SCIFI AND TV TALK: Sci-Fi Blast From The Past - Torri Higginson (Stargate Atlantis)
by Steve Eramo
05/18/2011
In today's Sci-Fi Blast From The Past, the lovely and always gracious Torri Higginson chats about her work as Dr. Elizabeth Weir in season three of Stargate Atlantis.
... Season three of Stargate Atlantis has been a difficult one for the show’s intrepid leader, Dr. Elizabeth Weir. Her ability to command the Atlantis expedition was challenged by Earth authorities and she had to fight to keep her post after an uneasy alliance with a faction of the Wraith went horribly wrong. At mid-year, unforeseen circumstances forced Weir and her team to temporarily leave the city and return home, and by the season ender, First Strike, Atlantis is on the brink of total annihilation. Despite her character’s woes, actress Torri Higginson, who plays Dr. Weir, is looking quite relaxed this afternoon on the Atlantis set and has been taking the past months’ fictional events in stride.
“One of the challenges I find with my character in general, and I think the show’s writers face a similar predicament, is that because Dr. Weir is outside the day-to-day excitement and action that her team goes through, you have to create story arcs for her that are interesting and engaging as well as part of the Atlantis world, but not repetitive. Boy, that was a mouthful,” jokes Higginson.
“So there’s the constant theme of her job being taken away from her or her wanting to resign, and that has come up quite a bit over the past three years as her basic story arc. It’s then my responsibility as an actress to find new beats to play and show the different attitudes that Weir has towards what’s happening. At the beginning there was her nervousness at possibly losing her job, and then during season two I played more of her anger and sense of, ‘It’s my right to be here [in Atlantis] and damn you for not acknowledging the work I’ve done...’
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