at times. Sam informed so much of who I was becoming, and I informed so much of who she was becoming that it was a very difficult disconnect. When I finally decided to not go back to Atlantis — and I ended up doing  two episodes this season, the very first one and the very last one, which was great — I finally had to walk away, and I was a massive emotional mess. My husband was like, “Come on, seriously. It’s been 11 years, sweetheart, move on.” I was like, “You don’t understand!” It’s like cutting off your arm and going, “Okay, how do I move forward now?” For me, as an actor, there was joy in discovering a whole new character and of creating this woman. I moved on pretty quickly. It’s been a very soft landing. If Stargate had been canceled and I didn’t have anywhere to go, then it would be a lot more difficult to let her go. But, because I had something really exciting to leap into, it was good.

MediaBlvd: What are some of the acting challenges you’ve found, stepping into Helen’s shoes?

Amanda: Literally stepping into her shoes because they’re stilettos and they’re very uncomfortable compared to army boots. It was finding her physicality. After playing a character like Sam Carter for so long, where her physicality is so comfortable, and she’s so comfortable in her own skin, and Helen is this very sexual, more mysterious being with a much darker edge to her, I had to find that. Carter always looks on the bright side, and Helen has been around so long and seen so much of the evil in human society. She’s also seen the genius and the brilliance. At the heart of Helen is this swing of incredible loneliness. I had to try to create this completely legitimate, dark, intense woman, after playing somebody like Carter for so long, and it was a huge challenge. I also had to find her voice. I wanted to make sure that, because she’s from Victorian era England, it informs so much of who this woman is and how she thinks. That era is so specific. And, because she was a forward-thinker and she pushed the envelope scientifically, emotionally and societally, she’s informed by that. I wanted her voice to still have that carriage of the aristocrat and the use of proper English, but she’s been around for so long that it couldn’t be so high-brow. It still had to be accessible to modern-day vernaculars. I walked around for days trying different accents on people. It was goofy, but that was part of the joy of creating this new character.

MediaBlvd: Where can we see the mother/daughter relationship going?
What is the emotional bond there?

Amanda: It’s really an interesting relationship between these two. Helen made a choice to bring this child into the world, knowing that she could quite possibly watch her grow old and die, and not knowing if Ashley has the same gift of longevity that Helen has. So, she brings this child into the world, knowing that she may lose her and, as a parent, it’s the worst thing ever to imagine your children dying before you. Starting with that as your jumping off point, that is just a weird place to start. And then, what happens is they’re comrades. She’ll fight to the end of the earth to protect her daughter, but at the end of the day, it’s often her daughter who’s protecting her, which turns the whole mother/daughter dynamic on its head. There’s a huge amount of respect and chemistry between these two women. It’s this weird dynamic. There is a huge amount of respect, but there are times when you’ll see flashpoints between the two of them, and it makes sense because they work so closely together. But, there is also a massive amount of love.

MediaBlvd: As someone who co-founded a comedy troupe, how often do you have an opportunity to just enjoy full-on comedy, and would you like to do more of that in the future?

Amanda: I’d love to! I actually got to do a short film last year, called Breakdown, and I won the Canadian Comedy Award for Best Actress in a Film for it, which was fun. I was like, “Oh, my god, I’m still funny!” You spend your time in sci-fi land for so long that you forget these other skill sets exist because they have gotten dusty. It was really fun just to be able to play in that realm. Comedy is my default mechanism and, thankfully, I work with these incredibly funny people. Robin Dunne, who plays Will Zimmerman on our show, is perhaps one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. You’d never know by watching him. He’s so earnest. He plays this intense character, but behind it is this zany, crazy, funny man. I hope we get a chance to showcase that. It would be good to do a Sanctuary comedy episode, maybe in Season 3 or 4.

MediaBlvd: How far in advance have you mapped out the story?

Amanda: I’m sure that Damian has a grander scheme for the whole thing, in his head. At this stage, we’ve started mapping out where we want certain character relationships to go. But, there’s that superstitious feeling of not planning too far ahead because we may be derailed. We don’t want to be rushed into anything. We don’t want to talk about what would happen in Season 2 yet. We just hope we get a pick-up for Season 2. We’ve all been in this industry long enough to know. I kept thinking Stargate would get canceled, and it never did. And then, the one year that we thought it would get picked up again, we got canceled. So, I’m of the mind that I’m just going to think the worst and, hopefully, be really pleasantly surprised.

MediaBlvd: Is there any mythology that you’re looking forward to doing? Are there any old stories that you want to do?

Amanda: There are, actually. I’ve always loved the vampire mythology, and I’ve always loved the idea of a creature that is totally without social conscience. We explored that mythology already, in the first 13 episodes. I like the idea of what happens with a creature that seemingly has no social conscience and a selfish agenda, and then, you find out that maybe it’s not necessarily that at all. I like the idea of turning things on their head. I like that we are taking what society views as abnormal and shining  a light on it, saying that it is maybe not so abnormal. Because Helen’s belief, ultimately, is that all the creatures that she studies are keys to the evolution of our race, she believes that they’re evolutionary steps. So, when you look at somebody with autism, for example, is it that they’re societally challenged, or are they just so far advanced that we don’t get them? I have an autistic nephew, and I sometimes look at him and think he has insights into this world, way beyond. But, we don’t get it, so we think that he’s not quite up to our standards.

MediaBlvd: Can you talk about shooting the season finale, and what it felt like, getting to the end of that 13-episode arc for the first season?

Amanda: Shooting the finale was really emotional. We were all exhausted. People need to understand that we’ve been working on this for over a year now, full-on. Since I wrapped Atlantis in September of 2007, it’s been Sanctuary-ville for Martin, Damian and myself. There was so much struggle to make this show happen, and there was a lot of heartache and a lot of weirdness. Nobody felt we could do this. We set out to do the impossible, which was creating this show without a studio, without financial support, and without all of the regular safety nets in place. We all leapt off this cliff, hand-in-hand, and there we were. Hopefully, it worked. There was a huge sense of accomplishment, but also this sense of relief. We all felt like we’d been hit by trains. But, at the end of the day it felt really good to get to the end because we are so proud of it. Now, we have to put our baby out there into the world and hope people are kind and that they think it’s as great as we do.

MediaBlvd: How pleased are you with Season 1, as a whole?

Amanda: I’m totally proud of it. I’m really thrilled. I think we have some really killer episodes, and I’m proud of the fact that our crew stuck around. We wanted to start in February. We didn’t end up starting to shoot until May. A lot of the people we have are feature quality crew members, and features actually tried to lure them away, but they stayed with the show. That speaks volumes about how much faith people have in this project. I’m proud of the look of the show and the feel of it, and the attitude on set, and the fun that we had, but I’m really proud of the final product. There’s an episode, called “Requiem,” which for me, personally, was the bravest work I’ve ever done, as an actor. I don’t think I would’ve been able to do that had I not felt so safe. I credit the crew and the cast for that. It was a phenomenal experience.


Actress Amanda Tapping has gotten herself into a pickle that no Stargate teammate can get her out of. As the mysterious Dr. Helen Magnus on Sanctuary, she’s not taking orders from anyone as she and her team hunt for “abnormals,” strange and often terrifying creatures hiding among the human race. But on her new series she’s also tackling something every bit as scary as an Ori mothership … she’s an executive producer on the first primarily virtual series. SCI FI’s Sanctuary kicks off in a two-hour premiere on Friday, Oct. 3 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

In Sanctuary, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Will Zimmerman loses his position with the FBI and finds himself working tenuously with a homicide squad. When the things that forced him out of the bureau continue to haunt him, he is recruited by Dr. Magnus, who has a “sanctuary for all,” a place where the extraordinary abnormals can be safe. In her sanctuary, they can be protected from the world, or if necessary the world can be protected from them. Now all Zimmerman has to do is “dare to believe in the unbelievable.” Sanctuary was created by Damian Kindler.

Beyond starring as Air Force colonel Samantha Carter for 11 years on Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, Tapping has appeared on SCI FI’s Proof Positive, The X-Files, Forever Knight, Millennium, and The Outer Limits. The actress was also a regular on Disney’s Flash Forward and appeared in The Vagina Monologues.

Kindler has written or produced numerous television projects, including Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, Earth: Final Conflict, BeastMaster, PSI Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal and both Stargates.

Tapping and Kindler chatted with SCI FI Weekly about moving from the web to television, English accents and virtual trailblazing.

Tell us about Sanctuary.

Kindler: Sanctuary follows the exploits of Dr. Helen Magnus. She’s a very mysterious scientist and doctor who runs a very secret private clinic in the nasty part of town of this fictional city where the show is set. Her reason for doing this is as a monster hunter/monster doctor. She does capture and study all sorts of different life forms that most people don’t believe are real. Everything from your classic werewolves and vampires to mutants and extraordinary life forms to anything she calls an abnormal, which is an unclassified life form outside normal science. She’s been doing it for a long, long time. She has an incredibly storied, legendary history as a doctor and a scientist.

As the show begins, she co-opts a young forensic scientist named Will Zimmerman [played by Robin Dunne], who has fallen from grace from the FBI. Because although he is a brilliant investigator, his points of view, his take on things, is a bit outside the box, and he tends to seek answers that make no sense. But they do make sense inside Magnus’ world, and so she realizes he needs to join her and her quest. And he realizes he does, too. You get a bit of an X-Files-meets-Buffy vibe with this very strong woman leading this reluctant hero with her, drawn into this amazing world of creatures and abnormals and mutants and a whole other world that we
don’t know exists.

What’s special about Dr. Helen Magnus?

Tapping: She’s just so eccentric [laughs]. She’s weird. She’s a very intense, dark woman. But she’s got this quirky sense of humor, and as an actress she’s just a challenge. It really is a challenge to find her every day, because she’s not like anyone I know. She’s completely unapologetic. Not to say she’s without a social conscience, but she doesn’t care what people think, which is a really liberating thing. She’s been around for 157 years. She’s seen a lot, so she’s maybe a bit tired of the B.S. that is in this world [laughs]. So she cuts to the chase. She doesn’t play the games that perhaps she played in her 20s or 30s. … She’s doing something that is so outside the realm of normal thinking. But she’s being challenged all the time, and the stakes are high.

It’s exciting to see a new show with a strong female character at its center.

Kindler: It is interesting that she doesn’t need a foil who is her own age. Like she doesn’t need a William Petersen or David Duchovny. She operates hand and hand with Will Zimmerman, but he is her protégé. He works for her. I mean, she is the top of the food chain, by far. So a lot of the show is told through his eyes, which is the everyman coming to grips with the world that he thought exists doesn’t exist. It is far different and darker and stranger. But she is the thing that lights the way. Hopefully she’s very inspiring. I’m very happy to have created a female-centric show, because I think that the world is just littered with shows that are about men and their conflict with women. I think the great thing is Will and Magnus are not in conflict. They work very well together. It’s not necessary [that] she’s the skeptic or he’s the skeptic and she’s the believer. It is more she knows what is going on in the world and he’s trying to keep up and bring what he can to it, which is what she needs from him. They do make a good team. I don’t need them to bicker and squabble. That’s not what is important.

What type of place is the Sanctuary?

Kindler: It’s an old church and cloister area in a very bad part of town of a fictional city where we set the show. But underneath it is a very high-tech and incredibly grand scientific medical facility that Magnus has been running for many, many years.

How did Sanctuary come about?

Kindler: My agent asked me to write a script with my own kind of fingerprints on it and my own “vision” for what a show would be like. I was influenced by the comic book A League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I was also influenced by books like The Alienist by Caleb Carr. I’ve always had a very strong love of that steampunk-alternate-past vision of history and what it leads us to today. And I also was a big fan of X-Files and Buffy and have loved sci-fi my whole life. I really just wanted to create a really interesting place to set a show where people had to deal with their biggest fears every day, every episode.

I wrote the pilot. It was parked in my hard drive for five or six years because I was working on Stargate and Atlantis. After that Martin Wood and I took a look at it, and he loved it, and we showed it to Amanda, and she loved it, which was very gratifying. We sort of hatched a plan to put it up on the Net and see if that was a viable way to get the word out, which it was. It wasn’t a viable way to make a lot of money, ’cause it’s such an expensive thing to make. But it’s a great way to get an audience attracted and get broadcasters interested, because if the show becomes something very, very well known and worldly and followed, then they can’t ignore it … which is what happened with us.

Amanda Tapping, why take a Web series on at this point in your career, not just as an actor, but as an executive producer?

Tapping: It made sense. When I was first approached with the script it was just as an actor, and I loved the character, just totally absorbed by the script. When I first got involved, I got involved on that level. But then I started to become more involved corporately, and I was deferred to for decisions and things like that. And Damian finally turned to me one day and he said, “You know, you’ve got your hand in this so much, and you’re helping to get the financing together and you’re doing all these things, you should be an executive producer. We’ve all decided.” So I went, “Wow! Great. Okay … What does that mean?” [Laughs.] I have sort of thrown myself full hog into it. I’m learning a huge amount, but it’s a lot of work. What I’m finding, there is never a free moment on set. There’s always things to be talked about and budgets to be discussed and storylines to be discussed and casting and post and sound. You know, there are a million things and dealing with network notes. As soon as I said yes, I didn’t realize what I’d be taking on. I’m thrilled. I think it’s a natural progression for me and it’s a role that fits me well, cause I’m kind of  hyper-organized and I like to be involved. At times I find it a little overwhelming. … This is an acting gig on steroids [laughs]. This is craziness. But it’s great.

