SciFiAndTvTalk

Sanctuary ' s Ryan Robbins - Wolf In The Fold

[caption id="attachment_4562" align="aligncenter" width="200" caption="Ryan Robbins as Henry Foss in Sanctuary. Photo by Jeff Weddell and copyright of Sanctuary 2 Productions"][/caption] When it comes to tackling problems of a technical nature, Henry Foss is your man. Whether it's cracking a multi-digit encrypted code or breaking down a seemingly impenetrable firewall, there is no one better qualified or more likely to get results. However, as a member of Dr. Helen Magnus' Sanctuary team, Henry is more than just a gifted cyber-hacker. A descendant of her father Gregory's first weaponsmith, he has designed many of Sanctuary's weapons and is in charge of its defenses. Our beloved techie also has some hidden "talents" that he calls upon only in the more extreme of situations. Introduced in the Sanctuary webisodes, Henry made the leap last fall to the Syfy Channel's TV incarnation of the show as a recurring character, and this (second) season is now a regular on the series. On this particular Monday afternoon in June, actor Ryan Robbins, who plays Henry, has been tapping into his character's techie side while filming the season two episode Veritas. Although the dialogue seems to roll effortlessly off his tongue, it took a bit of practice for him to get to this point. "To be honest, it was a little nerve-wracking at first because of the nature of Henry," says Robbins. "As the tech and weapons guy, my character has a lot of tech-talk and scientific babble, which was initially intimidating for me. Also, he was supposed to be the comic relief, and while I'd done comedy before, having to get a handle on being the funny guy in an otherwise dramatic series was, for some reason, difficult and I put some pressure on myself. [caption id="attachment_4563" align="aligncenter" width="200" caption="On the job with Henry. Photo by Jeff Weddell and copyright of Sanctuary 2 Productions"][/caption] "Prior to this I'd been playing a lot of bad guys and killers, so this was a wonderful opportunity and a terrific acting challenge for me. So I just went with it and committed to the material and let myself have a good time, and so far things seem to have worked out. "Henry changed quite a bit from the webisodes to the first season of the TV show. In season one of Sanctuary there was definitely more depth to my character as well as an air of mystery. Then later on, there was also a darker side to Henry that was revealed, with him being an Abnormal and having the werewolf beast inside him. That was a part of him that he couldn't control and it gave me even more levels to play in terms of relationships with the other characters. "So there were a lot of different directions to go in any given scene, which is a gift as an actor. Henry is such a neat character because he's so complex and his humor comes out of , not necessarily positive things, but rather from his efforts to overcome certain obstacles. What's the saying, 'Tragedy plus time equals comedy,' and I think Henry is the epitome of that in a lot of ways. It's almost like this running joke that he always has to be overcoming something, otherwise he's not Henry. Things can't always go right for him, you know? So many things just go wrong, but he's constantly trying, and that's what you've got to love about the guy - he just won't quit. At the end of the day, he's going to take care of business, but it can't be easy for Henry." [caption id="attachment_4564" align="aligncenter" width="200" caption="There is more than the eye can see with Henry Foss. Photo by Jeff Weddell and copyright of Sanctuary 2 Productions"][/caption] Having first directed Robbins in the two-part Stargate Atlantis episode The Storm and The Eye, Sanctuary executive producer Martin Wood later called the actor about playing Henry in Sanctuary's two-hour Internet pilot. "My Atlantis character [Ladon Radim] was only supposed to have a two-story arc and then get killed off," recalls Robbins. "However, Martin told me, 'I like you, and I don't want them to kill your character off.' So instead they killed a background character, and I stayed on. Ladon ended up becoming the leader of the Genii people, which was great and a lot of fun for me. "Martin directed most of my Atlantis episodes, and when Sanctuary came up, the story is that he told [series creator/executive producer] Damian Kindler about this guy named Ryan Robbins who he should cast as Henry. And Damian was like, 'Ladon from Atlantis? But he's not funny,' but Martin said something along the lines of, 'But the guy who played him, Ryan Robbins, is kind of an oddball. He would be perfect for the role.' So they phoned me and I thought it sounded really cool, and being part of a show that was groundbreaking seems like a good idea, too. Then, of course, we wound up getting a first season on Syfy and now we're doing season two, so hopefully we'll be around for a while," says the actor with a smile. During season one of Sanctuary, Henry worked with Dr. Helen Magnus (Amanda Tapping), her daughter Ashley (Emilie Ullerup), Magnus' former patient and longtime friend/confidant, Bigfoot (Christopher Heyerdahl), and her new protegé, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Will Zimmerman (Robin Dunne), in the preservation and protection of centuries-old creatures called Abnormals. In the episode The Five, the Sanctuary itself falls victim to a series of mysterious attacks. The culprit turns out to be a snake-like creature, and in order to stop it, Henry reveals that he, too, is an Abnormal, more specifically, a werewolf. Before shooting this episode, did Robbins have any idea that his character harbored a hirsute alter ego? [caption id="attachment_4565" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Henry and Dr. Helen Magnus (Amanda Tapping) try to work through yet another crisis facing the Sanctuary. Photo by Jeff Weddell and copyright of Sanctuary 2 Productions"][/caption] "We talked at the end of the webisodes and leading up to season one about this being a potential storyline for Henry in the future," says the actor. "Although it remained kind of vague for a time, I started off in season one playing Henry as having some sort of mystery, because I think characters with secrets are always more interesting to watch. So when it eventually came out that he's a werewolf, it seemed very natural and not entirely surprising. "If you go back and watch previous episodes, you can see that Henry is maybe hiding something about himself, and I love it. I think it works really well and creates lots of dynamics. For example, people living with an illness or other difficulty might go for days and days laughing an enjoying themselves just like everyone else around them. However, when they are reminded of that illness or situation they're in, they will fall into a funk and realize, oh, yeah, I've got to deal with this. For the most part, though, you try your best to get on with life. Originally, I feel Henry looked at his condition as being some sort of disease, but he's since been able to embrace it. I still don't believe he's entirely comfortable with it because he's still learning how to control it." The following episode, Edward, - for which Robbins won a Canadian Leo Award for Best Guest Performance by a Male in a Dramatic Series - finds Henry contemplating surgery as a way of exorcising his werewolf persona. He changes his mind, though, when his abilities help him and his colleagues save the life of a fellow Abnormal. "I really enjoyed Five and Edward because they were quite dramatic and, again, interesting background stuff. I'm a comic book fan and I love origin stories, and it was cool to see a hint of an origin story for my character," he says. [caption id="attachment_4567" align="aligncenter" width="200" caption="Henry at work on yet another invention. Photo by Jeff Weddell and copyright of Sanctuary 2 Productions"][/caption] "I also had a lot of fun shooting Nubbins, which was directed by Peter DeLuise. I just felt like was taken to comedy school in all the best ways, and gratefully and happily so. Peter knows comedy so well when it comes to timing and rhythm and sticking to it. I can't begin to explain how much I learned from him about hitting comedic beats, including stuff that you never even saw on the screen." In Sanctuary's two-part season one finale, Revelations, Helen Magnus' archenemy, the Cabal, unleash a biological weapon designed to turn Abnormals against humans. Ashley and Henry are captured when infiltrating a Cabal weapons facility to try to stop the development of the bio weapon, and the Cabal attempts to permanently turn Henry into a werewolf. "Man, were those ever intense episodes, especially the torture