Katee Sackhoff says while Battlestar Galactica’s Starbuck was ‘angsty’, Another Life’s Niko is ‘logical’; biggest fear was letting fans down
Katee Sackhoff has a lot of things on her plate right now including her latest sci-fi show ‘Another Life’ and her upcoming YouTube channel. ‘Battlestar Galactica’ may have made Sackhoff a household name but the actress has done a lot of great work since her time as Kara “Starbuck” Thrace. In fact, the actor feels ‘Another Life’ has been liked by her fans specifically because it isn’t like ‘Battlestar Galactica’.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with MEA WorldWide (MEAWW), Sackhoff said her return to sci-fi was something she gave a lot of thought to. “The ‘Battlestar Galactica’ fans have been so loyal over the years and your biggest fear is that you’ll let them down in some way,” she said. “I realized that this show to me is different from ‘Battlestar’. We don't take ourselves very seriously. It is fast-paced. It is constant. It's like a race car. Just trying to keep up, you have to suspend your disbelief for this show. This is not ‘Battlestar’ and so many people have said that they love it because it's not ‘Battlestar’.”
One of the major reasons Sackhoff chose to sign on for the show was because of its fun, fast-paced narrative and it also helped that she had some degree of creative control as an executive producer. “I was looking for something that was fun to watch and fast-paced and then something that I had a little creative control over, you know, so part of what was exciting to me about this was being a producer,” Sackhoff explained. “Coming on as a producer, having some creative control and having a little bit of ownership in the direction that my character and the series went, which is great.”
Sackhoff also spoke about the differences between Starbuck and her role as Commander Niko Breckinridge on ‘Another Life’. “The main differences are that there is a 15-year age difference between these two characters,” she explained. “So they can't help but be very different. Starbuck was incredibly angsty and she was completely ruled by her passions and her instincts whereas Niko is logical, she is well trained, she is analytical, she is ‘Safety First’, which is something that Starbuck never thought of, and she is a mother, which inherently makes her very different. It makes the stakes bigger, it makes her life more important because she's got a child that she needs to protect.”
That said, there are some similarities between the characters that the actor recognizes. “They're both incredibly strong women that hold jobs and positions that are stereotypically held by men,” Sackhoff said. “But we don't make a big deal out of their gender. They are just very strong women who are in charge and in command and that's something that they have in common.”
Sackhoff also spoke about how she wanted to give her castmates the sort of guidance she herself received from her seniors. “I wanted to bring 25 years of experience and professionalism to the set,” she explained. “To be for them who I've had in my life, working with Richard Dreyfuss and Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonald and Peter O'Toole and these people that have shaped my career because they were phenomenal role models and great teachers and that is who I wanted to be for these people. I wanted to be a person that they could count on and a person that they could learn from if they wanted to, if I was always there. If not, great, you know, we're all individuals and we're all professionals and they're more than capable of doing this themselves. And so, I really want to live up to the people that have taught me.”
‘Another Life’ is currently available for streaming on Netflix. For Sackhoff fans who want to catch up on the actor’s life, her YouTube channel launches August 6.