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Thursday, January 19, 2006 Sackhoff on the flak she's gotten for her strong, sexy Starbuck: Frack it By MELANIE McFARLAND SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER TELEVISION CRITIC If you've never met Katee Sackhoff, the woman who brings "Battlestar Galactica's" Capt. Kara Thrace (aka Starbuck) to life, you probably picture her as some kind of amazon, 6 feet tall and ready to rumble. Away from the set, the Northwest native has a delicate physique, a bright smile and, when she dropped by a TV critics' cocktail party last week, favors fashion more in the style of Audrey Hepburn than her alter-ego's flight suits. We chatted with her about what it means to be Starbuck, how fans and the guy who previously held the role have reacted, and what's in store for her character as "Battlestar Galactica," airing Friday nights at 10 on Sci Fi, flies toward the end of its second season. (Please be aware that this Q&A contains minor spoilage.) P-I: "Battlestar" has been getting a lot of critical notice, and earned a slot on the American Film Institute's top 10 shows of 2005. Must be nice. Sackhoff: That's the biggest accolade that we've gotten so far. That gives us a little more credibility, I think. We always had it. But I think as a science-fiction show you get looked over, so many times, just because we're on Sci Fi. I'll meet people who haven't watched the show purely because it's on Sci Fi. I'm like, you've gotta be kidding me. It's not really science fiction. Do you think it's being overlooked because it's on Sci Fi, or because it's "Battlestar Galactica," and they still remember Lorne Green and Dirk Benedict? It's probably a little bit of both. You know, they focus on the shows that are on the networks. And that's fine. I was on a network show. I wasn't happy. But I'm perfectly happy where I am. I think that's part of it; I think they remember the original show and they're kind of wondering, "How do you take that and turn it into something that isn't sci fi?" And that's exactly what they've done, they've turned it into a drama first and a science-fiction series second. So, it's really not like the original at all. There has been a lot a positive and negative reaction regarding Starbuck. Initially, it surrounded just the idea of the character as a woman. But no one had gotten a chance to even get to know your character back then. Now, two seasons in, have you read anything about her? I don't read them. My mom does. If there's a good one, or a funny one that's really bad, she tells me to read it. I think one time, someone said I was so ugly it looked like I fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down, and landed on my face. (Laughs.) And then, I climbed on top of a 10-story building, fell off of that, and landed on my ass. I was like, that's really funny! Obviously someone went through that much effort to figure out, you know, how my ass got flat and my face ... that's funny. You have to laugh about it. Some people would be devastated by that comment, though. What can you do? You're never going to be - I'm sure there are people out there who think Cindy Crawford isn't pretty. There's always going to be someone, somewhere who doesn't agree with my parents' opinion of me. It can't bother you. Everyone talks about an actress's looks. For actors, it's acting first, looks second. But with Starbuck, it's all intertwined within the character. You're a tomboy with sex appeal. But some sci-fi fans are reacting adversely to that, because in so many series, they're used to women looking like Seven of Nine. Or Number Six. My character is not your stereotypical sex symbol. She's not. But she is for so many women. For many men as well. That is what's interesting to me, is that I didn't think, when I read the script, that this was the character who would get any attention for her beauty or her sex appeal. But she gets quite a bit. And that's funny. It's weird to me to see how different everyone's opinion of beauty is. She's strong, and I think it would take a very strong man to deal with Starbuck. My mom will read a (message board), and someone will admit they think that Starbuck's good looking, and they'll get totally browbeaten by everybody for the next, like, 10 messages. ... It's just weird to me. And then people like to think that that's who I am normally. They think you walk around punching people and smoking cigars? They're intimidated by me! If they recognize me, they don't want to come up to me for fear that I'll hit them or something. And I'll say, "No, I don't want to hit you. I might break a nail." I've noticed your character is starting to get mentioned in the same category as Buffy and Xena, the really strong female figures on television. That's not a bad group of girls to be in. They all kick ass. And that was my primary objective with Kara, is I wanted her to be relatable, to be vulnerable, and yet to be terrifying if you cross her. My job is complete, I guess. For now anyway. It looks like your character is going to be getting more terrifying. Is that true, or not? She definitely does. And then at the end of the season, you see her finally calm down, and she learns to love somebody. And she learns to be vulnerable, not only in private, but to somebody else. She finds somebody else with her feelings and her emotions. The outcome of their relationship will make her probably lose her mind. And she will probably be a goddamn renegade for quite a while. So you're not going to see the soft side of Starbuck for too long, but it will come out for the last couple of episodes. You guys have already surpassed the original, both number of seasons and, I think, number of episodes. Were you ever keeping track of that? I never even thought about it that way until this stuff with Dirk Benedict, this little tiff that's supposedly going on ... I read about that! Did you read his whole masculine deconstruction of your role? (The essay was titled "Starbuck: Lost in Castration." In another publication, Benedict is quoted saying, "It was about why you can't have a character like Starbuck in a show today - a cigar-smoking, drinking, womanizing, lovable scoundrel. The feminist movement got rid of those guys. In the war against masculinity, the only way that character could work was to make him a woman.") Yes, I did. What was your reaction? I was so misquoted ... by saying that I said that if he ever gets put on the show, I would quit. That's not what I said. What I said was, I can't imagine, everyone who's done television knows that if you put one bad apple into the mix, it can ruin a show. And why, with the success that we're having and the high that we're on, would we want to bring someone in who would blatantly bash the show? I think if they do it, it is a publicity stunt. That's the only reason they're doing it. If they need that kind of publicity for ratings, then we might as well all quit because we're going to get canceled anyway. That's what I said in rebuttal to that. But I never really tried to match it. But once that started happening, I was like, look, at the end of the day, I've now played this character longer. And at the end of the day, it's a TV show. We're not curing cancer, people. I wish we were, but we're not. It's entertainment. So ... tit for tat. Shut up. P-I TV critic Melanie McFarland can be reached at 206-448-8015 or [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! 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