SCI FI PI

Katee Sackhoff has attracted a legion of fans for her cigar-chomping asshole-punching role of Kara ‘Starbuck’ Thrace on SCI FI’s Battlestar Galactica. Somehow managing to contain a Top Gun swagger inside a waifish figure, her Starbuck character has shot to the top of Sci Fi’s most loved character charts.

SCI FI PI managed to have a chat with her during the final days of shooting Season 4, and she opened up about the reality of working on a TV series, the ending of Battlestar Galactica, riding Harleys and being ‘public property’.



Are you exhausted after a long day of filming?
I am tired, but I think that’s more to do with going to a concert last night and not getting any sleep. I think that’s the problem. But yes, of course, because I’m working so hard, dang it! You know what I needed was parents who didn’t pay attention to me, who were loaded. Then I wouldn’t have to work at all – I could just drive around. Then I could get arrested. But dammit, I had parents who loved me and made me work for a living.

How do you approach the heavy work load and often heavy material of Battlestar Galactica?
My approach – the way I work is to make a complete fool of myself when the cameras aren’t rolling – take the piss out of everyone and then they say ‘action’ and I’m crying over a dead body. As soon as they say ‘cut’ I’m like ‘hey, what’s up!’. So on set I’m kind of joking around all the time, so it’s kinda nice.

What is it like working on Battlestar Galactica?
Battlestar Galactica is my fourth series. This is the first one, where it is truly, and I know it sounds so cliché, but it is truly a family. Everyone always says that, but I think they’re full of crap. Because I’ve worked on so many shows, but this is the first where we truly all hang out after work. Tricia (Helfer – Number 6) and I are great friends, our boyfriends know each other.

We really are a family. That’s so rare. They can’t put Mary (McDonnell – President Roslin) and I in the same scenes together because we can’t stop laughing. I think that’s why The President and Starbuck have decided not to like each other.

What happens when it’s not a family? When it does go wrong, how does it go wrong?
What I think is interesting about this business is that you’re thrown together with people who you wouldn’t ordinarily associate with. You meet people way outside your comfort levels. You get all these different personalities, and everyone’s creative. I personally thing creative people are crazy, me included. So you throw people like that together where they have to work together for 16 hour days, you’re tired all the time, I think you’re bound to have problems. Even on good shows – even on our show, we have problems.

The difference is that when you’re on a good positive show, you don’t react the same way. You know just to walk away. We’ve never had anyone not show up for work, even though we’ve all threatened to do it, as a joke. “It says here in my contract I can’t have 4th of July off! You realise there’s fireworks, right? I have to have it off!”



Were you surprised, with the quality of the show, that it’s only running four seasons?
I wasn’t shocked at all. I kind of knew it was coming. First of all, it’s a very expensive show to produce. People’s lives are so busy now that we don’t have the up-front network ratings that are needed for a television show. Even though it’s highly acclaimed, the networks don’t see that.

There’s two ways to look at. One is that current events are always so relevant to the show and makes it fresh, but you can’t sustain this type of show with this much talent forever. You walk away on the top, on your own terms, rather than being forced out. I think it’s the smart thing to do.

What a blessing to be able to actually wrap the show up, as opposed to having the rug pulled out from underneath you, which happens so much. This will actually have a beginning middle and end.

It must be great to see carefully laid plans come to fruition.
We’ll you know, I think there’s a reason why no one’s been able to figure out the ending – there are no plans. The writers really do just make it up as they go along! I’ll be sitting in a meeting with a writer talking about something that happened to me on the weekend and then next week it’ll be on the show. Can I get a writing credit for that? That’s so my life right there! I don’t think they know. I think they know certain things. They have a pretty good idea how it’s going to end. It’s so crazy. We don’t want to go to work anymore – we just want to go home and watch it!

Obviously with the gigantic shifts in form and structure so far, anything can happen.
True!

When you’re acting on BSG do you have your own set of rules to get ‘there’ and be completely immersed in the fantasy, or are you always aware that it’s just you Katee Sackhoff, in a plastic mock-up of a space ship, with a camera in your face?
I think we’re really lucky on Battlestar because everything is within a reality of some sort. Space travel isn’t unheard of, robots that do things for you aren’t unheard of. I don’t think it’s that hard. Some days I’ll be sitting in my Viper – and it’s hard.

