Media Blvd. Magazine: Amanda Tapping Talks About Sanctuary

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Amanda Tapping Talks About Sanctuary

Saturday, 27 September 2008

The British-born Vancouver resident recently spoke to MediaBlvd Magazine about the extraordinary visual effects of this new series

By Christina Radish

The Sci-Fi Channel’s newest original one-hour drama, Sanctuary, follows the adventures of the beautiful, enigmatic and always surprising Dr. Helen Magnus (Amanda Tapping). A brilliant scientist who holds the secrets of a clandestine population -- a group of strange and sometimes terrifying beings that live in hiding among humans -- the 157-year-old Helen, along with forensic psychiatrist Dr. Will Zimmerman (Robin Dunne), quirky tech-wiz Henry (Ryan Robbins) and her fearless daughter Ashley (Emilie Ullerup), seeks to protect this threatened phenomena, as well as unlock the mysteries behind their existence.

Following a record-breaking 10 seasons as Air Force Colonel Samantha Carter in Stargate SG-1, as well as a season on the series’ popular spin-off series Stargate Atlantis, Amanda Tapping is branching out as both executive producer and star of Sanctuary. The British-born Vancouver resident recently spoke to MediaBlvd Magazine about the extraordinary visual effects of this new series.


A brief excerpt:


MediaBlvd> You’ve had experience working with special effects, but is it weird to work in such a minimalist set-up, where almost everything in the room is just a green backdrop?

Amanda> Initially it is, but it feels more like doing theater than anything else, and that was my training. It actually feels like you’re putting on a play because you don’t have a huge set to play with. The hardest thing with shooting an almost entirely virtual show is getting a sense of the scale. We’ve shot in the catacombs under Rome, and we’ve shot in huge chapels. The Sanctuary itself is this massive structure. It’s really hard to get a sense of just how big it all is. And so, when we started to see the fully finished effects, we were like, “Wow, the Sanctuary really is huge!”