scenes with my character," notes Robbins. "It was weird because although I don't have a fear of needles, I don't especially like them. There's this scene where over and over again this woman had to inject a needle into Henry's arm, and I just kept thinking, 'Jeez, I know they're prop needles, but if that thing seizes up even a little bit, then it's going into my arm.' So it wasn't hard to play the fear of the needle," chuckles the actor. "On top of that, I'm strapped into this chair and here's Alex Diakun, who is a sweetheart of a guy, doing such an incredible and convincing job of playing the creepy and menacing doctor." [caption id="attachment_4568" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Ashley (Emilie Ullerup) and Henry are cornered by the Cabal in "Revelations." Photo by Jeff Weddell and copyright of Sanctuary 2 Productions"][/caption] Thanks to Henry's Abnormal abilities, he and Ashley are able to escape from the Cabal, but not before the organization turns Ashley against her teammates. At the start of  Sanctuary's second season, she and five others are transformed into super-Abnormals whose sole purpose is to bring down the entire Sanctuary network. Despite the dire circumstances facing their characters, Robbins and the rest of the show's cast as well as crew could not wait to return to work. "When we came back for the second season, it felt like coming home," enthuses the actor. "There was this level of confidence and one of, 'OK, people dug what we did last year, so let's keep going.' So I think we all felt like we were maybe able to take a few more risks. Last year was one of discovery for all of us, and the episodes were written that way. In season one, Will Zimmerman was not only the new guy, but also the viewers' reference. He was seeing everyone and everything for the first time, and in doing so, we were introduced to other characters and discovered things about them for the first time through Will's eyes. "Well, this year, we hit the ground running. I mean, Will is here and he's one of us. Now we're a real team and we're moving forward with a fury and on-fire. In the season opener [End of Nights], the action, the tension, the storytelling, everything was ramped up. Season one was cool, but season two is exceptionally cool. [caption id="attachment_4569" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Henry and Will Zimmerman (Robin Dunne) working side-by-side. Photo by Jeff Weddell and copyright of Sanctuary 2 Productions"][/caption] "As for Henry, I feel like I have an even better understanding of him this year," continues Robbins. "I love playing this character and I feel now like I can trust in my acting as well as my instincts and not have to worry about whether or not this or that comes across or if my subtext shows. I actually like watching Henry on the screen, and that's a big deal for me because I don't like watching myself all that much. "We just finished shooting a wonderful Henry episode called Fragments, which was directed by Steve Adelson and guest-starring Anne Marie DeLuise. To tell you the truth, all the episodes have been really good so far. There have been some nice Henry/Bigfoot and Henry/Magnus moments this year. We've played it that Bigfoot has always known Henry's secret, so they've had a very close connection. And now that my character has embraced his Abnormal side and is trying to deal with it, there's this amazing bond that has developed between them. Henry has an amazing bond with Magnus as well, and now he and Will get to be buddies, too." In the aforementioned season two story Veritas, Henry helps Will and new team member Kate Freelander (Agam Darshi) find evidence that will prove Helen Magnus is innocent of murdering Bigfoot. The episode is Robbins' first time being directed by Sanctuary's leading lady, Amanda Tapping. [caption id="attachment_4570" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Ryan Robbins and Anne Marie DeLuise in "Fragments." Photo by Jeff Weddell and copyright of Sanctuary 2 Productions"][/caption] "She's a tyrant. There's the cracking of the whip and all the screaming and yelling, not to mention the potty mouth. Other than that, it's been fun," jokes the actor. "Seriously, Amanda is awesome. I'd work with her again as a director in a heartbeat and without question. Amanda is an exceptional and wonderful individual in everything she does, acting, producing, directing, it doesn't matter. She's one of a kind, and it's completely inspiring to be around her. And the crew really loves Amanda, too, especially today. It was only a 10-hour workday instead of a 12-hour one. Look how happy these guys are to be getting out of work now in this fantastic weather." Robbins was 12 years old when his desire to become an actor surfaced, but like most people that age, he did not know how to go about it. "I went to a very progressive arts-oriented high school with an intense theater program, and there was a teacher there named Drew Kemp who was sort of the catalyst that inspired me to pursue acting," he says. "My first big job was as a circus performer, and following that I moved back to Vancouver where a friend of mine who was a stuntman, suggested I try that as a way to break into acting, especially given my circus experience. I had a martial arts background as well, so I gave it a shot. Unfortunately, it's not a good way to break into acting, at least it wasn't for me. I had an accident and ended up compressing my spine. From there, I helped form an experimental band called Hellenkeller, which took off. We had a good run for about six years, and during that time there was a filmmaker who was also a fan of the band and she put me in one of her movies. [caption id="attachment_4571" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Bigfoot (Christopher Heyerdahl) and Henry. Photo by Jeff Weddell and copyright of Sanctuary 2 Productions"][/caption] "I guess I did OK in the film because from there I got an agent and began getting acting jobs. When the band eventually broke up, I was working as an actor, so I feel that perhaps it was meant to be. I just kept following my gut. I don't like to say no to any opportunity, so I had a series of opportunities that presented themselves and I just wanted to seize them. Fortunately, they led me to where I wanted to be, so here I am making a go of things." Walking Tall, Catwoman and Passengers are among the actors' feature film credits, while on TV he has appeared in several made-for-TV movies as well as guest-starred on such series as Dark Angel, The Outer Limits, Smallville, Supernatural, The Guard and Battlestar Galactica. "I actually worked as an audition reader for the Galactica miniseries," says Robbins. "That's where I got to know [producer/director] Michael Rymer, and he offered me a role, which turned out to be at the very beginning of the miniseries. I'm the old man at the armistice station, and Number Six [Tricia Helfer] comes in and asks, 'Are you alive?' My character tells her, 'Yes,' and she says, 'Prove it.' So they kiss and then the place blows up and it starts a whole new war. Forty years of peace ruined by blowing me up. [caption id="attachment_4572" align="aligncenter" width="200" caption="A contemplative moment for Henry Foss. Photo by Jeff Weddell and copyright of Sanctuary 2 Productions"][/caption] "I kept in touch with Michael, and in the show's third season he brought me in to play a bartender called Charlie Connor, which I did on-and-off for two years. It was a blast and that show is one of the best experiences of my career. That cast was amazing and the crew was phenomenal. Mary McDonnell [President Laura Roslin] and Edward James Olmos [Admiral William Adama] are incredible forces. They love this craft along with the environment of being on a set, and I learned a ton from my time on that show. In years to come, I think people will look back and realize what a relevant piece of history that program was, even though it was set in the future." Besides Sanctuary, Robbins can also be seen in the web-based Sci-Fi/Fantasy series Riese and in episodes of the upcoming Syfy Channel series Caprica. He recently completed two films, Smile of April and The Masculine Mystique, and will soon start work on Wrecked. It has been a busy year for the actor, and that is music to his ears. "I never had a back-up plan and I don't have a retirement plan either," says the actor with a smile. "I don't want to retire. I want to drop dead on a film set when I'm 100 years old. I believe in my heart and soul that I'm supposed to be doing this and I don't ever want to stop." Steve Eramo As noted above, all photos by Jeff Weddell and copyright of Sanctuary 2 Productions, so no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!

