Interview: Amanda Tapping

And would you like to be involved with the show again in

the future?

Yeah sure. I mean my character popped up in the pilot and

popped up at the end of the first season in a very small way

and it was perfect just to be able to go back home, as I call it,

and back with the crew. But beyond that I’m busy doing

Sanctuary so I don’t see myself on an ongoing basis but it’s

nice to go back and visit, it’s certainly lovely that they asked.

You have your own show, Sanctuary, how did this first

come about?

It started actually as a webseries back in 2007. We shot

some test scenes and then a pilot and then 8 webisodes.

Our intention was to stay on the internet, do a multiplatform

site where you have gaming aspects and social networking.

It was a very lofty ambition and really cool. I think we tried to

do too many things at once so it ended up not being quite

what we imagined. The web series ended up being a great

calling card for the television series. Millions of people

around the world saw it and it really got networks interested

and so from there it was decided and it made sense to launch the television series. So I’ve been involved with that and we’re just getting ready to launch our third season and I think we’re in 95 countries so it’s good! Life is good!

Being both a producer and an actress on it, how much production work do you get to do?

A fair bit actually. I’m working on the show at the moment and we’re here until mid March so I’ll be working on the production side until then. I’m also directing the first episode this season so that’s going to keep me busy. Once we wrap its all post production so I’m there for everything. For all the colour corrects, sounds mixes and playbacks, everything that goes into post production. And in terms of pre-production, which is what we’re doing right now, breaking stories, getting the crew together, casting, so I’m pretty heavily involved in all that.

A lot of the show is shot on greenscreen; what made you want to shoot like this?

We just wanted to do something that looked completely different. We wanted to do a show that had a very graphic novel feel to it and I think we succeeded. We just wanted to push the envelope and make a show with a completely different look. We’re shooting on the “Red One”, which is an amazing camera; it gives you all these possibilities in terms of visual effects. With the green screen we can take the show literally anywhere; we’re been in Mumbai, Tokyo, Egypt, London, all around the world. We can create any create or environment that you can imagine so it’s given us a huge amount of creative freedom. So as much as there are challenges with the greenscreen, it’s also an amazing tool.

How did you try to distance your character on Sanctuary from your one on Stargate?

Just the physicality of it, which was a completely different look. Magnus is very sexy and very stilettos while Sam Carter literally wore army boots all the time [laughter]. I grew my hair out dyed it brown, there’s the accent because Magnus is from Victorian era England so the physicality of the character is completely different and that was very conscious. I wanted to play homage to Sam by not bringing any of Sam into Helen [laughter]. And also her back story is very different; she was a doctor in Victorian times so they’re similar in that they’re both very very smart women, both scientists, both forward thinking but Magnus is much more eccentric, much less apologetic. Magnus is much more a leader while Sam operates very comfortably in the realm and hierarchy of the military while I think Magnus wouldn’t last ten minutes [laughter]. So they’re very different.

Can you tell us anything about the next season of Sancutary? Any teasers?

I can’t actually [laughter], we’ve just started writing. We ended season two on a very big cliff-hanger, a tidal wave heading towards the coast of India, so we’re trying to figure out how to get out of that situation. But we’re going to do a lot more story-arcs this year. We’re hoping to see a lot more Tesla, who is just an amazing character for us. We want to go back and study the five more and Magnus’ back story. And there’ll be a character from the past who will pop up in that realm. Stronger storylines for Will this year too. So yeah there’s a lot, we’re sort of

mapping out big issues right now.