• Scifi Magazine - July 2 Display

Amanda Tappings speaks on Pete Shanahan

Carter is going to upset most of the male population by carrying on with the very sexy policeman Pete in season eight. Looking very serious, Tapping reveals, " I've actually upset most of the female population by having my character have an affair with this very delectable young man, because I've betrayed my one true love, and lost complete integrity of the character as a human being. At least according to the letters I've been getting.

There's a very interesting, very big section of fandom called the 'Shippers, and they find the whole relationship with Pete quite distasteful. And yet I say to the 'Shippers, Carter has had no relationship experience in the truest sense for over seven years. I mean, the last relationship experience she really had was with her ex-fiance, who truned out to be a megalomaniacal freak."

Raising a finger and her voice, she says "You might recall the episode in season one when she went back and he had taken over a planet, as one's ex-boyfriend does. I don't think that outcome did much for her confidence, and I think the relationship with Pete does. " Speeding up her speech and saying the whole sentence in one very quick breath, she shouts, "I think it's rounding her out as a person, and I think that any experience she gets in the love department, in terms of how to foster and keep a relationship, and how to open herself up and open her heart up, will only serve her for the future when she does eventually get together with O'Neill"

Noting the shocked silence from her interviewer, who fears that Tapping has just let loose with a spoiler, she quickly adds, "No. I did't really mean that. I mean, for sure, Carter loves O'Neill. She adores him, and she's allowed herself the knowledge that she cannot keep pining for this man that she can never have. Plus, as a professional and as a woman, it's bordering pathetic if she hangs on. It doesn't mean that she has any less feelings for O'Neill or that she's not attracted to him. She still has deep feelings of love for him, as is evidenced even after she meets Pete. She still shows it to O'Neill, and that's never going to go away, but I think what she's learned to do is to be a pragmatist about it and say, 'OK! I can't have this guy, and he is pretty fantastic, but this guy over here is not so bad either.'

"I think it's really smart that she thinks like that. I know some fans aren't pleased. I know that they call him Stalker Pete because he did a background check on Carter, and again I say, she didn't know. She is not aware of what he did. She knows he followed her to the stakeout, but that's his cop instinct. It's just human nature to be inquisitive, and if you add to the fact that the person is a cop, and knows that the person that you love is going to be in danger, his actions are completely excusable. I would do the same thing, so I don't think any less of him for that... Plus he's cuteand he's charming and a great kisser."

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• Amanda Tapping: Not Stargate Barbie
And this time, her boyfriend lives

Maureen Ryan
Tribune staff reporter
Published July 9, 2004

Amanda Tapping is as articulate and smart as her television character, "Stargate SG-1" scientist Samantha Carter. Calling from Vancouver, where the show is made, the actress talks about being "shocked" that fans are so interested in Carter's love life – and glad producers never turned the brainy Carter into "Stargate Barbie." More thoughts from Tapping are below.

On the stories in Season Eight.

The stories are big. There's a lot happening. In one-eighth of a page, it can say, "Then world War 3 broke out." So the stories are big, there's a lot happening, there are a lot of visual effects. The episode I was just shooting before our [mid-season] break, there were two Carters, so there were a lot of visual effects and green screen stuff, and that's time-consuming. The stories are great and the scripts are wonderful, though.

On the changes in Carter this year and her relationship with police officer Pete Shanahan.

In the episode where Teal'c gets an apartment, Carter's relationship with Pete goes a bit further, there's more fleshing out of her personal life. Finally she's got a guy in her life who doesn't die! (laughs)

It is [scary] for her. It's an opening up of a sheltered and protected harbor. She's opened her heart in a big way, so it's scary for her. Until last season, we hadn't really done that much [on that side of Carter]. My fear is that it's a double-edged sword. It's great to round her out and it makes her more accessible, but have we taken anything away from her strength and integrity? Those are the things that prompt women to write me letters about how much they admire Carter. You do have that fear, how much do you want to reveal [about Carter's personal life]?

On the intense fan interest in whether Carter and Richard Dean Anderson's character, Jack O'Neill, would ever get together as a couple.

I realized there's this whole group of fans called 'shippers' [who want Carter and O'Neill to get together]. I was shocked, but then it makes sense. You always wonder if two main characters from a show will become a couple. And there's a sexual tension, a chemistry. We didn't realize it would get to be so huge [among fans], that it would get to be such a divisive issue. It was kind of surprising how big it was.

For Rick and I, we don't want it to be a big deal. The show isn't about that. The show is not about [defining] her through a relationship. We never wanted her to be pining for her superior officer, it's important to me that there is a lot more to her than that.

Having said that, we enjoy playing off the sexual tension and the fact that they're attracted to each other, but that's about it.

There was a desire for closure one way or the other, and [the Season 7 episode "Grace"] was the perfect way to do it. [In the episode] Carter battles her demons and addresses issues in her personal life and professional life. When "Grace" came along, it was the perfect way to deal with all those issues and where she sits with that. … She realized that she had to move on. Knowing she can never have [a relationship with O'Neill], therefore that's safe – "I don't have to risk anything and I can sit here comfortably." She was not going to pin her hopes on that anymore.

On the fan reaction to her new love interest, Pete Shanahan.

The reaction was huge, I was shocked. Some people were very supportive, they thought he was this great character and finally she had a bit of a life, as an adult female in her 30s – it made her more well-rounded.

