July 2007

Profile:

Tricia Helfer

The woman who adds a whole heap of Six appeal to Battlestar Galactica says she’s just a tomboy at heart

Beautiful people: don’t they just make you sick? If we can face the mirror first thing without wanting to punch a hole in it, we call that a good day. So when we talk to Galactica ’s Cylon siren, we demand to kno🐼w this: she can’t possibly maintain her on-screen aura of im💦possible glamour 24-7, can she?

“That’s exactly my home wardrobe,” she laജughs, when we ask if she slobs out in jogging pants chez Helfer. “I grew up a tomboy. I’m a farm girl – I grew up driving tractors and fixing machinery and stuff. I love getting dressed up, but I’m ꦦdefinitely a jeans-and-t-shirt kinda gal!”

Tricia’s travelled a long way from her upbringing on a farm in rural Canada. Spotted by a scout at the age of 17 while queuing for a movie, she spent ten years as a model. Only in 2002 did she move to LA to pursue an acting career, bagging the Galactica gig not long after, through a combination of determination and, well, bei𒆙ng a bit of a jammy bastard.

“I guess I got lucky! I went to acting classes for about the last year and a half while I was modelling. I needed to completely quit modelling and focus on acting. A lot of people who try to get into acting – especi💮ally models – don’t, they keep trying to do both at the same time. For me, I knew that wouldn’t work. I needed to be here and focus and challenge myself. Luckily it’s worked out s🐼o far.”

None of those night classes can have prepared her for her Galactica role – so how does she differentiate Caprica Six fr꧑om the Six in Gaius Baltar’s head, and all the others?

“I look at it as that t🧸hey were all the same base model, and then their individual missions or jobs have altered them: how much contact did they have with the humans? How many downloads have they gone through,ꦜ and has that altered them? It gets a bit more painful to download each time, so are they a little more fearful of losing that body the next time? I purposely try to make them a little bit different. In one episode we saw the Shelley Godfrey Six, and I tried to make her like a sleeper agent, and move differently than the one in Baltar’s head, that’s more a seductress.”

Speaking of which, only the Lords of Kobol (and possibly Ronald D Moore) know w💟hy there’s a Six only Baltar can see. But what’s Helfer’s theory?

“Well, I don’t wanna get too stuck in one idea, because then if I find out it’s something else it could throw me. But I really do feel that it has something to do with t🐻he nuclear explosion. In the mini-series it was Caprica Six that protected Baltar fr൲om the explosion, in his house, and after that was when Baltar started seeing Six, after Caprica downloaded.”

Tricia spends a lot of time with James “Baltar” Callis, so it’s just as well s♎he rates him as “really sweet”. By the sound of it she enjoys hanging out with us Brits.

“I finished another TV sho♎w last night, with [English actor] James D’Arcy. So I had the two Jameses over for brunch last Sunday, and was getting quite a kick out of working with both of them!”

That show is Them , a pilot for Fox. Directed by T3 ’s Jonathan Mostow, it’s an SF thriller about extra-terrestrial♛ sleeper ceꦏlls infiltrating human society.

“It’s about aliens and humans” says Tricia, pausing to laugh. “There’s a theme here with my work! I play Naomi, who’s a wonderful charac🥃ter – she’s very free-spirited. These aliens are on Earth but they don’t know why they’re there. They all have their individual jobs, but they don’t know why they’re there – they just think they’re there to help the humans.”

Helfer is cagey about whether s𓆏he’d be a regular if the pilot went to a series.

“Er… well, there’s a little bit of a twist at the end that I can’t🐟 give out. We’ll see! I would ꧅love to be part of it if it happens!”

If you can’t wait for that, or the return of Galactica , you can get your dose of Tricia in new PC game Command & Conquer 3 . She appears in live-actiꦫon sequences between the gameplay.

“It was really no different than working on Battlestar , be𓆉cause these amazing sets were built. The only difference was in TV you never look at the camera because that’s 🐎taboo. With the video game you look at the camera a lot because you’re talking to the player. So it took a little mind bending on the first day to get through that and feel comfortable looking at the camera!”

But she probably won’t be playing the game herself – she doesn’t have the time𝐆. Bes൩ides, back on the farm they didn’t have any of that new-fangled nonsense...

“We didn’t have a TV or any of that sort of thing. I have 🧔some nephews that play video games, though. I think they’re gonna find it very cool that their auntie is in a game, and when they get a little bit older we’ll be able to play.”

A thought suddenly dawns on her.

“As long𒐪 as they don’t kill me! ‘Kill Auntie!’&🦄rdquo;

Command & Conquer 3 is available🍃ඣ to buy now (RRP £34.99).