Amanda Tapping ages gracefully as 'Sanctuary' gets 2nd season

Fans will find exactly what happened at 8 p.m. Friday, when the episode called "The Five" airs on Sci Fi.

You can expect to see vampires, Helen's old flame, John Druitt (Christopher Heyerdahl), aka Jack the Ripper, and the three other scientests with which they worked in Victorian era England.

"It's part of the mythology [of the show]," she said, "these five characters from history who have come together, these forward-thinking scientists and how they've come to be who they are.

"You'll get the full meal deal on Helen Magnus and how she came to be who she is and why she's still around."

For those who haven't seen the show, which is shot almost entirely in green screen, Helen runs a sanctuary for "abnormals," or creatures with special abilities or oddities. Think of the characters that populate the "Star Wars" cantina and you get the idea.

"We're taking what society views as abnormal and shining a light on it, saying maybe [that's] not so abnormal," she said. "Helen's belief is that all the creatures that she studies are keys to the evolution of our race.

"She believes that they're evolutionary steps and so when you look at somebody with autism, for example, is it that they're [socially] challenged or are they just so far advanced that we don't get them?"

She works with her daughter, tough gal Ashley (Emilie Ullerup), and her latest recruit, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Will Zimmerman (Robin Dunne).

Since the show's Oct. 3 debut, which was watched by 3 million viewers, the "Sanctuary" team has met several abnormals--from shape-shifters to folding men to nubbins.

"I'm loathed to say 'monster of the week,' but every episode has a very interesting focal character," said Tapping, who added that if "Sanctuary" were to be picked up for another season, she would want to explore even more of Helen's own history.

"I'd love to do is more [flashback] work," she said. "What was happening to her in the 1920s and what was happening to her in the '30s? She's been involved with all these historical figures. She's the type of woman who invites that kind of company."

Tapping got her wish on Thursday. Sci Fi announced that it was giving "Sanctuary" a second season, which means the former "Stargate SG-1" and "Stargate Atlantis" actress will be aging into her character, even if Helen doesn't age.

"Thank you for saying she looks good," Tapping told me.

Earlier this fall, Tapping chatted during a conference call with reporters about the 13-episode first season of "Sanctuary," which started out as a Web series. Here are some excerpts.

On her new, brunette look as Helen Magnus, the opposite of Sam Carter in the "Stargate" series:

"It was a really conscious choice. When I first decided to do Helen Magnus it was a real conscious choice to have absolutely no vestige of Sam Carter in this character--everything from her appearance to her voice, to her walk, to her wardrobe, everything.

"I just felt the end to completely reinvent. Partly as a woman, I just felt it was time and as an actress I just felt it was time to just try something completely different.

"And it's kind of great because I go places and people don't recognize me; people that I've worked with for 10 years don't recognize me."

On the first season of "Sanctuary":

"[I'm] totally, totally proud of it. I'm really thrilled. I think we have some really killer episodes and I'm proud of the fact that our crew stuck around. We wanted to start in February. We didn't end up starting to shoot until May.

"... I'm really proud of the product. And I think there's some shows coming up--there's an episode called "Requiem" [airing Nov. 21], which, for me personally, was the bravest work I've ever done as an actor.

"And I don't think I would've been able to do that had I not felt so safe. So I mean, I credit the crew and the cast for just--it was a really--it was a phenomenal experience."

On co-star Robin Dunne, who plays Will Zimmerman:

"Robin Dunne is perhaps one of the funniest people I've ever met. You'd never know by watching him. He's so earnest. He's this intense character, [but] behind that is this zany, crazy, funny man."

On the different storylines on the series, including the use of historical figures, such as Jack the Ripper and Nikola Tesla, an inventor sometimes called "the father of physics":

"We're pulling from the things that go bump in the night--mythologies that we've all grown up with. We pull from that. We pull from history. And then we're also just taking really remarkable human beings and sort of shedding a light on that idea."

On the green screen technology used for much of the series:

"I think we're probably at about 70/30, 75/25--green screen to practical. We built some practical sets. Helen Magnus' office, for example, is for the most part a practical set except for the ceiling and what you see out the windows. But otherwise yeah, it is entirely virtual."

On the relationship between Helen and her daughter, Ashley:

"Helen made a choice to bring this child into the world knowing that she could quite possibly watch her grow old and die--not knowing if Ashley ... will have the longevity. As a parent is like the worst thing ever to imagine your children dying before you."

"They're comrades. They're colleagues. She'll fight to the end of the earth to protect her daughter but in the end of the day, it's often her daughter protecting her. Which again turns the whole mother/daughter dynamic on its head."

"There's a huge amount of respect [between them] but there are times when you'll see flashpoints between the two of them ... But at the end of it there's a massive amount of love."

On co-star Emilie Ullerup, who plays Ashley, who, in "The Five," learns a secret about John Druitt (Christopher Heyerdahl), aka Jack the Ripper. They are shown in the photo at right:

"She's awesome."

On whether the differences in the TV version will turn off fans of the Web version:

"We were initially [worried] but I think what the move to television has done has given us a lot more freedom and a lot more room, and a lot more time to be honest, to spread out this mythology and to open up the mythology.

"The Web series was so compact and so much information was given in that short period of time that I don't think the stories were given as much breadth as they needed. And so here we're able to breathe a lot more life into these. I don't think that people who have watched the Web series will be disappointed."