Rachel Nichols as Continuum's Kiera Cameron. Photo copyright of Showcase/Shaw Media.
It was a little over two years ago that Continuum’s CPS (City Protective Services) officer Kiera Cameron said goodbye to her son and husband and left for work as usual. She had no idea that she might never again see them or the rest of her family and friends. While serving as part of a security detachment at a criminal execution, the CPS officer and a group of convicted terrorists from an organization known as Liber8 were whisked away from 2077 to Vancouver, British Columbia in 2012. Kiera has since spent the past two years fighting to stop Liber8 from carrying out a plan that could severely alter the future. At the end of the show’s second season, another group of time travelers called Freelancers took it upon themselves to prevent both sides from further affecting the time line, much to the surprise of actress Rachel Nichols, who plays Continuum’s heroine Kiera Cameron.
“I had no idea what was coming,” admits Nichols. “When we were shooting the season two finale all these different ideas were bouncing around, and then suddenly Kiera along with all of Liber8 and pretty much everyone else she knew were in these glass cages. I thought, ‘OK, she’s gotten herself in a real pickle this time, and I don’t quite know how this is all going to unfold and resolve itself.’ Then, of course, I later received the script for the third season opener and it became quite clear how it was going to work out, but that’s one of the things I like about this show. They can put my character in a glass cubicle with the gang from Liber8 and every other time traveler, including Crazy Jason [Ian Tracey] and yet somehow Kiera manages to get herself out of that predicament in a completely convincing way.”
In Continuum’s season two finale, Second Time, Kiera’s present day teen ally, Alec Sadler (Eric Knudsen) – who ironically grows up to mastermind the technical advancements that shape her world in 2077 – manages to repair the time travel device he had been working on. However, instead of returning Kiera to the future, Alec uses the device to save the life of his girlfriend, Emily (Magda Apanowicz). His actions set into motion a chain of events that lands Kiera in her predicament with the Freelancers. In order to set things right, our heroine has no choice but to enter into alliances that she normally would have never considered. That is where audiences find Kiera in the third season opener Minute by Minute, and Nichols was delighted to jump right back into the action-packed fray.
Kiera (Rachel Nichols) in Continuum's season three opener "Minute by Minute." Photo copyright of Showcase/Shaw Media.
“I love playing Kiera Cameron. It’s one of the most enjoyable working experiences I’ve ever had, and returning to the show is always a joy because you’re reuniting with your [work] family,” enthuses the actress. “I get to go back and play with a cast and crew that I’ve come to know and love. Of course, it’s a treat to take a little bit of time off, too. Last summer, I shot a film [Tokarev] with Nicholas Cage. I played his wife, a completely different role from that of Kiera Cameron, which I always welcome and enjoy doing. I could not wait, however, to get back to Continuum, and filming the third season opener was intriguing for me, part of which was because Kiera and Jasmine Garza [Luvia Petersen] enter into this unexpected relationship. That relationship is interwoven into the rest of the season and has been very, very fun to play.
“When it comes to my character, at the end of season one, she was a lone wolf of sorts, and at the end of season two, Kiera was essentially captured by the Freelancers and her future was very questionable. At the start of season three, we begin to learn who the Freelancers are, what they do, what they’ve done and what their purpose is, which actually isn’t bad. Their purpose is to try to maintain the timeline, and at the beginning of this season we learn more about timelines and how they’re affected by those travelling back in time and in doing so creating alternate timelines. But, once again, this season Kiera starts off quite a bit alone, and there is turmoil given what happened at the end of last year when Alec goes back to a time before Emily was killed.
“In the season three opener, there’s this, ‘Oh, crap,’ moment for the Freelancers and they’re wondering, ‘How do we to fix this now time travelling Alec?’ Their solution is Kiera. They have to use her to remedy the situation, and the overall theme for season three – and this is just from the episodes we’ve shot so far and my gut feeling – is that it’s very much for the greater good with Kiera. That’s something I’ve come up with myself as far as describing this season. I just feel that the decisions she’s making this year are for the greater good. Kiera realizes that it’s a very selfish motive on her part if all she’s doing is trying to preserve the future she left behind just to get back to her loved ones, especially seeing that that future is not such a terrific one. If she was really sent back to this time to complete a mission, she’s coming to wholeheartedly believe that that mission is not to preserve the not-so-nice future she left behind, but rather to make a better one while she’s in the present day.”
Kiera (Rachel Nichols) and Garza (Luvia Petersen) find some common ground in "Minute by Minute." Photo copyright of Showcase/Shaw Media.
As Kiera begins to make these decisions based on the greater good, they cannot help but affect the relationships she has with those around her, both old and new faces.
“Some new characters have been added this season, but I can’t talk about them because they have to be surprises,” says Nichols. “What I can talk about is the fact that there are two Alecs this year. There’s the Alec who at the end of season two travelled back in time and returned to a point in time where there already was another version of himself. That’s a huge testament to the talents of Erik Knudsen, who is playing both versions of his character brilliantly. It also sets up an interesting predicament for me as an actress as well as Kiera, to maneuver the idea of having two Alecs, and the fact that there cannot be two of him. It hasn’t come to that kind of a head yet, but I can’t help thinking that it might, so that’s added a brand new element to telling this story.