One of the actors came up to me the other day and said “I’m so nervous, I don’t know how to do this Viper stuff!”. “Yeah, it feels kind of stupid, doesn’t it? You feel kind of like a dork, everyone’s staring at you. Then you’re like... ‘Woohoo!’” You feel like the biggest dork for the first five minutes. Then you realise that no one gives a shit, they just want to know when lunch is. It doesn’t matter. The hardest things to do are things I would never know how or want to know how do.

What’s it like being Bionic? (on The Bionic Woman as Sarah Corvus)
Yeah! I am the evil Bionic woman! My boyfriend asked me what it was like being one of the fembots, and I’m like ‘what?’ He bought the entire Austen Powers trilogy and made me watch it, so yes, I guess I am a fembot. That’s who I am. I’m evil and crazy. It seems I am destined to remake 70s TV shows. My boyfriend kept making the sound effects from the show when I got the job. What are you doing? Stop doing that! It was so annoying.

The fan reaction to BSG and to your performance and character is intense. Does it matter to you? Or are you happy to turn up on set do a good job, get paid and drive off in a fine car?
I think it matters a little bit. No one is going to have everyone like them. Someone somewhere is going to think you’re horrible. That’s fine. It keeps you humble. I really do try to focus on the work – and not read the internet anymore. It takes 200 positive comments to get rid of the one guy. When we first started I was obsessed. People were destroying me on the internet. I was like ‘oh my god!”

I’m sure they’re come round by now.
If they haven’t they’re at least over it.



Is it actually correct and true that you have a tattoo on your right arm that says, in Latin, ‘Public Property’?
Nelllie! Stop it. Sorry, my dog tried to attack herself in the mirror. What are you doing knucklehead! Stop it. I was on a TV show, six years ago, called The Education of Max Bickford with Richard Dreyfuss and I had pink hair, so people who recognised me wouldn’t recognise me, they would just recognise the hair. I was more recognisable than I am on Battlestar. I was sitting at dinner with my parents and this person came up and asked me for my autograph and to cut a long story short it turned into this huge debacle, “I don’t have a pen” and I was like “ well I don’t have a pen!” and they got really really rude, and I said, ‘wait till we’re done with dinner’. And then the person proceeded to give me a lecture on how I gave up my privacy when I decided to be in this business, and I’m public property and I shouldn’t be such a bitch.

Wow!
And I was 19 years old, sitting with my parents. I was completely shocked. It blew my mind that anyone could be so rude. Because of the career I chose, I was there to do whatever they wanted me to do. And you know what, there’s a side of me that agrees. We’re responsible for the things we say and the things we do as people in the public eye. I do agree with that completely. But don’t talk to me when I’m having dinner with my parents when I’m sitting next to you! So I got it tattooed on my arm.

A reminder to always have a pen handy?
I don’t know what it’s a reminder of. I have no idea what it means. I think my mother had a heart attack. That is what it’s for. Because I was raised a Catholic it had to be in Latin. But 99% of the time, especially Science Fiction fans, they’re are amazing. They truly are completely involved with the character and really love the way that I play the character. In that way, I’m lucky.

So how are your dogs, Meatball and Nellie?
Meatball is getting older and Nellie is obviously is just crazy. She needs to go to The Dog Whisperer! Although he’ll probably just yell at me. “Stop treating her like a person!” She needs to grow up, Nellie, she does.

As comrades on the show, do you and Tricia get to go out and paint Canada red, or do you just shuffle off exhausted after a hard day’s shoot and quietly curse Ron Moore in your beers?
(laughs!) Funnily enough, Tricia and I are homebodies. We don’t go out and drink. If we do it’s when we’re at home. When we do see each other it’s in Los Angeles. We’ll talk about animals, or us getting our motorcycle licences. She’s just got a Harley and I’m getting mine soon.

You’re getting a Harley?
I am! As soon as I’m done with the show and I can actually put myself in imminent motorcycle danger.

It’ll be interesting to see the two of you hooning down Sepulveda or the 405 on Harleys.
It’s going to be really, really bad! (laughs!) Let’s go to Santa Barbara? OK – get the Harleys! People will be like – who are these two blonde bitches? I have always said that Meatball will have to have a sidecar, with the Red Baron helmet and goggles.

Looking forward to the paparazzi photos of that one!

Make sure you catch Katee as Starbuck on Battlestar Galactica, every Wednesday at 10.30pm!