Battlestar Galactica ' s Katee Sackhoff On The Big Bang Theory

[caption id="attachment_4128" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Simon Helberg (as Wolowitz) and Katee Sackhoff (as herself) in The Big Bang Theory. Photo by Cliff Lipson and copyright of CBS TV"][/caption] AFTER he is humiliated on National Public Radio, Sheldon (Jim Parsons) vows to destroy Kripke (John Ross Bowie), while Wolowitz (Simon Helberg) tries not to destroy his new relationship with Bernadette (Melissa Rauch) in The Vengeance Formulation, an episode of CBS's The Big Bang Theory on Monday, November 23rd @ 9:30 p.m. EST/PST. Former Battlestar Galactica star Katee Sackhoff appears as herself, offering Wolowitz some relationship advice. [caption id="attachment_4133" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Tune in to The Big Bang Theory to find out just what advice Katee Sackhoff is passing on to Wolowitz. Photo by Cliff Lipson and copyright of CBS TV"][/caption] As noted above, all photos by Cliff Lipson and copyright of CBS TV, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!

Alice - The Syfy Channel ' s Winter Wonderland

THE Syfy Channel's contemporary re-imagined spin on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland will premiere on Sunday, December 6th @ 9-11 p.m. EST/PST and air over two consecutive nights. In this modern day spin on the classic stories by Lewis Carroll, Academy Award-winner Kathy Bates (Misery) stars as the Queen of Hearts and Caterina Scorsone (Crash television series) as Alice. [caption id="attachment_3574" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Kathy Bates (as the Queen of Hearts) and Colm Meaney (as the King of Hearts) in The Syfy Channel's Alice. Photo by James Dittiger and copyright of The Syfy Channel"][/caption] Rounding out the stellar cast are Tim Curry (Rocky Horror Picture Show) as Dodo, Colm Meaney (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) as the King of Hearts, Philip Winchester (Crusoe) as Jack Chase, Matt Frewer (Watchmen) as the White Knight, Andrew Lee Potts (Primeval) as Hatter, Harry Dean Stanton (Big Love) as the Caterpillar, Alessandro Juliani (Battlestar Galactica) as 9 of Clubs, Timothy Webber (Taken) as Carpenter, Alex Diakun (Sanctuary) as Ratcatcher, Zak Santiago (Kingdom Hospital) as 10 of Clubs, and Eugene Lipinski (Animorphs) as Doctors Dee and Dum, For this re-imagined adaptation, writer/director Nick Willing mines the bizarre ingenuity and twisted logic of Lewis Carroll's work to create a daringly different, boldly colorful and delightfully skewed dreamscape of his own. Willing also directed the record-breaking, Emmy-winning miniseries Tin Man for Syfy in 2007. Serving as Executive Producers for this ambitious new event are Matthew O'Connor and Lisa Richardson from Reunion Pictures, Jamie Brown from Studio Eight and RHI Entertainment's Robert Halmi and Robert Halmi, Jr. [caption id="attachment_3575" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Danger and adventure await The White Knight (Matt Frewer), Alice (Caterina Scorsone) and The Hatter (Andrew Lee Potts) in Wonderland. Photo by James Dittiger and copyright of The Syfy Channel"][/caption] Using the classic Lewis Carroll books Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass as a jumping off point, writer/director Nick Willing has created the modern-day story of Alice Hamilton, a fiercely independent twenty-something who suddenly finds herself on the other side of a looking glass. She is a stranger in an outlandish city of twisted towers and casinos built out of playing cards, all under the rule of a deliciously devilish Queen who's not very happy about Alice's arrival. As noted above, photos by James Dittiger and copyright of The Syfy Channel, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!

Battlestar Galactica ' s Katee Sackhoff Wants You!

ATTENTION all frak ups! Battlestar Galactica's Katee Sackhoff (Captain Kara "Starbuck" Thrace) wants you to join the fight against AIDS. On October 18th, 2009, Katee and her team, The Frak Ups, will be taking part in AIDS Walk Los Angeles. If you would like to sponsor them, please follow the instructions below. It's so frakkin' simple, any nugget could do it... GO TO - www.AIDSWALK.NET/LosAngeles CLICK - Take Action SELECT - Sponsor A Walker TYPE- Katee Sackhoff DONATE - Whatever You Can Afford Katee will be matching donations up to $5000, and one philanthropic fan will receive an autographed photo and a Battlestar Galactica Season 4.5 DVD set. It was announced last week that former Galacticacastmate Tricia Helfer (Number Six) will be joining Katee and her team as well.

Dollhouse ' s Tahmoh Penikett - In The House

[caption id="attachment_3374" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Tahmoh Penikett is Dollhouse's Paul Ballard. Photo copyright of Fox TV"][/caption] There is an old saying that nice guys finish last. Fortunately, that is not always true, especially for Tahmoh Penikett. Good-looking, congenial and, most importantly, talented, this Canadian-born actor has made quite an impression on TV audiences with appearances on such shows as Cold Squad, Smallville, The L Word and Stargate SG-1. Earlier this year, he not only finished a four-season stint playing Captain Karl "Helo" Agathon on Battlestar Galactica, but also made his debut as ex-FBI Special Agent Paul Ballard in Joss Whedon's new series Dollhouse, season two of which premiered last Friday night on Fox. Having seen Penikett in Galactica, Whedon already knew who he wanted to fill Paul Ballard's shoes. "My manager called me in late February or early March [2008] to say that Joss Whedon [Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel] wanted to speak with me, and without hesitating I said, 'Give him my number,'" chuckles Penikett. "So Joss and I met and had a great conversation. After telling me that he was a Battlestar fan, Joss began to talk about a new project [Dollhouse] that Eliza Dushku was going to be the lead in, and a character named Paul Ballard that he had written with me in mind, which was incredibly flattering. "Joss and I really clicked during that first meeting. After he talked about the premise of the series, I told him about a book that I had read and found very similar in tone and sadness to this particular piece. Joss had also read the same book and agreed with me. He then told me, 'You're my choice for the role of Ballard, but, ultimately, you have to read for the network,' and I said, 'No problem.' "The people at Battlestar released me from work for a few days so I could fly down to Los Angeles and do the network test. Eliza was nice enough to come all the way back from Peru, where I believe she was traveling with her brother, to read with me, and then the rest was out of my hands. When I heard I got the part, the people at Battlestar, being the incredible people they were, released me last April [2008] in the middle of shooting our last three or four episodes to go back down to LA and film the original Dollhouse pilot." In Dollhouse, Penikett's character of Paul Ballard is assigned the task of investigating the Dollhouse, a mysterious organization that is home to a group of individuals called "Actives" or "Dolls." These operatives, including Echo (Dushku), have had their personalities and existences wiped clean for the purpose of being reprogrammed with a new persona, sometimes multiple ones. Depending on who hires them, these "Dolls" can be used to do everything from commit crimes to fulfilling the ultimate fantasy. While most of his fellow agents treat the Dollhouse as a joke, Paul is determined to find it and rescue Echo. Like all new acting jobs, it took Penikett a little time to settle into his role. "When you're playing a new character you have to make some strong acting choices," he explains. "Starting out, it was somewhat of a hectic shoot at times because of the rewrites as well as the hype