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suppose a Stargate convention was an odd
place to meet Lexa Doig, given that her
current roles, although science fiction
are for Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda. I
say roles because Lexa plays three parts:
Rommie the android, Andromeda the hologram
and Andromeda the AI. All are aspects of
the same system but all have different personalities.
Of course when I mention that one of the
other guests at the convention was Michael
Shanks then most will realise the connection:
for those that don't Lexa and Michael have
been dating about a year and a very nice
couple they make too, all the best to them
both. It must have been daunting for an
Andromeda star to come to a Stargate convention,
but Lexa was fabulous.
Firstly
I have to say that Lexa is the nicest
person. She is friendly, funny and cheerful.
She is also even more stunning in real
life than on the TV which I found incredibly
hard to believe, but couldn't escape the
fact when sitting next to her. Lexa was
kind enough to give me a few minutes of
her time so I could ask a couple of questions.
The answers are paraphrased because I
can't do shorthand, and if I use her exact
words I will place them in quotation marks.
Q1.
Which episode of the New Professionals
was your favourite for your character?
A1.
Orbit. Lexa liked the hippy idea and wanted
to go even "more hippy" with
the character but wasn't allowed to. Hence
the hippiest bit in the episode is the
picture in the magazine.
Q2.
Which episode of the New Professionals
was your favourite to film?
A2.
Samurai Wind. Lexa loved going to South
Africa for the filming and she really
enjoyed the leaning out of the helicopter,
so much so that she wanted to do the stunt
herself (the stunt person they had for
the shot was a man!). I asked a similar
question in Lexa's guest talk at the convention
and another reason that she enjoyed South
Africa was the chance to take a tour.
One of the stops on the tour was a Cheetah
reserve and she had the chance to "roll
around on the floor" with the baby
cheetahs. Lexa is very much a cat person,
in fact in the talk she said: "I
am a cat - I sleep 18 hours a day if I
can." Lexa also enjoyed filming Glory
Days - "It was a lot of fun".
Q3.
Are you enjoying Andromeda?
A3.
Yes, but when the New Professionals was
not renewed she was really "bummed"
about it all and if it was ever brought
back and her commitments allowed she'd
love to return to the role of Backup.
Q4.
How would you play Backup differently
if you had the role again? (Lexa mentioned
in her first con talk that she would like
to play Backup a different way.)
A4. When
Lexa gained the part of Backup she was
24 and the character was 28. Now she is
28 she knows the difference between 24
and 28 and would play the character "harder".
This is not harder in the nasty sense
of the word, just harder as in a "less
eager to please" way.
Q5.
How different is playing Andromeda to
playing Backup?
A5. Lexa
said that working in Sci-fi is very different
from a show like the New Pros. For a start
in sci-fi you have "different conversations"
with weird dialogue. Also a lot of the
New Pros was filmed in London which is
very different from where Andromeda is
filmed. It's a "very different way
of working". On New Pros there was
also a much smaller cast and she became
very close with Kal and Colin and his
wife, especially when they were traveling
all over the place to locations.
Q6.
I mentioned Lexa loves cats, she told
us in one of her talks that she'd love
to have lots of them (Michael is putting
his foot down at two), so I asked her
what she'd call her first cat.
A6.
Eric or Basil is what she'd like to call
her cat, but Michael doesn't think contemporary
human names are the right names for cats.
Lexa said that they have compromised on
Pippin (Lexa is a huge Lord of the Rings
fan). I had to come down on Lexa's side
when it comes to Eric because my opposite
neighbours cat is called Eric and he looks
exactly like my cat so I have a soft spot
for the name.
Many
thanks to Lexa for talking to me, and
to Michael for not throwing me out of
the green room when we started debating
about cat names :-).
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