Tricia Helfer “ASCENSION” Interview
Tricia Helfer Interview
Tricia Helfer speaks on SyFy’s Ascension. The miniseries follows a group of Pioneers making a 100 year trip through space to Proxima, the nearest inhabitable planet.
Tricia Helfer Interview
Syfy’s six-hour, three-part miniseries ASCENSION, which runs Monday December 15 through Wednesday December 17, postulates that the U.S. space program is much farther ahead than almost anyone realizes – and has been that way since the Kennedy administration. In 1963, a spacecraft was launched, carrying a crew of pioneers heading for the nearest inhabitable planet, Proxima. Because the journey will take one hundred years, none of the original group will make it to their destination, but their descendants are meant to preserve the human race in the event that Earth is destroyed in the nuclear war everyone feared would happen during the Cold War.
Created by Adrian Cruz, with executive producer Philip Levens serving as show runner, ASCENSION is set fifty years into the spacecraft’s flight, carrying a population that now numbers six hundred. Actually, that’s six hundred minus one, as a murder has occurred, sending shockwaves through the ship’s seemingly orderly community.
Tricia Helfer is one of ASCENSION’s stars, playing Viondra Denninger, wife of the new captain William Denninger, portrayed by Brian Van Holt. Helfer is no stranger to Syfy, having also starred as the seductive Cylon Number Six in the BATTLESTAR GALACTICA
series. Since then, Helfer has also starred in the police drama series DARK BLUE
, the TV series adaptation of the legal thriller THE FIRM
and as a Texas Ranger in KILLER WOMEN
.
The Canadian-born actress has also founded a charity, Acting Outlaws, with fellow BATTLESTAR alumnus Katie Sackhoff, which holds motorcycle rides to raise money for worthy causes. Their most recent event was November 2, raising money for PATH, the Southern California organization that combats homelessness.
Helfer is at an event held by NBC and Syfy for the Television Critics Organization, where she takes some time to discuss her work on ASCENSION.
Describing Viondra, Helfer says, “She’s quite a manipulative character, very strong character, very political, definitely will do what she can to keep her husband in power and also to [make sure the ship will] make it to Proxima. [On the ship], we’re now at six hundred people, a lot of brilliant physicists, engineers, everything to inhabit another planet, Proxima.”
Because the Ascension is well out of radio and satellite range by now, there has been no contact with Earth for almost five decades; the social changes in our world have not touched the society on board. Furthermore, all of the characters are aging at a normal rate, Helfer says, which means that nearly everyone we meet was born on the ship. “There are so many interesting aspects of the show. Because [the Ascension was] launched in ’63. So we didn’t go through the Vietnam War. We didn’t go through the social revolution, the sexual revolution, all these things. So it’s sort of a microcosm – what you’re seeing is a parallel humanity that hasn’t gone through all of the stuff that we’ve gone through on Earth. So what happens, almost like if you [made] a time capsule and sent it off and then the audience gets a glimpse into what that has become fifty years later.”
Does Helfer see any similarities between Viondra and Number Six, given that both are members of a very small society within what is still a relatively small colony far from a planetary home?
Helfer considers the question. “You know, I never really thought about that specifically, because I was like, ‘Oh, I’m human now, I’m not a robot,’ but there can be some comparisons. It’s definitely not the same character by any stretch of the imagination, but there are comparisons, if you’ve taken six hundred humans, basically a small town or a tribe, so to speak, and sent them out, and they’re on a mission, they’re on a quest to get to Proxima, they don’t even know if Earth exists any more. They haven’t had contact with Earth, so when they left, the whole [Vietnam] war was happening. They don’t even know if there’s an Earth to go back to. And Viondra definitely wants to get to Proxima, but she’ll be an old woman, if she’s even alive. So we’re in the middle of the population, where Brian’s captain has a line, ‘They remember the captain that launched, and they’ll remember the captain that lands. But the captain in the middle isn’t going to become famous,’ basically. And that’s where we are now. So I think Viondra’s fighting that a little bit herself, as well.”
As for what Helfer finds most exciting about ASCENSION, she says, “This show is not about fighting robots, obviously, but there are so many elements – the upper deck/the lower deck, the UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS-type of society, a society that’s stuck back in the [early] Sixties in their morals and values and things like that. They’re also dealing with a sort of terrorist group that wants to turn around [and head back to Earth]. So the Powers That Be on the ship are supposed to keep going, and then there’s this whole element, a faction that they have to deal with, [in favor of] turning back. So there are a lot of different human elements about the show that I found interesting. I was drawn to the script initially because it’s a large ensemble cast, a lot of great characters – it’s a real character study, and it’s sort of speculative science fiction. Like BATTLESTAR, [ASCENSION has] really human drama at the end of the day, set in space.”
Written by Abbie Bernstein
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