Sanctuary - Pop Culture Zoo: Talking ‘Sanctuary’ With Amanda Tapping And Robin Dunne

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Talking ‘Sanctuary’ With Amanda Tapping And Robin Dunne

By Joseph Dilworth Jr. - September 15, 2008

At this year’s San Diego Comic Con I had the pleasure of speaking to both Amanda Tapping and Robin Dunne about their new web series turned SCI FI show, “Sanctuary.” Amanda plays Helen Magnus, who was born sometime in the Victorian era and through an as yet undisclosed accident became immortal. In the present day she hunts various terrifying monsters that lurk in the dark. In the pilot she encounters Robin’s character, Will Zimmerman, a respected psychiatrist who eventually becomes Magnus’ assistant. Though he aids her in her battle against the supernatural forces, Zimmerman still holds to a scientific explanation to all mysteries. “Sanctuary” premieres on October 3rd. Check back for our follow up interview with Amanda Tapping and possibly others in the cast and crew in mid-October. For now, here’s what we talked about back in July:

Amanda Tapping



...PCZ: Yeah, definitely. So, with “Sanctuary”, you’re Executive Producer still? Are you also involved in doing any of the writing? Maybe possibly directing?

AT: I’m the go-to director. So, for example, Martin was away at a television festival and I directed Sanctuary while he was away. As far as writing, I’m involved in the white-boarding of a story, and the concepts, but I leave the writing up to the people that are good at it. I don’t have the time and I don’t have the aptitude for it. I really enjoy the concept and sitting down and going “Okay, but then what if this happened, and what if this happened.” And then I let other people flesh it out.

Robin Dunne



PCZ: Can you talk a little bit about how you became involved with “Sanctuary”?

RD: Absolutely. Actually it’s a very integral part to the show I think because - you know, Martin Wood called me, we’d worked together years ago. He called me and said “Look, there’s a script, we want to shoot some scenes. We don’t know what it is.” I read the script, I said, “Look, this is great. I’d love to be involved.” We shot, like, a promo. And we waited, you know. We got to do some webisodes. We did a bunch of webisodes and took the show to the next level. After that we waited, and waited, and kind of hung in, and turned down other work because we all really wanted to do this show. Now here we are lending it the perfect home – SCI FI Channel. It really is a dream come true, but more importantly it really galvanized in us a feeling of believing in the show. Really recognizing that this is something different, that this is not just your average job that you get as an actor or director, that this is something different. Hopefully, that feeling, that excitement that we all have – we’re working on the show, but we’re huge fans as well, and for me the excitement of talking about it that I’ve experienced this really cool thing and I can’t wait for you to as well. Hopefully that’s a feeling that comes through and people can - it’ll transcend and people will hook into it as well and say, “Hey, this is different, this is something..” because that’s how we see the show and that’s what we believe in.