Exclusive Interview With ‘Battlestar Galatica’ Star Katee Sackhoff

Katee Sackhoff, star of Battlestar Galactica and Riddick, steps once more into the science-fiction arena with new film 2036: Origin Unknown. In it, she plays Mackenzie ‘Mack’ Wilson, a young woman working on uncovering the truth behind an accident during a Mars landing several years earlier. Aided by a new form of AI, ARTi (Steven Cree), of whom she is distrustful, she must work fast to unravel the secrets of the past as it may have a direct bearing on events unfolding in the present.

We’ve been fans of Sackhoff for years – I mean who doesn’t love Starbuck? – and were suitably thrilled to be able to chat with her. During our talk we took the opportunity to probe about her new show Another Life (another science-fiction show), her love of bad-ass women in film, and that The Flash accent.

What was it about the script that drew you to the project?

It was a couple of reasons. I loved the fact that I had to read the script twice to wrap my brain around what was going on. To me, it was just a really smart thought-out script, where it really required you to think, and I liked that. I was excited for the opportunity to work with Has (Hasraf Dulull). Then also the challenge of basically being in a room by myself for an hour and a half, and trying to hold the attention of the audience. That’s something that you rarely get the chance to do in film, that’s usually on stage, and I thought it would be interesting and challenging.

You spend a lot of the film in a single location talking with an AI and a Video screen, did you have the other actors on-set or did you have perform on your own?

So they had hired a voice actor to come in and he was out with the monitors with the director. He did all of ARTi’s lines. There was no-one in the room with me ever, I mean except for Ray (Fearon) when his scenes were up. But no, for the most part, it was just sort of me talking to myself on the phone (laughs) and me starring out into space pretending that there’s an AI on the ceiling.

What was that like as an actor having to do all of that?

It’s funny because coming-of-age in the genre that I did, I am so used to working with nothing because of sci-fi. I’m used to green screen work, I’m used having to sort of suspending my imagination like inside of a character. So it wasn’t actually that hard for me. It’s sort of like working with children and dogs. Children have a time limit that they can be on-set and so sometimes you end up doing entire scenes with no child there because you’ve run out of time with them and they turn into a pumpkin so to speak.

Did you get lonely at all?

Oh gosh, that is one of the conundrums of this business. That it is probably one of loneliest existences in the world, but you’re surrounded by people all the time anyway. That’s sort of the business that we all signed up for, it is pretty lonely. I think it adds to it when you’re also then in a room by yourself.

This isn’t the first time you’ve worked with a morally questionable artificial intelligence, it obviously formed a big part of Battlestar, what do you think it is about AI that terrifies us humans so much?

I think there are a few reasons. I think one of the reasons why it’s so prevalent in science-fiction is because it’s always been a probability that AI was going to exist at some point. Then it just makes common sense, I guess to me anyway being a sci-fi nut, that if you think about our phones and about how they learn off us already – they learn our speech patterns and they learn the way we type to be able to guess what we’re going to do next or say next – they are already learning us. It’s not a stretch to think that they will surpass us. I mean, so many jobs have already become obsolete because the machine has taken over from human beings. That’s sort of what 2036 is about. Yes an AI or machine can do the exact same job as a human being, but what if you actually have to have guilt added in. What if you need human emotion to actually make the right decision? I think that is the touchstone as to what 2036 is about you know, human or AI.

Should a Judgement Day-style apocalypse happen, do you have your survival plan in place? 

(laughs) Well, I live in Los Angeles so I already have my go kit. I’m ready at all times. I have enough water and food to last me five days so I’ve got this. But if it ends up being machines, I’m fine. I’m an anti-technology person anyway. I think that it’s added a load of really great resources and technology to making life better, but I think it’s also made us…I don’t know if we’re better human beings because of it. I would be totally fine if everything shut down for a few months.

Throughout your career you seem to have been drawn to the science-fiction and horror genres more than any other, what is it about these genres that appeals to you so much?

Well when I first started, that’s where the strong multi-layered, really independent, interesting women were. I think it’s slowly changed over the twenty years or more that I’ve been that I’ve doing this. When I first started, you couldn’t find those roles unless you went into action or science-fiction. In that genre, they were always applauded and made to be the hero. I was always drawn to those movies and the genre when I was a kid. It was the stuff that my father and I used to watch together; I just find them more interesting to watch. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t love to do a nice little romantic comedy. But I think at this point no-one thinks of me in that genre because I’ve established myself so much in the others.

I think you’re an eighties baby as well?

I am.

