To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Stargate Atlantis, Dial the Gate is privileged to release David’s interview with Torri Higginson from 2018. Originally filmed for Season Two of Dialing Home on Stargate Command, this interview encompasses much of the exact material he has since been covering with other guests. With a surprise or two along the way!

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Timecodes
0:00 – Rapid Fire Questions
7:03 – Opening Credits
7:29 – Guest Introduction
8:19 – This Life on CBC
9:52 – Fifteen Years Since Rising
12:38 – Advice from Amanda Tapping
14:23 – Replacing Jessica Steen
15:54 – Acknowledging the Transition
16:35 – “New Order”
18:08 – Kinship between Elizabeth and Daniel
19:46 – Torri’s Castmates
24:18 – Who was Elizabeth Weir to you?
27:06 – What did Elizabeth teach you?
28:26 – “Rising”
30:09 – Production Values
31:16 – Immediate Character Relationships
34:10 – Weir VS Kavanagh
35:18 – “Suspicion” and Wraith Experiments
37:13 – The Wraith as Villains
38:11 – Access to Earth
39:18 – “Home”
40:55 – Action Hero Toys
41:38 – Working with Don S. Davis
44:06 – “Before I Sleep”
50:25 – “The Storm” and “The Eye”
52:50 – “The Long Goodbye”
54:32 – “Michael”
58:38 – The Show After “Michael”
1:00:44 – Torri’s Perfect Acting World
1:03:15 – “The Real World”
1:06:21 – “Sunday”
1:10:46 – Torri’s Departure from Stargate
1:14:48 – Weir’s Season Four Episodes
1:16:54 – Costumes and Props
1:17:36 – Thank You, Torri!
1:19:11 – End Credits

***

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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read:
I have a little game that I like to call “Rapid Fire.”

Torri Higginson:
“Rapid Fire,” I’m gonna…

David Read:
Oh, it’s the woof!

Torri Higginson:
I’m gonna fail.

David Read:
No, it’s fine.

Torri Higginson:
Alright.

David Read:
No! No you won’t. So, the first thing that comes to your mind.

David Read:
For Stargate… Favorite villain.

Torri Higginson:
The Wraith Queen. She’s awesome.

David Read:
The writer whose scripts you always looked forward to.

Torri Higginson:
Probably Carl Binder, because he loved writing for Weir.

David Read:
He did.

Torri Higginson:
He really enjoyed writing for her.

David Read:
I love “Before I Sleep.”

Torri Higginson:
Aw, he liked writing for women a lot. I like Carl.

David Read:
One trait you share with your character

Torri Higginson:
Gosh. I wish more… I wish I had some of her smarts, discipline and focus. What do we– I think, a belief in humanity.

David Read:
That’s good.

Torri Higginson:
That’s probably where we are alike.

David Read:
Makes sense. Funniest Stargate cast member.

Torri Higginson:
That’s hard. The go-to would be Hewlett but Momoa is pretty funny. He showed up and rocked everything. But Hewlett and Momoa.

David Read:
The plot twist you never saw coming.

Torri Higginson:
Oh my gosh, the plot twist I never saw coming. I can’t say me being killed off, because every actor expects to be killed off at the end of every season. We were like, “OK, who is going this year?” What was the plot twist I never saw coming? That my dog was in the show.

David Read:
OK!

Torri Higginson:
That Dr. Weir had Sedgewick.

David Read:
That was solid. Cast member or guest star you most looked forward to working with. Either because they were coming back or because you were “I can’t believe we got this person”

Torri Higginson:
I was really excited to work with David Ogden Stiers. Did I say his name right?

David Read:
Yes, you did.

Torri Higginson:
Ogden Stiers. I always get “I-E”s wrong. I grew up with M*A*S*H and…

David Read:
Exactly

Torri Higginson:
And I was a little bit “rahhh.”

David Read:
Charles Edward Winchester III.

Torri Higginson:
Yeah, that was cool. But I’ve gotta say, because my character was so separate from the rest, they would always go off on…

David Read:
Off world

Torri Higginson:
And I would always be there by myself, all lonesome. So, I look forward to working with anybody. I would be like “Yay, I’m on the team this week.”

David Read:
If you could’ve played any of those characters in all of canon that you know, what… who else would you have wanted to play?

Torri Higginson:
Probably Daniel Jackson.

David Read:
Yeah? They are kindred spirits!

Torri Higginson:
They kind of are, and I like that. To play somebody who believes in humanity and has that curiosity. That, or Rachel or Jason’s character. Because to fight a bit would be fun too.

David Read:
Absolutely, with the sticks or the guns. What episode to recommend to a new viewer?

Torri Higginson:
To a new viewer. It would depend on the viewer. I think… Gosh, that’s an interesting question.

David Read:
Most people go with the pilot, because it’s first.

Torri Higginson:
The pilot! I would suggest the pilot. Off the top of my head.

David Read:
Any episode you wish would disappear?

Torri Higginson:
What a question to ask an actor. Because we always look at everything…

David Read:
Critical.

Torri Higginson:
…with such a critical eye. You’re getting beaten up by a dog down there.

David Read:
It’s a pupper!

Torri Higginson:
Little puppy. Which one would I wish would disappear? I don’t think I’d wish any of them to disappear, actually. There’s ones I like more than others, but…

David Read:
Have you rewatched the show?

Torri Higginson:
Yes.

David Read:
That’s good.

Torri Higginson:
I don’t have a television myself, I don’t have it, so I don’t even have the CD thing in my… I guess I could stream it? I should stream it.

David Read:
Yes. Uh-oh!

Torri Higginson:
The dog is going to destroy the entire backdrop! Phew!

David Read:
You be good! … Which cast member was the best kisser?

Torri Higginson:
I think I only kissed one of them.

David Read:
Well, you did kiss Flanigan.

Torri Higginson:
Yeah.

David Read:
And you kissed Mike Branton’s the actor

Torri Higginson:
Yeah!

David Read:
From “Sunday” too.

Torri Higginson:
Yeah… I have to go with Flanigan, just because it took so long for us to try a kiss.

David Read:
Yes, it did take a couple of seasons.

Torri Higginson:
It took a few seasons. It wasn’t really them, so it wasn’t Flanigan, it was actually…

David Read:
No, it wasn’t. Any favorite costume that you wore?

Torri Higginson:
I loved it when they went black finally because I wore a stupid red shirt for about three years. I still to this day can’t wear red, but I guess… Wow, that’s weird. I wore red. That’s subliminal. I loved it when they turned everything black and sexy. And I was pissed off that is when I got written out. “Now you’re all black and sexy!”

David Read:
Most grueling day of work?

Torri Higginson:
Probably the episode… Actually, I know this one very well. The episode of the storm.

David Read:
The rain… “The Storm” and “The Eye.”

Torri Higginson:
Yeah, and they shot that whole storm section with David Hewlett and I…

David Read:
Robert Davi.

Torri Higginson:
Yeah, and we shot that big storm on the last day before hiatus, and we know why they did it. Because we all got so sick. Because we just had… They had huge wind turbines and fire hoses.

David Read:
So, even if the water is warm it still hits you…

Torri Higginson:
No, it wasn’t warm. It was “no actor required” that episode. We were freezing! We were just soaking wet and absolutely freezing. My lips were blue and they were like “Can you do that line without chattering?” and I’m like “No, I can’t.”