What about doing an English accent?

Tapping: I don’t have a problem with that. I was born in England. I grew up in a very English household. … and I’ve always had a pretty good ear for accents. The problem with this one is that it’s Victorian English, and that informs so much of who this woman is. And so she fearlessly holds on to the accent, although it’s been tempered with 157 years of living around the world. I didn’t want to make it international. I didn’t want to make it mid-Atlantic. I didn’t want to it to deviate too much, because I think she’s one of those women who only drinks tea and still speaks the Queen’s English. But I had to pull it back enough that it wasn’t so over the top. … My best compliment, I guess, [was from] our broadcaster in England who said, “Love the accent.” I said, “Perfect. If you like it then I’m good [laughs].” Please the British and I’m thrilled.

What challenges did you face as an actress in playing Magnus, who is almost the opposite of Col. Samantha Carter from Stargate?

Tapping: She was just so different than anything I have done. I feel very different. I needed to reinvent myself for this character. I need to strip away any vestige of the character I’d been playing for the last 11 years and completely reinvent how I approached my work, my look, my everything in order to convincingly dive into Helen Magnus.

Damian Kindler, what does Amanda Tapping bring to the Sanctuary for you?

Kindler: Amanda’s an incredibly talented actor. Incredibly talented producer and director, and she’s able to find an amazing amount of humanity and humor and quirkiness. Magnus has to be a bit odd. She can’t be this straight-on, flawless hero. She’s a bit of a kook. She’s been living outside the norms of society her whole life and doing it her way, and I think this is something appealing to sci-fi fans, to see a female hero operate on her own terms and not have to work in the police department or hospital or what have you. She’s her own person.

Who else will we run into in the series?

Kindler: Will Zimmerman, one of our lead heroes, is a forensic psychiatrist. So he’s able to look at elements of behavior and physical evidence in ways that others can’t. He’s a master of understanding human behavior, but he’s a bit behind the curve when comes to abnormal life form behavior, which is an interesting place to put him.

Emilie Ullerup plays Magnus’ daughter, Ashley. Her character is, in a way, the blunt instrument behind the brain. That’s a bit cruel in putting it that way. She’s this young woman who has grown up in this very, very cloistered environment with her mother and realized at a young age that she has a natural skill and dexterity and nerve that actually played into Magnus’ needs, which is to have someone aid her in capturing or fighting or descending against some very, very dangerous creatures.

And you’ll be seeing lots of John Druitt [played by Christopher Heyerdahl]. … He does show up in key, interesting moments because he is the love of Magnus’ life, which is a really odd and terrible choice. You know, some women just have this terrible, terrible radar for men [laughs]. Magnus, in a way, can’t let go of this very dark bad boy in her life.

Tapping: As much as she hates him and hates what she’s done, there is a huge painful part of her heart that still pines for that. We’ve got this great story arc with Magnus and Druitt.

Kindler: We begin to understand his psyche a little bit better. We see him in some very key moments and some interesting, deep and heartfelt moments as he begins to influence what’s going on with our Sanctuary team and especially Ashley.

It’s amazing that Sanctuary began as a Web series that ran eight 15- to 20-minute episodes.

Kindler: Yes, we had a great time doing that. I mean, it was very down and dirty, and we didn’t have enough money, and it was very tricky, and it was hard, because we didn’t quite have our whole broadcast licensing strategy worked out. It was cool to do that. I don’t think we’d be here today if we hadn’t gone that route. But who knows? It was a big R&D thing as far as creatively and also technologically to see what happens when you make a big virtual show and you get it up online and then build an audience. It was very, very interesting, and we got a lot attention, which was nice. It saved the network from having to do a big pilot.

Tapping: Another thing about the Web was we rendered a lot of those shows in 11 to 12 days, which is virtually impossible. Anyone who would be told prior to that, “Hey you’ve got to get this up in 11 days” would have laughed in our faces. But we had this incredible team who worked literally around the clock and got the show up. What you are seeing is not the best of what it can be, because it was rendered so quickly. It’s amazing we got what we got.

How is the television series different from the Web series?

Kindler: Well, it’s quite different, but quite the same. It is interesting. Conceptually it is identical, and cast-wise it is identical. Basically, a lot of the creative changes were driven by a relationship with the SCI FI Channel in that they wanted a show that was a little bit broader, little bit deeper, little bit more based in reality. Less of a Frank Miller feel and more of an accessible, “this is our world” feel. We welcomed that. We have no [preconceived] artistic feelings about it. I want as many people to see and enjoy the show as possible, because that is what helps shows live long lives. We’ve spent a lot of time, myself, Martin Wood, Sam Egan, and Amanda, working on reshaping the show and finding different motivators for the characters and different ways into stories. So the show you’ll see premiere is very familiar, but very different, deeper in tone and a little bit more mature in its sensibilities. … But it also creates a real sense of originality and creates more of a special feel for the original eight webisodes, which were kind of their own concept.

Tapping: The characters are fleshed out a lot more than what you see on the Web. The backstories, especially Will’s backstory, [are] dived into a lot more. We’re repurposing some of the flashbacks and saving them for use throughout the series. In the pilot, for example, I think there is only one flashback, as opposed to the many that we had in the Web series. John Druitt is a bit different. Magnus is a little softer … a little more approachable. Still mysterious and still sexy in a really intelligent, scary kind of way [laughs]. Her backstory is delved into a lot more. What the Web series allowed us to do is flesh it out. We took a very finite story and expanded it. So the Web series, the webisodes you saw online have now been expanded to a two-hour premiere and almost completely rewritten. We repurposed very little of it. … We used some scenes. Will’s introduction to the Sanctuary and the characters are all the same. The relationships are all the same, still got that dark edgy sort of quality to it, but we fleshed it out a lot more. I actually think it’s a better story. It is a better story than it was.

Amanda Tapping, you’ve said that the producers had the “full intention of living and breathing on the Web.” What changed? Why do this as a television series instead?

Tapping: Even through we had huge fan support and we were really excited by it, we were, as a company, bleeding on the street trying to keep it going. And we realized we had to find another way to do it, because we all really believed in the concept and the project and the story. We wanted to find another place for it to live. And television is, of course, the obvious option. Especially for people like Martin and Damian and Sam and myself, who have spent so much time in this little world [laughs]. It made sense. So the webisodes then became a fantastic selling tool for us to get broadcast licenses and agreements around the world. The Web was great to us, and we still feel that there is a place for Sanctuary on the Web. We  still want to go back there. And like I said, our intention was quite pure. We really wanted to live and breathe there for the fans who live on the Web and who understand it. But it just didn’t work. And now that we’re doing TV it makes sense to all of us. This show is big enough in its scope and its size and its scale and its budget to warrant TV. It’s almost too big for TV [laughs]. It’s a really big show when you’re doing almost 70 percent virtual.

Speaking of virtual, Sanctuary is the first television series to live in a mostly virtual world. Can you go as far as you could on the Web with the series?

Kindler: We’ll actually go further than we could on the Web. The webisodes are almost like research and development. We did a lot of experimenting and did a lot of different things. Some of it worked, and some of it didn’t. Our partners here, RHI Entertainment, did Tin Man, and they are doing special effects, and they are just absolutely going to bring some of the most amazing visual effects yet.

Tapping: We still want the virtual look. It’s got a really good—we keep using this term, but it really makes sense—this graphic-novel feel to it. It’s not quite photo-real. It’s visually so interesting, it challenges you to look and go, “Is that real? What am I looking at?” That’s intriguing to us. And of course the possibilities and the scale we can make things is phenomenal by doing it all virtually.

The computer-generated part of Sanctuary goes beyond the sets. There are some very cool creatures effects as well.

Kindler: We’re proud of the fact that we’re not just doing a guy in a rubber suit going, “Grrrrr.” We found some very interesting abnormals. Some of them are very, very gentle. Some of them are human. Some that don’t look terrifying have very, very fascinating and bizarre powers. Some of them are scary and you don’t want to see them coming near you [laughs]. We feel in our stories for season one we’ve found a nice mix of the scary, the invisible, the fascinating and the wondrous, and that was always our goal, to try to create interesting characters and interesting stories behind really, really fascinating creatures. So it’s not like Hellboy. We wanted to make it a little more subtle and complex than that, so the world has a lot of different layers. X-Files did that well. We sort of take the X-Files length and breadth of the type of phenomenon they faced, and we injected it with a bit more adventure and bit more humor and gung-ho, graphic-novel cheekiness.

Beyond the computer graphics, are you using any special equipment to get that graphic-novel feel?

Kindler: What is special with the series is that it is going to have an extraordinary look with our RED camera. We’re the first series in North America to use the RED camera, which is the highest-resolution camera available right now. We are able to create virtual visual effects that most one-hour series can’t achieve. Which allows us to create a look and a feel and a tone and locations that most other shows can’t go near or don’t want to go near.

Where do you hope to go with this series?

Tapping: Oh, everywhere! We’re going to Rome next week. That will be fun. Traveling, literally, we’ll be taking you around the world. We just did a show in the Himalayas. We’re literally physically going around the world. I just hope we take people on a journey, a visual and emotional journey of imagination, because it’s stunning visually, this show. And the stories and the characters are so, I think, so interesting, and you care about them and you’re intrigued by them. But then behind them you have this incredible backdrop that we’re playing against. I have never seen anything like this on TV.

Kindler: We’re going to take these characters into a world where abnormals are threatened or are a threat, to a place where working with abnormals every day can be very, very dangerous. And into a place where there are other people who have a vested interest in monsters and creatures and what that means to the future of the human race. Definitely Magnus and Will find themselves up against very, very powerful organizations who have a very different and hostile agenda towards abnormals and mutants and monsters, because they want to exploit them. They want to study them. They want to use them change the course of history. Magnus finds herself unwittingly in the eye of the storm, battling over what’s going to happen to humanity. And that is a very epic, long view of the series going over multiple seasons. To begin with, it really is just about what are we studying this week? What have we found? What have we brought back to the Sanctuary that is a problem? What have we learned? What is the human in a monster, and what is the monster inside a human? Some very universal questions that our characters ask are  directly affected by the answers.

How does it feel to be a trailblazer?

Tapping: We are pioneering in a lot of ways, and it’s scary as hell, because we can fall flat on our faces. But it’s also exciting, because we really are putting it out there. We’re pushing the envelope ourselves and hoping that people like it.

INTERVIEW - Mania (September 30 2008) -
http://www.mania.com/feature-interview-sanctuarys-amanda-tapping_article_87502.html

Amanda Tapping is Carter from Stargate and so much more. She’s a leader in real life as she proves with the many hats she wears on her new series Sanctuary but unlike Carter, she’s charming, animated and quite funny. Her enthusiasm at the Stanley Hotel digital press event for her new show is catching. She comments that she’s extremely proud of the series and “at the end of the day, the cool factor can’t be denied” she commented.

In the series she stars, executive produces, and directs putting her abilities in front of and behind the camera out there for fans to judge. In Sanctuary Tapping plays Dr. Helen Magnus, the leader of a team that investigate the monsters that live in the shadows of an alternate version of our world. While everyone else ridicules or fears these abnormalities Magnus and her team believe that these beings are the evolution of humanity. The series offers a dark modern take on the classic science fiction trope of “what is the true definition of humanity?” Tapping took a  deep breath and sat down with us to talk about her new series, her new jobs, and the future of her first series Stargate:

Amanda talks about the new experience of being an executive producer:

“It’s a whole new stratosphere of stress that i deal with. I arrive on set about two hours before crew call and I don’t stop. Every single minute of every day is taken up with some aspect of the show. It’s a huge learning curve. I’m involved with casting, I’m involved with the crew, I’m involved with dealing with our financiers, and I’m involved now with post production and mixing the shows and color correcting and sound editing and all this stuff that I’ve never ever tried to do. Virtually every second of every day is full so I now have the completely biased opinion that actors are wimps.”

On her character in Sanctuary:

“She has this incredible back-story and history which is part of what makes her so interesting. I love the fact that she’s from Victorian England which is an era that defined so much of where we are today and defined women in such a huge way and the fact that she was a woman who thought outside the box, who pushed the envelope socially and scientifically. That so appealed to me in an era when it would have been so easy to toe the party line and be status quo - she blew it out - and that to me was so exciting.

Amanda further mentions that there’s a significant back-story involving the great love of Helen’s life John Druitt (Christopher Heyerdahl). She also finds Helen’s decision to have a daughter even though Helen may outlive her to be intriguing.

“At the bottom of it all she’s (Helen) a 157 year old woman who’s incredibly lonely”
“When I read the pilot; I read it in less than an hour and I phoned in right away and said please I’m in, I’m in. I love the richness of the character and the fact that beyond just my character all of the characters have these crazy quirks. “

“”...in an episode called The Five you find out exactly what makes Helen what she is and who else is involved. The Five is actually the episode that really blows open the mythology in a lot of ways.”

