With GABIT fast approaching, we sent our intrepid crew of Sanctuary nuts fans over to spend some time with Sanctuary's leading lady, the ever fab Amanda Tapping.

Grabbing questions submitted by the fans from the forum we threw them at Amanda and here's what she had to say. Click Read More to read a full transcript of the Interview.

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Amanda and the Sanctuaryfans Crew

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SF.com: Hi, this is Victoria, Amanda and Tracy for Sacntuaryfans.com. Amanda has kindly taken time out of her London schedule to answer some fan questions.

 

SF.com: The first question is from Kirfect.

 

AT: Kirfect. OK, What up?

 

SF.com: She wants to know, since Sanctuary’s pilot is being retooled how different will it feel compared to the webisodes?

 

AT: It’s a good question, and I think actually it will feel quite different. I mean, we still want to keep the same graphic novel feel to it. We still want to keep the same, sort of darker elements, but it won’t be as sinister in places and the back stories of all the characters will be a bit broader. Because we are able to take the first hour of webisodes and repurpose it into a two hour, so the witches story becomes a completely different episode, it gives us a lot more freedom. A lot more back story on Will. A lot more back story on Magnus, on Ashley. We don’t give as much away in the pilot. Which for those of you blessed fans who have been following us on the web, will know all the story anyway, but we’re not using as many of the flashback in our first two hours. They’ll come in later. And it’s going to be physically brighter, a little bit, for broadcast. I mean, the web, depending on what you watched it on, the compression was pretty tight, so sometimes it looked really, really dark and you just can’t have that on broadcast television, so we’re brightening it up. And I think the vis effects, as proud as I am of our team for getting stunning visual effects in twelve days, we’ll have five months so they’ll be a lot more polished.

 

SF.com: OK, brilliant. In your opinion what do you believe are the most significant changes between what was originally conceived and what Sanctuary has become?

 

AT: Well, the biggest change is that we are on television. Our initial plan – and it seems kind of naïve now because we spent a lot of money making a pilot for the web – but our initial plan and with all good intention was to do what we set out to do, converging new media, using the social network, utilizing the fan’s ideas, keeping it on the web and keeping it in that purist sense - a fan driven show. For the fans, by the fans, you know, while maintaining our stories, but making it far more interactive for everyone than we ended up doing. And sadly, as good as our intentions were, it was just impossible financially to do it. So the company started to run out of money because we were trying so desperately to cling to this ideal.

 

And then it seemed that there was sort of burgeoning interest from networks and we went “Well we could continue to make this product and broadcast it and then go back to the net with a repurposed version and still use the fans.” And so that is kind of what it has become. It feels a little weird to be sitting her saying it because we went through so much angst over the fast that we weren’t sticking with our original ideal, but had we stuck with our original ideal, none of us would be here. I mean, the show, we’d be bankrupt so we had to figure out a new way to do that.

 

Having said that, now I am really glad that we are on television because it gives us a bit more of a larger venue and we can take the stuff that we are putting on television and like I said, now once we get that up and running, we can put it back on the web and start the social networking and the ARG. And now we’ve got a plan in place that may actually work.

 

So in our anxiousness to do it and our naiveté and our sort of pure thought of “Yay! We are all sci-fi people and we all love the fans and the fans have been great and let’s keep it real.” We realized that we couldn’t do that. And so I am glad you asked that question, because that was the biggest change and for us, it was a huge, bitter pill to swallow that we couldn’t make what we wanted to do work. But having said that, I think there is a way to still go back to that ideal in a slightly changed version. Yeah.

 

SF.com: As an executive producer you’ve been extensively involved in the preproduction process. 2Shy would like to know, is it different to go into production as an actor having had that experience?

 

AT: Yes. It is very different going into production. As an actor on Stargate, when we had the chance to not wear uniforms and go out, you know, they’d bring me these great outfits and I never even thought twice about what they cost because it wasn’t my problem.

