'Stargate Atlantis'
star Amanda Tapping
fantasizes about her
character getting it on
with the other crew
members.
Jason Meyers
LOS ANGELES (TNA) – Amanda Tapping – the brainy, sexy, ballsy Samantha Carter of “Stargate SG-1” and “Stargate Atlantis” – is often amazed that she has been able to play this great TV character for 11 long years.
That’s partly because, truth be told, she never really expected to land the role.
“When I got cast, I was pretty surprised,” Tapping recalls, “because I thought they’d go for, like, a space babe.”
| |
'Stargate Atlantis' |
It’s just that Tapping’s hotness isn’t projected in an obvious intergalactic bimbo way.
Still, a girl can fantasize, can’t she?
That’s why, if ever they made the kind of twisted, porno-fueled “Stargate Atlantis” episode that fanboys dream about, Tapping already knows which of her new male costars her character should pair off with.
“I think, for just a night of pure, unadulterated fun, it would be Ronon [played by Jason Momoa],” the actress says with a devious laugh. “For a pure just-tension-release fun, Ronan, for sure. But for a bit of a more interesting character, I think she’d go for McKay [played by David Hewlett].
“I think Carter could absolutely go for McKay in a sick, twisted sort of let’s-see-how-this-works-out-intellectually sexy way.”
Not that this naughty game of sexual “what if” will probably go anywhere.
On “SG-1,” after all, there were obvious sparks of attraction all along between Carter and Jack O’Neill [Richard Dean Anderson], but the two chose not to act on those impulses.
And now that Carter is in command on “Stargate Atlantis,” she’s even less likely to go racing toward romance and/or one-night stands.
So for the time being, Lieutenant Colonel Sam Carter, an astrophysics genius and a leading expert in Stargate technology, will have to continue to turn us on with mostly that beautiful mind.
“Stargate Atlantis,” which is about a human expedition to the lost city of Atlantis in the faraway Pegasus galaxy, is in its fourth season on SciFi Channel. It airs at 10 p.m. ET Fridays.
Tapping popped in at the famous lost city in each of the first three seasons as a guest star. But now, with “SG-1” having ended a record-setting (for a sci-fi series) 10-year run, she is a full-time cast member.
It’s been a long, unpredictable journey to the Pegasus galaxy.
“My expectation initially was two years [for ‘Stargate SG-1’],” Tapping says. “We knew we had a two-year pickup from Showtime, which was our original network. And it was partway through Season One that we found out we were going to go, I think, four years. Then we knew five.
“Then, once we hit seven, we thought that was it. Seven: that’s the sci-fi model. That’s always worked for ‘Star Trek’ and the usual franchises. And then, all of a sudden, it was a completely different set of rules. Every year we kept waiting to get canceled and they kept picking us up.”
Even now, in fact, “SG-1” isn’t entirely dead. Tapping and the rest of the “SG-1” team have made two upcoming DVD movies, “Stargate: The Ark of Truth” and “Stargate: Continuum,” which are scheduled for release in 2008.
Carter has always been a strong, dynamic character that fans, particularly female viewers, could embrace and admire. But being in command is new for her, which should create interesting opportunities for growth and change.
“It’s very much a leadership role,” she says. “Carter sits in the big fishbowl office and oversees everything. I think I go off-world three times this year, which is extremely frustrating for me as the actor, and for Carter as the character too, to say, ‘You have a go,’ and watch people go through the Gate without her. I’m kind of lost without my P90 [rifle] too. What you’ll see come out is a quieter strength of her character, as opposed to the kind of Carter bravado of ‘I know what I’m doing.’ But she’s still, at the heart, Carter.”
Leadership, Tapping adds, will also mean lonely times for her character.
“I think Carter is also struggling with is a sort of a ‘heavy is the head that wears the crown’ situation,” the actress says. “She can’t fraternize in a relationship way with any of the people she’s working with. Because she’s the leader, it’s not like she can become buddy-buddy. And she’s used to that. She’s used to that sense of camaraderie that she had on ‘SG-1.’”
Sadly, not even any of the “Atlantis” guest stars will be able to satiate Carter’s loneliness this season.
Although one can only wonder whether, in private, Sam will have curious stirrings in the forthcoming episode in which she lays eyes on “Mitch Pileggi, as strange as that sounds,” Tapping says. “The first love scene I ever did on camera was with Mitch in ‘The X-Files.’ He’s yummy.”
Tapping, born in England but raised in Canada, fell in love with the craft of acting as a child.
“When I was very young, my parents took me to an English pantomime and I just remember watching the guy onstage, Lionel Blair, who was famous in England for doing pantomime,” she says. “And I remember very quintessentially looking at him and thinking, ‘I want to do that.’ They picked kids out of the audience to go up onstage and I so desperately wanted to be picked and I wasn’t and I was devastated. And I thought I would explore this need to get up there.”
That passion for performing still drives her, which is why she loves playing Carter.
“As an actor, the best case scenario that you can hope for is to play somebody who is intelligent and fully realized and not stereotypical,” she says. “If I had any qualms [about playing the same character for so many years], it would have probably been around maybe Season Six or Seven – and then it was just a matter of going up to the writers and saying, ‘Hey, what next?’
“And they always gave me something that has given my character a whole new twist. So there was no concern going over to ‘Atlantis,’ because I knew it would be a completely different set of rules as an actor. It would be finding a whole new side to this character – and that’s fascinating.”
In fact, as Tapping sees it, how about a second full decade as Samantha Carter?
“I’m going for the record,” she declares. “I’m going to be the Kelsey Grammer of sci-fi!”
And by the end of that run, who knows? Maybe the actress will finally be ready to live up to at least one fan’s fantasy.
“I actually met a real astrophysicist,” Tapping says. “He started talking to me about string theory quite in depth.”
Their discussion as colleagues, however, lasted all of 35 seconds before she said, “Oh, boy, I have no idea what this man is talking about – I’m an idiot.”
But the point remains that Tapping was believably brainy on-screen, even to that expert. That’s the goal of every actor: to be believable.
That’s why casting a conventional “spottie” as Sam Carter all those years ago simply never would have cut it.