Amanda Tapping is best known for her portrayal of Samantha Carter in Stargate SG-1, a show that recently came to the end of its ten-year run. Tapping has re-reprised the role in Stargate Atlantis, while two SG-1 TV movies are currently in production. Bryan Cairns spoke to the actress about the stupendously successful show and new web series Sanctuary.

Did you feel that it was time for SG-1 to come to an end?

It’s a hard question. In some ways, yes I did, because 10 years is a long time. It didn’t end succinctly - we’ve got these movies to carry on. The first movie is a definite wrap up of Season 10 and the Orii storyline, so we sort of finish that off. Now the movies can be stand alone.

It was weird for us, because every year we thought we were going to be cancelled and then they kept bringing us back. This year I had another year on my contract, so I thought for sure it would be coming back for another season. Then we all individually got called into [Executive Producer] Rob Cooper’s office where he said, “The show has been cancelled.”

We all knew we would hear those words one day. You have to - it is inevitable after a decade long run. But to suddenly hear those words, it was like, “What? SG-1 cancelled? Impossible!” But now that we are just doing the movies, we are having a lot of fun. So yeah, in some ways it ran its course. Ten years is a good run.

You have now moved over to Stargate Atlantis. How’s that been going?

It has been great. My character in Atlantis is a completely different character for me now. Carter being in charge, having her own command, changes her character so much that it is not at all boring. It doesn’t feel like the same Carter. There’s the joke that I am the Kelsey Grammer of sci fi!

How is your character different in Atlantis?

Well, she’s in command now as opposed to being in Sam’s comfort zone. She now has to make decisions that affect thousands of people. She now has to prove herself as a leader of an entire base and, of course, her style is she doesn’t want to piss anyone off. She’s coming into a situation on Atlantis, where there is a lot of heartache. They’ve lost one of their very dear leaders. I think they are reluctant to welcome someone new at first, and then, of course, it turns out to be Sam Carter, which is good for some people and not so good for others.

She has to tread lightly, but part of her command - at least the way I have chosen to play it - is that she relies entirely on the strength of the people around her. She understands Sheppard’s military expertise and, even though she may have the same amount of military expertise, it is not in this galaxy. She has never fought the Wraith before so she defers to Sheppard a lot. She defers to McKay and his scientific expertise in the Pegasus Galaxy. And then Teyla and Roan are complete unknowns to her, so she really has to make her way with them. It is a lot different. The relationships are very new and fresh. Jewel Staite is on the show now as the doctor so there is this neat friendship there between the two characters.

How are the tones of SG-1 and Atlantis different?

SG-1 is a bit more irreverent. Even though we are stuck on Earth on a military base, in a way it is more accessible because we are present day human beings on Earth, whereas Atlantis has a bit more otherworldly feel to it and is a bit darker. It is not as self-deprecating as SG-1.

Are you satisfied with how the Orii storyline was wrapped up in the first Stargate movie?

I am because it still had a human quality to it – it wasn’t just a blow ‘em up, shoot ‘em up.

You filmed Stargate: Continuum in the Arctic. Can you talk about that experience?

It was unbelievable. We lived on a moving ice flow with a kerosene heater and six bunks. We chipped our own ice to make water, worked in a minus 58 degrees Fahrenheit, sludged through wind, hail and all manner of weather.

And when it was over, I did not want to leave. If not for coming back to my daughter, I would have been happy to stay there another week. It was really beautiful. Ben and I had these weird moments walking on the frozen ocean. We are really far away from anyone and there is a guy you can see off in the distance with a gun in case a polar bear comes up. That was a real threat. We are laughing and thinking, “How many actors get the chance to do this? And how many actors would take the chance to do it?” And then the third time the helicopter buzzed over, we laid down, made snow angels, and laughed like school children! It was surreal and beautiful.

What did you find most exciting about playing a different variation of Carter in Continuum?

The story is that we are thrown into this alternate timeline where the Stargate didn’t exist. We have to race against time to prove that we can get it to work and there is a real threat to Earth. They dismiss us entirely and send us off to live our lives away from each other, and we’re not allowed to work in our chosen areas of expertise. We are kind of flying in the wind and they’ve left us there.

We shot this scene two days ago with Beau Bridges where he basically says, “You are on your own and we are going to give you new identities and lives.” That, for me, was probably the most telling scene of the movie. There is that element where we are left to our own devices and we can’t even contact each other. That is pretty scary - to be thrown into a world where you don’t know anybody and can’t even do what you love for a living. All the Arctic stuff, just being on that desolate, barren, we-may-die environment. That O’Neill comes back is a very cool thing. Beau is involved and General Hammond has a little cameo. There are a lot of tender hearty moments.

You’ve also been working on a special project called Sanctuary…

Sanctuary is a web-based series that we are doing. The website is Sanctuaryforall.com. We shot our first two hours. My character, Helen Magnus, is a doctor from Victorian England who, through working with these strange and desperate creatures, has managed to stop ageing and is now chronologically 157 years old.

She runs what is called Sanctuary, which is a place her father started, and is for the abnormal and deformed - whether it be werewolves, vampires or people who have been exposed to radiation. It is a whole manner of crazy creatures that are often hunted and are reviled by society, so she provides a sanctuary for them. But she is also a doctor who studies them. In her heart, they are the key to evolution. She has run the sanctuary through the decades.

Now the backstory on her is she was engaged to Jack the Ripper. At one point, he is her patient and she is trying to help him through the psychosis he has. She thinks she can cure him but, of course, she can’t. She gets pregnant by him, freezes the embryo, and gives birth many years later, thinking she is free of Jack the Ripper, that he is never coming after them. But he can bend dimensional space. He’s been travelling through the decades for over a hundred years trying to find her. And her daughter, Ashley, finds out who her father is, so that is a bit of a shock.

She also recruits a young psychologist named Will who she brings into the sanctuary to help her with all these creatures. It is more than just a monster-of-the-week series. There is a big arc to these characters and a huge backstory. It is a pretty cool series that is shot entirely on green screen.

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