David Read:
It’s extraordinary to look at. You guys really pulled it off.

Torri Higginson:
We didn’t pull off anything, we were reacting to the world.

David Read:
What script could you not put down until it was done? Was not ‘put-down-able’.

Torri Higginson:
That’s the one where I wish I could give a better answer. I think my memory might fail me on that one. All actors are like “Oh, this one’s about me!” so you have a little bit more engagement. I was really surprised when Paul McGillion’s character went back after it was written out. That episode… And it was such a different episode too.

David Read:
“Sunday”

Torri Higginson:
I think that one surprised me the most, so I probably was whipping through it going “What the heck is happening?”

David Read:
That’s also the one you went on the date.

Torri Higginson:
Yeah. It was all this sort of parallel universe stuff.

David Read:
Very different. Absolutely. Should the Stargate Program be disclosed?

Torri Higginson:
Yeah! I believe in transparency with everything. I think it should be.

David Read:
Thank you for your time!

Torri Higginson:
Phew! I’m outta here. Dog! Next!

David Read:
One of the things that I’ve been really looking forward to about this series is going back and reconnecting with a lot of the people that I knew when the show was still in production. And one of the other things is getting to know people better that I didn’t really get to know well the first time around. Torri Higginson! And her dog. If you can hear that. And Ziggy. Thank you for being here.

Torri Higginson:
My pleasure.

David Read:
It’s so exciting to have you. How have you been?

Torri Higginson:
I’ve been very well, thank you! And it’s my pleasure to be here, it’s nice to revisit something. We have such a fragmented life as actors, that whatever job you’re working on is your entire universe while you’re there. And then you leave it and two years later you’ve had two different universes, and…

David Read:
I know. You go in and out

Torri Higginson:
So, it’s lovely to have a nice little reminder.

David Read:
Absolutely. Now you were on a CBC Television series for a couple of years up there, dealing with a woman who was terminal cancer.

Torri Higginson:
Yeah, it was called “This Life.” We shot in Montreal, and the first episode you find out this single mom has got terminal cancer, and she’s got three kids and she’s got to try to prepare them to live without her. And I was really proud to be part of that show. The same reason I like the sci-fi genre: things that really embrace the idea of our morality, and our humanity, and our mortality too, and to have those questions. This actively was questioning that, which is wonderful.

David Read:
In both shows you’re getting an opportunity to potentially make a difference in people’s lives.

Torri Higginson:
That’s very grandiose. Hopefully, I think storytellers, any sort of art, any sort of storytelling, that is what we want to do. We want to connect with people somehow and either offer… I heard this thing years ago where somebody said, “Art should do one of three things: it should inspire questions to people that have none. It should offer answers to people that are struggling with questions, or it should offer comfort to the drunk that stumbles in by accident.” That was perfect.

David Read:
That is great!

Torri Higginson:
That was lovely. And I like questions, not answers. I think answers stop. So, anything that inspires questions I think is lovely. If art connects with people, and if any of the shows I worked on make people question their world or their humanity, that’s a lovely thought, to be a part of that conversation.

David Read:
Can you believe that it’s been 15 years since “Rising?”

Torri Higginson:
No. It’s only been five. Come on!

David Read:
The show just wrapped.

Torri Higginson:
Come on. “I’m not forty yet.” It’s amazing how fast time is. It’s amazing. Sorry, my dog is…

David Read:
Is he OK? You stay right there then.

Torri Higginson:
He is precariously curled up.

David Read:
Aww, that is so sweet.

Torri Higginson:
Good work.

David Read:
It’s a blanket?

Torri Higginson:
Don’t eat it! OK, let’s ignore him. Yeah, fifteen years is a long time, and it’s gone in a nanosecond.

David Read:
Tell me about Torri Higginson the actress then, and Torri Higginson the actress now.

Torri Higginson:
Now I’m broke. Sorry. I’m full reveal, transparent. What’s different? I think there’s something… I actually turn 50 this year, which is something you’re not supposed to say in the acting world, but I’m very proud of…

David Read:
No. Good for you!

Torri Higginson:
… for making it.

Torri Higginson:
So, I think as a person something very profound happens when you turn 50. For me it was this idea of relaxing into yourself a bit more. Going, this is who I am and I no longer have to hide my foibles. I accept them. I’ll still work on trying to get stronger and smarter and more honest with myself, but I’m not ashamed, or I’m not trying to pretend, or trying to cover up. And I think that’s such a freedom. You sort of become more authentic the older you get. You’re not living in response to other people’s expectations in the same way. And that’s a freedom as an actor then. So, to walk into any character now I leave more of myself behind and I can enter into their humanity with much more ease and directness… I find… Does that make sense?

David Read:
So, it sounds like you find it easier to slip into another personality’s shoes, of what other character you’re playing, the older that you get?

Torri Higginson:
I find it easier to be less judgmental of whatever character I’m playing and to leave Torri behind easier in terms of my concern of how people perceive me. “Did I do a good job?,” “Am I right for this part?,” “Is this what they want?,” “Am I giving them what they want?” And now I’m in a place going, “I’m not gonna give everybody what they want.” That’s OK, I’ve gotta be, “What do I think this person is?” and dive in and find out. And don’t ‘know’.

David Read:
That’s gotta be exciting.

Torri Higginson:
It’s exciting!

David Read:
Was there a specific point where you realized this? Or did it just come upon you?

Torri Higginson:
I woke up and I was fifty. And I went: “Holy shit, how did that happen?,” and “Holy shit, what do I know?” and “What have I done with my life?” and “What am I gonna do with it?” and all that stuff, and I sort of spiraled, not in a negative way.

David Read:
Was there any advice from Amanda Tapping, right out of the gate?

Torri Higginson:
Amanda was wonderful right out of the gate, because it was a very intimidating show to walk into, for many reasons. I mean, one, I’m always aware of the weight of Stargate and of the fandom of Stargate, and…

David Read:
Had you auditioned for it before?

Torri Higginson:
No I hadn’t.

Torri Higginson:
I hadn’t auditioned for it, but I was just very aware of their world. To come up knowing that you’re doing a show which is a spin-off from a show which is so established, and the fans are so established, there’s that nervousness of “They’re gonna hate us!.” And also, you start on any new show, it’s like the first day of school. You don’t know your teachers, you don’t know your fellow classmates, you don’t know “Is anybody going to like me?,” “Is this… Did I make the right choice?” and so you have all these insecurities. And then on top of that, I was moving cities, so I drove up with my dog from L.A. to Vancouver. I’d never lived in Vancouver, “I don’t know anybody here.” Didn’t know any of the other actors. So, everything was new, it was very nerve-racking, and we shot the pilot of Atlantis the same time I shot an episode of Stargate SG-1

David Read:
“New Order 1 and 2.” You were shooting it simultaneously?

Torri Higginson:
Yeah, at the same time.

David Read:
Wow, you were going back and forth?

Torri Higginson:
I was going back and forth. So, that was a really funny, wonderful experience. Because on our set everybody was really new and nervous and trying really hard to be OK and be polite. And then I would go over to SG-1 where everyone was…

David Read:
They had been around for years.

Torri Higginson:
They are farting. They are [makes drinking movement] drinking and they are… It was so relaxed and funny, and they just knew each other so well. There was such a wonderful revelry sort of energy. And at the time I thought, “I wanna be on this show, I’d rather be on SG-1.” They are just so much more relaxed and fun, and we were trying so hard.