 

And now, Christine McCory (sp?), who is an amazing designer, is saying things to me like “Well we could get you these boots” and I am like “Get the generic version. Is there a cheap version? Go to a shoe warehouse.” She’s like “Amanda, they are not going to be com—“ “I don’t care. We don’t have the money.” And then it’s like “I love this coat. Christina, this is a beautiful coat. Can you build it?” “Yeah, sure. I can build it. I can make it in this material.” “Is this material cheaper? Can you make it in this material?” And finally Christine turned to me and said “Amanda, stop worrying about the budget. My job is to worry about my budget. Don’t even worry about it.” And I was like, “OK look, I am going to go to London. If I have a chance to shop, I’ll buy some clothes for the show.”

 

So, the hardest thing as an actor, like as an executive producer slash actor going into this is that I am painfully aware of the budgets. You know, so there will be no sitting around on set. I’ll be like “What can I do? Do you want me to sweep? Can I help clean up kraft service? Who needs lunch? I’ll make lunch.” You know what I mean? I just feel like because I am responsible as an executive producer, one of my jobs was to get the funding for the show. We don’t have a studio backing us, so we’ve essentially gone from private funding and gap financing through banks and private lenders and so those private lenders come to me and go “What are you doing with our money?” So that makes me even more responsible. So we’ve got a pretty tight, incredibly tight budget actually for our show. It’s 1.592 million per episode. Which, on a fully green screen vis effects show is ridiculous. So we’ve done things like none of the executive producers are getting paid. We’ve taken our salaries off the table. I’ve cut my acting salary. Everyone has cut their salaries in the upper echelon, so that our top of show, above the line costs are really minimal and what’s going up on the screen is pretty much our entire budget. So that makes me even more aware. It’s a drag in some ways because now I know how much money we are spending. And I get all the props budget. “Do you really need to spend ten thousand dollars to make this? Seriously? I can make it for five.” <laughter> You know, it’s terrible. It’s taken a bit of the fun out I have to say because I am aware of how much everything costs. “Isn’t that your second cup of coffee to day? Don’t use a paper cup. Get a mug.”

 

That’s the other thing. This is something that I want to do and actually our hair dresser, Brenda Turner had done a bit of research on it as well, is to make our set as green as possible. We want to be the most green-friendly show, at least Vancouver’s ever seen and try to be a template for other series. We’re green simply by the fact that we are green screen, so our carbon footprint is a lot less in terms of the build. And we are actually physically green. But recycling, making it far more accessible. A lot of films sets just don’t have it everywhere. I want to have like, you know, twenty recycling bins so all the scripts go in and the brads and all the… and have - instead of having paper cups around the set, just have mugs. Bring your own mug and reuse it. And just make that policy as opposed to - you know what I mean – having kraft service where there are no paper cups. And then people will just get used to it. So things like that, we want to try to lower our carbon footprint and try and make the show green and green and green. Yeah, so as an executive producer I shall be implementing that. <laughter> When I am sitting there on set and I see a grip walk past with a paper cup I’ll be “Aarrgggh!” Yeah.

 

SF.com: CelticDenefew would like to know do you foresee a time when you would give up acting to stay behind the scenes? Which role is more important to you in your vision of the future?

 

AT: Great question. I still love being an actor. And having ridden on the dark side of executive producer hell – no, I am kidding – my first love is still acting, but I can see – I watch myself on television and I am so incredibly self-critical and I think I might get to the point in my life where I don’t want to have to worry about every wrinkle or zit or flabby bit. You know what I mean. It’s such a harsh environment, especially for a woman. Not to say that I don’t enjoy it because I absolutely love it, but it’s really easy to become too concerned about basically crap that doesn’t matter in the long run. And I would rather just be really happy with myself as a human being than being so self-critical about things that people are judging me for that are really inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. That’s my heady answer. Wow. Wow. Wow!