The Mythology:

“It seems to sort of be the package that has everything. It’s dark and edgy and like nothing that’s ever been done on television before.”

“ A lot of the mythology is based on our modern mythology, things that go bump in the night, the things that scare us; the vampires and the werewolves and the creatures in the woods. What we’ve also done is taken things that appear at first to be quite normal but society views as abnormal. For example we have an episode coming up called Edward and it’s about a young boy who’s an autistic savant for lack of a better word. He’s a human camera essentially. He pixelates images and draws them out in a way that is completely impossible. He’s like a computer.He would be viewed by society as highly unusual or abnormal and yet we take this character and we pull the heart out of him (not literally) and go okay what are you really all about and are you really that different. What I love about Sanctuary is at the end of the day we firmly believe that whatever we’re studying is in fact the evolution of our species.”

The Green Screen Work:

“Initially you literally have what I call chroma key green headaches because you stare at these incredibly bright green walls. It makes you nutty for the first few days but once you get used to it it’s like doing theatre and that’s where I came from initially so I feel really comfortable in front of a green screen. We sometimes get pre-viz effects so we can see this is what your looking at. I don’t know what to do on a real set anymore. Because of the nature of this show...we can go anywhere. We can be in a submarine in the Bermuda Triangle or in the catacombs under Rome or in a massive Cathedral or on a mountainside in the Himalayas, or on an island off of Scotland and we don’t have to leave the studio. We can create these incredible environments for this huge mythology with a really really cool look without having to go anywhere. We’ve all worked with green screen, we all understand how much it can provide and we also understand its limitations. I think that after spending 10 years on Stargate command and going to different planets and understanding the limitations of shooting practically I was ready to try something completely different.

On Directing:

“I’m actually the go to director so I have directed Sanctuary, not an episode, but Martin (series director Martin Wood) had to do a talk at the BAMF television festival and so I was directing that day. If our director calls in sick or there’s a second unit or an insert shot then I’m the go to director.”

The show’s launch on the web and then migration to broadcast TV:“We actually started on the web with the purist intention of living and breathing on the web because Martin (producer), Damian (producer) and I all understand the fan base and be thought why not take the show straight to them. We’ll create a full social network site - Sanctuary fans will be able to interact with each other in forums, they’ll be able to create monsters together, they’ll be able to have a full interactive experience, we’ll make a gaming aspect out of it - it was a fantastic idea. In our naiveté launched it with this and we got a lot of money to make this really spectacular pilot which was way to expensive for the web but we were still able to garner international broadcast deals or interest from broadcasters.”

“The internet was not ready for us yet.”

“When we realized that all of our great plans - we just didn’t have enough money to pull them off anymore we had to find more practical solutions to sustain what we thought was a great idea which was the show itself. So, SCI FI came calling and it was a perfect fit. We said OK we all understand television, we know how to make television - let’s go back to a traditional broadcast model and then go back to the web and start implementing the ideas we initially had. Now I’d love to see if we get picked up for a second or subsequent seasons is to implement that kind of idea on the web. Walk down a hallway with Helen and there’s a door and she walks past it but the fan can click on that door and what happens inside that door. To create that sort of interactive experience would ideally be my goal. But right now we’re just focused on making the show and I’m actually really happy where we’re at”

The next Stargate DVD movie:

“I know nothing about it. I can honestly tell you, except that I have been  asked if I would make myself available to do it and I said of course I would. Stargate is home. I may be off at University right now getting my Ph.D.. in craziness but I’ll always come home for Thanksgiving dinner, Stargate films. Rumor has it (that the film will shoot) in late spring, early summer of next year but I honestly couldn’t tell you beyond that. I know that Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis will be shooting movies at that time.”Tapping goes on to explain that when season five of Stargate Atlantis was about to begin she was to come on board and become the leader of that team but she was at a “critical juncture” where she had to choose between Atlantis and Sanctuary. She says that had she left the Sanctuary project it would have been dead then and there so she chose to take the risk with the new series. Tapping shared the story of the very emotional moment that she gave the final word that she was leaving Stargate. She received a call while she was shooting a film and was told that she had to sign the Stargate contract immediately or it would be going away. At that moment her cell phone died. After getting her phone charged she tried to work out a way to do both projects but realized that she had to choose. She said she had to hold it together until after the movie shoot. On her way home the decision settled in and she broke down. “It was a massive thing to let go of that.” she finished

SAM I AM DEATHRAY SEPTEMBER

Amanda Tapping is one of the longest serving members of the Stargate SG-1 team, the perennially popular US-Canadian space show. Her character, Sam Carter, has risen through the ranks from Captain to Colonel, eventually being given command of her own Stargate team in the SG-1 spin-off, Atlantis. But now she's hanging up her uniform. Though Tapping's starring in Stargate: Continuum, and will guest star in Atlantis season 5, she's set her sights on pastures new. Her new show, the supernatural fantasy Sanctuary, has been picked up by the Sci Fi Channel. Now a producer, director and star, Tapping looks set to continue gracing the screens of genre fans for some time to come.

You've been doing Stargate for so many years now. How do you keep it fresh for yourself?
The writers do that for me in a big way by giving Carter relationships that challenge her, so there's always something. But it's really easy to go on autopilot on a show that has been running for this long. So every couple of years I would find a new way to walk with her; slightly change her physicality in some way, give her a different backstory. Something that in the back of my mind changes how she views things.

Do you ever find it sort of difficult to tell yourself apart from Samantha Carter?

There was a period of time when it was pretty symbiotic - which is probably the perfect word for it, considering it's Stargate! But I'm way goofier than Carter. In some ways, playing her has made me a little stronger, a little more able to stand up for myself. We've learned a lot from each other, as weird as it sounds.

Was it a major change, switching over to Atlantis?

Carter on SG-1 is very confident. It's her comfort zone; she's not in command, but she knows exactly what she's doing, and she fits into the team dynamic really well. Whereas on Atlantis, she's in command, it's not something she's used to, and she's trying really hard not to step on anyone's toes. It's two totally different versions of the same woman.

Were you happy with Carter on Atlantis?

I think they could have done a bit more with her. I blame myself, because I initially said I don't want her to be too pushy. I wanted her to respect the team around her. And they wrote that really beautifully. But then you go,'Wait, where's the feist?' We did sort of find the old Carter in episodes like Trio and Quarantine, but I think, had I stayed with the show, I would have liked to have done more with her.

Is the feel of the two shows very different? SG-1 had a very stable cast cast for a long time, but Atlantis has had a lot of characters coming and going...

The feeling on the sets is very different. SG-1 is where I started. That's my family, it's home. Atlantis was going to the cottage and meeting up with my summer friends. There was an immediate level of comfort with the SG-1cast, an immediate camaraderie. When I go onto the Atlantis set, they have that, but it's their show, and I'm coming in as the outsider.

There have been a lot of episodes of SG-1 that have dealt with alternate realities. How has the DVD movie Continuum, which shows a reality where the Stargate was never reactivated, set itself aside from this?

It doesn't in some ways. It follows the same vein, but it's just a much broader scope. It's an alternate timeline that we have never delved into before. It speaks back to the initial mythology of the Stargate coming over to America, and it speaks of the innocence of Earth prior to any alien invasion. It takes the same conventions, then blows it wide open.
You shot a chunk of it in the Arctic. That must have been tough.

It was the best film experience of my life. It was the adventure of a lifetime, and I don't think I'll ever get the opportunity to repeat it. Yes, the conditions were ridiculously harsh - minus 58 degrees F, and more with the windchill. You're looking out for frostbite, watching out for polar bears, trying not to fall through cracks in the ice. I mean, real life-threatening danger. And then there are just the uncomfortable things that you forget about, like my first night I threw my kitbag on the floor, and everything froze - my toothpaste and my deodorant. Going into the mess tent and making a cup of tea and asking where the milk was, and it's by your feet, because it's so cold. And the freezer is literally just the outside. One day, we had a submarine that had to surface, but the wind was so strong, and the current under the water was at a different speed than ice. Basically, we finally got the word that they couldn't do it. It was just so rugged. All your thoughts are of keeping warm, keeping fed - and oh, are we actually going to try and shoot something today? You had frostbite buddies. One of our crew members got frost lung, and I got a bit of frostbite on my cheek. But you know what? Any one of the people would have done it again. That speaks of the experience. Nobody wanted to leave. It was beautiful and scary, and I don't think I could possibly say enough about it.

All this effort for how many minutes of film?

It's like eight minutes or something; it's a ridiculously small amount of time! I mean, we made a meal out of it - it's absolutely stunning, but yeah, I remember turning to director Martin Wood during the screening and saying, 'Er, are we not in the Arctic anymore?' and he's like, 'No, that's it.' And I was like, 'Wow, all that work, and all that adventure, eight days, living on a moving ice floe in plywood huts, for that!'

You are starting shooting Sanctuary on Monday. What was your reaction when you were told it was going to get picked up by Sci Fi?

It was a big 'Phew!' Because I had actually turned down Atlantis before I knew that Sanctuary was being picked up, so it was a massive leap of faith on my part. I felt that if I said yes to Atlantis, I would essentially shut down Sanctuary, all the people who had put in their money and their time... No network would have picked up Sanctuary knowing I was in first position on another show. As soon as I made that choice, then Sci Fi said,'Okay, we're interested.' And now ITV has picked up the 13 episodes, which is amazing.

How does it feel being on the other side of the desk as a producer?

When I was on Atlantis recently, I said to the producer, 'I just want to be an actor again! For all the time I came into your office and asked something really stupid, I'm sorry.' It's a lot of work, but I love the experience. Once we get into post production that's when I'll be really busy! And I'm the go-to director on the show, so if there are any splinter units to be shot, I'll be hauled off to do that.

So, when do we expect it to air?

October. The first four webisodes form the basis of the pilot. We're actually reshooting the entire thing, though we'll be using some of the flashbacks. Then the second hour that was on the web, the story about the Morrigan, we'll make that the basis for another episode.

Was doing it for the web a sneaky way of getting a pilot together?

No! You know what? I actually have to honestly say our intentions were really pure, we wanted to live on the web, because that's where our fanbase is, and our intention was to create an entire virtual show. We'd let the fans have a say in the course of action, and be involved in the energy and the social networking. It made so much sense to us, this convergence of the media. I think it is the way new media is going, but we were probably about a year or two ahead of our time.

The web stuff certainly looked impressive...
A lot of that was rendered in 12 days, which was insane. It does look awesome, but for broadcast it will obviously be more polished. Anthem is our visual effects house - they did all the effects for Tinman. They've actually cleaned up some of the web stuff and, wow!

Does it still retain its darkness?

To a degree, yeah, because I think it is important that it does maintain that feel to it. Physically, it'll be brighter, literally. And the backstory's different, but that's as per network notes - taking the pilot and rejigging it and making the characters a lot more accessible. But the edge is there, and it still won't look photoreal - it will have a kind of graphic novel/gamey feel to it, a Sin City/300 kind of look. The beauty of having 13 episodes is we've really mapped out a cool arc for all the characters, and introduced this really amazing backstory. We're all exhausted, and we haven't even started shooting yet!

Are you still going to be releasing it on the web?

It will live on the web in some form, but at this point, because we've been so weighed under trying to get the show off the ground - we are the studio, we don't have MGM behind us or the big money - we're focused on just getting the television series up and running. Once we get that, we'll branch back out to the fans and make it live on the web. Sci Fi will do their own streaming of the show, but we've maintained a lot of the digital rights. It's important to us because that's where we started.

And how long will you do SG-1 for, if you get the chance?

Until we can't walk, I guess! Until it becomes ridiculous to carry a P90. When we're going through the Stargate with walkers, it's time to stop, but I can see us doing a few more movies yet!

 

ARTICLE - Zap2It (October 1) -
http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2008/10/
sanctuary-harbors-mixed-blessings-for-amanda-tapping.html

'Sanctuary' Harbors Mixed Blessings for Amanda Tapping

If blondes have more fun, then brunettes live longer -- or at least that's what sci fi veteran Amanda Tapping discovered on her latest show Sanctuary.

On the Sci Fi Channel drama, premiering Friday, Oct. 3, Tapping plays Dr. Helen Magnus, the dark-haired, brilliant scientist who just happens to be 157-years-old. For Tapping, who played blonde Col. Samantha Carter for 11 years on Stargate: SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis, deciding to play Magnus required a big change, beginning with her hair color.

"When I first decided to do Helen Magnus it was a real conscious choice to have absolutely no vestige of Sam Carter, from her appearance to her voice, to her walk, to her wardrobe, everything," explains Tapping. "People that I've worked with for ten years don't recognize me. I just shot the final episode of Atlantis last week and I walked onto the set and half the crew didn't know who I was. And I was like, 'Sweet, I have accomplished what I set out to accomplish.'"

Although Tapping changed from light to dark and from combat boots into stilettos, the physical changes are only clues to what's going on with the complex character.

"It's centered around my character, Helen Magnus, who is a 157-year old doctor from Victorian England who runs a sanctuary for all manner of abnormal creatures," says Tapping. "She pulls into the fray a young forensic psychiatrist named Will Zimmerman who has always sort of thought outside of the box and has therefore been shunned by regular law enforcement agencies but in fact now realizes that the things that he's sort of tried to investigate are now real."