David Read:
Nothing to prove over there. But you yourself had something to prove right out of the gate, I would think. You’re taking on a character that has already been started off by another actress. How often does that happen?

Torri Higginson:
In soap operas, a lot.

Torri Higginson:
And I didn’t… I actually didn’t take that on.

David Read:
You did not?

Torri Higginson:
No, Brad was wonderful. Because I did say to him at one point before I did the drive up, I said, “I feel I should watch her episodes and get a sense of what this actress did, and do you want to tell me what you want and what you don’t want in response to what she did, because there is a reason she’s no longer here.” And I didn’t know…

David Read:
For whatever that is.

Torri Higginson:
And I didn’t know if it was personal, creative, or what the thing was, and I didn’t want to know. I said, “I have respect for the actor, it’s not my business, but I… I want to know if there’s… what you want.” And Brad was great, and he said… And I was also, though… I was concerned. And if I watched it, I might start second guessing my own instincts, because I might go, “Well, they cast her first. So, what was it about her that they wanted, or what was it about her that they didn’t want?”

Torri Higginson:
So, I went to Brad with these concerns, and he was lovely. He said, “We cast you based on what you brought into that room, that audition room. So, trust your instincts and go with that. And you can watch it, get a backstory if you want, but…”

David Read:
And you chose to watch it, is what I heard.

Torri Higginson:
Yeah, I did choose, and I know that actress. I’ve got great respect for her. She’s lovely. We had the same agent for a while. And we’re apples and oranges. We’re so different, so when I watched her, I went, “Well, there’s no way I can… All I can do is go on with what my interpretation of Weir is.”

David Read:
Absolutely. I’m a big continuity hound. So, a lot of us, we go in and watch the little… all the little differences in name changes and the colors of the lasers and all those kinds of things, and you step in, I just always wanted… Daniel to say, because that’s your first scene with him in “New Order,” “What did you do with your hair?,” “Oh, I just returned to normal dark, the blonde is not normally the thing.” This little acknowledgement of a transformation.

Torri Higginson:
I agree with you. I remember saying the same thing to Brad, “Can they just say, ‘Did you… is that a different shirt?’ Or just something. Make a joke, but one thing being different.”

Torri Higginson:
But yeah, I think they just wanted to…

David Read:
I think the transition was pretty good, and you had so much dialogue in both of those episodes… really in “New Order.” Because a lot of it is meeting with an alien race who’s coming to negotiate with Earth, there’s a lot of material there. What was the relationship with Shanks like? Establishing this character?

Torri Higginson:
He was delightful! There were all… Everybody was so kind. I’ve gotta say, I was amazed when I first got up there and got started. It was my third series I’d worked on, but I never walked into something that felt so warm and inviting. Everybody was delightfully supportive. So, Shanks was lovely, very funny, and all of them, all of them were. We were saying earlier you were asking about Amanda and then we went on a segue. I wanted to say, she actually made a point to come up to me numerous times those first few months, saying, “If you ever need anything you call me directly. You come and… Whatever you need, you get in touch with me.” She was so… I didn’t take advantage of it at the time, probably because I was intimidated a little bit. I was nervous and she was… And I was also really busy so I didn’t take advantage of it. It was the type of thing that a few years later I thought, “Oh, I really should have,” because there is a lot of politics, a lot of weight that happens with series. All of a sudden you find yourself embroiled in it, and I think it would’ve been very helpful for me if I had found the time to take her up on that. But Daniel, like Amanda, was just delightfully welcoming.

David Read:
There’s a kinship between Daniel and Weir in that Elizabeth is the Daniel of Atlantis, but there is a kinship between Elizabeth and Daniel. I mean, it’s one of the reasons you were put together in “New Order 1 and 2…” “New Order Part One” at least, and that, they’re both the thinkers, they are both the philosophers. And they are the ones who examine the situation and say, “Is this right or is this wrong,” except in Elizabeth’s situation you had to be responsible for an entire expedition of people. That’s a very different weight as opposed to what Daniel had, you know?

Torri Higginson:
That ethical question. She was in charge of the lever and the train question.

David Read:
Right! And almost like…

Torri Higginson:
And she had to have that ethical…

David Read:
And almost right away… we’ll get into this with the Wraith and capturing a POW and experimenting on him. She’s one of the first to say, “I didn’t think we’d be doing this fast.”

David Read:
You know, we’re moving way too quickly in this situation.

Torri Higginson:
That was a hard episode for me to shoot, because I remember fighting for, thinking, “I don’t think she would do this.” We really… Brad and I had a tête-à-tête, and he said she… and I think it was wonderful that they did it because it was brave. “What do you do when you do work outside of your comfort zone?” And we all have moments of great contradiction in our life, and you go, “I absolutely believe this, but for whatever reason…”

David Read:
Given the situation that this is…

Torri Higginson:
“I’m gonna change my ethical code.”

David Read:
Absolutely. Tell me about Joe Flanigan.

Torri Higginson:
I don’t know a lot about Joe Flanigan.

David Read:
Is he nebulous?

Torri Higginson:
He’s… I haven’t… Gosh, I haven’t seen him. It’s just crazy, we haven’t crossed paths in any of the conventions, it’s a shame. I love Joe. He reminds me of my new dog, actually, he’s sort of a puppy. He’s got this puppy thing about him. He really does. He sort of feels very… He is a wonderful father. Obviously very responsible, and very… but he had this wonderful little playfulness about him…

David Read:
The childlike thing…

Torri Higginson:
Likeness. He just wants to surf, listen to great music, and he really enjoys the senses of life which I love in somebody. Yeah, he was a good guy. He is a nice man, I enjoyed working with him.

David Read:
What about Rachel?

Torri Higginson:
Rachel’s a doll. She’s just all heart. She’s just all heart. And she and I were always hoping–

David Read:
Both dog lovers.

Torri Higginson:
Both huge dog lovers — And we were both always hoping that we could’ve had more scenes together. I always thought it’d be lovely to have a relationship where she’s teaching Weir how to fight, how to be physically strong, and Weir has thought… “What would Weir teach her?” We could not quite figure out, she already had this wonderful expansive, sort of Buddhist intelligence about her.

David Read:
And she was used to negotiating and things like that

Torri Higginson:
But I think they could’ve had… they probably had a very deep relationship. We always decided they did. We didn’t get to see it much, but we think they did. They really needed each other in that very military, masculine world, really.

David Read:
Absolutely. David Hewlett.

Torri Higginson:
He’s fabulous. He’s lovely. It was almost his job to keep everybody laughing, I think that’s what he felt. “It’s my job to make sure everybody is having a good time.” And he would amaze us, because he was able to do that, keep us all laughing. And then they’d call “cut” and he would manage to get out three pages of technical jargon and we’re like, “What?”

David Read:
And then just go through it. That always blew me away. The amount of dialogue that one would have to ingest the night before…

Torri Higginson:
Amazing.

David Read:
…and then spit out the next day. “How do you do that?” as a performer. I’ve never been able to figure that out.

Torri Higginson:
It’s funny what happens with their brains. My brain is gone, partly because I turned fifty. I’m gonna tell everybody that now.

David Read:
She’s fifty!

Torri Higginson:
My brain, it just went. But I can remember, “Yeah, I have an audition tomorrow and you’ve got twenty pages and you’ve got tonight to memorize them,” and you just do it. It’s a weird…

David Read:
You just absorb it.

