CinemaSpy Exclusive Interview

Vancouver, BC (CinemaSpy) — The career of Canadian actor Amanda Tapping was launched by Stargate SG-1, the series that spun off from the Devlin-Emmerich blockbuster film.

Tapping, who had been taking guest starring roles in all major productions being lensed in Canada — from The Newsroom to Due South to The X-Files to Millennium — was cast as Major Samantha Carter for SG-1, which set up in Vancouver in 1997.

When SG-1 ended its run ten seasons later, it had set a record for the longest running North American science fiction television series. Two made-for-television movies, Continuum and The Ark of Truth are scheduled for broadcast in 2008.

Despite the end of regular episodes of SG-1, Tapping decided to continue playing Samantha Carter – now a Colonel – on Stargate Atlantis, destined to be the best ever spinoff of a spinoff.

At the same time, she took on a new role, as Dr. Helen Magnus, in Sanctuary, a groundbreaking new program being distributed on the Internet. Tapping is not just the star of Sanctuary, she’s also an executive producer.

I spoke with Tapping on the phone the morning after she wrapped work on Stargate: The Ark of Truth. We talked about Stargate, the Sanctuary project, the goodwill of the Vancouver film and television production community, and why Canadians should be celebrating.

Blaine Kyllo: Are you busy?

Amanda Tapping: I am. It’s been nutty. I just finished, last night, the second Stargate SG-1 movie.

Blaine Kyllo: So production on that’s wrapped already?

Amanda Tapping: They wrap today. And I’m still shooting Stargate Atlantis.

Blaine Kyllo: What is the production schedule for those?

Amanda Tapping: Atlantis goes until early October. The movies, like I said the second one wraps today, I think we have some second unit next week. And Atlantis goes until early October, and then hopefully we start Sanctuary back up in mid-October.

Blaine Kyllo: What is it about Sanctuary that appealed to you? What made you want to be attached to this?

Amanda Tapping: Honestly, right off the hop, it was the story.

Damian [Kindler, creator, executive producer, and writer] sent me a script about a year and a half ago and I just loved it. I loved the story. It was really well written, the characters were really full, and particularly the character of Helen Magnus, who has this incredible backstory and this crazy eccentric character that is so different than the character I’ve been playing for the last ten years.

[Playing Samantha Carter] has been a blessing, but it’s nice to have a total change.

The nut, though, was the story. I found it really compelling and I found the character relationships really interesting. I don’t know if you know much of the backstory of my character, but she’s a Victorian England doctor, one of the first women in the Royal College, engaged to Jack the Ripper and has a child by him.

She freezes the embryo and ends up bringing it to light 100 plus years later. She has managed to, through the creatures she works with, stop the aging process, so has lived this incredibly crazy and yet, I would think, incredibly lonely existence.

Blaine Kyllo: Do you see the character of Magnus being a savior of sorts?

Amanda Tapping: In a way, and I think in some ways she does, too. Without having a god complex about it at all, she’s very scientifically minded and I think she does see herself as a savior of sorts.

She takes these crazy, disparate creatures and the abnormals, the hunted, the reviled, and brings them into the sanctuary not only to keep them safe but also for her own purposes, to study them. She truly belieives they are the evolution of our race.

Blaine Kyllo: Now in all honesty, Amanda, playing a brainy, independent, powerful woman who is a scientist isn’t much of a stretch for you.

Amanda Tapping: [laughs] It’s kinda what I do. Yeah. But I’m drawn to those characters.

Blaine Kyllo: And what woman out there wouldn’t want to be able to play that kind of a role?

Amanda Tapping plays Dr. Helen Magnus in the online series, ‘Sanctuary’, which shoots in Vancouver.

Amanda Tapping plays Dr. Helen Magnus in the online series, ‘Sanctuary’, which shoots in Vancouver.
Amanda Tapping: Exactly. The beauty of Magnus, aside from the fact that she is all of those wonderful things, is that she’s eccentric beyond words.

She’s got this crazy sensibility. She’s very sexual without being apologetic for it, she’s got this crazy dress sense without being apologetic. She’s the type of woman that’s not afraid to put a Flapper dress with Converse running shoes. She’s lived all these decades and sort of takes her pick.

Blaine Kyllo: She’s a mash up of her cultures.

Amanda Tapping: She is. The possibilities with her are limitless in terms of drawing from those different decades, the type of people that she’s met. But also at the core of it is this incredible swing of deep loneliness because she’s watched all the people that she’s really cared about grow old and die. Her lovers, her friends, so she’s very protective of her heart. Because she’s watched a hundred plus years of people that she cares about die.

Blaine Kyllo: You’re more than just an actor and star on Sanctuary, you’re also an executive producer. Given that, were there any qualms about the distribution model for this project?

Amanda Tapping: No. And that was one of the things that really intrigued me about it. The distribution model – the first run distribution model, going live to the Internet – I think is so cutting edge.

We’re really cresting the wave of something that’s happening already. But the networks have already picked up on it where they’re starting to throw their shows onto the Internet to download. You’re seeing it wih 24, with Lost, with Battlestar. All these different shows are going up onto the ‘Net because streaming video is sort of the way to go. You can download it into your computer you can burn it onto a disc, you can throw it on whatever you want.

