Feature: Stargate SG-1

Major Player

For Amanda Tapping’s character, Major Samantha Carter, there are changes in store, and perhaps love is in the air. . .

This past summer proved to be a busy one for Stargate SG-1’s Major Samantha Carter. When she wasn’t marooned in Outer Space, she was trying to avoid being killed by a Jaffa super soldier. In the midst of everything, the major found time for a little romance with a sexy, good-looking police detective. All this was fun as well as tiring for her real-life alter ego Amanda Tapping. With series leading man Richard Dean Anderson having had a reduced schedule for the show’s seventh year, she was given a more prominent role to play in several episodes. At the time of this interview (late August), the actress was working on the two-part season finale The Lost City.

“I feel a little bit discombobulated right now because we’re shooting all over the place,” says Tapping. “We filmed the end of Lost City this morning, and yesterday we went out on location and worked on the middle part. The shoot is spread out over the course of 15 or 16 days so we still have a ways to go. This is a big episode. We have tons of bombs and things blowing up. There’s also the introduction of a new character who could potentially take over the running of the SGC, and Bra’tac [Tony Amendola] and Kinsey [Ronny Cox] are back, too. It’s always a treat to see Ronny Cox because we just love him but hate Kinsey,” she jokes. “Funnily enough, this is the episode that could have wrapped up the show, but there are so many story lines left open. At the end you’re like, ‘Hey, wait a minute. What’s going to happen to…?’

“So it’s been a pretty amazing time. I think the second half of the season is very strong. I’ve actually done a fair amount of work in these latter episodes and I hope that it translates well on-screen. Things have just been insane since we returned to work after our mini-break in July. I’ve been working every day and I’m in the majority of the scenes. On top of all that I’m prepping for my first directing gig on the series, which begins in two days. I think when we wrap this season I’m going to collapse and sleep for a week,” laughs the actress, “but I’m not complaining. All our spirits are up as are our senses of humour, and that’s what counts at the end of the day.”

by Steven Eramo

Get the full interview when you buy
TV Zone #172

Photo © Sci-Fi Channel
Feature © Visual Imagination 2004. Not for reproduction

Taken from

TV Zone #172
February 2004
ships from Jan 20 2004
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UK £3.65 / US $6.99

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