Torri Higginson:
You just do it, you have to.

David Read:
That is so bizarre.

Torri Higginson:
I did a one-woman play three years ago, and it was 75 minutes of just me talking on stage with nobody else. With nobody to spark the “what is the next line.” It was so terrifying, but remarkable. And I got through it, and we ran it, and I remember… I never forgot a line on stage. I couldn’t tell you one of those lines now. The whole thing is gone. We just go like, “Our brain.”

David Read:
Isn’t that something?

Torri Higginson:
“It’s got to be in there somewhere,” but the synopsis is gonna get me there [inaudible].

David Read:
It’s detached right now, or floating away.

Torri Higginson:
Yes, it’s having a joint somewhere in the corner like, “I don’t know, I’ve done my job, don’t come to me again.”

David Read:
Season One with Rainbow Sun Francks.

Torri Higginson:
Ah, Rainbow Sun. He is his name.

David Read:
Yes, he is. That is most certainly true.

Torri Higginson:
He is just so his name. He is such a spirit, such a lovely, huge heart, life-affirming spirit. I have so much time for that young man. He’s not a young man anymore. Amazing how… 15 years!

David Read:
I know…

Torri Higginson:
But I love when I… I don’t do that many conventions anymore, but the odd one I do… And if his name’s on it, I’m like, “Oh, yay.”

David Read:
Absolutely. You look at that guest list like, “Oh, we’re gonna have fun,” “Oh, we’re gonna have fun,” “I might want to stay away from them,” “Oh, that’s a good time!” I’ve gotten to spend a lot of time with Paul McGillion, one of my most favorite people.

Torri Higginson:
He’s so funny.

David Read:
He’s so cool.

Torri Higginson:
Very funny. He’s a very funny man too, very funny. I actually… He might be… I don’t know, I might have to go back and change that…

David Read:
Earlier, we asked her who was the funniest person on Stargate Atlantis.

Torri Higginson:
Paul is pretty fabulous.

David Read:
But then Jason Momoa came in in Season Two.

David Read:
Funny guy!

Torri Higginson:
He cracked us all up. Complete, complete, complete heart.

David Read:
Any Baywatch analogies or anything like that, that he would fall back on?

Torri Higginson:
No, I didn’t hear that, at least.

David Read:
I’m trying to think if there is anyone else, principally, that I missed. I know we had David Nykl, Radek. You and he had a lot of on-screen time together. Not a ton, but yeah.

Torri Higginson:
Not bad. He is such a sweet man too, I love him as an actor, and I get very happy when I get to see him at conventions too.

David Read:
Absolutely. So, when you took on the role, my understanding was that you developed a little bit of her backstory, in the process of taking on that character. Who was Elizabeth Weir to you? I mean, we knew that she had been involved with the United Nations, she brokered some treaties. Who was this woman to you?

Torri Higginson:
What I was so excited about playing her was that she seemed to be this woman who was even a pacifist. She spent her time on Earth doing her best to make people talk to each other and put down the guns and to really have this… She was a diplomat. She wanted evolution with sharing of resources and no building of walls, she was not a wall builder.

David Read:
Yes, she was a wall breaker.

Torri Higginson:
She would not have been happy with today’s politics. It was… I found that very interesting that she came from this place where she was kind of against… not against military, but she did put her fists up against… She had a lot of tête-à-têtes with the military on Earth saying that “We can do that second, that shouldn’t be first. That should be second.” And then all of a sudden, she is in a position to be in charge of military. So, I found that conflict such an interesting and intriguing journey to go on.

David Read:
Because it was always a presence. This constant tête-à-tête between what the needs of the scientists were, and the needs of the military were and the scientists’ concerns often just took a back seat.

David Read:
Even at the end of Season One, Colonel… I forget the Colonel’s name, who comes in, takes over, takes over your command and you have to just step back because the crisis is such that it’s dire… Was that… That had to have been difficult for that character. To step aside in certain circumstances and have someone else take over.

Torri Higginson:
No, I think she was…

David Read:
It happens a couple of times.

Torri Higginson:
Absolutely, I think she was terribly frustrated and questioning what was her level of power and what was the legitimacy of her title. I think she probably had… there are lots of phone calls of her we never saw like, “Why did you give me this job if you’re not giving me the power?” I think she probably had a lot of those conversations happening with the powers that be. I think for her… I think her first joy to be there was not even the science, I think she wanted to be there because it was about exploring humanity, and we explore our humanity best when faced with another existence and how we… So, that’s what she wanted to do, let’s evolve and expand our knowledge of life, not just… She wanted to evolve. That’s the Daniel in her, I think, she wanted that connection, that spiritual connection. I think it was a frustrating job for her.

David Read:
You’ve lived with this character for three and a half years, probably a little bit more. What did Elizabeth Weir teach Torri Higginson about life?

Torri Higginson:
I wish I had learned more from her. Theoretically I learned a lot, but in practice… I’m no more disciplined…

David Read:
This job!

Torri Higginson:
I’m no more disciplined. I look at people like her in the real world, I mean, people that…

David Read:
How do they do it?

Torri Higginson:
How do they do it? To live such a self-sacrificing life. To go: “I care so much about science or evolution, I’m not going to ever just have a lazy Sunday reading my newspaper with my dog.” I live for those days; crosswords and the dog, and she would never do that, she would go, “Oh, I’ve got a day off, I’m gonna go volunteer somewhere.” Like, on her day off, she would go and volunteer, I know that about her. I don’t volunteer as often as I’d like to.

David Read:
It’s interesting because we see her come home… there’s a two-part episode called “The Return,” where the Ancients come back…

Torri Higginson:
Where she’s so depressed.

David Read:
She’s so broken from the experience that… I mean, she’s ordering pizza and the house is a wreck, and Carson pays her a house call, and he is like, “I’ve never seen this person before.”

Torri Higginson:
Yeah, in her dirty sweats.

David Read:
So, it’s so different, and it was hard to see her that way.

Torri Higginson:
Yes, she’d never been like that before.

David Read:
No! She’d lost her goal. “Rising” is an incredible 90 minutes. It is heart pumping. Have you ever watched it?

Torri Higginson:
Yes.

David Read:
OK, you watched that one.

Torri Higginson:
I did watch that one.

David Read:
That was probably a premiere.

Torri Higginson:
Yeah!

David Read:
I would think.

Torri Higginson:
When did I… I think we all watched that one together. We actually… Right after we had done Comic Con, we got together… We actually watched Galaxy Quest, and we also watched… Everyone was laughing… I had never seen Galaxy Quest, and we started laughing… We had just done the first Comic Con, that was my first convention, and everybody was laughing, and I started crying, and I’m like, “This isn’t funny. This is our life now. Oh no, this is our future. We’re going to be whisked away in an alien spaceship in five years.”

David Read:
“Someone has copied Atlantis and I’ve gotta play this out. I don’t know how to negotiate with life-sucking aliens. What am I gonna do?” That’s funny. Did any of it turn out that way?

Torri Higginson:
Well, the convention world is pretty… it’s represented pretty honestly, I think…

David Read:
Fairly accurately of Galaxy Quest.

Torri Higginson:
When I first started doing it, I hated conventions. I really hated them.

David Read:
You did?

