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From Julia Houston,
Your Guide to Sci-Fi / Fantasy.

When word first came that our beloved Starbuck was going to be a girl in the SCI FI Channel’s Ron Moore-ified remake of Battlestar Galactica, fans from sea to frackin’ sea were outraged.

Lucky for us, Katee Sackhoff has made Lt. Kara "Starbuck" Trace a character whose heroism, complexity and passion are a tribute and complement to the role Dirk Benedict first played. As with the rest of the production, Sackhoff treats the past and present Galactica with a respect and affection that invites the audience to forget about everything but the story being told.

Taking a break from unpacking in her new house (while getting ready to head back to Vancouver next month for the second season shoot), Sackhoff talked about her first big success on TV, the effort it takes to act tough without looking masculine, a love of food, and her Chihuahua/pug companion, Meatball.

ME: Will Meatball be going up to Vancouver with you?

KS: Yes, but I can’t take him on the set. He snorts.

ME: Oh dear. Well, congratulations on being renewed for a second season. You’re pleased, I’m guessing?

KS: Shocked, actually, I don’t know why. I knew it was a great show and would be received well. I just never dreamed it would do this well. I guess it’s just that I’ve been on so many failed TV shows. When success happens, it takes you by surprise.

ME: You said last time we talked that you really enjoy working on the show.

KS: We have a really good cast, very down-to-earth. We all really get along. The six of us who aren’t from Vancouver, especially, we’ve turned into a family. Eddie’s like my father. I mean, it’s a great city, but it’s nice to see familiar faces.

ME: So you guys actually see each other off the set?

KS: Yeah, we hang out in LA too. Tricia [Helfer], you know when we met, I thought, “I’m going to hate her.” But you can’t. She’s one of those people who’s shockingly beautiful, but doesn’t know it. She’s so normal. She’s become one of my best friends.

ME: That closeness in the cast is up there on the screen, too. Probably my favorite moment of the show yet is when Starbuck tells Adama about Zak and stands there, guilty and grieving, but sort of hoping Adama will forgive her anyway. Both of you are great in that scene.

KS: [Edward James Olmos] is such a great actor, so giving. You can’t help but be good next to him. He makes you think about why you’re doing things. Mary [McDonnel] too. I’ve learned even more from Mary personally than professionally. We get each other.

ME: I gotta say it sounds nice!

KS: You know, it’s hard for people who aren’t in this business to understand how most of my friends are older than I am. They’re my counterparts at work, and I can relate to them. I don’t think I have one friend my own age, actually.

ME: It really does translate, that closeness. And you said before that you feel you’re part of a creative collaboration.

KS: It’s been a dream job. The producers understand that as more time goes on it’s the actors who know their characters the best. If there’s a scene out of character, they’re very open to listening to us talk about that. It really is a team.

ME: Victoria Pratt was talking about that sort of camaraderie on the set of Mutant X and how much it helps the show. And, you know, it’s not a great show, but you really can enjoy the actors’ chemistry when you watch.

KS: Oh, yeah. And that girl, Victoria, what a body. I was watching her, and I went, “Holy @#%$! What a six-pack!”

ME: And are you doing your stomach-crunches for your show?

KS: Well, you know. I’m one of those people, losing weight for me is not easy. For one thing, I love food. I really like to eat.

I then offer to send her a list of good restaurants if she ever comes down to New Orleans, but it turns out her father’s from here, which shows that her family has excellent taste. Anyway, I changed the subject to something a bit more related to the SCI FI Channel, who was, after all, paying for the conference call.

ME: When Mark Hamill first saw the completed Star Wars, he called the experience “heaven.” And he saw the movie several times, enjoying the work he’d done in that magical setting. Any similar reactions when you got to see Galactica on screen the first time?

KS: I think the special effects are just the icing, but it is kind of fun to see the guns fire. My mom made fun of me for calling it poetic, but it is.

I’ll watch the episodes once. It’s very easy to step back and not see myself. I don’t read the whole script when we’re shooting, because I don’t want to know what’s happening in storylines Starbuck isn’t in. I don’t need to know that as an actor. So I like sitting down and seeing what’s going on.

ME: I love that there’s nothing “butch” about Starbuck. You’re doing a great job with that “confusion” you talked about before, taking the natural confusion you feel as a twentysomething woman and making it fit Starbuck’s search for her role in life. And I love the thumb ring. What are some touchstones for Starbuck’s character beyond being a fighter pilot?

KS: She’s got a huge heart. She’s really is a team player. It’s very easy to say she’s insubordinate and a loud mouth pilot and throw her away. But then, why would anyone want to be her wingman? I wanted to make sure people understand that she is good at her job. She wins the fights she’s in.

There are scenes coming up, though, where she gets her ass kicked, and it’s nice to see that. There’s a scene in a future episode with Apollo where she hits him and he hits her back. I really wanted to do that. There was some talk about cutting the scene, but I argued for keeping it. It explains that she’s one of the guys and it also does that thing where he realizes, “Oh my God, I hit a girl.” Lee’s got some balls.

ME: You can’t mix it up the way she does then hide behind being a girl.

KS: Exactly. We work hard on the military aspect of the show. We’ve a great military adviser, Ron Blecker, and he’s the first guy on set to say, “What are you doing, @#%$? You’re holding that gun like a girl.” And I say, “But I am a girl!”