In the premiere, Zimmerman (Robin Dunne) is a mild-mannered intellectual whose life is thrown for a loop when he encounters a very unusual -- and dangerous -- boy, whom Magnus is interested in saving for the Sanctuary. When Zimmerman crosses paths with Magnus, he's reluctant to join her team even though her cause sounds noble because he finds her inscrutable.

"Helen is this very sexual, mysterious being," says Tapping. "It was sort of trying to create this completely legitimate, dark, intense woman after playing somebody like Carter for so long. It was a huge challenge to find her and literally also just to find her voice. I wanted to make sure that because she's from Victorian-era England, it informs so much of who this woman is and how she thinks."

The actress used a purely aristocratic accent as a jumping off point, but since Magnus had to evolve over 157 years, her speech had to lose a bit of the stilted propriety to make way for modern vernacular. Tapping found herself trying out different accents in her everyday life in order to hit upon the perfect "voice" for her character, which won't be the only historical element on the sci fi show.

Cast_sanctuary_240_3 Tapping explains, "The episode of 'The Five' deals with these five characters from history who have come together, these forward-thinking scientists and how they've come to be who they are; Jack the Ripper being one of them, Helen being another one and a few other very cool characters from history. Also, Nikola Tesla is one of the characters that comes to light in the Sanctuary."

Beyond this historical stunt casting, however, the show will focus mainly on the creatures brought to the Sanctuary. Since the show is shot in the manner of 300 or Sin City, that means most of the sets and fantastical creatures will be purely computer-generated. Coming from a theater background, Tapping was comfortable in the minimalist sets, even if she was talking to "tennis balls on little grip stands" that would stand in for creatures to be filled in later.

Some of the creatures include mermaids, fire-breathers, winged humanoids and other beings inspired by mythology. Others though, appeared to be perfectly normal humans, except for some special quirk.

Tapping reveals, "We have a beautiful episode called 'Edward' where it's a young boy who is an autistic savant, and he's like a human camera. There's actually a person like this in the world, so it's based on sort of pseudo fact.

"So we're pulling from sort of the 'things that go bump in the night' mythologies that we've all grown up with," she continues. "We pull from history and then we're also just taking really remarkable human beings and shedding a light on that idea."

Tapping, who is intrigued by vampire lore, also reveals that the bloodsuckers will be addressed somewhere along the 13 episodes of the first season. She does not, however, say if they have anything to do with the secret of her character's longevity, which will be revealed in "The Five." Although Magnus still appears youthful, she has mixed feelings about her long life.

"Ultimately she still sees that there's work to be done and that her quest is worthy, so she needs to be around for it," says Tapping. "But when you watch everyone you've ever known grow old and die -- all your lovers and your friends -- I think that her heart is very well protected now because if it wasn't, she would be heartbroken all the time."

One of Magnus' most personal dilemmas is her grown daughter Ashley (Emilie Ullerup), a weapons expert and martial artist who acts as the muscle for Sanctuary.

Emilieullrep_sanctuary_240 "Helen made a choice to bring this child into the world knowing that she could quite possibly watch her grow old and die, not knowing if Ashley has the longevity," says Tapping. "She'll fight to the ends of the earth to protect her daughter, but in the end of the day, it's often her daughter protecting her, which again turns the whole mother/daughter dynamic on its head."

Despite playing such a conflicted character and being a real-life mother to her 3-year-old daughter Olivia, Tapping finds those tasks relatively easy now that she's donned a new hat: executive producer. Taking a role behind the Sanctuary cameras involved casting approval, financial talks, editing, sound mixing, color correcting, endless meetings and conference calls. The increased workload has made Tapping a trifle nostalgic for her Stargate days.

"I used to think, 'Oh my God, I've got ten pages of techno-babble today. I'm working so hard,'" Tapping muses. "And now I just laugh at that and go, 'Oh my God, there are days where I just want to be an actor again.'"

ARTICLE - The Globe and Mail (October 2)

It has become second nature for television producers and networks to use the Internet as a marketing tool – a way to promote their schedules, offer after-broadcast downloads, create online fan communities. But a new Canadian science-fiction series is moving the other way: After originating on the Web, Sanctuary is making the leap from desktop to small screen, premiering on television with a two-hour episode tomorrow night.

Technology plays a big role in Sanctuary – not just in its origins, but in the way it’s made. In any given episode, as much as 80 per cent of the content has been shot using green-screen technology to create elaborate, virtual sets and completely digital characters.

So a bare set (in a former bicycle factory in Burnaby, just outside of Vancouver) becomes a subway tunnel, a windy bridge or a creepy street scene. And actors frequently find themselves interacting with non-existent co-stars.

To shoot one scene, Amanda Tapping (Dr. Helen Magnus) recited dialogue toward director/executive producer Martin Wood’s hand – with lips painted on it. In the finished product, she is talking to a mermaid.

“Technically, acting in front of a green screen is a lot like doing theatre,” says Tapping, who is also an executive producer on the show. “You really do have a true fourth wall.”

The show centres on a sanctuary where Magnus houses and studies supernatural creatures, with the help of her daughter (Emilie Ullerup), a forensic psychiatrist with a dark secret (Robin Dunne) and a technology wiz (Ryan Robbins). Magnus, 157 years old (but looking not a day over 35), has roots that go back to Victorian England. Present day, she is protective of the monsters society would shun – if people even believed in their existence.

Originally launched last year as eight webisodes totalling about two hours, the series was created by a group of Stargate alumni: Tapping (who played Samantha Carter for more than 10 years on the various Stargate incarnations), writer/executive producer Damian Kindler and Wood.

“In terms of what we did on the Net, we were one of the first to come in,” Wood says. “And it showed a whole bunch of other people that it’s possible.”

The decision to launch the series online was not born out of a lack of funding or broadcast deal, the producers say, but from a belief that the Internet is a viable source for original high-quality material – especially for science fiction.

“We wanted to live and breathe on the Web because that’s where the fan base spends so much time,” Tapping says.

Indeed, within six months of launching, the number of downloads and views totalled 3.7 million. But the downloads didn’t translate into dollars.

“A show of this scale and budget, to be honest, with the visual effects that we’re trying to produce, just doesn’t monetize on the Web,” Tapping adds, “and we realized we couldn’t afford to stay on the Web with the show that we wanted to make.”

So when broadcasters came calling, it was impossible to resist the opportunity.

Walking the fine line between attracting new viewers to the television series and not alienating fans familiar with the story from the Internet, the  show’s creators aimed to explain the backstory in far more detail on TV, while reusing very little of the webisode footage (only one flashback scene from the two-hour premiere, for example, was previously used).

“It’s like the webisodes on steroids,” Tapping says. “We’re fleshing it out so much. It’s much broader strokes.”

The show is the first in North America to start production using the RED camera – a straight-to-hard-drive, high-resolution digital system. And with the exception of labour tax credits, Wood says the production received no government funding. Instead, the money came from a local developer, The Beedie Group.

The eight webisodes were produced for about $3-million in total, and each hour-long television episode is budgeted at $1.56-million.

“We’re half the budget of a show like Eureka,” Wood says, referring to another Sci Fi Channel show shot in Vancouver about a top-secret community of scientists after the Second World War. “Half. And our product looks like it could easily hold up in that arena.”

But the biggest difference between Sanctuary and shows like Eureka and Stargate is that Sanctuary is a Canadian series, not a U.S. property shot in Canada, its creators say.

“Everything about the show is Canadian: the money, the financing, the script, the actors, everything,” Tapping says. “We’re doing something that’s never been done in the world, and it’s from Canada.”

In Burnaby last month, after the last scene was shot, the executive producers walked out onto the bare set and thanked the crew for their efforts. Then Wood said: “Let’s hear it for Canadian production.” The whole crew, he says, jumped up in the air.

“It was heart-stirring to see what it meant to them, the Canadian in this,” Wood says. “To show Canadians that it’s possible for us to do it. Us. Alone.”

Sanctuary premieres tomorrow night at 9 p.m. ET on The Movie Network and 8 p.m. PT on Movie Central (http://www.sanctuaryforall.com). It will also broadcast on the Sci Fi Channel in the U.S. and, in a second Canadian run, on Space.

ARTICLE - Asbury Park Press  (October 2) -
http://article.wn.com/view/2008/10/02/Sci_Fis_Sanctuary_has_stars_seeing_green/

In a former bicycle factory in suburban Vancouver, Amanda Tapping and Jim Byrnes played out a scene before the cameras. It’s a typical laboratory, except for one thing: There’s no lab, just green. But don’t tell Tapping.

“You have to use your imagination,” she said. “No matter whether you have a full set or not, it’s your job as an actor to make people believe that you’re in that space.”

The cast and crew were filming the Sci Fi Channel’s new series Sanctuary, which will premiere at 9 p.m. Friday with a two-hour episode. Tapping plays Helen Magnus, a seemingly ageless 157-year-old doctor from Victorian England who runs a sanctuary for all manner of “abnormals.”

“Anything from the mythology that we grew up with, the little things that go bump in the night, the whispers, the things that you catch out of the corner of your eye. She captures and protects them and studies them,” Tapping explained.

Added series creator Damian Kindler: “She protects us, the public, from them, but also protects them from the public at large. But it’s also about  the fear of who we are and what we might become. We’re afraid of monsters and of strange things, but also what those things represent.”

Sanctuary got its start on the Web in 2007, shot as a self-produced, two-hour pilot by Kindler; Martin Wood, the executive producer and director; and Tapping, all veterans of Sci Fi’s popular Stargate franchise  The team soon realized that, with a low budget, going to the places Kindler envisioned in his script wouldn’t be possible, except in a virtual world.

“There’s no way we can build a massive underground six-story laboratory filled with monsters,” Wood explained. “Just the line ‘filled with monsters’ would turn most studio executives into little blobs of Jell-O. Any time you create that kind of stuff, you can’t do it practically.”

The solution lay in the use of virtual sets. The actors are filmed in front of a large green screen, with minimal set dressing, if any. The green is then replaced in post-production with fantastic — and stunningly realistic — sets by the show’s visual-effects department.

“About 70 percent of our sets are virtual, at this point,” said Lee Wilson, the visual-effects supervisor, demonstrating a before-and-after shot — with the actors on green, then with the backgrounds inserted — in his production office.

Wilson and production designer Bridget McGuire will work before an episode goes into production to decide which sets will be built on the stage and which will be created in the computer. “If it’s an office or someplace where the characters will be returning to often, it makes sense to build a practical version on the stage. But if it’s an expansive set, like Magnus’ laboratory, that’s quite spacious and elaborate, then it makes sense to do it as a virtual set.”

Directing actors before a green screen — as well as envisioning whole scenes — requires a visual imagination, Wood said.

“It’s something we do all the time when we read books,” he said. “What I do on a television set is what most people do when they read a story. I just translate mine into something that everybody can see.”

Working without physical sets requires a special skill for actors as well, and Tapping had an opportunity to develop the technique on Stargate, where she played the popular Sam Carter for 10 seasons.

“The hardest thing with green screen is getting an idea of the scale,” she said. “If you’re supposed to appear to be on the 20th story of a building that’s being built standing on a steel girder and the wind is blowing, you have to think: how does your body react to the wind buffeting you when you could fall 20 stories?”

Tapping’s popularity among science-fiction fans has given her double confidence with the new series. “The demographic is not what people think it is,” said the actress, who was mobbed at this summer’s Comic-Con show in San Diego.

“It’s not 18- to 25-year-old pasty-faced boys in their parents’ basements at their computers,” she explained. “I have young girls who were inspired in their classes, whose grades in math went up, come up to me at conventions and say, ‘I’m more forward now about my right to learn this and my right to showcase my talent in science.’ That kind of stuff will stay with you for life.”

Tapping takes her connection with her fans seriously, waiting as long as needed at Comic-Con to meet them at autograph-signing sessions. “She’s good with people, and she respects the fans,” Kindler said.

INTERVIEW - The Futon Critic (October 3) -
http://www.thefutoncritic.com/interviews/2008/10/03/
interview-sanctuary-star-amanda-tapping-29045/20081003_sanctuary/

What do you do when you're a part of a very successful franchise but have a chance to bring your pet project to cable television? If you're actress Amanda Tapping, who recently talked to our Jim Halterman about tonight's premiere of "Sanctuary," you make what she calls "this enormous leap of faith."

Tapping elaborated on how she came to the decision. "I had finished Season 4 of '[Stargate] Atlantis' and I got offered Season 5 and it was a really lovely contract. And it would've been very easy to say yes [since] 'Sanctuary' was waiting in the wings. We didn't have a broadcast deal yet. We were hoping that - you know, we had a lot of interest from different broadcasters around the world and we were hoping that we would get picked up. And so had I said yes to ['Stargate: Atlantis'], I would've basically killed 'Sanctuary' where it stood because I wouldn't have been available to do it, and it would've gone away."

Fans should know, however, that her moving on is not necessarily permanent since her character could pop up in the future. "'Stargate' was very gracious and understood my need to sort of move on. The fact that there was still the possibility of 'Stargate' movies and that I would definitely be involved in them made it sort of a soft landing because I wasn't actually saying good-bye. I was saying see you later."

