io9
Katee Sackhoff knows who the final Cylon is on the bleak space-opera Battlestar Galactica — and she's not telling. Sackoff, pictured here in a photoshoot from the latest Entertainment Weekly, did drop some weird and fascinating hints about BSG's fourth season during a conference call with reporters. The most surprising (and disturbing) revelation was the identity of Starbuck's ideal man. Click through for minor spoilers and more of the EW pictures.
Don't hold your breath for any answers to the questions raised at the end of season three. The show is shooting its fourteenth episode of the season, which may not air until 2009, and Sackhoff says she's "no closer to having any questions answered from last season than I was." She's read the script for episode 15, and there's no resolution to how Starbuck came back from the dead, and what her trip to Earth meant.
By episode 14, the characters are dealing with "more important issues" than what the back-from-the-dead Starbuck is. And we won't see much resolution on the status of her marriage to Sam Anders, who's suddenly an inhuman Cylon. Sackhoff questions whether marriage to a Cylon would even be considered legal.
On the perfect man for Starbuck: Lee and Kara will never be happy together, Sackhoff claims.
I think they're meant to be best friends, to push each other, to have those arguments. I think that's the purpose they serve in each other's lives... If anyone is fitting to her, and anyone she would actually be happy with, it's Leoben... Anders is too weak for her, Lee is too much of a boy scout.. He makes her feel guilty just by being who she is, if there's any person she would ever let her guard down with and be happy with, it would be Leoben.And yes, she's referring to the psychotic Cylon who held Starbuck prisoner and played freaky mind-games on her involving a little girl, at the start of season three. Love is strange, apparently.
At the start of season four, Starbuck is "extremely fragile, extremely lost," says Sackhoff.
We've never seen Starbuck so alone and so lost... Not only because of the way that people are treating her, but because of the questions that her coming back has raised in her own mind.Finding Earth is Starbuck's "liberation," and she's willing to sacrifice everything to accomplish that goal. And that may lead her to some very scary actions. Having her father figure, Admiral Adama, doubt her after her miraculous return is the worst thing that can happen to Starbuck.
Loving the Cylons: Says Sackhoff:
Starbuck is starting to feel compassion for the thing she hates the most, because she and everyone else on the show is starting to realize...These are the questions of humanity, and what the show has always asked: If you found out tomorrow that your best friend or your mother or something was a Cylon, would it make your experiences you had with that person or thing less important to you? No, it's the same person, the same experiences, the same emotions, it's just different. It doesn't mean it's less. That's something they're starting to remember.
Female empowerment: Sackhoff also feels great that she's won over so many of the nay-sayers who said Starbuck wouldn't work as a woman.
What made people accept Starbuck as a woman was that she was such an interesting character. Once people let their guard down and their prejudices of what the show was supposed to be, they stopped thinking of the old show.As for what Sackhoff herself has picked up from Starbuck, she says she'd like to think she's gotten some of the character's "strength and her conviction," not to mention the ability to speak up for herself without apologizing first, the way most women do. Sackhoff also said it's rare to see such a strong female character on television. Starbuck was originally supposed to be 35, but Sackhoff was only 22 when she took the role, making the character unusually tough for her age, at least in television terms.
Realistic science fiction: BSG's biggest influence on the genre, according to Sackhoff, is that it treats science fiction like reality:
We never relied on the science fiction in the show to drive the show, we relied on the drama and the human condition ... That's what we depended on for the show and to move it along. Most science fiction shows rely way too much on the bells and whistles. It's kind of opened doors in science fiction (generally). Science fiction is a setting, it's not a show. It's where something takes place. It should never have been what the show is.And thanks to BSG, she feels everyone is realizing this "could be done."
The newly revealed Cylons: The actors playing Tigh, Tyrol and the other newly revealed Cylons were pissed off, because they had spent so much time building up those characters, Sackhoff says. "You play for years making choices as a character and then feel those choices would have been different if you'd known." Tigh actor Michael Hogan still hasn't come to terms with the revelation, she said.
Her chosen souvenir: When the show ends, Sackhoff wants to take her flight suit, including her gunbelt and helmet, home and bronze them. Then she'll put them in her bathtub, so anyone who takes a shower at her house will have to look at Starbuck's flight suit.