that the producers and writers had to deal with as far as what it [the series] was going to be and what it had to be. As a result, we didn't have much of an opportunity to talk at length with Joss about our characters and the direction that they'd be taking. I mean, yes, he did provide me with some essential information, and, thankfully, Joss and his writing staff are extremely talented, but there were times where I had to do some guessing and choosing on my own. That's why it's often somewhat easier with a miniseries or even a feature film because you've got a beginning, middle and end. So there's something you can work towards in terms of choices and direction with regard to where your character is going to end up. "So it was a challenge in the beginning with Dollhouse, but once we got into it and everyone got over their nerves and began to find their characters, it really started coming together," enthuses Penikett. "I feel the second half of our first season was especially strong and everyone should be proud of it. Now that all those initial jitters are out of the way, I'm even more excited about the second season." Nearly halfway through Dollhouse's first season, Paul Ballard's efforts to prove that the Dollhouse does, in fact, exist, are rewarded when he comes face-to-face with Echo in Man on the Street. "That was my first big episode of the show and one that pretty much concentrated on my character," notes Penikett. "I thoroughly enjoyed shooting it; there was a lot of martial arts involved and I had a number of scenes with Eliza as well as several of my castmates. "There's another episode where Paul discovers that Mellie [Miracle Laurie], who's this woman he's fallen in love with and has been having an affair with for a while is, in fact, a Doll [codenamed November]. It's almost too much for Paul and he can't believe it. My character is devastated and absolutely shocked, and in this episode there's a scene where Mellie takes him into the bedroom where they're about to make love. Paul is taking his shirt off when suddenly she witches personalities, and my character thinks she's just messing with him at first. That was such a well-written scene and a lot of fun to play. I just love Miracle. I think she's a very, very talented actress and an angel. I really enjoyed working with her." In Dollhouse's year one finale, Omega, Paul is suspended from the FBI and subsequently captured by two Dollhouse operatives, Boyd Langton (Harry J. Lennix) and Adelle DeWitt (Olivia Williams). With limited options, he agrees to help the group find Alpha (Alan Tudyk), a rogue Active, in exchange for Mellie's freedom. With Paul Ballard facing an entirely new set of personal as well as professional hurdles in the show's second season, Penikett has one or two things on his "wish list" when it comes to his character's on-going development. "I'm hoping we'll get to reveal a bit more of Paul's past, because I think it would help audiences come to grips with his somewhat brooding, darker side," says the actor. "He's got some demons and has been thorough a lot. Paul is somewhat of a lone wolf, but he chooses to be one. Why is that? What happened in Paul's past that has made him so averse to getting help from other people? Why is he so self-righteous? I think we should explore that a little more in season two, but not too much. After all, we want to leave something for season three," he jokes. "Again, if we explore that side of my character a bit more, it might help the viewer, maybe not empathize or even sympathize with Paul, but perhaps better understand him because I think he's confusing to some people." Prior to Dollhouse, Penikett became a familiar face the world over for his performance in the aforementioned Peabody Award-winning drama Battlestar Galactica. The actor first appeared as Helo in the 2003 miniseries, which at the time looked like it would be the character's swan song as well when he gave up his place on a rescue ship to Dr. Gaius Baltar (James Callis) and remained behind on the enemy-occupied Caprica. Luckily, the show's producers recognized Helo's, and Penikett's, potential and decided to keep them both around. "Helo's story arc became a more integral and important part of the overall Battlestar story as each season went on, and I'm truly honored that that was the case," says the actor. "There were a lot of opportunities with that and the writers took what I was giving them and went with it. That's a testament to how talented they were, because a lot of the stuff was just subtle choices that Grace Park [who played Penikett's on-screen wife Sharon "Boomer" Valerii] and I were making regarding our characters' story and giving it more backstory. The writers realized this and wrote for us. "My character starts out as a young man at the beginning of the series. He has a lot of good qualities but he's still a very young man, like most of the people in the miniseries and before the surprise attack by the Cylons. However, after war breaks out once again between man and machine, Helo has to grow up very fast and he proves that he doesn't like being a loner. He has a true and extremely real ethical and moral sense like no one else has. Helo is obviously a leader and not afraid to fight for what he believes in. He'll stop at nothing to save his wife and child and express his feelings when he disagrees with a decision that those in command are making." After five years of conflict and animosity, the surviving humans and humanoid Cylons come together on a new Earth-like planet to establish a brand new civilization in Galactica's two-part finale Daybreak. Not surprisingly, these remaining episodes were bittersweet ones for the show's cast and crew to shoot. "Being the finale, we knew that there were going to be some huge as well as scary and jaw-dropping moments," recalls Penikett. "Ultimately, the work that everyone did in the final episodes of Galactica was incredible. Everyone shines. I had the opportunity to do an amazing scene with Edward James Olmos [Admiral William Adama] again, along with some incredible scenes with Grace, which I always loved. I also got to act with some of my fellow cast that I hadn't really had the chance to do before. "That's what stands out for me about those final episodes of Galactica; the beautiful and truthful work and the pride we had about being part of a show that completely broke the mold of the stereotypical Sci-Fi TV series. We reinvented it, so when shooting the finale I focused on just being there every day and enjoying every moment that I was having with these people who I probably wouldn't work with again for a very long time. Grace Park and I were totally on the same page. Even during those 16-hour days, we'd be sitting there looking at each other and smile, tease one another and laugh. Our last day and the last scene I shot was a very emotional one. We all had a good cry. It was a fulfilling and sad moment at the same time." Penikett spent most of this past May and part of June shooting The Syfy Channel miniseries Riverworld, in which he plays the starring role of Matt Ellman. Prior to moving back down to Los Angeles to begin work on season two of Dollhouse, he filmed an independent short film called Hostage, written by Brent Cote. "This is a piece that Brent pretty much wrote for me and Aleks Paunovic," says the actor. "Aleks is an excellent actor and one of my best friends in the world. We'd been looking to do something together for a while and Brent wrote an amazing script that I got to produce as well as star in with Aleks. So I was pleased to have the chance to do that before trying to get organized for LA." Later this year I'll be running a detailed interview with Tahmoh about his work on Riverworld to coincide with the airing of the miniseries on The Syfy Channel. Steve Eramo As noted above, the photo is copyright of Fox TV, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!