And honestly, when I think people get up in the morning, instead of turning on the television or even, sadly, the radio, to get their information, they turn on their computers. And I think it’s the same way with entertainment.

With a show like Sanctuary, because it’s – I don’t want to say it’s sci-fi based, because I think it stretches beyond that genre – but that type of fan is so social network oriented that they’ve already set up fan sites and forums to talk about our show, even before we went live.

Premiering it on the Internet makes absolute sense, because we are speaking to that fan. In their own form.

Blaine Kyllo: And that’s a community that you’re quite familiar and comfortable with.

Amanda Tapping: Yeah. I’ve learned to be after ten years. It’s amazing how much you learn about this genre, and fandom in particular.

So we’re trying to do something different. We’re working outside the studio system. We are our own studio, so we’re breaking down a lot of the walls that are up when you work with a studio.

We’re making it far more accessible to the fans; the fans were able to beta test our product and so we got them involved right at the ground level, which created this groundswell of excitement about it. And because it is very grassroots – it’s expensive, but it’s grassroots – we’re keeping it very real, I think.

And so in terms of the distribution model I thought it was a great way to go. That’s not to say that there’s not going to be ancillary streams beyond this. We’re looking at distribution for television, there’s certainly a huge interest and a lot of offers on the table for us for that. And then, of course, DVD sales and so on and so on. But we thought that the first marketing run should be right where the fans are.

Blaine Kyllo: When are you going to make a decision about a second series? A second season, say, for Sanctuary.

Amanda Tapping: I think it will be any day now. I hope. We’ve only shot our first two hours which is our first eight webisodes, so certainly the wheels are in motion to start breaking down the stories. We’re looking at doing potentially ten hours starting in October [2007], and that’s everyone’s hope. We’d like to keep our core crew together, and a lot of them are working on Atlantis and the SG-1 movies, so if we can keep them working right through then that’s a good thing, too.

Blaine Kyllo: Was the first two hours was shot by [Stargate director] Martin [Wood], right? Was that all favor work?

Amanda Tapping: No. Although a lot of them – and it’s not just Stargate crew, we certainly were able to use a lot of those people – the beauty of it is everyone was so jazzed about this project that a lot of them decided that they wanted back-end deals, so they took a cut in pay in order to get a percentage of the company.

Blaine Kyllo: There’s an amazing goodwill among the crews and community here in Vancouver isn’t there?

Dr. Helen Magnus (Amanda Tapping) was once engaged to Jack the Ripper.

Dr. Helen Magnus (Amanda Tapping) was once engaged to Jack the Ripper.
Amanda Tapping: There is, and amongst the actors, too. I think when you see something unique, and new, and something that has so much possibility, not only for financial gain, but to do something so creatively differeent and cutting edge, then yeah, people have been unbelievably supportive. We’re really lucky, and I think that speaks to this film community. I’ve been involved with it for 11 years, and wow, I’m blown away.

Blaine Kyllo: You don’t have a problem with the fact that what is being shot in Vancouver tends to be very genre?

Amanda Tapping: [laughs] No, not at all. It’s really funny because when you go to Europe, the sci-fi genre is far more mainstream. It’s far more ‘it’s just another show.’ Here we think of ‘the genre’ – it’s breaking down a little bit – as this geek fandom where they sit in their dark basements and watch the show and then talk about it on the Internet.

People don’t necessarily understand that it really is just another way of telling stories. For Stargate, we’re out in space. For Sanctuary, we’re dealing with mythological creatures that may or may not exist. Of course, we think they do.

But in terms of the genre, I think it makes sense that Vancouver has a huge talent pool for computer artists, and so it makes sense that we shoot up here. Not only the fact that we are all Canadian, so we want to keep it in Canada, and we’re really proud of the fact that this new thing is coming out of Canada.

Blaine Kyllo: I think we need to celebrate more of that.

Amanda Tapping: We absolutely need to celebrate that, and we as Canadians don’t do that. I’ve been working on an American show for the last ten years, but it’s been Canadian. There’s been one maybe two Americans working on the entire production when you’re looking at 200 plus people.

We need to celebrate the fact that we really are a Canadian product. Written by Canadians, produced by Canadians, we just happen to get our funding from the States, for SG-1. For Sanctuary, funding, writing, acting, all the creative side, all the crew side, it’s all Canadian. And we absolutely need to celebrate that.

Blaine Kyllo: That’s another story for another day.

Amanda Tapping: [laughs] It is another story for another day.

Blaine Kyllo: The degree to which Stargate has actually created, and it started with The X-Files before that, creating the crews and the talent pool, so that Stargate could actually step in and say, “We can staff with Canadians. We’re not staffing them just to get our points. It’s because they are actually talented people that are worth working with.”

Amanda Tapping: Yes, and if you look at Stargate, Brad Wright: 100% Canadian. Look what he’s done with the franchise. For sure, so Sanctuary, with Damian, starting this out, you’re not going to meet a nicer guy on the planet, and he’s so Canadian and so down-to-earth, so sweet and so open. I think that’s amazing.

Blaine Kyllo: We won’t hold it against him.

Amanda Tapping: [laughs] We won’t hold it against him, exactly. We’ll try not to beat him up for it.

Source: CinemaSpy Website