How Starbuck has evolved:
I think she's finally someone you can depend on, and I don't think she was before. What keeps her going is her desire to love and her desire to have people love her. Her relationships with [Admiral] Adama and Lee have probably kept her alive.Originally, on the show, people depended on Starbuck because she was good at what she did, not because they trusted her. But now she's developed into one of the most dependable people on the show.
As for Starbuck's turn towards a more spiritual side, Sackhoff says it doesn't affect how she plays the character. "She 's always been religious. It's not that she's changed it's that she's opened up her eyes and allowed something else to come into her life.... It's just another aspect of who she is."
How BSG will end: Some of the show's revelations late in the season will "ruffle some feathers." The show won't have a neat and happy ending, tied up with a bow. Instead, the show, and Starbuck, will have a messy ending, says Sackhoff.
She would be interested in appearing in BSG/Bionic Woman producer David Eick's television version of Children of Men, both because of the cool premise and because she loves working with Eick. What went wrong on Bionic Woman, where she played the psychotic original bionic woman, was that there were "too many cooks" and "too many hands in the pot. You can't agree on what you're trying to make, [so] you get a stew that's full of shit." (At least that's what that last part sounded like to me.)
Comments
Spellcheck Alert! Danger! Danger!
Frak me gently with a ro-beast, but that woman is hot.
That's right, women don't need to apologize before speaking their mind. Now... hump the corner of that table, hump it good.
@RRich: Fixed it, thanks for pointing out!
Uh Starbuck? Wow? Dirk who?
Doesn't even look like Starbuck to me.
I guess it's the hair...
Photoshop retouching has really gone a long way...
She is so effing hot I think I'm becoming a lesbian. And also, she rules for saying how bad Bionic Woman was. She was probably the best part, but I couldn't make it past 3 episodes. Hopefully Children of Men will work out better.
Photos are majorly touched up, because the woman is not that hot. Nothing against her or anything, but she's just not.
And, truth be told, I prefer her looking all scrappy and dirty on the show.
@Gospel X: Everyone is touched up. If you're not hot, they don't take pictures of you.
I thought it was Ali Larter at first. I saw the headline and the picture and thought: "Niki/Jessica is Starbuck's true love?"
@Gospel X:
It's not even so much the pictures. (well...yea. they are gosh darn nice, but..)
It's that makeup or blast-char and b.d.u.'s, she exudes a feral charm. As if she's going to do something comically and potentially dangerous and unexpected. You're not sure if she's going to break your arm or just beat you at chess.
Very similar to the sort of allure that Kathryn Hepburn, or Kathleen Turner has. (Gina Davis also did great with playing at it in "Long Kiss Goodnight")
of course those actors would have played the characters differently had they know they were cylons, that's why they didn't know! the fact that michael hogan now has to deal with this news as an actor can only impact positively on how the character deals with it on the show. duh! it's brilliant if you ask me.
I hereby declare heaven as being the filler for a Katee Sackhoff / Claudia Black Sandwich.
I hate to hear that about Michael Hogan, his work in the episodes on New Caprica was some of the best that year, too bad the Golden Globes doesn't recognize Sci Fi.
My dear Lord, she is such a beautiful woman. I love me some Katee, Photoshop be damned. Now, I just wish I was more able to get into Galactica...
@Epaminondas: the year that Naveen Andrews won the best supporting actor Golden Globe for Lost?
pics. dont. load. for. ME GRRAAAAAWWRRR!!!!! Mother Frakker!!
I would give Katee the best 15 secs of my life
@Tim Faulkner: sorry, nominated, not won, but my point remains, I suppose...
Where are the pictures of Katee Sackhoff? All I'm seeing is some air-brushed blonde who couldn't kick the butt of a five year old child, and looks like she's about to pop out of her bra.
@SeanOHara: In the EW article, Sackhoff talks a lot about how she wants to be more feminine, and not play any more butt-kicking tough-chick roles for a good long while. She's trying to get a new image.
Whew! EW did a great job on Sackhoff in that shoot... I forgot it was good ol' foul mouthed Starbuck!