With her new character of Dr. Helen Magnus, Tapping explained that she employed efforts to distance herself from her long-running "Stargate" character, including going from blonde to brunette. "When I first decided to do Helen Magnus it was a real conscious choice to have absolutely no vestige of Sam Carter in this character... everything from her appearance to her voice, to her walk, to her wardrobe, everything. I just felt in the end to completely reinvent. Partly as a woman, I just felt it was time and, as an actress, I just felt it was time to just try something completely different. And it's kind of great because I go places and people don't recognize me; people that I've worked with for ten years don't recognize me."

With all this attention to the appearance of Helen Magnus, one thing that should be mentioned is that the character also happens to be 157 years old, a point that is a mysterious story unto itself and will be revealed in an upcoming episode. Tapping joked that "[Helen] bathes in botox." Growing more serious, she teased, "Wait until the episode 'The Five' and you'll get the full meal deal on Helen Magnus and how she came to be who she is and why she's still around."

Tapping also expressed her gratitude for having the cable television platform to spread the "Sanctuary" story. "The beauty of being given a 13-episode arc for our first season is that we've been able to pull these stories out, like just create this huge mythology that we couldn't do in the two hours of webisodes. We sort of packed a lot into those two hours but now we're able to sort of draw that mythology out."

The difference in physicality of Helen Magnus was also a challenge for Tapping after having played her role in "Stargate" for so long. "Sam is so comfortable in her own skin and Helen is this very sexual, more mysterious being. She has a much darker edge to her and it was sort of [challenging] finding that because Carter always looks on the bright side and Helen has been around so long and has seen so much of the evil in human society, if you will."

Tapping also made a strong effort in nailing the perfect way she thought Helen would speak. "I wanted her voice to still have that carriage of the aristocrat and the use of proper English. But she's been around for so long that it couldn't be so highbrow. It still had to be sort of accessible to modern day vernaculars. So finding that was a challenge." There was one place off set that Tapping used to figure out the correct accent for Helen. "I walked around for days trying different accents on people, unwitting, ordering coffee at Starbucks as this mid-Atlantic wasn't working for me so I had to pull back. It was kind of goofy but that was part of the challenge and the joy of creating this new character."

An important element of the mythology of the series is the plethora of abnormal creatures that inhabit the Sanctuary. One way the series makes this new world relatable to viewers is to provide a regular character that is also seeing the Sanctuary for the first time. Tapping explains that Helen "pulls into the fray a young forensic psychiatrist named Will Zimmerman (Robin Dunne) who has always sort of thought outside the box and has therefore been shunned by regular law enforcement agencies but in fact now realizes that the things that he's sort of tried to investigate are now real. You're kind of seeing a lot of the Sanctuary and a lot of the creatures [and] mythologies through his eyes as sort of the everyman."

Another distinct component to the series is the extensive use of green screen to create the everyday environment that the characters inhabit, including the Sanctuary. Tapping estimated "about 70/30 [or] 75/25 is green screen to practical. We built some practical sets. Helen Magnus's office, for example, is for the most part a practical set except for the ceiling and what you see out the windows. But otherwise it is entirely virtual." Tapping likens acting with green screen is much like another  acting platform. "It's like doing theater [and] you get used to it very quickly. David Geddes is our Director of Photography and he's literally an  artist. He creates this palette for you where you believe there's a window with sunlight streaming in and you can tell what hour of day it is by the way he's lit it. So you get those visual cues and it makes it that much more real."

With such a massive use of visual effects, do the visual effects ever eclipse the narrative flow and characters in the series? "What's happening is really what's happening to the characters," Tapping said. "So the hard thing for the writers is sort of marrying more of our creatures and how to make that work because they're interacting with the actors. And that's the hard thing... it's not really just about the cool effect or what they look like. It's about what's at the heart of it. That sounds kind of hokey but it's true."

One manner in which Helen Magnus, for example, keeps her emotional core pulsing is in giving her a daughter and having mother/daughter issues exist as part of the mystery in the narrative. Trying her best to explain without giving too much away, Tapping carefully said, "I'm still trying to wrap my head around how to play this out but Helen made a choice to bring a child into the world knowing that she could possibly watch her grow old and die... not knowing if Ashley (played by Emilie Ullerup) has the same gift that Helen has... not knowing if Ashley will have the longevity." Given the sci-fi genre, however, the parent/child narrative staple finds itself in unfamiliar territory, Tapping added. "There [are] times when the mother/daughter dynamic flashes up and it sort of feels weird. It's like Ashley, be careful out there and yet you're sending her out to fight an invisible monster in the caves underneath the city."

INTERVIEW - Monsters & Critics (October 3) -
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/smallscreen/features/
article_1434692.php/Amanda_Tapping_finds_Sanctuary_at_SCI_FI_interview

This past weekend, Monsters and Critics joined “Sanctuary” star Amanda Tapping in Estes Park, Colorado for a great visit with the star of SCI FI’s latest drama

The new series stars the Stargate veteran serving as the lead actor, executive producer and even director at times.

In a former bicycle factory in suburban Vancouver, Amanda Tapping and her cast play their roles against a green screen which will be “colored in” later by a crack team of visual effects wizards, putting their character Helen Magnus into any imaginable scenario in history.

The virtual sets allows the actors stunningly realistic scenes that take the viewers in and out of time periods with minimal set dressing, if any.

Working without physical sets was something Tapping has experience with from her work on "Stargate," where she played the popular Colonel Samantha “Sam” Carter for 10 years.

"The hardest thing with green screen is getting an idea of the scale," she  noted.

"For us as actors, we use our imagination and skills to make people believe that you're in that space," Tapping shared at breakfast inside the historic Stanley Hotel, the muse for Stephen King’s Overlook Hotel in “The Shining.”  The haunted hotel was our three-day destination to get to know Helen, as well as other new SCI FI programming.

SCI FI Channel's new series "Sanctuary" premieres on the cable channel Friday (tonight) with a two-hour episode.

The Stanley Hotel, Estes Park, Colo.

Tapping plays Helen Magnus; she is an ageless 157-year-old doctor from Victorian-era England who runs a sanctuary for abnormals.  "The stories and the mythology that is all around us, what we grew up with, the odd little things that you catch you off guard, maybe out of the corner of your eye. She protects them and studies them," Tapping explains, sitting with us at breakfast in the Manor House meeting room, a very haunted and storied part of the 100 year-old Stanley Hotel.

"Sanctuary" got its start on the Web in 2007, shot as a self-produced, two-hour pilot by executive producers Damian Kindler and Martin Wood, as well as Tapping, all of them veterans of the "Stargate" franchise. The team soon realized that a bigger medium was need to properly tell Helen’s stories, and they brought in showrunner Sam Egan to round out their team as they moved forward with SCI FI for the transition from webisodes to television series.

Amanda Tapping, star and Executive Producer of SCI FI's groundbreaking new series, "Sanctuary" which premieres tonight, Friday, October 3 at 9:00 pm spoke to Monsters and Critics in Colorado along with other online journalists regarding her new role as Helen Magnus in “Sanctuary”:

You played Sam Carter for so long. Is there an emotional detachment that you go through when you’ve played this character for such a long period of time and then moving into Helen Magnus and this whole new world that’s been created for you?

Amanda Tapping: Yeah, it’s a weird disconnect that you have to do because Sam Carter was so much a part of me. I mean, the line between Sam and Amanda became pretty blurry at times.

She informed so much of who I was becoming and I informed so much of who she was becoming that, you know, it was a weird - it was a very difficult disconnect.

When I finally decided to not go back to Atlantis - and I ended up doing two episodes this season - so the very first one and the very last one of the season which was great.

But when I said no and I finally had to walk away, I was driving in my car and I had to pull over, I just balled my eyes out,  I was a massive emotional mess and my husband was like come on seriously, 11 years sweetheart, move on. I was like you don’t understand.

It’s sort of like cutting off your arm and going okay how do I move forward now?

But then after awhile, I mean, for me as an actor the whole joy of discovering a whole new character and of creating this woman was, you move on pretty quickly. Like I said, it’s been a very soft landing. If I had gone - if Stargate had been canceled and I didn’t have anywhere to go, then that would be I think a lot more difficult to let her go.

But because I had somewhere really exciting to leap into - the hard part for me was last week where I wrapped Sanctuary on September 12 and the following week I was shooting Stargate Atlantis.

I was like oh, Sam Carter, Sam Carter, find Sam Carter, where’s Sam Carter? You know what I mean?  I put on the army boots and there she was. It was good.

How did Martin and Damian and Sam come to you for Sanctuary?

Amanda Tapping: Damian wrote the script in 2000 as a spec script when he was a writer living in L.A. and he sort of shelved it, and hung onto it, and in January 2006 brought it to Martin and I.

He brought it to Martin initially and then said I would like to give this to Amanda to look at the part of Helen in it and Martin said yeah, absolutely. And from there it just sort of like was this massive snowball.

We shot testings in June of 2006, got funding, did - in January 2007 shot two hours of Internet material and that premiered in May of 2007. Come July we were starting to get interest from broadcasters and then in May of 2008, started shooting 13 episodes of the series.

So Sam Egan got involved in the beginning of 2008. We needed another shoulder. And it was funny because Sci-Fi said we’ll come up with a list and you guys come up with a list. And there was, you know, one name on the list and it was Sam so it was perfect.

Like we said you tell us your name first. And when they said Sam Egan we were all like on this conference call going ah and we’re all laughing and high-fiving each other quietly.

But yeah, it was sort of the perfect - we all wanted him so he came in and it’s sort of been the four of us battling it out.It’s been amazing. It’s been a really - I’ve said this before, but I’m so proud of this team.

And not to hang a lantern on it, but as a woman in this unique position, to work with three men that have such integrity and such honor, and such grace has been a real treat because I didn’t know how it would be.

It’s a big learning curve for me. I don’t know as much as - like Sam’s a pro. He’s been doing this for so long. And I just thought I don’t know how I fit into this.

But I was able to hold my own and I was able to make mistakes and fall flat on my face, and have them pick me up and dust me off and say good on you. Keep going. So it’s been an amazing experience.

How bad do you miss Stargate showrunner Joe Mallozzi and him taking pictures of what you eat?

Amanda Tapping: Oh my God. Like I was just there on Friday and he’s like okay let’s do a picture. I was like of course we have to. So I went into his office and held up one of his action figures in his office as it were. He takes pictures of everything. He’s hilarious. I will totally miss that. But, you know, he’ll still be blogging.

Amanda, where did your interest for Sci Fi and fantasy begin?

Amanda Tapping: I would say more fantasy. I wasn’t a huge Sci-Fi fan. I appreciated the genre but I honestly was more of a Little House on the Prairie girl.

But I grew up with three brothers and they were all the big Sci-Fi shows. And I actually really got into Star Trek: Next Generation and Babylon 5.  I guess I slowly got indoctrinated - pulled away from the prairie into space.

What pulls you to this genre?

Amanda Tapping: As hokey as this sounds, it’s just a limitless possibility. It’s the fact that you can go anywhere, do anything. You’re not bound by even normal human physics.

I mean, you can literally do anything and I think that that idea of possibility is what makes it so appealing. But in truth, Sci-Fi as a genre is really not that different than anything else.

We’re telling the same sort of stories. We just have maybe perhaps a broader palette on which to tell them. But I don’t think - and I think Sci-Fi as a genre is blown wide open.

It’s not what it used to be. It’s not - the demographic is a lot different than it used to be. We’re not just exploring Space. I mean, the genre is much broader than it used to be.

There’s more female audience members.There’s a lot of women watching Sci-Fi which is amazing.

What was the hook for Sanctuary for you to pull you away from Stargate?

Amanda Tapping: When I first got approached with Sanctuary, I didn’t know what the future of me and the Stargate franchise was going to be. And this was January of 2006 that it initially - the script was brought to me.

At that time I didn’t know Atlantis was going to - I was going to be doing Atlantis and I didn’t know what was going to happen with SG-1. So we shot this little test scene and then we got the funding and in January 2007 decided to do a web series which didn’t seem at all to conflict with Stargate or how that was going to work. The timing worked out perfectly.

I had finished Season 4 of Atlantis and I got offered Season 5 and it was a  really lovely contract. And it would’ve been very easy to say yes.

But I had to sort of make this enormous leap of faith because Sanctuary was waiting in the wings. We didn’t have a broadcast deal yet. We were hoping that we had a lot of interest from different broadcasters around the world and we were hoping that we would get picked up.

Had I said yes to Atlantis, I would’ve basically killed Sanctuary where it stood because I wouldn’t have been available to do it, and it would’ve gone away.

I felt really strongly - so many people had put their time and effort, and money and support behind it that I thought it’s time to make this leap. And I love the character. I love this show.

Stargate was very gracious and understood my need to sort of move on. The fact that there was still the possibility of Stargate movies and that I would definitely be involved in them made it sort of a soft landing because I wasn’t actually saying good bye. I was saying see you later.

But I did make this enormous leap of faith whereby I said okay I have to stand beyond this project. I put my money in it. I put my name attached to it and I’m executive producing it. And here I go.

So I took the leap and shortly after turning down the Atlantis contract Sanctuary started to get its broadcasts picked up around the world. So, 'phew' was basically the word of the week.

