Tricia Helfer Reveals What It Is To Be Truly Cylon
Source Sci Fi Pulse
5 November 2003
Perhaps one of the most controversial characters in the new Battlestar Galactica remake is that of Number Six, the Cylon seductress who tricks Baltar into betraying humanity. Tricia Helfer revealed a little insight about the character to David Bassom for Dreamwatch magazine.
One aspect that appealed to the actress about Number Six was the fact that she was not a typic cold blooded cyborg like those that have been depicted in past Science Fiction series.
"I found the character and the way she was written very interesting, especially after talking to the director [Michael Rymer] prior to getting the job. I realised that they were trying to put a different spin on things and not make her a typical, cold - blooded robotic killer like some of the characters out there of a similar nature. She's much more like the Replicants in Blade Runner than a Terminator - type robot."
Number Six is one aspect of the show which many fans have had a difficult time of accepting. Helfer who has not done to many interviews explains a little about the character in the hopes of putting these fans at ease.
"Number Six is a humanoid Cylon. She was designed to be able to fit in with humans and remain completely undetected. For the last two years she's been having an affair with Gaius Baltar, the scientist, in order to gain access to humamity's defence network and be able to change the programs so that the Cylons' ships can remain undetected during the attack.
"She's a Cylon, but she's been made very human, and that's an idea that I like to play with - the fact that she's almost been made to human. She has all these human emotions that she doesn't understand, and although they aren't enough to alter what she's supposed to do and what her job is, they do influence her in certain ways. I tried to make the character very fluid, very even keel. She may experience a form of anger, but she won't lash out and start screaming or jump up and down. Her range of emotions are very subtle."
The actress will be the first to admit that she never watched the original series, but she did try to watch some of the classic shows pretty much as soon as she was cast.
"I got cast fairly late in the process, so I didn't have to go back and watch everything. I went straight into my character and because my character wasn't in the original I had nothing to base it on, and I really wanted to focus on just doing my job. So I still haven't seen everything."
Like the rest of her contemporarys Helfer thinks that original series fans will eventually embrace this show, and is very much aware of some of the die hard fans protestations during the earlier stages of production on the new series.
"In the beginning, a lot of the die - hard fans were fairly vocal about not being happy about a reworking of the series, but I think people are going to be pleasantly surprised because it really is quite a few years later and to re - do the script exactly just wouldn't fit with out time so much.
"We took the show to the Comics Con [event] in San Diego, and we were a little bit worried about how people were going to react, because it was the first time that people really saw a clip of the show. But they seemed really geunuinely enthusiastic, and we only had positive feedback at that convention. So hopefully that set the tone for what we can expect."
You can read the complete version of this interview with Tricia Helfer in issue 112 of Dreamwatch magazine which is out now in all good newsagents.