@Miranda Kali: Lol! Nice!
Definitely prefer smudgy-faced, fowl-mouthed, butch Starbuck to this strange extension-headed being. (We get it, you can be a pretty pretty princess too. Now put on that flightsuit!)
Having spoilery titles is kinda not liked. Am I going to have to stop reading io9 until BSG is over or what?
She's such a chameleon. She always looks completely different.
There is an awesome new Katee Sackhoff site - TeamSpank HQ.
www.teamspank.com
It's pretty funny.
(Her nickname is Little Spank)
@Tim Faulkner: I dispute your claim with three words!
Sara Jessica Parker.
@KraZe: Sorry, I was going for a title that would grab readers, but be as vague as possible. I honestly didn't think you would glean any useful information (or even hints) from that title. Some people would not expect Starbuck's true love be Anders, considering their troubled history. Or Lee, for that matter. You could easily read that headline and think, oh, her true love is actually Lee after all, in spite of everything. You could also jump to the conclusion that her true love is really Admiral Adama. Or Boomer. Anyway, I'm really sorry if it gave away too much info... it's just hard to write the 20th or 30th headline about BSG and keep it vague enough and yet interesting. But I will try harder, I promise!
@Charlie Jane Anders: And the Hollywood disease claims another victim. Next thing you know, her ribs will be poking through her skin, just like every other starlet.
I wish she prop up like that in one BSG ep :)
but shes the worst thing in the show ,no matter her gender, her acting was always really bad giving her all the emotional stuff to do was just laughable.A starbuck based episode is something i dread .The season three finale was awful the cliffhanger was stupid and now i hear there not even going to explain it.Seems the program makers are shitting all over us
@SeanOHara: I agree. Katee Sackhoff is hot as they come, but these photos were really weird and unnerving in the way that it's unnerving when female athletes are photographed in bizarre submissive poses. And the idea of her wanting to play more 'feminine' roles made me sad. Goddammit.
Oh, Stockholm Syndrome....you never fail at creating romance.
Except for a number of things - unregulated violence in Leoban's interrogation scene (season one), and holding Starbuck against her will in a mock-up of her old apartment and then making her believe that she had a daughter, creating some weird dysfunctional dream-family in the process - I would not be unopposed to the idea of Leoban being a love interest for Starbuck. She's more interesting with him than she is with Anders or Lee (imo).
In fact, I'm going to pretend I never clicked on this link and that 'Starbuck's True Love' is a new lesbian character we meet in season four, as I found myself hoping it was. And that Season Four doesn't sound like it might conclude in a furore of loose ends and wankery.
My mind is now wiped.
I feel much better.
@Charlie Jane Anders: No worries at all! :P
Sorry if I came off acerbic.
You guys do a fine job here 99% of the time and thankfully she's not that high on my tier for characters that I care much about.
However if you do something that tips me off to something big happening to Cally or Tyrol I'm going to come hunting with pitchfork and torch! *shakes his fist*
Every time I read about season 4, I lose a little more hope.
Wow, I remember that second picture, only it was in TV Guide and had Sarah Michelle Gellar holding a stake and was about Buffy ending. Whatev.
BTW: Who cares that she's airbrushed? She looks frakkin' amazing! Also, her hair rules. Honestly ROOLZ!
BUT I am disappointed that she seems to be succumbing to the "Hollywood Body" bullshit. I liked my Katee Sackoff looking like an actual person, not a waif who needs me to sponsor her for the price of a cup of coffee in a 3rd world nation.
She looks so different...I did not recognize her. Yes she looks hot. But I think that she just lost a ton of weight which is fine as long as she doesn't hurt herself. Throw in some photoshop magic and there you have it. Anyhow I seem to recall that girls on the beefy side tended to be tougher soldiers. Need muscle if you're going hump it in the field. But that was a long while ago.
@Acheman: For some reason, I am compelled to return to this thread to explain the lesbian thing: I saw the headline, thought 'ahaha! finally Starbuck realises her true calling in teh girlz' in an idle way, clicked through and misread 'Leoben' for a brief, sweet time. I wish I could have that time again.
@Acheman: 'Leoben' /= 'lesbian'. As disappointing as that is.
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