Defying Gravity ' s Ty Olsson - Daydream Believer

[caption id="attachment_2621" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Ty Olsson as Defying Gravity's Rollie Crane. Photo by Kharen Hill and copyright of Fox Studios/ABC"][/caption] International Space Organization (ISO) Astronaut Rollie Crane was a man on top of the world. After five years of training, he was ready to command a team of three other men and four women, including his wife, biologist Jen Crane, on a six-year mission to explore the other planets sharing Earth's solar system. Then, suddenly, Rollie's dream was snatched away from him and his long-anticipated journey to the stars was over before it even began. While he could not dispute the reason behind this,it was no less discouraging and heartbreaking, especially having to be separated from Jen. However, as he later tells a colleague, Rollie has to follow his own advice to "suck it up" and get on with his job. Sharing his burden is Ty Olsson, who plays Rollie in Defying Gravity, and while both the character and the actor suit one another, things could have turned out much differently. "When my manager and I first got wind of this project, I put myself on tape because I wasn't available for the actual audition," says Olsson. "From that tape, the show's casting people brought me in for a live audition, and I ended up trying out for three different roles. I think I put Maddux Donner on tape first [a role that ultimately went to Ron Livingston], then I read for Ted Shaw [Malik Yoba], and twice for Rollie. My last audition was for Ted, and it's funny because I remember [executive producer] Michael Edelstein saying, 'Oh, I think the Ted character is perfect for you.' Then, of course, Rollie was the one that came down the pike, which, honestly, I think is a perfect fit." In Defying Gravity's first season opener, Rollie and a fellow member of the Antares crew are called back to Earth prior to the actual start of the mission. Both men are found to have a previously undiagnosed heart condition and there is no other recourse but to ground them. Ted Shaw is chosen as the Antares' new commander, while Rollie is reassigned as capsule communicator. Rather than experiencing the mission in-person, he must watch it unfold from in front of a monitor in ISO's Mission Control. Like his fellow actors, Olsson was suitably impressed when he saw Rollie's working digs for the first time. "I think you get a feel for the creative minds behind a project when you walk onto the sets for the first time, and when I saw Mission Control I thought it looked like a movie set," recalls the actor. "I was just blown away by its level of detail and that of the Antares set. It's comforting to look around and think, 'OK, they put the money in the right place. This is a really good set to play on.' That's easily my first memory of working on Defying Gravity. I'm sitting in the [production office] board room right now and looking at the dozens of drawings and pictures on the wall of the Antares bio lab, the medical bay, the flight deck, Mission Control, etc. It's unbelievable the amount of work and creativity that has gone into preparing this series, and it shows on the screen. "Besides the sets, I can't talk about our first episode without mentioning [director] David Straiton. He is the wackiest and funniest dude and he has such a cool creative energy about him. When you start a new show you don't know what the people who are running the ship will be like. And from David, you get a sense that he's a guy who allows you to play as well as make bold [acting] choices and doesn't pigeonhole you into his idea only of how a scene should go. So I felt like everyone from the bottom up had the same type of creative energy that flows together. Our camera crew is the same one that worked on Battlestar Galactica and in my mind are some of the best in the business. "When I saw those guys were signed up, and I got to meet David, and I'd already met Michael Edelstein, I knew I'd be very happy working in this place for the next five or six months. I'm very critical of the stuff I'm in, but I have no qualms about saying that this is a top-notch show and one that came together quite well. I mean, you look at the first episodes of some shows, even huge hits, and think, 'Wow, they weren't really gelled there.' Some first episodes never look as good as the ones that follow, but I have to say that ours looks really tight." Fans of Defying Gravity know that its story is told in present day/Mission Control time as well as in flashbacks. So besides seeing Rollie at work, you also get to see him during training for the Antares mission, which is when he and Jen (Christina Cox) first met. As one of "the boys," Rollie joined his fellow astronauts for beers at the local watering hole, and even took part in a bet with their female colleagues that he and the other male astronauts could overcome the effects of a libido-inhibitor patch designed for use during their mission. While he is still just as good-natured, loyal and kind, Rollie has grown since his training days, which has allowed Olsson to show more facets of his character. [caption id="attachment_2725" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Rollie Crane at his post in Mission Control. Photo by Sergei Bachlakov and copyright of Fox Studios/ABC"][/caption] "When I originally auditioned for Rollie, I was told that they [the show's producers/writers] were going to go a different way with the character and make him a little goofier and a bit of a nerd," he notes. "I gave them a version of that when I read for the part, but later on when I got the job and read the first script. I realized that Rollie wasn't really like that. So I decided to kind of go against that and made him somewhat stoic, very professional and, for lack of a better word, a quarterback. I wanted him to be the high school quarterback/all-American type of guy who is always above-board and could be relied on to get the job done. The character read to me like someone who should be commanding a multi-billion dollar space mission. "So that was an acting challenge because I was coming in with something performance-wise that I hadn't really shown them. Luckily, an episode or two into shooting, Michael said to me, 'We really like what you've done with your character.' I thought, 'Whew,' because you're never sure how something like that is going to turn out. "The other thing I've tried to layer into Rollie, in particular during the flashback sequences, is to make it seem that he was much more easygoing and a bit wilder in his younger days. I think he experiences a lot in the five years heading up to the mission that kind of change him. Again, you never know how it's all going to play out, but in my mind Rollie is much goofier and younger in behavior in the flashbacks than he is in present-day as the former commander of the Antares. So that's been tricky, to kind kind of keep that in my back pocket and not make my character one level all the time. You don't want anyone to come across as one-dimensional, so it's a matter of trying to keep him all those things that I've talked about, but also make him a real person with flaws and who occasionally has chinks taken out of his 'armor.' Also, we haven't pinpointed 100% when Rollie found out about Beta, but I'm guessing it was fairly late in the preparation leading up to the mission, and something like that has to change your outlook on life a little bit." The aforementioned "Beta" that the actor referred to is, in fact, an unseen enigma that appears to be manipulating events regarding the Antares mission. It is inferred that Beta is responsible for the medical condition that led to Rollie and Chief Engineer Ajay Sharma (Zahf Paroo) being removed from the mission. This also meant that Rollie's and Jen's outer space "honeymoon" would not take place. Instead, they spent some time alone together on the Antares observation deck before Rollie returned home to Earth. "I think Rollie had a crush on Jen from day one," says Olsson. "When it comes to relationships with the opposite sex, that's one area where he's not the star quarterback who whisks women off their feet. He's not a great pick-up artist. I think he's slightly shell-shocked by Jen as well as a little love struck in the early days and slow to take action. Part of that could have been that he was a superior officer within the [mission] program at the time. Rollie is hopelessly in love with her, though, and falls for Jen early on. The chemistry between them is fun to play, and Christina Cox is terrific to work opposite. She's very giving and listens as an actor, and the two of us have had a great time exploring who these two characters are as a couple. "Christina and I have had some wonderful scenes via video conferencing between Jen on the Antares and Rollie back on Earth, and the funny thing is we don't actually do the scenes together. I don't remember which episode it was, but I was doing one of these calls with Christina on the other end and, of course, they hadn't shot her portion of it yet. We did it a few times, and one of the great things about [director] Peter Howitt is that he has this belief that an actor should be able to do one take for himself - even if it's terrible, even if it's stupid, even if it's in another language - which is awesome. "We did the scene as scripted and then I asked Peter if I could do one [take] for myself and he said, 'Sure.' So I just let it rip, and I'm sure it was my best take of the day. That's something I truly appreciate as an actor. When a director trusts you enough to say, 'Have a freebie. This one's for you. Do whatever you want,' that, as an actor, is gold for me." [caption id="attachment_2726" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Rollie onboard the Antares. Photo by Sergei Bachlakov and copyright of Fox Studios/ABC"][/caption] A husband, father and actor, Olsson was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and, like many people in the business, never imagined that he would one day make this his career. "I actually went to a performing arts high school, and from grade nine onwards I did two hours of drama a day. So I had the [acting] bug, but because I was never one to think what tomorrow might bring, I never considered this as a possible profession," explains the actor. "It wasn't until my final year of high school, when I still had no idea what I was going to do with my life, that it dawned on me that everyone else was trying out for theater schools and I thought, 'Wow, people can actually make a living at this. That's awesome. I'm going to try it, too.' I've lived a somewhat blessed life in that way, having been pushed and nudged in the right direction and I'm very grateful for that." The actor chuckles when asked about his on-camera debut. "My wife loves to tell this story. My first paying job ever for movies or TV was The X-Files [season five's Kitsunegari] when the program was at the height of its popularity. I came home from work and my wife asked, 'How was it?' And all I could say was, 'The catering was amazing! They had steak, prawns, salads, fruit, desserts...' My very first professional day as an actor and the biggest thing I had to talk about was the food," jokes Olsson. "Daniel Sackheim directed this episode, and he's a super-intense guy. I told him years later when I worked with him again that I thought he was going to have a heart attack on The X-Files. I remember doing a scene where I was supposed to grab a doorknob and open the door as part of a spooky X-Files storyline. We did 14 takes, and I began to sweat and get really nervous. I wondered, 'Why do we keep doing this over and over? What the hell am I screwing up?' "I think it was one of the crew who finally noticed that I was starting to sweat, and he leaned over to me and said, 'Don't worry, it's not you. He [the director] thinks he's shooting a feature [film].' I was like, 'Thank God,' because I was going crazy trying to figure out how I could get something like that wrong. Those were the glory days, though. I was on that set for five days shooting the opening teaser and I had a blast." Olsson has since appeared in several made-for-TV movies as well as miniseries and guest-starred on dozens of other shows such as Dead Man's Gun, Cold Squad, The Outer Limits, Tru Calling, The L Word and Eureka. The actor also played the recurring roles of Captain Aaron Kelly in Battlestar Galactica and Danny in the Stephen King miniseries Kingdom Hospital. "I was a huge fan of Battlestar Galactica and all the people who worked on it, so I was thrilled whenever I got a call from the producers telling me that they were bringing Captain Kelly back," he says. "It was a fun show to work on and a bit stressful as well. This was a group of people who worked together for years and shot dozens of episodes, and I'd come back and have to remember how to pronounce some of the technical terms. I loved the challenge, though, and when I did the show, I also did my homework to make sure I was up to speed on everything. [caption id="attachment_2727" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Mission Control Flight Director Mike Goss (Andrew Airlie) and Rollie. Photo by Sergei Bachlakov and copyright of Fox Studios/ABC"][/caption] "Kingdom Hospital was a great show to work on as well," continues Olsson. "It was weird as well as creepy and creatively really on the edge in a lot of ways. My character of Danny was a paramedic and most of my scenes were with Ben Ratner, who is terrific to work with. I first met him during, I believe, a second callback for the part. The casting people were pairing actors up to read and they put us together. Ben and I chatted in the hall for 30 seconds, went into the audition room, did the scene, and the director looked at us and asked, 'How long have you two been working together?' It was one of those instant chemistry things where Ben and I just hit it off really well, and that's always a bonus." On the big screen, Olsson's credits include Lake Placid, Missing in America, Elektra, The Day the Earth Stood Still and X2: X-Men United as Mitchell Laurio. "A job like that is a dream come true insofar as getting to work with all those people with such amazing careers," says the actor. "I was telling someone not too long ago that I put on 35 pounds in three weeks for this role. When I was hired, I was told, 'Hey, we want you to go on a beer and pizza diet.' Well, you don't have to tell me twice. I already admitted how much I love the catering at work. "Wardrobe took my measurements three days after I got the job and I told them that I was going to put on some weight. When I went for my first costume fitting there was something like a three-inch gap between the button and buttonhole of my pants. I came back three weeks later and there was still a gap because I'd gotten that much bigger, so they had to switch pants. On the first day of filming, there was another three-inch gap, so they had to let the pants out again. After Ian McKellen [Eric Lensherr/Magneto] found out I'd put all that weight on, he would come over to me every day, pat my stomach and ask if I needed anything from craft services," laughs the actor. Around the world, there are people who begrudgingly get up every morning and go to work, but Olsson is not one of them. "I'm so lucky to be doing something that makes me happy," he enthuses. "I like to audition, I like to work, I like to be on-set and I love the creative process and problem solving. I also enjoy surprising people and being the guy who doesn't look like an actor but who has a great deal to offer. "Growing up, I was a daydreamer, and my daughter is the same. It makes me so happy when she says, 'I'm going to bed early because I would like to daydream before I go to sleep.' That was me to a tee. I used to love to lay in bed and daydream, and now I get to make those daydreams my career. I should have been born in a different time, too. I've always felt I was in the wrong time-line, and this [acting] is my way of finding those alternate realities that I fit into." Steve Eramo Defying Gravity is produced by Fox Television Studios and OmniFilm Productions, in association with the BBC, Canada's CTV and Germany's ProSieben. As noted above, all photos by Kharen Hill or Sergei Bachlakov, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any form. Thanks!