 

So I can see eventually moving behind the camera more just so I don’t have to put myself under that kind of intense scrutiny. And make myself feel bad about things that I shouldn’t feel bad for. Does that make sense?

 

SF.com: yeah.

 

AT: But right now, I still love acting. I love it. I love getting a new script. I love wrapping my head around a new character. I love the interaction with the other actors. I look forward to certain – I am gagging about certain scenes that I am so excited to shoot in the upcoming pilot. That if I still have that kind of joy about it, then clearly I should still be acting.

 

SF.com: Sort of following on from that, Sofie wants to know if you are planning on writing or directing any episodes of Sanctuary in the future.

 

AT: I will be directing for sure. Yeah.

 

SF.com: Yay!

 

AT: Writing not so much. I’ve realized having tried my hand at writing scripts that I am just not particularly good at it. So I can write a good storyline, but I am not good with dialogue. And I know really good dialogue when I see it. Brad Wright is amazing at writing dialogue. Damian is really great at writing dialogue. So I am just not good at it. But directing for sure. And I am actually going to be for this first season, even though I am not directing any episodes, I am the go to director because I am DGC, which is the Director’s Guild of Canada, and I am an executive producer - when there is splinter units or second units or if a director – Martin is going to be away during one  of the days of his shoot, I’ll be shooting that day for him. So yay!

 

SF.com: Yay!

 

AT:  I know! He told me that very casually. He’s like “You know you’re the go to” and I went “Wha-ah?” <laughs> “Yeah you’re the go to director. You know in June when I’ve got that thing up in Baniff you’re going to be directing that day.” And I was like “Really?” And he was very casual “Well yeah, you’re DGC, you’re executive producer. You’re the one that has to do it.” And I was like… and then he walked away and I did a little happy dance in my office. Wooo! Yeah.

 

SF.com: Yeah. Erin wants to know, do you feel it’s more challenging to work on a series where you’ve got live action set against green screen without regular props and sets as apposed to, you know, on Stargate where you where on location?

 

AT: There is a huge difference. It’s – we’re actually going to spend the first week of Sanctuary on location doing a lot of practical set work. Just to give our construction crew a chance to build certain aspects of the show and to give our grips and electrics a chance to build our green screen and light it. But it’s – once you get used to it, I think the first couple of weeks are going to be hard for everyone. A, because you do get a chromakey green headache from just staring at these green screens, but then also just wrapping your head around “So this is a hallway and what is at the end of this hallway? Is it a window? What kind of window.” And it makes a difference, but our art department’s been really good about showing us pre-vis on what a lot of the stuff looks like. Like when you’re looking at a window and it’s this huge arched window with this beautiful mullians and leaded glass and it changes how, you know, it changes your perspective on it rather than just a square window with, you know – do you know what I mean? So to have the visual of the grandeur of the place makes a huge difference. And we’ll get that more and more. Yeah, it just takes getting used to. And then our director of photography, the way he lights, when we shot the pilot, Jim Menard was our director of photography and he would do shafts of light coming though so it looked like it was coming through a window. So you actually felt like the sunlight coming through the window even though there was nothing there. And that’s a real gift. And we have David Ghetties (sp?) who is out DP on this and he’s amazing, so yeah.

SF.com: MissReepicheep would like to know..,

 

AT: <laughter>

 

SF.com: I hope I didn’t mangle that. She would like to know what have you learned about the business side of entertainment and also about yourself during the time you have spent as an executive producer for Sanctuary?

 

AT: I want to quote the Hunter S. Thompson quote of the television industry being a shallow… plastic shallow money pit… a plastic hallway where thieves and crooks run free and good men die like dogs. Or something like that. Hunter S Thompson said that about television. Yeah I think that’s pretty close. And I actually felt that at one point in the business end of this. I was like “Oh man! This business sucks.” But it doesn’t. It’s just a big learning curve. What’s I’ve learned about myself is I am far more business savvy than I thought I was. I am able to hold my own in a meeting far more than I thought I would be. And I tend to loose my sense of humor when money is involved. <laughter>

 

SF.com: Don’t we all?