I just felt I had to stand behind it. And it’s a beautiful project and I’m so proud of it and I’m so proud of the people that are involved. And it felt like the right time.

Talk about your new look.

Amanda Tapping: It was a really conscious choice. When I first decided to do Helen Magnus it was a real conscious choice to have absolutely no vestiges of Sam Carter in this character in terms of any - everything from her appearance to her voice, to her walk, to her wardrobe, everything.

I just felt the end to completely reinvent. Partly as a woman, I just felt it was time and as an actress I just felt it was time to just try something completely different.

And it’s kind of great because I go places and people don’t recognize me;  people that I’ve worked with for ten years don’t recognize me. I just shot the final episode of Atlantis last week and I walked onto the set and half the crew didn’t know who I was. And I was like sweet, I have accomplished what I set out to accomplish. And then of course I came back with a blonde wig and they went oh hey Amanda…It was funny.

Were you put off by working with a green screen?

Amanda Tapping: Initially it is but you know what, it feels more like doing  theater than anything else. And that was my training so it actually feels like you’re putting on a play half the time because you don’t have a huge  set to play with and you really do definitely have the fourth wall.

So it feels a bit more like theater. But initially the hardest thing with shooting an almost entirely virtual show is getting a sense of the scale. We’ve shot in the catacombs under Rome and we’ve shot in huge chapels and we’ve shot in - the Sanctuary itself is this massive structure. And it’s really hard to get a sense of just how big it all is.

And so when we’re starting to see now the fully finished effects, you’re like oh my, wow the Sanctuary really is huge. Whoah, okay.But that’s the hardest thing. The hardest thing is just getting a sense of the scope. I think we set out wanting to do a lot more. I think we’re probably at about 70/30, 75/25 to green screen to practical.

We built some practical sets. Like Helen Magnus’ office, for example, is for the most part a practical set except for the ceiling and what you see out the windows.

You can’t help but be drawn into it, I think you can’t help but notice how kind of cool it looks. But otherwise it is entirely virtual. And like I said, it’s like doing theater. You get used to it very quickly. 

David Geddes is our Director of Photography and he’s literally an artist.

He creates this palette for you where you believe there’s a window with sunlight streaming in and you can tell what hour of day it is by the way he’s lit it. Honestly at the end of the day all the technology in the world wouldn’t mean anything if you didn’t care about the characters.

I think that that’s always been the case with good television is if you care about the characters and you care about what happens to them, and you’re interested in their relationships and you’re interested in how they move forward through scenes, then that doesn’t matter what’s going on in the background.

I think that at the end of the day the audience will really like the characters on the show and will care about them. And that will save us, technology aside.

Helen Magnus looks really good for 157. What’s her secret?

Amanda Tapping: She bathes in Botox. No, yeah well actually her - I’d tell you but I’d have to kill you. Wait until the episode, The Five, and you’ll get it - you’ll get the full meal deal on Helen Magnus and how she came to be who she is and why she’s still around.

The beauty of being given a 13-episode arc for our first season is that we’ve been able to sort of pull these stories out, like just create this huge mythology that we couldn’t do in the two hours of webisodes.

We sort of packed a lot into those two hours. But now we’re able to sort of draw that mythology out. So Helen Magnus’ secret is revealed in an episode called The Five.

Which is very cool but thank you for saying she looks good.

What’s the direction of the series?

Amanda Tapping: Well part of the mythology, like I said in the episode of The Five, deals with these five characters from history who have come together, these forward-thinking scientists and how they’ve come to be who they are; Jack the Ripper being one of them, Helen being another one, and a few other very cool characters from history.

So we start with that as a jumping off point. But the main focus of the show is the creatures within the Sanctuary. And it can be anything from - we have a beautiful episode called Edward where it’s a young boy who is an autistic savant and it’s his ability - he’s like a human camera.

And he’s actually a person like this in the world so it’s based on sort of pseudo fact. But, you know, there’s his story and how they get him to come out of his shell. It his back-story is really explored.

I’m loathed to say monster of the week because it’s not that but we do - every episode has a very interesting focal character that we’re dealing with. But like I said, we also bring in, and it’s now common knowledge, Nikola Tesla is one of the characters that comes to light in the Sanctuary.

We’re pulling from that. We’re pulling from sort of the things that go bump  in the night mythologies that we’ve all grown up with. We pull from that. We pull from history. We’re also just taking really remarkable human beings and sort of shedding a light on that idea. Let’s hope we get an endless well of pickups from the network.

What’s exciting about the storyline to you, tell us about the series.

Amanda Tapping:  It’s centered on my character, Helen Magnus, who is a 157-year old doctor from Victorian England who runs a sanctuary for all manner of abnormal creatures.

She’s pulls into the fray a young forensic psychiatrist named Will Zimmerman who has always sort of thought outside of the box and has therefore been shunned by regular law enforcement agencies but in fact now realizes that the things that he’s sort of tried to investigate are now real.

You’re kind of seeing a lot of the Sanctuary and a lot of the creatures, and a lot of the mythologies through his eyes as sort of the everyman. But the show has a very graphic novel feel to it.

We’re shooting almost photo real, half the time you’re not sure if what you’re looking at really exists or whether it’s a visual effect and sometimes it’s very obvious that it’s a visual effect and we’re shooting with a real graphic style.

So it’s got a real edgy look to it. So that’s tone, a bit of the plot. I have this really kick ass daughter, Ashley, who is a weapons expert and a martial artist. And, you know, she’s kind of the cool factor. And we draw from characters in history and from this incredible mythology of my back-story.

How hands on are you as an Executive Producer and what actually does it take to put on a show like this?

Amanda Tapping: Well I’m very hands on; more so than I probably should be. But I’m very hands on. I took the mantle very seriously so part of my job, I felt, was to go out and try to get us the funding to continue to make the show.

So I’m in touch with our financial guys on a regular basis and that’s kind of my job, is to go and get beaten up. Why does television cost so much money? And I have to answer those questions.

I’m involved in the casting and editing, and making sure that the crew is all put together. Now I’m doing post production, mixing shows, color correcting and the sound and everything.

This is a whole new learning curve for me. And I literally found that I do not have a spare minute in my day. As soon as I get to work, which is usually a couple of hours before crew call, if I’m not sitting in the makeup chair or actually acting on set then I’m in a meeting or a conference call.

So my appreciation is that I think actors are wimps. Now I used to think that I had the hardest job in the world. Sam Carter was a really intense character in terms of the volume of dialogue that I had.

I used to think oh my God I’ve got ten pages of techno babble today. I’m working so hard. And now I just laugh at that and go oh wow, there are days where I just want to be an actor again.

How pleased are you with Season 1 as a whole?

Amanda Tapping: Totally, totally proud of it. I’m really thrilled. I think we have some really killer episodes and I’m proud of the fact that our crew stuck around. We wanted to start in February. We didn’t end up starting to shoot until May.

A lot of the people we have are feature quality crew members and who have actually been tried to been lured away and they stayed with the show.

I think it speaks volumes about how much faith people have in this project.  So I’m proud of the look of the show and the feel of it, and the attitude on  set, and the fun that we had.

But I’m really proud of the product. And I think there’s some shows coming up - there’s an episode called Requiem which for me personally was the bravest work I’ve ever done as an actor.

I don’t think I would’ve been able to do that had I not felt so safe. So I mean, I credit the crew and the cast for just - it was a phenomenal experience.

Talk about your crew.

Amanda Tapping: It is the joy of working with people like Damian and Sam  because at the heart of it they write really great character centric shows.  And Damian and Sam will often go to Lee Wilson, our visual effects producer, and say this is what we want to do. How doable is it?

And, the vis effects sometimes -- and more often than not -- will take a  backseat to what’s really happening. And when we’re shooting in the  catacombs under Rome, it’s basically hey Lee, can you build the catacombs under Rome? Hey Lee, can you build a cathedral?

What are some of Helen’s relationships with her daughter in this first crop of episodes?

Amanda Tapping: Well it’s really an interesting relationship between these two. I mean, first of all the fact -- and this is something that I’m still trying to wrap my head around how to play this out but -- Helen made a choice to bring this child into the world knowing that she could quite possibly watch her grow old and die - not knowing if Ashley has the same gift that Helen has, not knowing if Ashley will have the longevity.

So she brings this child into the world knowing that she may lose here which as a parent is like the worst thing ever to imagine your children dying before you.

So starting from that as your jumping off point of a relationship is just a weird place to start. And then what happens is they’re comrades. They’re colleagues.

I mean, she’ll fight to the end of the earth to protect her daughter but in the end of the day, it’s often her daughter protecting her. Which again turns the whole mother/daughter dynamic on its head. There’s a huge amount of respect and there’s a huge amount of chemistry between these two women.

And then there’s times when the mother/daughter dynamic flashes up and it sort of feels weird. It’s like Ashley be careful out there, you know, and yet you’re sending her out to fight a, you know, an invisible monster in the caves underneath the city. It’s like this weird dynamic.So it plays out - I mean, like I said, at the end of the day there’s a huge amount of respect but there are times when you’ll see flashpoints between the two of them and it makes sense only because they work so closely together.

Because of what they’re facing everyday, there’s these flashpoints. But at the end of it there’s a massive amount of love. But again, I have to stress that it’s a weird jumping off point because she’s made this choice to bring this child into the world. And she doesn’t know whether Ashley has the gift of longevity.

With Sanctuary starting out as a web series, had the intention always been for that to be a showcase or a springboard to a traditional TV deal or were there aspects to the web format that were kind of appealing and interesting in their own right?

Amanda Tapping: Well we, in our infinite naivety, actually envisioned staying on the web. We never really set it up to be a model for a television series.

Our initial hope was that we were going to, you know - that the shifting paradigm that this convergence of new media, we were going to do games and having, you know, a full social networking site so that Sanctuary for all became a place where fans could go not just to watch the show, but to get involved in other aspects.

And in ideology it’s great and monetization not so much. And we wanted to make a really spectacular show. We spent a lot of money and it needed it. We wanted to do something that was really big and really flashy, and that we would all, you know, be proud to watch.

We probably could’ve used even a few more million dollars to make the vis effects better.

And the thing you need to know about the webisodes is a lot of those vis effects were rendered in 12 days which is crazy...

There are also ancillary revenue streams so we were thinking we would make money this way, this way and this way and still be able to produce the show.

And that just didn’t happen. I mean, the Internet being what it is, the (bit torrent) sites, the streaming. It was like -  we knew it was going to be pirated and that was cool. We wanted to get the name out there.

What it ended up doing for us was bringing a huge amount of eyeballs to the show from around the world.

And then it sort of became well we don’t want to lose this great intellectual property. We don’t want to lose the idea of the show so let’s go back to what we know and what we’re good at, which is making television.  Suddenly it all made sense. It’s like the clouds parted and the sun stream -  the little god rays streamed through and we went oh, of course we’re going to do television. What were we thinking?

Now we’re on TV and it makes sense. And we’re all very happy to be here. But I think still our goal is to get back onto the web in a different presence.

 

ARTICLE - USA Today (October 5 2008) -
http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2008-10-02-tapping-sanctuary_N.htm

Stargate's Amanda Tapping has a new science-fiction series, Sanctuary. The show, in turn, has a new Tapping.

Both Sanctuary's Dr. Helen Magnus and Col. Samantha Carter, Tapping's character on Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, are brilliant scientists, but there they part ways. Magnus' long, brown tresses have replaced Carter's short blond locks, a reflection of the darkened tone of both the new character and the Sci Fi Channel series (two-hour premiere tonight, 9 ET/PT, before moving to 10 ET/PT on Oct. 10).

Magnus' Victorian-influenced outfits, complemented by stiletto heels, contrast with Carter's military duds. And Tapping takes on a British accent for her character.

"I felt the need to completely reinvent not only myself as an actor, but this character," Tapping says. "A lot of fans have embraced it. Some fans are still a little, 'Whoa! You don't even sound like Sam Carter.' "

In the series, Magnus has converted an old cathedral to serve as a haven and prison for strange, wonderful and sometimes dangerous beings that vary from the norm. Dr. Will Zimmerman (Robin Dunne), a forensic psychiatrist troubled by a disturbing past, joins Magnus, her intrepid daughter, Ashley (Emilie Ullerup), and offbeat tech wizard Henry (Ryan Robbins) in protecting the sanctuary's residents and investigating new beings hidden within human society.

Magnus, too, is different. She's 157 years old, which helps explain her affinity for Victorian style in clothing and residence. Her ties with nemesis John Druitt (Christopher Heyerdahl) trace from 19th-century London.

"I love the eccentricity of this character. She's sexy and strong and unapologetic and really savvy, but also has this amazing history," says Tapping, who was born in England but moved to Canada at a young age. "But also, at the heart of this, there's this swing of incredible loneliness. She's watched everyone she ever cared about grow old and die."

Sanctuary, which mixes Victorian old and cutting-edge new, gets its distinctive look from the advanced computer technology involved in filming, says director and executive producer Martin Wood. He says no TV series has ever relied as much on virtual technology to create sets and visual effects, which are integrated with actors who perform in front of a green screen.