So we both grew up with really strong female characters; we had the Ellen Ripley’s and the Sarah Connor’s – were they the sort of characters you looked up to growing up?

Oh absolutely. By the time I was twelve or thirteen, I also had Sarah Michelle Gellar and Lucy Lawless. These women were coming into my home on a weekly basis in television, and I just loved that. That was fantastic, but yeah, I grew up idolising Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley and wanting to be these women. Up until that point I wanted to be Bruce Willis. I mean, I still kind of want to be Bruce Willis (laughs).

When you first started working on Battlestar Galactica could you ever have imagined that it would have this longevity that it has? People are still so devoted to the show.

The show is by far more popular now than when we were on the air. I think there are more people watching it today then there were then actually. No I didn’t. Eddie Olmos says that he knew. He knew that we were creating something special, but I had no idea. I was a twenty-two-year-old kid. I was at this point where I was sort of an old-hat. Battlestar was like my third or fourth series. For me, my series has always been cancelled after one season. So I was ‘even if it does get picked up, we’re only going to go for a season. I’m the Queen of cancelled television shows at this point.’ So for me, I just wanted to change the trajectory of my career. Up to that point, I was just playing the dumb blonde roles. I was like a seventeen / nineteen-year-old kid when I started and I just got pigeon-holed in playing stupid blondes. I didn’t think that was going to provide any career longevity. I was trying to reinvent myself. When Starbuck came along, everybody wanted it. It was like everyone between the ages of nineteen and thirty-five auditioned for this damn role in Los Angeles. Every woman wanted it. Everyone knew how special she was going to be because roles like this didn’t come along. It was just by the grace of God I actually got it.

And in a way, you got to have your Ellen Ripley moment. Ripley was originally written for a man, and in the original series, the role of Starbuck was a man, which is cool.

It’s true, it’s true. I’m excited, my new series is many, many more Ripley moments. My entire career is just trying to (laughs) channel Ellen Ripley. That’s just my goal.

Well, Sigourney Weaver is amazing, so if you can, why not?

Sigourney Weaver is amazing, and not only that, she’s had such a diverse career as well. I don’t think a lot of times she gets credit for every single type of film that she’s ever done and all these beautiful characters she’s brought to life. Because she’s so well-known as Ellen Ripley. That movie was so ahead of its time, it was in the seventies, I didn’t watch it until 1987 – because I was seven years old – I even remember watching this when I was way too young, my dad used to show me all these movies that I should have never seen as a child. I definitely saw Alien way too young, but I definitely think she formed who I was as a child.

This season you appeared in The Flash, would you like to return to the show or maybe cross-over into one of the other DC shows?

Yeah, I think it’d be fun. The whole reason I did that character was that after Longmire I knew that I had booked this other show that wasn’t going to start filming for a year. So I knew that for a year I was basically going to be sitting there, either only doing film or I would have to find some sort of television show that didn’t want to give me a contract because I couldn’t take one. So I was looking for something like this and they just let me do whatever I wanted to do. For me, it was hysterical because I just pulled this crazy person out of a hat. I was like ‘I want to do this’, and they were like ‘really a British accent? From where?’ and I was ‘no, no from everywhere. I want her to sound ridiculous.’ I’ve made this joke so many times like I think she’s from Florida. I think she’s insane. I don’t want her to sound perfect. I think that people – it’s so funny because I get – 10% of people that have seen it [The Flash] absolutely hate her because they think I’m being serious and they think that my accent is an accident and that I’m just bad at doing an English accent. Which I think is hysterical, I think it’s the funniest thing ever. (Laughs) I’m like ‘alright guys, you have fun, I think you’re all missing the point!’. But that’s fine.

I mean you’ve spent a lot of time in the UK so if that was to be your actual serious British accent that would be an issue.

(Laughs) Listen, if I was going to like do Shakespeare in the park with Judi Dench, I’d probably get a dialect coach to get me through it, but I’m playing a fictional super-villain in a fictional world in a kid’s show. I think people should lighten up a little bit.

You’re keeping in with the sci-fi genre again with your new show, is there anything you can share about Another Life other than there are lots of Ripley moments?

It’s a story of survival. It’s a team that goes out following a signal out in space to try and find the answers that can help save humanity. My character is the commander of the ship. It cuts back and forth between the ship and Earth; the series will not be completely in space. I think we’re going to be doing a lot of new and interesting fun stuff. We’ve got some stuff sort of set-up that we’ve never actually seen in sci-fi before, which is hard to think of. Hopefully, if it works, it’ll be great.

Catch Katee Sackhoff in 2036: Origin Unknown which is out to own on digital and DVD now.