 

AT: Yeah, I am like “Oh my god, no we can’t that out of the budget. Yes we can. No. Ahh.” And I become a lot less fun. So yeah, the business end of the business makes me not so funny. That’s what I’ve learned. <laughter>

 

SF.com: OK, and also BekkahSee would like to know are there any specific myths, legends you would like to see on the show?

 

AT: Hmmmm… hmmmm. Yes, I am sure there are. I want to do winged creatures. I want to go somewhere where we actually deal with – what are they called? Like a Pegasus.

 

SF.com: or harpies?

 

AT: Like I want to deal with that kind of thing. But more than that, we’re sort of toying with this idea of abnormals being people that look like you and I but have incredible abilities like high kinetic power or we are doing an episode coming up called ‘Folding Man’ and it’s about people who have this ability to actually mold their skeletal system so they can get into small places. And so what looks normal is not normal. Which is sort fo the twist on society’s “what looks abnormal is more often normal than what we perceive as normal.” And play up more on that idea. Yeah, normal looking people that ain’t so normal, like me.

 

SF.com: So helenmagnus23 wants to know are there any areas –

 

AT: Like the call sign!

 

SF.com: Are there any areas of Dr. Helen Magnus that you would like to explore?

 

AT: I would like to explore what scares her. Because this is a woman who has been around for 157 years, what scares the crap out of her? And we know John Druitt is one of those things. What’s – when she wakes up in the middle of the night, as she so often does, and goes up onto the roof of the Sanctuary and breathes in the air and goes “Whoa kay.” What is it that she’s thinking about? What are her deep darks? She obviously has a lot of regrets and we are going to get into that. We’ve got this really cool arch for the thirteen episodes of the history between her and Druitt and how they came to be and how he came to be and I can’t tell you too much, but it’s really exciting. And it’s hinted at in one line in the pilot. Which I am sure you all will pick up on. Where people will go “The what? What did he say?” There, there’s your hint. And John Druitt says it. But in doing that I think we’ll discover what I’ve just been asked, which is kind of what scares her. What really, at the end of the day – like we know kind of what drives her, but at the end of the day, what scares the crap out of her? She deals with monsters for goodness sakes, so what is it that really scares her.

 

SF.com:  OK, the first incarnation of Sanctuary gained a global audience. Kef1 would like to know are you aware if Sanctuary’s contract with SciFi will delay it’s distribution outside of North America?

 

AT: No. Actually it won’t. What we’re working on right now is SciFi has the world exclusive on the initial showing of it, but it’s basically a day later that they rest of the world can get it. That’s what we’ve worked out. As far as my understanding of the long term. So Canada will be showing it right away and iTV will be showing it right away. I am not sure what happens in Europe beyond, like what iTV’s deal is whether they have exclusive for X amount of time. But we didn’t want to the year later roll out that’s happened with like Stargate in the United States and Canada there’s such a delay. And sometimes with Stargate in the UK, the UK would actually show it before SciFi did by some weird – you know because of – what do they call it when shows -

 

SF.com: Preemption.

 

AT: Preemptions, thank you. See English is not my first language today. But as far as I know and what we wanted to see happen was that it rolls out all at the same time. And we actually just got picked up by Afghanistan. Yeah. Wow.

 

SF.com : Interesting. <laughter> Random.

AT: Yeah, I am not sure how they feel about a stiletto woman packing heat, but you know, we’ll see. Yeah, anyway that’s just a total silly aside. The roll out, we’re hoping will be pretty much across the board around the same time – within a week.

 

SF.com: Cool. OK, so chelledb asks will Sanctuary ever be released on the web again?