Battlestar Galactica Named Program Of The Year By The TCA

THIS past weekend, the Television Critics Association (TCA) recognized The Syfy Channel's epic series Battlestar Galactica with the award for the Program of the Year in a ceremony held August 1st at the Langham Hotel and Spa in Pasadena, California. Battlestar Galactica took the top prize after ending its four season run this past March as one of television's most raved-about shows. The 25th annual TCA Awards honored the finest work of the 2008-09 season as selected by the association's 200+ member critics and journalists. Battlestar Galactica is the gripping saga of humanity's last remnants and their struggle to find a new home while fleeing from their deadly Cylon enemies. Redefining the space opera with its gritty realism, Galactica's intensity, issues-driven topicality, and command performances have garnered it numerous awards, including two Emmys and the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award. The show was recognized by the American Film Institute (AFI), and for two years running was one of the most outstanding programs of the year. The series is from Universal Cable Productions and executive produced by Ronald D. Moore and David Eick.

Ron Moore - Journey ' s End

[caption id="attachment_950" align="aligncenter" width="236" caption="Battlestar Galactica re-imagined creator and executive producer Ron Moore. Photo by Steve Freeman and copyright of the Sci Fi Channel"][/caption] It was back in 1979 that TV audiences first became aware of the futuristic war between humans and the robotic Cylons in Battlestar Galactica. While the series became a cult favorite with fans, it did not fare well in the ratings and after a year the show was cancelled. The same fate befell its short-lived sequel Galactica 1980. Twenty-three years later, writer/executive producer Ron Moore re-imagined the Galactica story with a 2003 miniseries, which led to a hugely successful weekly series. In it, Commander William Adama and his crew of the Battlestar Galactica together with President Laura Roslin fight to protect the survivors of the human race from annihilation by the Cylons. Like the original series, this one has plenty of action and drama, but it is also far darker in tone, which was deliberate on the part of its makers. "I felt it was important to never lose sight of the basic premise of the show, which is that it was born out of an apocalypse," explained Moore in a conference call with journalists earlier this year. "Billions of people were literally wiped out and their world taken away from them. Everything they know is gone and what they're left with are four walls along with a ceiling and the floor, all of which are made of metal. These people are nomads in the truest sense. They're going from place to place seeking an oasis, a home, this place called Earth. "In that context I didn't want to just magically say a few episodes down the line that, OK, these people got over it and life goes on. It just felt that in order to be truthful to that kind of event, the emotional reverberations of it would continue forever and that they would never really get over it. It would never be truly behind these people and always be with them in some way. However, that didn't mean that they couldn't laugh and tell jokes every once in a while. You could do stuff like that, but you had to maintain the reality of where they were. "If, again, you could be truthful to their experiences as human beings in the wake of this unimaginable disaster, then that, in turn, would allow audiences to invest themselves in what we were doing. So they would go with us on this ride, deal with killer robots from outer space and whatever else we wanted as long as we dealt honestly with the human emotions of it. That sort of dictated that there had to be a dark and oppressive type of air to a lot of things. They could never really just let go and have fun again, and even when they did, it was always with this thing hovering in the background." Although audiences did choose to come along with the ride, Moore had no idea that his re-imagined Galactica would appeal not only to Sci-Fi fans but also the casual viewer looking for a well-crafted dramatic story. "I didn't anticipate the critical acclaim of the show, how deeply it would penetrate out into the general audience or that it would be talked about as much as it has been and receive the awards that it has," says the executive producer. "I just thought that it was a good show. I believed in what we were doing and felt it would be special as well as something that I could be proud of, but that was about it. "So creatively, I'm very surprised where we ended up with the characters and mythologies. I had none of that at the start. I more or less trusted that we'd figure it out and we did, but I didn't really have a grand master plan of how it was all going to fit together. The first season was a lot about experimentation and trying different structures in terms of storytelling and what did and did not fit the program. By the end of the season, I figured that I had the answer to that and I better understood where we were going, what it was about and the best way that Galactica could tell its stories." Throughout the first two-and-a-half years on Galactica, the Cylons were determined to destroy what remained of humanity. However, in the season three episode Rapture, they changed course, literally as well as figuratively, and began a race with the humans to find Earth. At the same time, a civil war amongst the humanoid Cylons began to gain momentum. By the show's fourth year, Admiral Adama (Edward James Olmos) and President Roslin (Mary McDonnell) agreed to an alliance with a faction of rebel Cylons, and together in Revelations they made it to Earth. Sadly, it turned out to be a barren wasteland, and the following story, Sometimes a Great Notion, shows how this affected our heroes, including Lt. Anastasia "Dee" Dualla (Kandyse McClure) who went to pieces and then committed suicide. "We designed this episode and structured the fourth season with the intention that our characters would get to Earth and show the impact it had on them," notes Moore. "As far as what happened with Dee, I think it was because she always appeared to be one of the strongest characters. Dee was the one who, in many situations, had always been the voice of reason and would try to soldier on. She'd buck up [Admiral] Adama as well as his son Lee [Jamie Bamber] when either of them was down. There was this sense of her being the rock, and it was important to me that when they found Earth was a wasteland, that the psychological damage from that would be profound. "I mean, this was everything they had hoped for since the miniseries. If you take that dream away, then there's a consequence and a price to be paid," continues the executive producer. "Like I was saying earlier, it didn't seem like they should simply shrug their shoulders and move on. Given the circumstances, it felt that somebody would check out, and there was something shocking about it being Dee because they had relied on her and she had always been there. "Just because a person has been your rock and bucking you up, it doesn't mean that they don't have their own vulnerabilities or breaking point. And that breaking point might surprise you, which is why we chose Dee because it felt like the audience would be shocked, but her response would be true. I don't think she consciously thought about it. On a subconscious level she soldiered on, but then there came a time when she was like, 'I don't want to soldier on any more. I'm going to try to feel good one last time and then I'm out of here.' And it got a huge response from viewers. Every once in a while you want to reach out and grab them by the throat and say, 'Have a reaction, get involved. What does it mean to you that Dualla has suddenly and shockingly blown her brains out?' I thought it was great, and people can have whatever specific reaction they want as long as they're emotionally caught up in a show and it means something to them." Not everyone is pleased about the alliance with the Cylons, and in the Galactica fourth season's A Disquiet Follows My Soul, Colonial Vice President Tom Zarek (Richard Hatch) and Felix Gaeta (Alessandro Juliani) set into motion their plans to lead a mutiny amongst the fleet. This episode marked Moore's directorial debut on the program, which was a very positive experience for him. "I had a tremendous amount of fun," he enthuses. "It was great to do it [direct] on a show that had been mine for several years and one where I knew the cast as well as the crew intimately. There was a huge amount of support and a lot of people wanting me to succeed. I got plenty of extra-special attention and help figuring things out. It was an environment where I could say, 'I don't know what to do here,' or, 'I'm confused about this technology,' and there was someone ready to help me. Things I wanted to do, they would make happen, so it was an incredibly collegial and welcoming type of atmosphere to step into. "It was also really gratifying because I got to do something that I'd never done before. I mean, you write it [the story] and then someone else realizes it. I would subsequently edit it or be very involved in editing the pieces together. However, I was always missing that middle step, and now I had a chance to shoot the movie in my head. When I write, I write themes to a script and I'm always playing the story out in my head - where would they [the actors] stand, how would the team be blocked and choreographed, where would the camera be - and this was the first time I could actually go and make that movie. I found that extremely fulfilling as well as fun and something I will be doing again." At the end of Galactica's third season, the identities of four of the five final Cylons were revealed. It was not, however, until halfway through the fourth year in the episode Sometimes a Great Notion did audiences discover that Ellen Tigh (Kate Vernon) was the fifth Cylon. While this character was always a top contender for this coveted spot, there were other names being bandied about by Moore. "We considered all of our regulars, including Adama and Roslin," says the executive producer, "but we dismissed them pretty quickly because I thought that that would take something away from the show and actually hurt it. If, for example, we had said that Adama was a Cylon, it would have felt like part of the journey itself wasn't right and wouldn't have had the same meaning that I wanted it to have. We also talked briefly about Dualla as well as Gaeta and, while interesting characters, it didn't feel like it heightened the stakes, but with Ellen it did." While choosing Ellen to be the fifth Cylon was certainly a feather in the caps of Galactica's creative team, there have been other not-so-popular ideas along the way. "There are always lots of blinds that you go down when you're in the writers' room," says Moore, "and you either watch it in the editing room and go, 'Ooops,' and cut it out, or you cut it out in the script or censor it in the writers' room. That's part of the [creative] process, though, and one of the things I like to do with writers is to not have any bad ideas. We'll take any idea seriously. If it doesn't work, fine, but you've got to be willing to take the risk. The big ideas that have really paid off were risky ones, such as jumping ahead a year in our [story] narrative, and revealing four of the [humanoid] Cylons at once. "There were some ideas, though, that were kicked off the chuck wagon and left by the wayside. There was a story point that I wrote for the season one finale that is now regarded within fan circles as the great stupid idea of Ron Moore," he jokes. "I had a premise where Baltar [James Callis] finds a temple on the surface of Kobol, which was a planet we were involved with at the time. He goes inside and the Number Six [Tricia Helfer] in his head tells him, 'Keep going, you'll find something.' Baltar walks into this dark room, where Dirk Benedict [who played Starbuck in the original Galactica] appears and says, 'Hello, Gaius. I'm God,' and shakes his hand. We were going to end on that moment. "Now, setting aside the fact that Dirk Benedict hates everything about this show and probably would never have done it in a million years, more fundenmentally, it was just a crazy concept. Back then I was seeking to find things about breaking reality and fantasy and what is and what is not a story and what is the link between Galactica's world and ours. I was playing around and this was a wacky idea that I came up with and put in the script. Well, there was a pretty universal reaction that everyone hated it, and I quickly said, 'OK, bad idea. That one's mine; let's kick it out and move on.' Sometimes, though, you have to swing for the fences." Although Galactica may have ended this year, Moore will be exploring yet another chapter of the Battlestar saga with a new series called Caprica. Set 50 years prior to Galactica, it tells the story of two families, the Graystones and the Adamas, living on the planet Caprica, where experiments in creating an artificial intelligence ushers in a new and dangerous era for humanity." "Caprica is getting under way," says Moore. "We're putting together the writers' room as we speak. It's a very different type of show and a very type of challenge. Galactica has set a very high bar, which makes everyone want to bring their A-game [to the table], and I think that's the spirit in which we approach Caprica. There's a sense of uncharted territory, and that's exciting as well as scary. It's daunting to have to get one of these things off the ground and hope that people will like it, especially when we know it's going to be compared to Galactica. But that's part of the reason why we're in this business, to take on these types of challenges." Prior to Galactica, Moore worked on such other shows as Carnivale, Roswell, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. While not averse to taking on other genres, he always seems to return to the Sci-Fi and Fantasy world, and happily so. "There was a point years ago when I was doing Trek that I thought, 'You know, I want to do something different; I want to get out of this genre.'" says Moore, "but I always seemed to find something that brought me back to it, either with an idea that was presented to me, like Galactica, or one of my own, such as the various pilots I've come up with over the years or movie concepts. "I just enjoy playing in this genre, but I like other things, too, that are not Sci-Fi or Fantasy. I will, however, continue to do what I think is interesting at the time. I think I've learned enough not to try to predict what next great creative thing I want to get involved with. You just have to sort of wait and see." Steve Eramo As stated above, the photo of Ron Moore is by Steve Freeman and copyright of the Sci Fi Channel, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any form. Thanks!