Torri Higginson:
Yeah, I found them uncomfortable. I find being a celebrity uncomfortable. I don’t believe in that. I think it’s a strange thing. So, I didn’t get it, and then the longer I did it… now I love it because I come from theatre, so I like knowing my audience.

David Read:
You never get to see your audience as a television actor.

Torri Higginson:
You don’t get to see them. And you don’t know how they’re…

David Read:
It’s who you do it for, I’m sure. You do it for them.

Torri Higginson:
Yeah, that’s the dialogue… and that is what is exciting. It’s the… that’s sort of give and take of an audience and the story you’re telling. You wanna know how the story you’re telling lands and how it has resonated and if it resonated the way you thought it would and… so yeah, love the conventions now because you get to have that dialogue.

David Read:
What was your reaction to watching “Rising?” I mean, the production value is just extraordinary. The visual effects are amazing. I got to walk on your sets, and I got to hold and sell a lot of these props. It was exquisitely well done. Was it ever intimidating?

Torri Higginson:
When I first walked on that set, that very first day of work, I was intimidated like mad. It looked like a sort of Frank Lloyd Wright building almost. The architecture was so stunning, and it was just this massive… and it was interesting because SG-1 was all dark corridors…

David Read:
It’s underground…

Torri Higginson:
And here it’s like, “Woo,” like an opera set. We would always laugh thinking it…

David Read:
The “Gatrium.”

Torri Higginson:
Yeah. And I always felt we should have some kind of musical choreographed dance number down the stairwell…

David Read:
Down the stairwell!

Torri Higginson:
I was trying to make… “How come we didn’t make this into a musical? This episode should have a chorus.”

David Read:
That’s funny.

Torri Higginson:
But it was intimidating, but in all… the best way, and the way you would, “Oh, we’ve gotta rise up to meet this. We’ve gotta rise… our performances have to rise to meet this production.”

David Read:
In this city that has just come out of the ocean. That’s funny.

Torri Higginson:

David Read:
Almost right out of the gate, the connections between a lot of the characters become pretty apparent really quickly. Weir has an argument with Sheppard on the balcony out there about going in and rescuing the people who have been left behind, and she is having to establish the fact that, “You work for me, but even though your boss has now just been captured by these life-sucking whatever they are, and I can see where you are coming from in having to feel that you need to go and get him back.” It was an interesting dichotomy that later came about with Steven Caldwell when the Daedalus showed up, and that trio of… trying to manage the situation, that continued to thread its way through the series. I thought it was just a really interesting dynamic that you guys pulled off. Who has power, and when does what situation take precedent?

Torri Higginson:
Yeah, who gets to win the arm wrestle each time, and I… again, I enjoy that dynamic between Joe’s character and Weir’s character, and my character. And I think that was an interesting debate. I mean, that’s the question we have a lot in real life, and that’s what I love about sci-fi too. When I started Stargate, I wasn’t a big sci-fi fan… I… I didn’t think that I liked it. I didn’t feel connected to the genre, and I realized afterwards that, “Oh, no, there is a lot of stuff in the past I’ve watched that was sci-fi.” I just didn’t consider it sci-fi.

David Read:
Didn’t consider it that label.

Torri Higginson:
Yeah, but it was a learning curve for me, the Stargate thing, and what I learned, I fell in love with that. I fell in love with it because it does force all those big questions. It’s a lovely platform to explore these big ideas and these big questions, big ethical, moral questions, without an engine and a gun fight.

David Read:
Absolutely. And did that come about as you were… the realization that… of the significance of the material as you were working through the material, or was that after Stargate?

Torri Higginson:
It was during… to be honest, I probably learned most of it through the conventions, through the dialogues with the fans. I think the dialogues with the fans is what made me evolve my perception of that.

David Read:
You’re seeing what’s… what has resonated.

Torri Higginson:
Yeah. And when we do Q&As… And I find it so interesting because most of those Q&As that you do at conventions are, “We are talking about big ideas. We are talking about ethics, we are talking about philosophy, we are talking about religion, we are talking about community, we are talking about….”

David Read:
The things that matter.

Torri Higginson:
Yeah! These big… So, I just dive in. That is what I want to talk about. I don’t wanna talk about episode two. I don’t know the specifics. I wanna talk about the idea. “What does that mean to you as a human?” And so, that dialogue with the fans got me… really… educated me to what sci-fi was about.

David Read:
I don’t want to labor the point, but the last bit of this was with… you had an actor by the name of Ben Cotton who played the character Kavanagh.

Torri Higginson:
Oh gosh, I remember that scene.

David Read:
Yes! Yes. And time is running out, a puddle jumper is stuck and people are about to die, and you’ve got this guy who is… “it’s all about him,” and you’ve threatened to put him off planet. That is a great Weir moment.

Torri Higginson:
It is a surprising Weir moment a little bit.

Torri Higginson:
I liked it.

David Read:
When you realize that she’s not kidding.

Torri Higginson:
He was wasting time, and he’s being so impertinent. He is so impertinent to her. And I think for her stress state, because she is supposed to be in charge, and then she has military questioning everything she’s doing, which is demoralizing if you are supposed to be in charge and the people supposedly that you’re in charge of question everything you ask them to do. And then the scientists start questioning everything she is, so she was like, “Who is supporting my decisions here?” And I think she had a little bit of an ego response to that moment, but it also…

David Read:
She got her dander up, I’m sure.

Torri Higginson:
Got her dander up.

David Read:
Absolutely. The series really takes a big step forward in terms of asking these types of questions in… we’re starting off with Suspicion, where we capture a Wraith and then we hold him hostage. And ultimately, later on in the season, we end up sacrificing him to an experiment, and you had indicated earlier that there was some question on your end as to whether or not this is something that Weir would do. And going back to, given the circumstances of “if this were real?” what would be the correct response? It was a big episode for that. And it put you right in the middle of it.

Torri Higginson:
It does, and I still believe… I’m sure Brad and I would fight about it… I still believe Weir wouldn’t have done that. But I think it’s interesting when writers make a character do something that is so far away from their natural moral fiber. I think it’s interesting, and then the repercussions that happen because of that are interesting. So, I am glad that he did make us do it, but in my heart of hearts, the way I think of Weir, I think, “No, that was… she wouldn’t have done that.”

David Read:
That was the loud side of it.

Torri Higginson:
I really had a hard time with that one. It really threw me from my understanding of who the character was, for her to do that.

David Read:
If there is any consolation, the Wraiths… that continued those experiments were killed.

Torri Higginson:
David Read:
So, you saw it coming.

Torri Higginson:
David Read:
So, it ended up being the wrong thing to do. The reasons were correct but going after that… the drug which ultimately destroyed the Wraith caused the Wraith to kill them, so she had foresight into that. So, there was a lot of that in Atlantis, a lot of races dying to this species. This was a… were you intimidated by the Wraith? The make-up and the teeth?

Torri Higginson:
They were amazing looking!

David Read:
The leather…

Torri Higginson:
The first time I was like, “What?” I found them very scary looking, which is fabulous. It was so surprising because usually all that stuff happens afterwards in CGI, and that’s always the leap of faith you have to make as an actor when you first start working on a show which is very CGI focused, is that you… because before you know how good and how big that budget is, you’re like, “I’ve gotta have a reaction to this, and I don’t quite know what I’m reacting to because I haven’t seen it yet. So, if I do a huge reaction and then you guys just do this small explosion, I’m going to look like an idiot. And if I do this ‘no reaction’ and you guys do this huge thing, I’m going to look really… sort of callous.” So, there is this weird sort of… getting to know. And then once I saw Rising, actually, I very quickly went, “You guys are doing this beautifully,” so now you just gotta trust it and go…

David Read:
Absolutely

Torri Higginson:
Go big or go home.

