Birthday: 28th August
Place of birth: Rochford, Essex, England
Citizenships: Canadian and English
City of residence: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Supported charities: Sanctuary for kids, Waterkeeper Alliance, Multiple Sclerosis Society, Pollution Probe, Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Hearing Dogs for Deaf People, Nepal Orphans Home
Hobbies: Camping, kyaking,skiing, hiking, reading, riding horses
   
 
Filmography Theatreography Directing Other TV and Film work Awards and Nominations

 

 

Amanda is best known for her role of Captain / Major / Colonel Samantha Carter in the highly successful MGM television series Stargate SG-1 and her screen credits encompass many well known television series.

Amanda is also a highly successful and respected director and is in demand across film and television.

Amanda has British roots - she was born in Rochford, Essex, and then lived in South Benfleet, Essex for a year when her family relocated to Ontario in Canada. While obviously holding Canadian citizenship, she still retains her British one. Amanda had a talent for, and enjoyed science, with her parents keen for her to take up a career in the subject. However, according to her mother she always wanted to be an actress. Very early on she excelled in maths, but at High School, she took a great interest in arts.

While attending North Toronto High, she won both the Dramatic Arts Award and Environmental Science Award. She says, "I always had this sort of inkling I'd like to be a doctor when I was younger.....but acting was always in the forefront." It certainly remained in the forefront - because Amanda went on to study drama at the University of Windsor School of Dramatic Arts in Windsor, Ontario. Having graduated, she spent four more years studying theatre and appearing in several stage productions, including Children of a Lesser God, Lion in Winter and Steel Magnolias.

To this day she recalls how she vowed never to do television. However, a short time later she found an agent and did her first commercial (Tim Horton's Oat Bran Muffins). Several more commercials followed and the income from these helped with the finance of Random Acts, an improvisational comedy troupe that she formed in the early 90s in Toronto with two friends (Katherine Jackson and Anne Marie Kerr). The troupe performed sketch comedies at venues in Toronto and the surrounding area, including The New Ideas Festival and the Tarragon Spring Arts Fair and finally stopped making appearances when the women's lives took them in different directions.

In the early 90s Amanda's television work expanded to include movies such as Golden Will: The Silken Laumann Story, Remembrance and Rent-a-Kid and series such as Flash Forward, Due South and The X-Files.

Her major breakthrough came in 1997 when she was offered the role of Captain Samantha Carter on the science fiction series Stargate SG-1 which she played for 11 years, including the franchise series Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe and both Stargate SG1 movies.

Amanda delights in portraying strong, independent women and, when asked to consider the role of Dr Helen Magnus in Sanctuary by her colleague, writer Damian Kindler, she jumped at the project. Sanctuary went from web series to highly successful television series and Amanda found herself not only acting as the main lead character but also serving as Executive Producer on it with Kindler and Martin Wood (another Stargate alumni). Amanda also developed her love of directing while working on Sanctuary, having directed an episode of Stargate SG1 a few years earlier. Sanctuary ran on the science fiction channel Syfy and was sold worldwide. The webseries which jumped to television was very close to her heart.

In June 2014 Amanda received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Windsor, was named ACTRA's Woman of the Year in celebration of International Women's Day in March 2015 and was honoured at the Directors Guild of Canada at their 4th Annual Women in Entertainment event in 2019.

Amanda has always used her talents for the good of others and has supported dozens of charities through her personal convention appearances and through her work, and so it was no surprise to her fans to hear that she had launched Sanctuary for kids with Damian Kindler and Jill Bodie. This Charitable Organisation directed funds to projects where children were in need throughout the world and raised many hundreds of thousands of dollars worldwide for such projects through online auctions of memorabilia, fan experiences and her own fund raising convention in the UK every 18 months run by Gabit Events.
Whilst Sanctuary for kids closed down in 2018, Amanda continues to support many charitable causes. Her fandom is generous, compassionate and fiercely loyal of their "Grand Empress of Sci fi" and Amanda is always delighted to meet them whenever she attends events or makes appearances anywhere.

Amanda sums herself up on her twitter profile.
Mama, wife, actress, director, producer, activist and general goofball.