Emilie Ullerup - Growing Pains

[caption id="attachment_870" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Emilie Ullerup as Ashley Magnus in Sanctuary. Photo by Jeff Weddell and courtesy of the Sci Fi Channel"][/caption] When we were children, most of us probably spent at least one night looking for monsters under our bed or in the closet. Fortunately, they always turned out to be imaginary. As an adult, Sanctuary's Ashley Magnus risks her life searching for very real monsters. An expert in advanced weapons and technology as well as hand-to-hand combat, she is the daughter of Dr. Helen Magnus, head of the Sanctuary, a global network of facilities dedicated to studying and, if necessary, capturing and detaining creatures called abnormals. As if Ashley does not have enough on her plate, she takes on even more when her father, John Druitt, comes back into her life. It has been quite a head trip for our leather-clad heroine, as Emilie Ullerup, who plays Ashley, explains. "Ashley already had a huge journey in the two-hour [Internet] pilot," says the actress, taking time out for a chat while shooting the first season Sanctuary episode Warriors. "My character went from living her life as she had through her twentysomething years to being hit in the face with the fact that she has a dad and he is, or was, a monster. "So overnight her whole world changes and becomes a scary place for a young woman who has never had to deal with anything, really. Emotionally, she's cut off and focused on her lot in life, which is every day she gets up and might die because she's going to go fight monsters. Then, all of a sudden, her dad shows up and forces her to think about what she's doing. I think that's what took up a lot of her time in the web pilot, but her journey has since changed with these 13 [first season] episodes that we're doing." [caption id="attachment_872" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Ashley and her estranged father John Druitt (Christopher Heyerdahl) have a somewhat unconventional reunion. Photo by Jeff Weddell and copyright of the Sci Fi Channel"][/caption] The two-hour Internet pilot for Sanctuary was filmed in early 2007, but its creator Damian Kindler along with his fellow executive producers, Martin Wood and Amanda Tapping (Helen Magnus), began prep months before, and that included, among other things, Ullerup's audition for the role of Ashley. "When I originally went in to read I knew nothing about the project other than the three scenes that I'd been sent," she recalls. "I had that first audition and received a callback relatively soon afterwards. The second time around was pretty much like the first, except after I did the scenes, I think it was Martin Wood who said to me, 'The show's stunt coordinator Bam Bam [James Bamford] is here. We're going to put together a little something for you and we just want to see how you do.' I said, 'OK, let's go.' "James came in and he and I did a very simple hand offensive [move] and I walked out of there feeling good. A couple of hours later I got a phone call telling me, 'You're good to go,' and I was super excited. We shot the trailer that summer [of 2006] and then seven months later we began filming the web pilot. For me, that meant a whirlwind of learning the fight sequences and putting it all together. I had never had any fight training before in my life, so it was a matter of rehearsing a scene and then walking on-set dressed in leather and high-heels and trying to pull it off. I actually did everything myself, but we had a [stunt] double on-set who would also do the fights in case there was something that I couldn't sell properly. Bam Bam brought in great stunt performers who I was able to practice with and get a feel for having five people around me that my character would have to take down. So I had all these things working in my favor." Along with the onscreen fights, another of the more memorable moments for Ullerup when filming the Sanctuary pilot  is where Ashley learns that John Druitt (Christopher Heyerdahl) is her father. He and Helen were born in Victorian England and were part of a group of scientists called The Five. Back then, Helen discovered that an injection of a serum derived from vampire blood would give all five of them extraordinary powers. Druitt gained the ability to teleport, but the drug's side-effects turned him into a homicidal killer. This drove him and Helen apart, but not before they had conceived a child. When Helen and Ashley next saw John it was in the present day, much to their surprise. [caption id="attachment_874" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Ashley and John Druitt "enjoy" some father-daughter time together. Photo by Jeff Weddell and copyright of the Sci Fi Channel"][/caption] "I went into that scene where Ashley finds out the truth about her father having made up my mind that it wasn't going to be something that we glossed over easily," says Ullerup. "Once we started filming that day, the cast and crew didn't know what to expect with that scene and we took it in a direction that was a little deeper and darker than perhaps anyone had anticipated. It made it so much better for all of us, though, because our characters really connected, and in the process it got frightening, too. "I remember doing a scene with Chris and I was actually terrified of him that day, which worked great. The scene was quite magical and Martin Wood - I don't know if he would want me to say this - but he had tears in his eyes. He and the other guys sat behind the cameras and they all started crying with us. We were exhausted beyond belief after 12 hours of doing all that emotional stuff, but it was just a really super day. That's why we're all so pleased to be back here. We knew we already had something special, and now we get to play with it more." The Sanctuary pilot received such a positive response from viewers that the Sci Fi Channel decided to bring it to TV. Its 13-episode first season was shot during the spring and summer of 2008 and debuted last October. The program's new venue necessitated changes to the pilot, which was re-shot, and as the story unfolded, the characters' lives once again experienced upheaval. [caption id="attachment_877" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Mom and daughter team in action - Ashley and Helen Magnus (Amanda Tapping). Photo by Jeff Weddell and courtesy of the Sci Fi Channel"][/caption] "Ashley's world has been turned upside down this season, mostly just in terms of she's been introduced to the idea of free choice and free thought," notes Ullerup. "Yes, she's had that in the Sanctuary, but she's always been told what to do by her mom and never questioned it. However, with the introduction of her father, he tells Ashley that there is such a thing as choice and that she should think for herself and not simply aim, shoot and kill. So there's a lot going on with her. I'm not sure where it's all headed because there are so many different ways it could go, but there's definitely a great deal of darkness in my character's life. "At the core of everything, Ashley loves her mom; she's the only one who my character could trust up to now. This has provided me with plenty of [acting] challenges because I, personally, come from a very stable family, so trying to draw on not trusting your parents and not knowing who they really are is very strange to me. So I've had some big days with both Christopher and Amanda, lots of emotional pulls and tugs as well as a lot of anger and resistance, more than, I think, in the Internet pilot, which is really a thrill for me." Like the web pilot, the TV incarnation of Sanctuary uses a tremendous amount of green screen in its production, which allows its writers to set stories around the world. Also, Martin Wood, who directed the web pilot, has directed several of the TV episodes, and his presence behind the camera is much appreciated by Ullerup. [caption id="attachment_879" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Ashley and Sanctuary's resident techno-whiz Henry (Ryan Robbins) infiltrate