David Read:
The first season you’re cut off from Earth. So, the rest of the series there was access to back at home, was there a different vibe after Season Two had started in terms of the communication, the options for storytelling? Because in Season One you are basically lost at sea.

Torri Higginson:
Gosh, it’s funny I don’t… That’d be more of a question for the writers because for me, we just respond to the world that we were given. I do feel like once there was access to Earth, there’s a layer of — what is the word I’m looking for — the tension that’s taken away because if you’re absolutely isolated, you create this tense world. So, they had to create tension in different ways.

David Read:
With the IOA, now there’s a government, a governing body now in charge of you and looking at you under a microscope. So, Woolsey, Robert Picardo…

Torri Higginson:
Picardo… I love him so much.

David Read:
What a great, great dynamic. He’s a cool guy.

Torri Higginson:
He is such a cool guy.

David Read:
But in Season One we did get to see a little bit of Weir in hallucination. We saw Garwin Sanford who was her fiancé, Simon. And he had taken care of Sedge.

Torri Higginson:
I know.

David Read:
Was that something that you would have chosen for her to have? A gentleman back on Earth, or was that something that…?

Torri Higginson:
No, the writers just did that, and I thought it was a really interesting choice because who would choose…? To me…

David Read:
Left him behind.

Torri Higginson:
It told about how she felt about the relationship.

David Read:
Absolutely!

Torri Higginson:
Because if it’s a one-way ticket, you’re never making…

David Read:
Not come back.

Torri Higginson:
“My job is more important than my relationship,” so she made that choice there. And that’s another way Weir and I differ: I would not have left my dog. “She has got to come with me!” But… Sorry, what?

David Read:
It’s funny that you bring that up because I was a big proponent of “bring Sedge to Atlantis.”

Torri Higginson:
Really?

David Read:
There’s no reason she couldn’t fit on the Daedalus and bring her out.

Torri Higginson:
There’s no reason she wouldn’t have fit in there.

David Read:
And Martin Gero… I think that something was in the works for a couple of days and then he came back and said, “It’s just not going to happen.” I remember the exact circumstances… ’cause I was like, “There’s no reason she… the dog can’t be there.”

Torri Higginson:
It would be fabulous to see the dog in the background walking around.

David Read:
Absolutely! Just walking, free roaming the city.

Torri Higginson:
She can have a little Stargate vest on… Go off…

David Read:
Go off world.

Torri Higginson:
I was so hoping that the action figures we all got, that mine would come with Sedgewick.

David Read:
Come with a Sedge.

Torri Higginson:
But it didn’t.

David Read:
What was that like? Being remembered in plastic? For all time. Is that creepy? Or no, it’s not, it’s awesome?

Torri Higginson:
No, it’s awesome, are you kidding me? And the moment you find that you’re gonna have an action figure? It’s awesome! You go “OK, I can retire now, I’m good.”

David Read:
Does she have War and Peace as an accessory because that’s Sheppard’s, it should’ve been Sheppard’s.

Torri Higginson:
It’s completely weird, it makes no sense. But she was in this scene where he talked about it.

Torri Higginson:
So, she got War and Peace and she got a…

David Read:
A ZPM, or?

Torri Higginson:
Yeah, and then… she’s also in a black outfit, she also has…

David Read:
Yes, there are a couple of versions. That’s so cool.

Torri Higginson:
But I don’t think she ever has a gun. I think when she’s in the black op, she doesn’t have a gun with her, which I think is cool, an action figure with no gun.

David Read:
You had some scenes with Don S. Davis, so can you tell us anything about him? About working with that amazing man?

Torri Higginson:
Just such a… old-school raconteur, delightful, old-school, old-school human being in such a lovely way. And I feel very weirdly lucky… we’re actually doing a convention in Reunion Island. So, I was there with Cliff Simon and with… my brain is blanking… Christopher Judge. Sorry, I was, “Chris, Chris?” Yes, they were both Chrises. So, we were all together when we got the news that he died. So, it was very weird. We felt so far away, but watching those two because they had such a tight relationship with him, especially Christopher, Christopher Judge. They worked with him together for eight years.

David Read:
It must have been just devastating.

Torri Higginson:
They were devastated! It was really sad. But I felt very honored that I had the chance to know him a little bit even and had the chance to work with him a little bit because he really was a special human. Very gentle and smart and funny.

David Read:
Speaking of that kind of intensity. One of my favorite Weir moments was near the end of Season One. And she’s sending letters back to Earth.

Torri Higginson:
To the people of…

David Read:
To the people… the families who have passed away. And she has twenty of them to do. That had to have been hard to play, or did a piece of you cut yourself off and say, “I can’t get too deep into this myself?”

Torri Higginson:
No, I love that stuff. I dove into that one. I love that stuff. I think that when we are hard is the most vulnerable, most openness is when we’re the most alive. So, I think Weir… I love that they had her do that. I really loved that, that meant a lot to me. And I think it meant a lot to her too; it was hard to do but it meant a lot to her because she did… she…

David Read:
Something she would’ve done. I think.

Torri Higginson:
Absolutely she would’ve done it. And I think… Stories you hear of Obama writing letters too, like that. I remember the first time I read that about Obama, I remembered the Weir scene and went “It is very heavy and very… but so important, so important.” And I access that sort of… my heart explodes very quickly with that kind of stuff. That was a moving and enjoyable bit to do.

David Read:
It was a good scene. My favorite Weir episode is a Carl episode with… “Before I Sleep,” in Season One. And it’s a tour-de-force for you because you play a version of yourself that is 100, and you had a great guest performer, I forget the actor’s name right now, who played Janus, who played the Ancient, there was a little bit of a love interest there. Terrific show. Tell us about transforming into a 100-year-old version of yourself. I imagine there were some early hours there.

Torri Higginson:
Yeah, very early and very late days. I think I was running on three hours, four hours of sleep per night because what they would do… It took about four to six hours, I think, to get the makeup on. Todd Masters who designed the whole prosthetics and was extraordinary at what he does, just extraordinary. So, I went to see him before. First he does a face mask of me. Took all these photographs of me, then he ages it, and when I first saw myself with his finished product I saw my grandmother. Yeah, I’ll cry now thinking about it. I almost wept. I was like “How?” It was remarkable. You saw the Higginson/Morgan face. He aged her beautifully. So, that was pretty astounding. It was pretty heavy walking by and looking at yourself in the mirror and seeing yourself as… I think she was actually supposed to be like 500 years old but not 100 years old.

David Read:
Physically aged, she was definitely thousands.

Torri Higginson:
She definitely looked like 150 or something, looked old. It was pretty… that was kind of daunting, but also beautiful. Like this weird “that’s going to happen, we are all going to die,” that’s gonna… the whole… it was crazy, and what they did too was funny, because we’d do the old Weir first…

David Read:
You did.