Other people hated Pete – as they hate anyone other than Jack [O'Neill]. They call him Stalker Pete [because he once spied on doings at Carter's house], which cracked me up. He's a cop, he's an investigator by nature, if he has an opportunity to find out everything he can about a person he cares about, he will.

I got a letter, one in particular was quite vexing. It said, "How dare you do this to Jack! You have lost all integrity." and I'm thinking, "I've lost all integrity? Or my character? Me, Amanda?" Well, I mean, if I don't show up to work, they'd fire me. This person was really mad though – "I'm never watching the show again."

But I love the passion of our fans, they make what you're doing worthwhile.

www.chicagotribune.com

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• 'Stargate' and the Single Girl
By Kate O'Hare
Credit: http://tv.zap2it.com

It's tough being a woman on a planet-hopping exploratory military team, surrounded by battle-hardened soldiers, an archaeologist and a bald alien. It's more difficult when the woman has more than comrade-in-arms feelings for her commanding officer.

But, that's the situation faced by Dr. Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping) through much of the run of Sci-Fi Channel's Friday hit "Stargate: SG-1." Currently in its 7th season, Carter must cope with her attraction for Col. Jack O'Neill (Richard Dean Anderson).

"It's important for Rick and me -- and it's very important for me -- that Carter not sit there pining away for her commanding officer," Tapping says. "There's an obvious chemistry, an obvious attraction. We've admitted it, and we've dealt with it to a degree, but for this amazing female character to be stuck at work, pining over a man she can never have, it weakens her considerably. "I was starting to get sick of it. I was like, 'OK, guys, we get it. She has the crush on her C.O., and it's deeper than a crush.' I'm making it sound trite, but it's not. There's a deep, deep love between the characters. There's a deep love she has for all the team, she just has more sexual feelings for O'Neill.

"But, having said that, and knowing that it exists, and knowing that it can't go anywhere, can we not make her the chick? Can we move away from that and not be the whiny, pining chick?'

"I said, 'What keeps this woman up at night?' She's so focused on what she does for a living that it's who she is. As a woman, she has to say, 'What have I sacrificed?'"

Tapping also was not interested in taking the cliched sci-fi route of pairing Carter off with a dashing alien. "Why do we always have to date aliens?" she wonders. "All of Carter's boyfriends have been aliens, and all of my guys ... I killed one; I ran away when one guy's planet blew up; one guy ascended, I'm pretty sure, to get away from me. It's a joke. It became a joke on the Internet, the 'Black Widow Curse.'"

Fear not, Tapping is happy to report that in a future episode called "Chimera," airing in the second half of the season, she gets a chance at real love.

"I've spent the morning naked in bed with a man," she reports during her lunch break in Vancouver. "Let's talk, because it's the first time my character's had sex in seven years. Carter finally gets a boyfriend who does not die, for the first time.

"He's human. He's cute as a button. Actually, the actor playing it is David DeLuise, Peter DeLuise's youngest brother. Oh, my God, he's gorgeous! And the more you get to know him, the cuter he becomes. He's got the DeLuise charm, so I totally have a huge crush on him."

This hardly is the beginning of the DeLuise family's involvement in "Stargate: SG-1." Father Dom and sons Peter and Michael have guest-starred, and Peter also is a producer, writer and director for the show.

"We had to have him [David] because we've had every DeLuise on the show." Tapping says. "We were having a hard time casting this part, then David's name was thrown into the mix, and everyone went, 'Oh, yeah, of course!' He's so different from Peter and Michael, but he's fantastic and sweet and warm and funny -- total great chemistry right away."

DeLuise's character is a police detective and a civilian. "The conflict, the story, comes from that she can't tell him what she does for a living," Tapping explains. "Her brother set her up, totally cute, and she falls head over heels for this guy.

"Of course, there's a part of her that has to hold back, and it kills her that she can't tell him. It kills her."

On the other hand, it did mean that Tapping temporarily shed her military fatigues. "It's the first time you'll see Carter in some sexy skivvies. I got to wear skirts and heels, and at the end of the night, this very sexy dress. He takes her out dancing. I just spent the morning naked ... so, a whole new departure for this character."

Asked how many non-essential personnel may have come in for the morning's filming, Tapping quips, "I don't know how all the producers fit into that house!"

While Tapping enjoyed the change of costume, it did feel a bit strange. "As an actress, I'm so sick of Army boots and my P90 [sub-machine gun]. Yet, last Friday, we're shooting all this stuff where I was in frocks and this beautiful dress, and I felt so out of my element.

"I went, 'If I could do this scene with a P90, I'd be OK.' I have these smoking 3-inch heels and this dress, and I felt completely vulnerable."

The fact that Tapping longed for her gun surprises the Canadian actress most of all. "Me, Amanda, I don't like guns. I'm not afraid to say it. I just don't think that any single human being should have that much power. It's such a controversy to talk about guns in our culture, but it's an issue.

"It's something that I've always been uncomfortable with, but I have to be honest, I have such a Zen with my weapon. I'm so comfortable with it, it's freaky."

Tapping says that because of the war in Iraq, it became harder to get P90 shells to convert into blanks, so Anderson's character kept his P90, while Tapping's got a new gun.

"I don't know exactly what it is," she says. "It's an M16 with something else on the front and something else on the back. We're calling it the 'Carter Special.' It's a honking huge weapon. When I shoot it, flames come out. It's just craziness."