 

AT: Yes. Yeah and that’s the hope. And that goes back to the question from before. No I can’t give a definite. I say yes, but of course we said “We’re only going to live on the web” initially. It will be. I mean I know that SciFi is going to be streaming the show on their SciFi stream and a different – and so certain broadcasters will have certain digital rights to the actual streaming of the episodes, but we hope to do, like I said before, is repurpose it and create a different entity on the web that’s still Sanctuary, but that is more interactive. Do the ARG’s and do the social networking and do monster club and do things like that. So we still plan to have a presence on the web.

 

SF.com: Brilliant.

 

AT: Fingers crossed. It’s just right now our focus really literally has to be the TV show. Otherwise, if we don’t get that launched, then nothing else happens.

 

SF.com: And ChopinGal asks how do you take off the character of Sam Carter and put on Helen Magnus?

 

AT: I change shoes. <laughter> No, it’s a really hard transition. Because Sam Carter became so much of who I am - the symbiotic relationship, if you will, was quite, – you know, the line was a bit blurry by the end of season ten. And Magnus is such a different animal. She’s so – it’s a lot harder for me to get into her skin. I imagine eventually I’ll get there, but really the physicality of it is the clothing and the footwear. Which sounds silly, but once you sort of start walking around in those heels and the hair has changed and for me the voice is going to be a big deal – finding her accent again. So that’s the…

 

SF.com: Yeah.

 

AT: Yeah. I mean, Carter, I put to boots on in the morning and I was her – didn’t have to think twice about it. Magnus I think is going to take a bit more thought, but it will be like when I started with Carter. You know, trying to figure out how exactly she feels about stuff.

 

SF.com: OK thank you ever so much for your time.

 

AT: Is that it? Good job! Yay!

 

SF.com: Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule.

 

AT: I do have to say thank you guys because you stuck by us through all of the bullshit. Can you say that on the web? <laughter> We went through a lot. We went through a lot of growing pains as a company and we are all really painfully aware of the mistakes we’ve made and the hopes that we’ve had that didn’t pan out. And sort of having to close ranks and try to get – figure out how to keep the show alive in some form or another and it created a lot of angst for us because we really didn’t want to feel like you guys were being shut out, but by the same token we had to really figure out how the hell we were going to make it work. So I don’t say this disingenuously at all, thank you. Because you stuck by us when a lot of people would have said “You don’t give a shit about the fans. See ya later.” And that’s so not the case. We just didn’t know how to do it. We just kind of got to the point where we were like “How do we save this? Oh my God!” I mean many sleepless nights and a lot of tears about how to try to save the show. But you guys still kept the faith. So we are really hugely grateful. Honestly, I can’t say enough. We really are. Thank you.

 

SF.com: Yay! We are really grateful for you just being very honest – well as much as you could to a point. Well, we knew that we couldn’t be privy to everything that was going on, but –

 

AT: And that was part of the problem for us, was that we… we wanted to be more honest than we could be, but there was a lot of legal stuff that was going on in terms of getting the broadcast deals and not saying too much. You know, there was a lot of stuff that was happening that we literally couldn’t talk about. A lot of financing.

 

SF.com: Yeah, for a lot of people that’s difficult to understand that. You know.

 

AT: And as much as at that point too, we were all under so much stress, it probably would have made more sense for us to just say, “Look, trust us. We’re going through a lot of crap right now, but something will come out of the other end.” Which I think Damien did try to do at one point. At the end of the day you can’t please everyone. And because we weren’t allowed to say what was going on, we found ourselves – and I just had to stop going online because it was just heartbreaking. Because it was like “No, you don’t understand. We do care and oh my God. Please wait. Wait. Wait!” But I think now we have – hopefully we have the chance to redeem ourselves in the fans’ eyes and let them know that they are still important to the process. But you guys stuck it through. Thank you.

 

SF.com: This has been Victoria, Amanda and Tracy for Sanctuaryfans.com. We would like to thank Amanda for her time. And the G4, especially Julia Hague, for providing the wonderful opportunity. And we’d like to thank the fans for providing the questions we asked today. Bye!

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