“There’s a lot of trust that Kiera has to sort of blindly bestow people with this season, whether it’s the old or new versions of Alec, or the Freelancers and who they are and what they say they are. This isn’t easy for her to do, being the typically skeptical Kiera we’ve come to know, and she sort of has to make some deliberate choices to believe people that she ordinarily wouldn’t. Oh, there is one new character that I can tell you a bit about. He wakes up in the hospital after being in a coma for two months and doesn’t remember anything. He’s got complete amnesia and can’t even remember his own name. The only name he does remember is Kiera Cameron. That’s all I can say, but it’s one of the very big surprises this season.”
Where do things stand this season on Continuum between Nichol’s character and her present-day contemporary, Vancouver Police Detective Carlos Fonnegra (Victor Webster)? “Much like in season two when Kiera told Carlos, ‘I’m from the future,’ she has a similar moment at the end of the season three opener. It’s something that Carlos has an extraordinarily difficult time dealing with, perhaps even more so than Kiera telling him that she’s from the future,” notes the actress.
Kiera (Rachel Nichols) and Carlos (Victor Webster) in "Minute to Win It." Photo copyright of Showcase/Shaw Media.
“That creates a great deal of tension between them. Like I spoke about earlier with regard to Kiera having to trust the Freelancers and figure out which Alec to trust, Carlos has to worry about trusting Kiera in a way that he never thought he would. I know that sounds extremely vague, but I don’t want to spoil things for anyone who hasn’t seen the season three opener yet, but this is the most difficult thing that Kiera and Carlos have gone through together. As a result of this, Carlos ends up reaching out to Alec and explaining to him the problem that he’s having with Kiera. My character can sense that this is going on, and in episodes eight and nine, which were shooting at the moment [end of February], Carlos sort of gives her the old, ‘It’s complicated,’ excuse, which is Kiera’s line.
“So it’s been a tough season so far when it comes to Kiera’s relationships with Carlos as well as Alec, so much so that when we were shooting yesterday, I asked, ‘Are Kiera and Alec ever going to be friends again?’ and [executive producer] Pat Williams asked, ‘Well, her and which Alec?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. I just want her to be friends with one of them.’”
This season, Continuum fans are given a glimpse into Kiera Cameron’s early days with the CPS in the episode Waning Minutes, which was directed by Amanda Tapping [Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Sanctuary]. “First off, I have to say that Amanda Tapping is the bee’s knees, the cat’s pajamas, you name it, and I am incredibly honored to work with her,” praises Nichols. “Working with strong female directors is very important to me, not to say that I want to direct, but I’m just so thrilled to know they’re out there, and Amanda is fantastic. I can’t say enough good things about her.
(L-R): Carlos Fonnegra (Victor Webster), Kiera Cameron (Rachel Nichols) and Alec Sadler (Erik Knudsen). Photo copyright of Showcase/Shaw Media.
“In this episode, you get to see Kiera as a newer CPS officer and learn how she knows and how her relationship began with Stefan Jaworski [Mike Dopud], one of the Liber8 members. They spend a lot of time together in a future flash-forward segment where a plane has gone down after Kiera arrested him, and the two of them end up sort of stranded and having to deal with each other.
“There are some major corporations introduced this season, one of which being Sonmanto. In Kiera’s time, this corporation grows food and appears to be a very good company. At least that’s what she thought and Sonmanto even saved her life once. There’s a scene involving this particular company – and it’s in the second episode that Amanda Tapping directed this year [Wasted Minute] – where Kiera is extremely sick and holding a gun to her head. Sonmanto comes up with the antidote that essentially saves her life. That scene in the triage unit was a very emotional and brutal scene to shoot, but it’s a really important scene because it clarifies why in the present day, Kiera would defend a company that is seemingly so bad.”
In the season one opener of Continuum it appeared as if Kiera Cameron’s journey back in time was accidental, but as the series has continued to unfold, it has been made clear that was not the case. With our heroine, everything seems to happen for a reason, and that is something that Nichols can relate to.
“When I moved here in 2012 I had never been to Vancouver before, and then last season I met a man. So I stayed throughout the summer, and now I live here fulltime and I’m engaged,” she says. “It seems like so much has happened over the past couple of years, and I’m so grateful for the show, not only work-wise and for my cast and crew, but if I hadn’t come here to work I would never had met Michael and we’re going to be married in September. So I don’t know where my life would be had I not come here. It’s always interesting to think about that and ask those questions, but, again, I’m so grateful that Continuum has brought me here and has continued to flourish and be so popular and air in many, many countries. Fingers crossed, I’m hoping it goes on for seasons upon seasons to come.”
You can follow Rachel Nichols on Twitter at - @RachelNichols1
Steve Eramo
Season three of Continuum airs on Canada's Showcase Network on Sundays @ 9:00 p.m. EST/PST, and in the States it premieres on Friday, April 4th @ 10:00 p.m. EST/PST on Syfy. As noted above, all Continuum photos copyright of Showcase/Shaw Media, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!