Torri Higginson:
So, I’d get there super early, they’d do the prosthetics. We’d shoot old Weir, Brad again… and they are wonderful, the producers, and they made sure that they got the photo double that they would shoot over her shoulder… they made sure it was an actress, so that was lovely. So, she really knew… She came to me, we spoke, we rehearsed the scene, both… She would take both parts so she would see me how I would do it on both sides. So, she would really try to mimic what I was doing when I was responding to her. She was really lovely and I’m sorry I forgot her name, but she was really…

David Read:
Gave you someone to play off of.

Torri Higginson:
That is important.

Torri Higginson:
It was important, it made my job much easier then. But what was funny… we would do the old Weir first and during lunch we would take all the makeup off and do young Weir and then after, being so tired and to have all these prosthetics… and it rips off your face and I looked so awful. “I actually don’t even need the prosthetics now, we should’ve switched that, same thing.” But it was… And it was funny too, because my dog would come to set every day, and I thought “I wonder if she’ll freak out if she sees me 150 or 800/1000 years old.”

David Read:
I bet there wasn’t a response.

Torri Higginson:
Not at all! The smell…

David Read:
Your smell hadn’t changed.

Torri Higginson:
And the voice. And she had no… she wasn’t weirded out at all, that surprised me. That was an amazing episode, I enjoyed that a lot. I do… I’ve spent a lot of my life, and have since I was very young, thinking about mortality. I think the more we think and talk about death the more we appreciate life and the more present we are.

David Read:
I think the more that we talk through these issues the more we rid it of the fear. I suppose you can wind yourself up but it is absolutely…

Torri Higginson:
It is so inevitable. I think if you look, that is the only inevitable. They say, “Taxes and death,” but you can skip out on taxes but death you cannot skip out on. That’s it and we’re all gonna do it, every single one. Everybody in this room, we’re gonna die… and we live in a culture that we just don’t… we put it in a box and put it away and we don’t even put makeup on it so it looks normal.

David Read:
Age and… “You are fifty? Oh no!”

Torri Higginson:
“Lie about your age? No, man, celebrate your age! Are you kidding? You made it to fifty? How many people didn’t make it to fifty?” So, we live in this weird, weird culture that way and I love it when art makes us look at that, look at our mortality and look at the finite amount of time we have here and ask ourselves, really, “How are you going to behave in that time you’ve got?”

David Read:
Did you sleep through the transformation, did they let you sleep or did they… were you conscious when they put the makeup on?

Torri Higginson:
I was mostly conscious. I might have drifted off, but on the whole…

David Read:
Did you watch yourself disappear and did the old Elizabeth come out in the performance? Or did you go on to the set and act that way? Or did… How much did the makeup inform who you became?

Torri Higginson:
That’s a lovely question. I think it was a really sweet marriage of the two. Because when you’re watching it happen, it’s not so gradual, “Oh, there’s this weird plastic on my face,” and then… But it adds a weight to you, as you feel… Because it’s plastic…

David Read:
It literally does!

Torri Higginson:
Literally, there is a weight, so you feel heavier, and you can’t move your mouth and your eyes quite as much because there is all this plastic, so your senses are a little bit dulled because of that. And then you also don’t want to move as quickly because you want to make sure you don’t mess up the glue, so now your physicality is being affected. So, it’s a beautiful… He gives you so many doors in through that. It made it much… and then you come on set and go, “OK, now I feel that there.”

David Read:
Absolutely.

Torri Higginson:
I did laugh, though, when I saw… and I didn’t think about it, and I wish I had when I saw the episode after… maybe I shouldn’t say this, you’re probably gonna edit this shit out…

David Read:
No, that’s fine.

Torri Higginson:
When I saw the episode after… they put stunt bras in every woman. If you’re a woman on television, they give you bigger tits. Sorry, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, that’s what happens. I would always say, “She is a scientist, she doesn’t need bigger tits.” “No, she needs bigger tits.” So, you’re lying, and this 80-year-old… she has the perkiest breasts and is supposed to be like 8000… I’m sorry…

David Read:
Well, she’s been frozen. They haven’t had an opportunity to do anything.

Torri Higginson:
Thank you!

David Read:
There you go!

Torri Higginson:
I did think after, “I should’ve just told them, ‘Just take the bra off.’” That is very funny.

David Read:
That is funny, oh my God! I gotta find a way to keep that.

Torri Higginson:
So, I felt very old until I would see my silhouette and go, “Oh no, I’m good.” I’m kind of dancing in a way.

David Read:
I wanna go back to… because we talked about it a little bit in the game we played before “The Storm,” and “The Eye.” Because you talked about that being the most grueling atmosphere. Tell us about that whole process, working with Robert Davi. I know there are a couple of episodes with a lot of dialogue in the pouring down rain. Tell us about that.

Torri Higginson:
I guess I’m a lazy actor a little bit because I love it when situations are created that no action is required. I was told years ago, “Actors don’t act, you just respond. You react. You react to what you’re given.” But so often… and that’s what I used to find frustrating about sci-fi because you have nothing to react to. It’s just a green screen, and then somebody gave me the key [and] say, “No, it’s your imagination, go back to being a kid,” and I went, “Oh, beautiful, thank you.” So, you get used to that. I learned to try to love the green screen and try to find freedom and playfulness with that.

David Read:
It’s a blank slate.

Torri Higginson:
It’s a blank slate, but there is still a leap of faith happening. But when you don’t have… when you have the elements, you are just reacting to what the world is around, which is what that was with the gallons of fire hose cold water and the huge 20-foot wind turbines putting it right in your face.

David Read:
Throwing it right in your face.

Torri Higginson:
You’re just responding, you’re just reacting. So, your brain… you are able to be purely, 100% focused in that scene. There is no making sure… there’s no third eye observing going, “Have I covered this? Am I making sure I’m showing I’m tired? Am I making sure, as well as the lines, and listening?” So, that was really fun. It was fun. It was a hard-ass episode, two of them, to shoot, but it was really fun because there was this bonding. Robert Davi is such a character.

David Read:
He is impressive!

Torri Higginson:
He is such a presence to have around. Bellowing, bellowing voice. He’s a delight.

David Read:
How many days was that in the water?

Torri Higginson:
Gosh, see now with time, my memory, I can say, “It was three weeks!” No, it was probably two or three days in the end.

David Read:
OK, but you guys all got sick at the end?

Torri Higginson:
We were really sick. We woke up to crazy colds. But they gave us huge bottles of whiskey to say “Thank you.”

David Read:
That is great!

Torri Higginson:
To cure our colds. So, we spent our hiatus making hot toddies, going, “Alright, I’ll feel better now,” but it was fun, though. It was a fun episode, and I liked that… It was interesting that everybody had been separated and having to support each other in different little circles and just… It was good.

David Read:
I loved, in Season Two, we got into a little bit earlier with the “who is the best kisser.”

Torri Higginson:
Wraith Queen.

David Read:
Wraith Queen!

Torri Higginson:
Great kisser. Those fangs.

David Read:
“The Long Goodbye,” you had another personality imposed on your character, and you became this person that Weir just wasn’t. This tyrant, this gun-wielding Sarah Connor… Who was this person? Did you find that episode freeing? Was it a lot more complicated because of a lot of the stunts that you had to do? I mean, you were jumping over banisters and everything.

Torri Higginson:
It’s true. I think I took down six guards.

David Read:
You did. And I think you did a lot of that.

Torri Higginson:
I did! They hired a stuntwoman, but in the end they just used me, which is so great… James Bamford was so wonderful.

David Read:
James “Bam Bam” Bamford.

