Sanctuary - The Morton Report: Amanda Tapping Interview

Source: The Morton Report [follow link for complete interview]



THE MORTON REPORT: Interview With Sanctuary's Leading Lady Amanda Tapping

By Steve Eramo
October 14, 2011

When you are Dr. Helen Magnus and head of a global network of facilities dedicated to the protection and preservation of a rare group of extraordinarily powerful beings called Abnormals, you never know where your work will take you...

... Sanctuary’s season four opener “Tempus” picks up exactly where “Into the Black” left off, with Helen trapped back in the past. By the end of the episode, our heroine is forced to take drastic measures in order to deal with Adam Worth [Ian Tracey] once and for all...



Ian Tracey (Adam Worth) and Amanda Tapping (Helen Magnus)

... “Instead of doing an episode with the past and present storylines running concurrently and flipping audiences back and forth, we decided to do two separate episodes to start this season,” says Tapping. “In the first one, ‘Tempus,’ which is set entirely in the Victorian era, Helen is trying to stop Adam from altering the timeline. So there are past and present versions of both characters in Victorian England."

"The future Helen runs into, of course, James Watson [Peter Wingfield] and he quickly figures out that she’s not his Helen. She also runs into Jack the Ripper, and there are a whole bunch of other different elements at play where my character is trying to stop Adam."

“Visually, this is such a rich story, from the costumes to the sets. We built this beautiful Victorian set and made it rain inside the studio. For me, it was kind of magical to play a character that is as old as Helen Magnus and to throw her back into a time where women didn’t have the same rights or freedoms as men and where people were treated differently. There’s a wonderful scene where Helen goes into this gentlemen’s club to try to confront Adam and she runs up against the type of [male-dominated] hierarchy of that era."

“I loved that aspect of playing this very modern character in such a suppressed time, and then playing the very young, more idealistic version of Helen. You also get a real glimpse into the somewhat tragic relationship between John Druitt [Christopher Heyerdahl] and Helen as well as the burgeoning relationship between Watson and the Magnus of that time, all through the eyes of modern day Helen..."