The technology also allows for a production that would have been too expensive otherwise, says Wood, a veteran of the Stargates. Some films (Sin City, 300) feature similar technology, but it previously hasn't made sense for the multi-episodic nature of TV.

"You can't do what we do if you did it the regular TV way. You can't build a  60-foot lab that's got a 56-foot ceiling and drops down four floors," he says.

Current technology better integrates real actors with virtual backgrounds  and allows the camera to track movement rather than having to lock in place for effects, as was the case on the Stargate series, he says. Visually, that allows the heightened reality of a graphic novel, says Tapping, also an executive producer, and expands story opportunities.

"It gives us a huge amount of freedom to go anywhere in the world," she says. "We're in the catacombs under Rome. We're in a submarine in the Bermuda Triangle. We're on an island off Scotland. We're all over the place."

INTERVIEW - Channel Guide Magazine (October) -
http://channelguidemag.zap2it.com/articles/tapping1008.php

From Stargate to Sanctuary Amanda Tapping loves her fans

It's 4pm in Vancouver and Sanctuary star Amanda Tapping has already put in a full day on the set. After our interview, she'll be heading back to work for a few more hours. This type of schedule has been par for the course for Tapping since she began working as both producer and star of Sanctuary, which premieres Oct. 3 on SCI FI Channel. Still, she gave me plenty of time as we talked about the genre she loves, the fans she adores and the fun of filming in Canada, the country the British-born actress now calls home. The cast of "Sanctuary" reads like a who's who of the sci-fi community.

Does the genre get into people's blood or is it just that you are so used to working together?

It's both. There is a great sense of community in sci fi and you know all the actors and a lot of the crew. There's also a certain stylized element in sci fi, especially with green screen when you want to be sure people know what they are doing. And there is a sense of community. But I think the other thing that's really interesting is that, as a genre, sci fi is so much broader than it used to be. You aren't just telling these linear stories about ships and space. Now it's far more all-encompassing. Today's demographic has changed as well and there's a larger audience than there used to be. There are a lot more women watching sci fi and the age demographic is much broader than what was traditionally thought of as a sci-fi audience. So we are using a who's who of the sci-fi community  because we have worked with these people before in the genre, and because the community itself is much bigger and we have a broader group from which to draw. The webisodes for "Sanctuary" were interesting in that a lot was intimated rather than shown, although you could show just about anything given how you were doing it. It feels like a classic old film.

Will that remain in the series?

We have to bring up the power a little bit, but we are trying to stay true to what we envisioned for the show. We wanted to make it intelligent. Sci-fi audiences are a lot more intelligent than some networks will give them credit for. Sometimes a lot of things are watered down, or dumbed down for the audience. We don't want to do that. We also like intimating something in Episode 1 and not explaining it until Episode 7 and having people stew about it. I think that's a far more interesting way to watch television.

Were you originally intending that "Sanctuary" was going to stay on the web or was that a sort of trial run?

It was our intention to stay on the web. The sci-fi audience spends a lot of time on their computers and the social network is strong. People will be watching a sci-fi show and writing about it in the forums as they are watching it. So this is where our audience lives and breathes and spends a lot of time, so why not make a show for them and make it an interactive kind of experience? Incorporate energies and make it a social networking  site and make it the Sanctuary community. Great in theory and concept, but in terms of trying to monetize that, it was near impossible because it's an expensive show to make. Our webisodes cost close to $4 million, and we could have spent a lot more if we had the money. So we were creating a really cool product, and we got a lot of great buzz internationally about it, but we couldn't keep that machine rolling. So moving to television was partly survival and partly because people were coming to us and saying [we should]. We were running out of money and there were sites all over  the world that were showing it for free. The concepts and the characters were too rich to let it go, so when television came a'knocking, we went, "This is exactly where we should be right now."

We decided that [television] is our comfort zone. Let's go back to television and eventually go back to the web, not with a new series but with all the social networking we had originally envisioned, hopefully getting the best of both worlds out of it.

What will you do on the web?

At this stage, we would start the social networking aspect of it -- get the fans involved with games. And then, if the show is a success, we can carry it forward and make the web a separate entity. I would love to see Magnus walking down a corridor in Sanctuary and sort of look toward a door but not open it, and then on the web have the fans able to open that door and see things they won't see on television. We'd make it an interactive experience.

Is working with a green screen very difficult for an actor or is it rather like a stage play?

Exactly like doing a stage play once you wrap your head around the fact that this is what you are supposed to be looking at and this is what is surrounding you. Then it is up to the actor to put texture where you are. I think the hardest part, especially with our show and the green screen, is the scope of it. Sanctuary, the actual lab, is five stories high. You want to create an intimacy between the characters while they are doing the scene, while also giving the sense that they are in a huge space. We do get images we can look at, so visual effects and the art department work together very well.

We also have an incredible director of photography. David Geddes is an artist. He will paint with light. He will create a paned window with the light streaming through. He has led us to believe that we are in the catacombs under Rome or in the Bermuda Triangle or on an island in Scotland. It's amazing what he's been able to do with light, and that makes a huge difference when you are working with green screen. Initially, yes, it is very difficult, but once you get used to it, it is like stage.I love your website and your interaction with fans. There seems to be a much closer relationship between sci-fi fans and their stars than there is  with mainstream series.

I cannot say enough about sci-fi fans. I have never met a more stalwart, focused, supportive group of fans in any genre. Part of it is the social networking. They're really an active group. Stargate lasted 10 years and I attribute it to the fans and to the fact that they stuck by us. I don't do a lot  of conventions, but I do smaller ones, and it's a great way to say thank you to them. They really are an incredible group. It makes taking a big leap of faith -- like leaving the Stargate franchise to jump on to Sanctuary -- easier by knowing there is this groundswell of fans to support it. So "Stargate" isn't going away?

No, it's a show that will never die. It's a fantastic thing. Can you tell me your most interesting fan encounter?

I'm a big supporter of the sisterhood. I talk a lot about women supporting each other. And I speak about the fact that I have had a number of miscarriages because I don't think people talk about it enough. They treat it as this big shameful taboo, and it happens all the time to women. So in talking about that, I've had so many letters and fans coming up and telling me, "Wow, you've helped me through this time. I thought I was alone in this."

Also, there's the family aspect of conventions. Entire families come to them. I do this small convention in England where we raise money for charities, and I had this father and daughter come up. He was not a fan but he spent the weekend just hanging out and meeting the fans. By the end, he'd had a great time and got to know his daughter better. They
walked out arm in arm.

Parents and kids walk away from these weekends totally bonded. You can't buy that kind of experience.

You shot an episode of "Stargate" in the Arctic. You didn't just green screen the Arctic?

No, we had this incredible opportunity. Barry Campbell, this gentleman who works for the [Royal] Navy, came up to our producers at a convention  a number of years ago and said, "We do this applied physics lab up in the Arctic and we'd love to get your guys up." So Continuum, the second Stargate movie, was written with that in mind. And Ben Browder and myself went up, and Richard Dean Anderson came up for the end of it. We took a skeleton crew -- I think there were 10 of us -- and we lived on a moving ice floe in these little boxes -- I think they're called hooches. It was phenomenal. We flew to Prudhoe Bay and lived in the most unbelievable environment. It was rugged, but comfortable. It was freezing cold, minus 58 degrees, but beautiful and life-altering. I've never thought more clearly. I've never had such a sense of the importance of what we are doing on this earth and what we are not doing and how badly we are f#%@-ing it up. And you talk to the people in the coastal cities and how it is changing the ice and how it is affecting the polar bears and this and this and this. It was an amazing experience, and beautiful. I recall that critics used to say that "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" was the most underrated show on television. That seems true about any number of sci-fi shows.

Why is it that sci fi gets so little respect from critics?

I think there is still this very outdated perception of what sci fi is. The genre is much broader and much more far-reaching than it used to be. People still think it is pasty-faced boys living in their parents' basements working at their computers. [But] Stargate got some pretty big names. Isaac Hayes came on and Wayne Brady ... Battlestar was the first show to get more mainstream critical acclaim, so hopefully [perception is] changing. Maybe Sanctuary will be the one that blows it out of the park. Hopefully, it will change, because we're telling the same stories others are telling in medical dramas and police dramas. There's universality to it.

Can you talk about the vibrant television and film community in Canada?

It's amazing up here. I've shot Stargate up here for 11 years and have watched the film community grow. Canada built [its] international film reputation on the fact that the dollar up here was much weaker and there were great tax incentives, so it made a lot of sense monetarily for productions to come here. Then you had a lot of great shows like The X-Files up here shooting, and it put a lot of cities on the map.

Canada also has its own great indigenous film community but it's not as huge as the international one that comes up. Now that the dollar is sort of at par and the tax incentives are being matched in the States, Canada has to find a way to become competitive. But for us on Sanctuary, we're all Canadians and we're all working with Canadian companies with this sort of "little engine that could" show. It's been a great boon for us that there is such a great wealth of talent in terms of the crew and cast that you can get up here. So Canada has been good. Very good.This is your first experience being both star and producer. What's that been like?

I love it. I love the challenge of it. The thing that I am finding is the hardest is the lack of time. You used to think that, as an actor, coming in with 10 pages of delicious techno-babble dialogue was a tough day. Now that makes me laugh because I don't have a spare second available in my day. There is no downtime just sitting in my trailer learning lines. It's up in the office on a conference call with the financial guys. It's post-production issues. It's nonstop. What I love about it is I have a really great team. [We] work together really well. It's nice to be in an environment where you are validated and respected and you have a voice. It is a huge amount of work for all of us, but the reward is that it's rewarding.

ARTICLE - The Geek Files (October 20 2008) -
http://blogs.coventrytelegraph.net/thegeekfiles/2008/10/sanctuary-interview.html

Sanctuary star Amanda Tapping says sinister secrets of the past will be revealed

AMANDA TAPPING, star and executive producer of new sci-fi series Sanctuary, says future episodes will reveal why her character is more than 150 years old and how she came to run a haven for superhuman mutants and monsters.

Tapping, who plays Dr Helen Magnus in the new show, adopts what she calls an eccentric English accent for her character, who hails from the Victorian era and whose first patient was the time-travelling killer John Druitt, who became known as Jack the Ripper.

The series began as internet-based 'webisodes' before being picked up for television by the Sci Fi Channel. It's airing on Monday nights on ITV4 in the UK.

Tapping, best known for her role as Stargate SG-1's Samantha Carter, spoke to ITV.com about the new show. Here's what she had to say...

Can you tell us a bit about your character, Helen Magnus - who is she, and how did she come to be running the Sanctuary?

She is a 157-year-old doctor from Victorian-era England, and she took over
the Sanctuary from her father. He was one of those very forward-thinking scientists back in the day, and he introduced her to this incredible world. How she came to live as long as she has I can't tell you, except to say that in a later episode everything is revealed. But she has a very interesting back story and a very interesting history with certain nefarious people from history - she didn't always keep the best company.

The Sanctuary is her life's work and she believes that these abnormal creatures are the key to the evolution of our species. They're not to be derided or hunted or killed, but instead studied and protected. Well, most of them - some of them she'll go after because they're rather nasty and dangerous.

What's she like as a person?

She is sexy, savvy and unapologetic. She doesn't suffer fools, and she can see when people aren't being honest with her. She's an incredibly fun character to play because a single look from Helen Magnus can bring somebody down, so it's quite fun in that regard. I don't have that, but it's great fun to put on her shoes.

Why do you think Helen sees the Sanctuary's creatures as more than just
monsters? Her interest seems to go beyond dispassionate scientific enquiry.

Absolutely. She has a huge humanitarian passion and that's why she brings on board Will Zimmerman. She sees that he has a gift that she doesn't have, an ability to connect things and find out the real story, to empathise with these creatures and the ability to get them to open up. So she's definitely a humanist.

And what about Helen and Will? What do they make of each other?

I think Helen finds him fascinating. He's so idealistic, she see in him all the qualities that she admires, but all the qualities that she knows will probably get beaten out of him over the course of time. His idealism and purity of thought and the way he analyses things... she absolutely respects that, but I think she also realises that there's going to come a time when he's going to become a bit jaded. The world is not as kind as  Will Zimmerman would like it to be!

There are a couple of episodes where there's been this bizarre sexual tension between the two of them, and it's by virtue of what's happening in any given episode, especially in an episode called Requiem where Magnus goes a bit crazy. But generally there's just a huge healthy respect.

How long did it take to work on your English accent, and were you using anyone in particular as a guide?

Well, I was born in England and I get back there all the time. I grew up in a very British household. My father has a very British accent and my mum and my aunt have held onto to their accents.

But for me Helen's is a difficult accent because it's born out of Victorian England, which is a very specific way of speaking. She clings to that eccentricity a bit, to that Britishness - perhaps more than some people who'd been around for 157 years would! So I listened to a lot of different voices... because I had to factor in that she'd lived all over the world.

Most of the show is shot in front of a green screen - what's it like working in that environment?

What's interesting is that you get used to it. You kind of forget that the green screen is there, because David Getty, who's lighting our show, lights it so beautifully that you can get this sense, when there are windows [in a scene], that you can tell what time of day it is.

The hardest thing is the scope. Helen's office has a huge vaulted ceiling that we've never seen. With the Sanctuary itself the lab is five stories high  and it's really hard to get a sense of that scope, that's the most difficult thing. Otherwise, if you have the right props and the right set pieces so you know where to look, you get used to it.

