Stargate Universe season two premieres September 28 on Syfy.
Sanctuary returns September 28 with a 20 episode third season!
"Once I got beyond the fact that it was very difficult to be in all that make-up, and I was in the midst of the script, I saw that it afforded me a unique opportunity to play the character but in a completely different way. She was shaded by a completely different energy," Luttrell explains. "Most of my conversations about character took place between me and Christopher Heyerdahl. Chris is such a wonderful actor, and he does such a tremendous job on the show – as Halling to begin with, and now as Todd. I love working with him because he's so thoughtful and he puts a lot of effort into his roles. It was interesting, because it gave me an opportunity to explore another side of Teyla. Clearly, she has Wraith DNA. So, Chris and I talked about how much of this power that she's gifted in being the Queen, does she actually enjoy? The easy thing to do would be to just play it one note: Teyla hates the Wraith, and I'm here to complete my mission and blah-blah-blah. But there's this other aspect that speaks to a part of who she is – the shadow that we all have ¬– that maybe she actually likes it. At the end of the script, [for example,] when she's leaving the Wraith ship and hundreds of them stand up and salute her as she walks out. It's a sense of power, and it's not a huge aspect of who she is but it's certainly a part of her. So it was neat to play her as she is, but balanced with this darker side of herself."
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.
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.
