Can you tell us a bit about your character, Helen Magnus - who is she, and how did she come to be running the Sanctuary?
She is a 157-year-old doctor from Victorian-era England, and she took over the Sanctuary from her father. He was one of those very forward-thinking scientists back in the day, and he introduced her to this incredible world. How she came to live as long as she has I can’t tell you, except to say that in a later episode everything is revealed. But she has a very interesting back story and a very interesting history with certain nefarious people from history – she didn’t always keep the best company.
The Sanctuary is her life’s work and she believes that these abnormal creatures are the key to the evolution of our species. They’re not to be derided or hunted or killed, but instead studied and protected. Well, most of them – some of them she’ll go after because they’re rather nasty and dangerous.
What’s she like as a person?
She is sexy, savvy and unapologetic. She doesn’t suffer fools, and she can see when people aren’t being honest with her. She’s an incredibly fun character to play because a single look from Helen Magnus can bring somebody down, so it’s quite fun in that regard. I don’t have that, but it’s great fun to put on her shoes.
Why do you think Helen sees the Sanctuary’s creatures as more than just monsters? Her interest seems to go beyond dispassionate scientific enquiry.
Absolutely. She has a huge humanitarian passion and that’s why she brings on board Will Zimmerman. She sees that he has a gift that she doesn’t have, an ability to connect things and find out the real story, to empathise with these creatures and the ability to get them to open up. So she’s definitely a humanist.
How would you describe the relationship between Helen and Ashley?
There’s a huge amount of respect between them. Ashley knows that when her mother says she needs to do something then she says it for a reason. And Magnus has a huge amount of respect for Ashley because Ashley can do things that she can’t – she’s this young, vital gun expert, kick-ass kind of girl. What’s interesting is that Helen made the choice to have this child knowing that in all likelihood she might outlive her. That’s a wild choice for a woman to make. But it’s also interesting that she puts her in harm’s way all the time, and knows it. She respects her daughter enough to know that she can hold her own, but it’s gut-wrenching for her every time she puts her in danger.
And their relationship is put to the test when it’s revealed who Ashley’s father is. It’s pretty devastating because her dad’s not the greatest guy in history.
And what about Helen and Will? What do they make of each other?
I think Helen finds him fascinating. He’s so idealistic, she see in him all the qualities that she admires, but all the qualities that she knows will probably get beaten out of him over the course of time. His idealism and purity of thought and the way he analyses things… she absolutely respects that, but I think she also realises that there’s going to come a time when he’s going to become a bit jaded. The world is not as kind as Will Zimmerman would like it to be!
There are a couple of episodes where there’s been this bizarre sexual tension between the two of them, and it’s by virtue of what’s happening in any given episode, especially in an episode called Requiem where Magnus goes a bit crazy. But generally there’s just a huge healthy respect.
How long did it take to work on your English accent, and were you using anyone in particular as a guide?
Well, I was born in England and I get back there all the time. I grew up in a very British household. My father has a very British accent and my mum and my aunt have held onto to their accents.
But for me Helen’s is a difficult accent because it’s born out of Victorian England, which is a very specific way of speaking. She clings to that eccentricity a bit, to that Britishness – perhaps more than some people who’d been around for 157 years would! So I listened to a lot of different voices… because I had to factor in that she’d lived all over the world.
Most of the show is shot in front of a green screen - what’s it like working in that environment?
What’s interesting is that you get used to it. You kind of forget that the green screen is there, because David Getty, who’s lighting our show, lights it so beautifully that you can get this sense, when there are windows [in a scene], that you can tell what time of day it is. The hardest thing is the scope. Helen’s office has a huge vaulted ceiling that we’ve never seen. With the Sanctuary itself the lab is five stories high and it’s really hard to get a sense of that scope, that’s the most difficult thing. Otherwise, if you have the right props and the right set pieces so you know where to look, you get used to it.
What do you think Stargate SG-1 fans will make of Sanctuary?
It’s totally different. I mean, a lot of Stargate SG-1 fans have watched the show, they’ve seen it on the internet and loved it. What’s interesting is that we’re getting a whole new fan base who never watched Stargate, and that to me is really cool. But it’s totally different. I think what sci-fi fans in general love is a good story that’s intelligently told and that gives them some great visuals. And they care about the characters. At the end of the day sci-fi fans are really stalwart in their support of characters. So I think that we’ve given them characters that they can really care about.