What do you think Stargate SG-1 fans will make of Sanctuary?

It's totally different. I mean, a lot of Stargate SG-1 fans have watched the show, they've seen it on the internet and loved it. What's interesting is that we're getting a whole new fan base who never watched Stargate, and that to me is really cool. But it's totally different. I think what sci-fi fans in general love is a good story that's intelligently told and that gives them some great visuals. And they care about the characters. At the end of the day sci-fi fans are really stalwart in their support of characters. So I think that we've given them characters that they can really care about.

FANNISH INQUISITION SFX OCTOBER

She's spent over ten years playing Stargate SG-1's Sam Carter and now she's moving on to Sanctuary - but what's her favourite cheese, eh? Leah Holmes puts your questions to Amanda Tapping.

As we're led to the Central London hotel suite where Amanda Tapping's waiting for some gentle probing by the readers of SFX, the publicist whispers a warning to us - "She's had her hair done recently, and it's a bit strange to look at her now!"And yes, having spent so long knowing her as the blonde-haired Sam Carter, it is a little odd to see her sporting dark brown locks, a look she's taken on to play Dr. Helen Magnus in the broadcast pilot of Sanctuary. Unlike either of her best-known SF personas, however, Tapping proves to be bubbly, cheerful and chatty, revealing a natural talent for comic timing. "Get me on The Catherine Tate Show!" she laughs. Well, we can't quite manage that, but we can secure a guest shot in Fannish Inquisition...
 
What colour do you prefer, blonde or black? ---Basileus

Well, I'm still getting used to this - I just dyed my hair last week, and I quite like it, but I keep looking in the mirror and going,"Who is that?". My biggest fear was [daughter] Olivia not liking it, but she did. I quite like this, and you know what's interesting? More women talk to me since I became a brunette! I've been going to the same gym for years, and four or five women came up to me right after I'd gotten it done and talked to me and I was like, "You haven't said boo to me in five years, and now all of a sudden?! Weird! Oh, it's my hair." I'm more accessible to women somehow.

How difficult is it to play to a green screen? ---Sebastian Rehmann

You get used to it. The first few days on Sanctuary, because it's full green screen, you have the chroma-key green headache, as I call it. But we've got some incredible DPs [directors of photography] who'll cut light in such a way that you feel like there's a window there when there isn't. You get used to visualising the space because of the way they've lit the set, and that's a huge help!
What do you think would be Sam's dream retirement plan: growing old with Pete on a farm with lots of animals, ruling galaxies with Fifth in the shiny Replicator ship, or fishing with a grey-haired General in Minnesota? ---Fabienne

Can I combine two of them? I'd like to grow old with the grey-haired General in Minnesota, with lots of farm animals! How's that? [Laughs] I like his cabin. It's quite nice, but I would like to have more animals around.

Have you had any strange experiences with fans? ---speedingslug

Yeah, a couple. For the most part, I have to say that Stargate fans - and I'm not saying this disingenuously - are really an intelligent and thoughtful bunch. Sometimes fans get very emotional, and for some reason a lot of people feel very comfortable telling me about their lives, which is amazing. There's a lot of adversity in the world and I've heard some amazing things that people have been through to get to where they are, so it's really inspirational. But... I had a fan show up at my house, which was a bit awkward. Beyond that there've not been any weird intrusions. I've had a couple of people who I've had to be a bit more careful with than I normally would, and I find that now I have Olivia I'm even more careful. But since we're not huge stars, like from a big network show or big film stars, we get the best of both worlds - I get to do what I love to do, and have a certain amount of fan interaction, but I'm not a huge star, and my life isn't impacted in a negative way.

How do you feel about the treatment Carter got in Atlantis compared to SG-1?---Paulky

I think she was under-utilised a bit in Atlantis. That was partly my own fault - I said to the guys that I didn't want her to be too in-your-face, because it wasn't my show, so I had to make sure that I tread very gently on those boards. That made sense off the top, but I felt that she maybe could have done more. I felt there were more times where Carter would have said something about the science behind certain things, or she would have trodden on McKay's toes a bit more. But we had some great episodes for that, like Trio and Quarantine where you get to see that other side. But it's hard for Carter not to go through the Gate - that's the hardest thing.

Looking back over the entirety of SG-1, is there anything that makes you think, a) I'm really proud of that, and b) I can't believe they made me do that? ---del_burton

Yes, and yes! I'm really proud of the fact that we endured as long as we did, and that I can now watch early episodes and not be totally freaked out. But there is a great chemistry right off the top, and I'm proud that we were able to foster that and maintain that for ten years. The only things I look back on... I saw the episode Seth a while ago, and I was sitting there polishing this guy's throne and it just seemed really dorky. There are things like that where I just go, "Urggghhhhh, don't like that one!" But there are only a few episodes that are cringeworthy for me. For the most part it was a great ride.

You can be quite goofy in outtakes; would you ever consider doing a comedic TV series? ---Elyse

[Quickly] Yes. Yes. And yes. Why, are you offering? Get me on The Catherine Tate Show! That's how I started, I co-founded a comedy troupe long before I got heavily into television, so comedy is where my heart is at. So yeah, I'd love to do a comedic TV show. Although I'd probably be the really serious one backstage instead of the goofy one like I am when I do drama!

What are you favourite episodes of SG-1 and Atlantis?---Lanta

I think my favourite SG-1 episode is Heroes. I still think that that told a story with all the best aspects of SG-1. As tragic as it was, it was some of the best storytelling that we'd done, and it showcased everyone really beautifully and showed how much we cared about each other. And it forced us to shine a light on ourselves, which was something we'd never done before. So it was my favourite. Then for Atlantis... I really loved shooting Trio. I think a lot of the character stuff ended up on the cutting room floor because the show was so long, but the shooting of it was a blast, we had so much fun, and I would do that again. Even though it was a terrible set, on a gimble with dirt! Saying that, we had such a blast.

Were there ever times where you wished Carter's boyfriends wouldn't keep dying, or even wished they'd been killed off sooner?---Dr Baltar

Yes! [Laughs] Actually, not to both. I because the Black Widow of Stargate, and I finally went up to the writers and said, "Why? What is wrong with this woman that all the men die? Why does that happen? This is bad!" I mean, either I'm killing them, because they've gone nutty, or I'm running away while their planet's blowing up... it wasn't good. I'm glad they gave her Pete, in as much as the fans got very upset by that whole dynamic. I'm glad they gave her a fully-realised, functioning, sexual, adult relationship that was fun and different and had nothing to do with work. I'm glad that they gave her that. I'm equally that jt didn't work out because that's not who she's meant to be with, but I'm glad that she had that. And that he didn't die for a change!

Do you think that Carter was a big step in the portrayal of female characters in sci-fi? ---deGooder

I think that sci-fi's one of those genres that has perhaps paid a bit more homage to its female characters that some other genres. Sometimes it's in a very linear way, and the characters are either very bitchy or uber-sexy, but there's also been this strong middle ground of really strong, smart female characters in sci-fi, and I think Carter's a part of that evolution. In some ways, I keep forgetting she's been around for as long as she has. You kinda forget, "Oh yeah, that was the first time a woman did that." I'd never read a character like her when I auditioned, I was like, "This is amazing."

Did Stargate's technobabble ever cause you trouble with learning your lines? ---Rachel

No, surprisingly! That's the scary truth about me! I did a ton of research on all the technobabble that I spoke, then I broke it down into layman's terms so I could explain it to anyone. Sometimes physically trying to wrap your tongue around some of the words got a bit silly, especially late on a Friday, at the end of the day, when everyone's exhausted, and it's your close-up, and you have to explain wormhole physics for the umpteenth time, but for the most part I, sadly, did not have a problem with it. I don't know what that says about me!

When you were young, were you a fan of SF or fantasy? If so, what sort of things did you watch or read? ---nightrain

I really a Little House on the Prairie girl. Not so much science fiction. I liked Next Generation and Babylon 5, but I really wasn't a huge sci-fi fan. My brothers were sci-fi fans. I liked drama, I liked Little House on a Prairie. [In a Manchester accent] That was my thing - I wanted to be Laura Ingalls, really! Now I'm Laura Ingalls in space!

We've seen glimpses of what Samantha Carter prefers to do on her leave time... What does Amanda Tapping prefer to do on her vacations? ---Morjana Coffman

I like to get away away. I like kayaking and camping and physically getting away from it all. Although Hawaii is very nice once in a while! But I have a three-year old now, so suddenly it's not about you anymore, it's about finding things that will entertain a three year old, so my vacations have changed a bit. But I think we're going to get her into camping and kayaking.
What's your favourite cheese? ---jstarbuck

My favourite cheese? I'm trying to do the no-dairy thing now, but I have to say I like the soft cheeses. Brie, melted, mmm... is it lunch yet? I like a bit of brie, me! What's your favourite cheese? (Uhhh - SFX). See? It's a hard question! My nephew came on set once when he was a little dude, and Peter DeLuise fired off all these questions at him, "What grade are you in? How old are you? Do you have a girlfriend?" and then all of a sudden he said, "What's your favourite cheese?" and Ryan, without missing a beat, went, "Cheddar!". And I was like, "Good on you, buddy!", cos that's a question you never hear. So this is the second time I've heard it. Right now it's brie, but that could change, Gouda! I'm a fan of Gouda, too! Oh, stop me with the cheeses...
Will we see Paul McGillion in a recurring role on Sanctuary?---meez

Ooh, I'd love to see Paul. The pilot's been rewritten so Wexford's not actually in it anymore, but yeah, we'll find a place for him. I'd love to find a place for him, I'd love to find a place for Teryl... I'd love to bring everyone back in. I think it would be harder with people like Michael or Chris in the first season, because they're still connected to Stargate, but eventually, yeah.
 

ARTICLE - Vancouver Sun (November 12 2008) -
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/business/story.html
?id=273a091a-1fd3-4b26-9a0b-8aeb984e29d1&p=2

Sanctuary, a Vancouver-made drama series, has broken new ground on a lot of fronts.

Originally shot for the Internet, it reinvented itself as an over-the-air television series with international sales. It raised funds through private investment, a rarity in Canada, where investment capital is almost non-existent. It was shot primarily without sets in a green-screen studio setting, the sets and background details later added digitally.

As a Web series, Sanctuary failed, not because it wasn't popular -- the eight 15-minute webisodes had four million viewers -- but because there was no revenue stream from a public used to getting Internet entertainment for free.

So the three Sanctuary executive producers -- writer Damian Kindler, actress Amanda Tapping and director Martin Wood, all veterans of the successful two Stargate TV series -- started all over again, making 13 one-hour episodes for TV, at $1.6 million per episode, funded by Vancouver-based The Beedie Group and "hundreds of thousands of dollars" of their own money.

Thus far they've earned licence fees from their main broadcasters (Sci Fi Channel in the U.S., ITV 4 in Britain, and Movie Central and The Movie Network in Canada), and will get income from DVD sales, but it may be three years before they earn their investment money back.

And they don't even know at this point -- five episodes have aired on Sci Fi Channel, with respectable viewership numbers -- if their broadcasters want a second season.

"We still believe [success] is possible," says Tapping. "We've personally taken a huge financial hit. We're not getting paid as executive producers and we've deferred our fees to try to make this property a success. But it's going to take awhile."

The project got going in 2006 when Kindler, Tapping, Wood and investor The Beedie Group created a new series that could tap into the large and loyal science fiction market and could play on multiple platforms. They shot the eight Sanctuary webisodes in a complete green-screen environment, adding the set details digitally.

But once on the Internet, the producers realized that their new business model wasn't good business; lots of people view entertainment on the Web, but no one wants to pay for it.

"It was a great product, but it was such an expensive product that we were not able to even slightly monetize that as a business," says Kindler. "In the end, we really found ourselves gasping for air. We were all turning down work to do this.

"We were forced to completely reset our agenda and focus on trying to get financial backing for a TV series."

While the Internet was no cash cow, it did generate interest, says Wood. Networks wanted Sanctuary, but they didn't want the Internet version -- they wanted new shows made for television broadcast.

"There is a tested model with TV, but it takes a lot longer," says Kindler. "In TV, it takes many years to turn a profit. In the Web, you can sell your hot website for $50 million after six months. But that's not on the table any more. With television, you have to stay in the game long enough to get whole, and then turn a profit."

Once again, The Beedie Group came to the rescue, fully realizing that a profit was some ways down the road.

"This project is different," says Keith Beedie, owner of The Beedie Group and an admitted fan of the original Stargate SG-1 series from which Tapping, Kindler and Wood emerged. "There's nothing like it in the entertainment field, and Amanda is the number-one sci-fi actress."

With only 20 minutes of usable footage from the two hours of webisodes,  Sanctuary has a new look, thanks to Vancouver's Anthem Visual Effects. Between 60 and 80 per cent of the details in the show are digital. The show has a crew of more than 100.

The three executive producers are determined to see this project succeed, though they admit they've had their panicky moments. Kindler mentions that on at least a half-dozen occasions, one of the partners needed a pep talk from the others.

"We've tied ourselves together," says Tapping. "We are our own life raft."