On the planet [where Starbuck finds the Cylon ship], he’s telling me, “You’re really not acting tough.” That’s because this hurts! I was miserable, with a forty-pound pack on my back rolling around and on my hands and knees for a whole day. I was in pain.

ME: I really enjoyed those scenes, though. On TVWithoutPity the recapper objected to the way Starbuck talked to herself.

KS: Well, she was kinda nuts. When you’re stuck on a planet by yourself, you just have to keep it together. Actually, I got to the point where I was singing to myself. It ended up on the floor, but I was using it because I didn’t have lines. I needed something.

I got sick from working so much, so in those last scenes in the raider I had the ‘flu. I was out in that rock quarry with a fan blowing on me and the pack, so I’m sweating and cold and I got really ill.

ME: Yikes.

KS: I think you do your best work when you’re sick, though, because it puts you in your head. Some say you want to be out of your head, but I don’t agree. You have a conversation with people when you’re not acting and you’re in your head, so you should be there when you’re acting.

ME: I’ve gotten the inevitable emails from guys who complain that the men on the show are all weak and the women are all too strong. I don’t see it that way, myself. How do you see the gender dynamic on Galactica?

KS: Oh, I disagree. It takes a strong man to stand back and let a woman take control. We haven’t seen that much. A man who’s very sure of himself can just say, “If a woman can do it better, by all means let her do it.” The men aren’t whiny. The women on the show are in power positions. They work a little bit harder at being strong.

ME: You told me before that you were a jock until you hurt your knee, and now Starbuck’s hurt hers. Did Ron Moore take your life and put it in the script?

KS: No, that was just a coincidence, but I definitely used it. Sometimes I go on the Internet, just to check what some people think about the show. I spotted someone talking on a message board saying that if Starbuck tore her knee up like that she couldn’t walk on it and then not be able to walk. I’m all, “No, that’s how it works!” I wanted to say something.

ME: Seriously.

KS: Now, both my knees are bad, and I had to wear that brace on my right knee for three episodes. It actually start to hurt. I had that crutch until Episode 12. Six episodes limping around, and it sucked! It was a like a permanent prop attached to my ass. I was playing with it, because the doctor told Starbuck she didn’t have to use it all the time, so I’m twirling it around to show I don’t need it. People will probably say, “Oh, she’s not using the cane right!”

ME: Probably.

You said before that you’d like to see an eventual romance between Starbuck and Apollo. Do you still feel that way? Does that explain your reading of “Wanna give me a bath?”

KS: No! Actually, that was written in the script, and I hated that line. The only way I can say that line is tongue-in-cheek. It’s interesting about Apollo and Starbuck. I do believe that she’s in love with him, that he’s her best friend, the only one who understands her. He is her last real thing that reminds her of Zak. I think it’s very fitting for her to love the brother of the man she loved who died. I don’t know if she’s going to express those feelings. But I say that to myself: “You’re in love with this guy, now play the scene.”

ME: Ron Moore said that “between [Starbuck] and Apollo, you wouldn’t think it, but he’s really the more liberal, while she turned out to be a Republican.” You agree?

KS: I totally agree. I feel we’re learning more about her every day, and she’s got some very strong feelings about her position.

ME: Well, on the other hand, Starbuck’s got some very interesting chemistry with Baltar, and it gives me the creeps. How are you having Starbuck approach him? You seem more open to him, which is really oogy.

KS: She’s using him, and she understands him. They’re both outcasts. She’s attracted to his power. She’s using him to keep her mind off the guy she’s really in love with. It’s great for me. I get to hang out with James and Jamie and be like, “Whom am I in love with today?”

ME: How would you sum up Starbuck’s character arc for this first season?

KS: I think we’re going to find out what she’s really made of -- her experiences so far have been very easy for her. But she’s going to get pushed beyond that. We’re going to see her break. And a man from her past comes into her life in the last episode.

ME: What would you like to see for next season?

KS: I would like her to tell Lee how she feels. Because I think it’s so obvious, and I think he knows, and it would be interesting to see him respond. I think Starbuck has a greater purpose and I think there’s a reason the Cylons like her.

ME: They do?

KS: You’ll see.

ME: Somewhere in the distant future, what’s your dream script for Starbuck?

KS: I have no idea. I write, but I’m not writing this show. I like coming to work and being told what to do. I like having my place at work. My job is to come to work and learn my lines.

ME: Is there nothing you’d wish for?

KS: Well, I do want Starbuck to have longer hair. I’ve had long hair my entire life. It’s really hard to chop your hair off and go to work and not feel like a boy.

ME: I like her short hair. How would you get long hair in the helmet?

KS: Same way Grace [Park] does!

ME: I have you got any good stories about sci-fi fans yet?

KS: I get some very nice fan letters. Someone actually sent one to my parents, with another letter inside for me. Kinda weird.

ME: Any stalkers?

KS: There was this guy at the gym -- which is really where you want to be noticed, because you just look sooo great -- and he walked up to me and took a picture with his camera phone.

ME: Lovely.

KS: Yeah. It’s like, “Oh, thanks, buddy.”

ME: Must make you even happier about getting back to work.

KS: Absolutely. That’s a main reason I’m glad we got another season. I didn’t want last season to be the last time I saw Jamie [Bamber] and James[Callis]. Considering where we all live when we’re not on set, it’s possible I wouldn’t see them again.

ME: Well, Stargate’s on it’s ninth season.

KS: Hmm.

ME: Is that a little too far in the future for you?

KS: We’ll have to see. My contract’s up in four years. I’ll have to think about it then.