a facility run by a shadowy organization known as The Cabal. Photo by Jeff Weddell and courtesy of the Sci Fi Channel"][/caption] "Martin knows exactly what he wants all the time," says the actress, "and that's huge help, especially when you're working with green screen, where we enter a world of not knowing. Even on the day of filming, we don't know exactly what's happening around us, but Martin is great at making sure that we at least know the broad strokes of where everything is. He's great about taking us aside and informing us of our environment, and that helps us figure out what's going on inside ourselves. There are days when I'll be on-set and do something that I think works. Again, though, Martin knows what he wants and he'll come up to you and say, 'Listen, that was very good, but can you try it this way.' As a result, the entire scene is transformed. Martin knows how to speak to actors, and that's not always the case with a director." In the aforementioned Warriors, Helen and Ashley along with Helen's protege, forensic psychologist Dr. Will Zimmerman (Robin Dunne) cross paths with The Cabal, a powerful shadowy organization that views abnormals to be a serious threat to the future of humankind. This episode also reunites Helen and Ashley with another family member. "This story is basically about a fight club for abnormals, but it's definitely not a voluntary one," explains Ullerup. "It's being run by The Cabal, who are looking to create the strongest, fiercest, scariest abnormal ever and are testing their candidates in the fight ring. We  become involved when one of Will's friends is kidnapped, so we go looking for him and stumble upon this club. At the same time, we find Ashley's grandfather [Gregory Magnus, played by Jim Byrnes]. My character thought he'd been dead for many years, so now grandpa gets tossed into the mix, too. This is a big episode insofar as family ties and raises the question of can Ashley trust mom? It turns out, though, that Helen had no idea that her dad was still alive either, but it's still more confusion for her and Ashley and their relationship becomes a bit more tarnished. [caption id="attachment_883" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Ashley and Dr. Will Zimmerman (Robin Dunne) on the hunt for an abnormal in the season one Sanctuary episode "Nubbins." Photo by Jeff Weddell and courtesy of the Sci Fi Channel"][/caption] "For me, the thing that's been big this season is character development, which includes Ashley dealing with her own issues as well as other characters," continues the actress. "Because she's sort of the go-to gal who knows the town and all the contacts, I've been able to play opposite some really cool abnormals. I mean, I've had scenes with an abnormal we call 'Squid Man,' who's this crazy looking guy with prosthetic tentacles hanging all over his face. So that's been an odd sort of challenge. "What also stands out for me acting-wise on Sanctuary is getting to do so much of the physical stuff. There are some episodes where it's needed and others where not so much. Sometimes I wish there were more stunts and fights, but I understand there has to be a balance. It's not a fight show and we need the story to drive the fights. So overall for me as an actor, I've been able to do the emotional scenes as well as physical ones. I've also had the chance to be in the background and watch other people play and see their characters develop. I just think it's a very well-rounded way of telling a story." [caption id="attachment_888" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Ashley and Henry are caught in yet another tight spot. Photo by Jeff Weddell and courtesy of the Sci Fi Channel"][/caption] Prior to being cast on Sanctuary, Ullerup got plenty of Sci-Fi and Fantasy experience working on such shows as Battlestar Galactica, Blood Ties and the Canadian made jPod. "I was so green when I did Battlestar," says the actress. "It was my very first audition and I was lucky enough to book it. I had never been on a [film] set before, so I had no clue where I was supposed to be or what I was supposed to do, other than I knew my lines and I was in my costume. Most of my scenes were with Katee Sackhoff [Captain Kara "Starbuck" Thrace], which was really exciting. She and I gelled very well and it was an amazing first experience. Everyone on Battlestar was terrific and it was a fantastic way for me to see how a well-oiled machine works. "Then I went on Blood Ties. I did their pilot episode and it was a whole different type of set because it was smaller and new and you just got that sense of energetic first-time jitters. I worked with Kyle Schmid [Henry Fitzroy], who's a fantastic actor and all-around nice guy. Our scenes together were relatively intimate and before we began shooting, Kyle said to me, 'This could be awkward, but I don't want it to be, so let's just have a laugh and have fun,' which we did. "And just before Sanctuary I did jPod, which was originally a book written by Canadian author Douglas Coupland [executive producer] and then turned into a TV series. Unfortunately, it only lasted one season, which was a terrible shame because we went out with 15 Leo Award nominations and the series was also nominated at the Monte Carlo International Film Festival. I played a computer animator [Kaitlin Joyce] who was striving to climb the ranks, tended to ignore people and was sometimes a bit not-so-nice. It was a great show to do over the summer, and to then come to Sanctuary and be cast as yet another very different type of character is a real treat." [caption id="attachment_890" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Our heroine Ashley enjoys a rare moment of down-time. Photo by and courtesy of Sanctuary 1 Productions/Anthem Visual Effects"][/caption] In Sanctuary's first season two-part finale Revelations, Ashley is taken prisoner by The Cabal and undergoes a treatment that turns her against Helen and the others. Discovering that she has inherited her father's teleportation power, Ashely steals a vial of vampire blood that her mother needs to cure a virus that The Cabal has unleashed on the abnormals. In the final moments of Revelations, Part 2 it looks as if she has gone over to the dark side. Like the show's fans, Ullerup is curious to see what is next for Ashley when season two of Sanctuary premieres this fall. "We were shocked to see where we thought our characters were going and where they ended up," she says. "In the world of Sci-Fi anything is possible, and in the world of green screen even more is possible. We've gone to so many places and seen so many new things, and that makes it easier to stick with your character because nothing is ever the same. It doesn't become routine when as an actor you're challenged to explore new places with your character. It keeps it fresh, and I'm looking forward to more of that next season." Steve Eramo As stated above, all photos copyright of Jeff Weddell or Sanctuary 1 Productions/Anthem Visual Effects and courtesy of Sanctuary 1 Productions/Anthem Visual Effects or the Sci Fi Channel, so please no copying or unauthorized duplicating of any form. Thanks!

The Guest-List

On the fifth season finale of Numb3rs (Friday, May 15th on CBS), Amita is abducted and the team's frantic search zeroes in on a sociopath as the suspect.  James Callis (Battlestar Galactica) guest-stars as Mason Duryea, the prime suspect in Amita's disappearance, and Lou Diamond Phillips (Stargate Universe) returns as Agent Ian Edgerton. During the aftermath of Dinozzo's confrontation with Michael Rivkin in the season finale of NCIS (Tuesday, May 19th on CBS), the team flies to Israel for a final showdown. Michael Nouri (Damages, The O.C.) reprises his role as Ziva's father, Mossad Director Eli David, and Arnold Vosloo (24, The Mummy) guest-stars as Mossad Officer Amit Hadar. In the seventh season finale of Without A Trace (Tuesday, May 19th on CBS) the team searches for a man who disappears after a late night dive. Martin Landau (Space:1999, Ed Wood ) reprises his role as Frank Malone, Jack's father.