Torri Higginson:
Was so wonderful, and he spent so much time with me, and he worked off the clock. We met together on the weekend. None of us got paid for it. He did that on his own. He was lovely, and I wanted to do it as well as I could. I loved it, it was so much fun. Because I used to do a lot of action stuff, and I am a pretty physical person, and so I was [inaudible] Weir.

David Read:
Weir just isn’t in that situation.

Torri Higginson:
I was feeling left out, going, “I wanna go out for a play!” So, for me that was super fun. I enjoyed it so much, playing cops and robbers and being the bad guy. So, much more fun being the bad guy.

David Read:
Such a different personality to play as well. Not that Weir is not a badass, she is, but this was a bad ass…

Torri Higginson:
This was a bad ass without any conscience.

David Read:
Exactly.

Torri Higginson:
Weir is just a different kind of bad ass.

David Read:
That’s exactly right. Connor Trinneer comes along later in the season. These experiments have been progressing… Beckett has been working on developing a treatment to make a Wraith a human again, to take out the Iratus bug. And you capture one and you turn him into a man. And I just rewatched the episode because we’re building some new content for the website, and Connor’s like, “You lied to me! I’m a Wraith! You turned me into something… You took me and you turned me into…”

Torri Higginson:
’Cause he forgets he’s a Wraith?

David Read:
He forgets… “What makes you think you can do this to me?” I’m getting tingles just thinking about that episode. I think that was another Carl script.

Torri Higginson:
I should watch that episode because that was such an interesting…

David Read:
That one is good!

Torri Higginson:
Dialogue, such an interesting, inquiring question. “What do you do?” … To simplify, we get rid of parasites every day in our bodies.

Torri Higginson:
We are killing off entire strains because, in our brain, that is not a life form that’s worthy of us.

David Read:
But when you have a life form that, to your knowledge, all it does is destroy your form of life.

Torri Higginson:
To our knowledge.

David Read:
To our knowledge. We don’t know them that well.

Torri Higginson:
All of our decisions in life only ever come from what knowledge and information we have and what perspective we have, and that is what is so interesting with sci-fi. Because you’re… you don’t know. We think… It’s that great New Yorker cartoon. This six and the nine, one person stands in front of the six… “Until I walk to where you are, you are absolutely wrong! This is a nine I’m standing in front of.”

David Read:
But the broader context as well is that a six or a nine in the broader context?

Torri Higginson:
But until I move over, I wouldn’t know, and I am absolutely right in my knowledge that this is nine, and I’m absolutely right in your knowledge that you are wrong, but what do you do when all we have is the information, the perspective we have?

David Read:
I think in a case like Stargate, it allows us to simplify the stories so that they can contain it in 44 minutes. This a species that was created by a life-sucking parasite, and all that they do is eat other humans. I think it would be more scarier if they actually ate them. But that is an aside. But it allows us to think about those questions though. That’s one of the reasons that I think Michael stands out is because… Is it right to destroy something else because it’s doing something to you? And Atlantis did a good job of asking those questions.

Torri Higginson:
And they are really hard questions to answer, and I don’t know how to. On a very… simple thing I’m going through with my dog… I’ve gotta get him neutered, I’ve gotta have his little balls snipped off. So, that’s… I’ve gotta F with nature because it’s convenient for the way I live. And for me, to live in a city, I don’t want…

David Read:
And in the state, it’s also regulation.

Torri Higginson:
It’s the state, but the regulation is, a lot of it is about convenience. We don’t want a bunch of dogs running around and we don’t want… it’s about our convenience. It’s over what is more important than what happens to nature. So, we’re adjusting nature to fit our convenience. And I know I’m gonna get my dog neutered, absolutely, but I am going through this struggle with it, going “Gosh, it feels like, I don’t have…”

David Read:
No, you should ask those kind of questions.

Torri Higginson:
Sci-fi does it in that big thing… Michael, did we have a right to try to destroy the Wraith? We walked into their world. And we woke them up…

David Read:
We did and we woke them up.

Torri Higginson:
Now… I don’t know the answers. I love the questions.

David Read:
That’s exactly… Getting back to that, it’s important to ask those questions, and he continues to be a parasite through Season Five. He takes over a lot of the galaxy, so a lot of those things that got…

Torri Higginson:
Go Michael! Go Michael!

David Read:
Jeez… Wow, girl!

Torri Higginson:
And I got kicked out of the galaxy. “They are on their own now, go Michael!”

David Read:
You got your ass blown back! Did you see that ratchet pull?

Torri Higginson:
No.

David Read:
You did not do that one? That was a… See, it’s still in there!

Torri Higginson:
That was extraordinary to watch them do that…

David Read:
So, you did see it?

Torri Higginson:
Because I would run right up to it and they would cut…

David Read:
The Wraith began to change as a species after what had been done with Michael. They start directly influencing other hives by trying to turn them into people. Did you find the direction of the show more precarious in terms of the kinds of subjects… the darker tone of the subjects that came about as the show evolved, or do you think that it maintained its lightness and its fluffiness pretty abundantly as well? Because there were a lot of those episodes that were… you have the game episodes which were fun, and you have episodes where we’re annihilating whole civilizations. Do you think the show struck a pretty appropriate balance?

Torri Higginson:
I think it did. I think that’s a lot of its appeal, I think that’s a lot of where the fandom gets so attached because it does seem to do both at a nice balance. I know when [Stargate] Universe came out they chose to go more dark and less light, and I know that that… the Stargate people ….

David Read:
There was a big reaction to it.

Torri Higginson:
They want that balance. It’s sort of a joke… ‘Cause we as actors, we want to be dramatic and we would always go to Brad and go, “We want it more like Battlestar, give us something dark!” But they’re “This is the franchise, there is lightness and there’s gotta be this irreverence, there’s gotta be this….” So, when they went to Universe… I remember… the actors we sort of looked for… “Oh, they went dark and we would’ve preferred to be a part of that” in a weird way, but then recognizing, “But that’s not the show. The show, the reason it’s loved so much is that balance.” That balance of irreverence, and that balance of playfulness. So, I think they did a great job. I think… SG-1 is the one that created that fabulous balance. They did it so perfectly with those actors, the way… I mean, the ire of Richard Dean Anderson is just delightful.

David Read:
Absolutely.

Torri Higginson:
The wryness, I suppose, is what I mean more than ire. The wryness of him. So, they did it so beautifully. So, I think they kept true to it for Atlantis, they kept true to that balance.

David Read:
So, do you, Torri Higginson, in a perfect world, look for something that is going to run the gamut of highs and lows in terms of something that you’re going to build, to really sink your teeth into, or do you want… prefer something that’s one direction, one time, and then darker direction, in another. What is it that you look for when you go for work? Aside from looking for a paycheck.

Torri Higginson:
A paycheck! Yeah, if I had… if I was in that one percent of the SAG union I could pick and choose my work, which would be so delightful. Just to pick and choose. I would never want to be famous, that would be an intrusion, but to have creative choice would be delightful. That is one of the more frustrating things as an actor, I think, is you have to wait for somebody to offer you the opportunity to do what you do. If I play guitar, I could practice at home alone. If I wrote, I could write. If I was an artist, I could paint. As an actor, I have to wait for somebody else to say, “Here is the script, here is the venue, here is the opportunity, here is the audience.”

David Read:
And then engage at that point in time, not just casually go around the house acting.

Torri Higginson:
Maybe. I could walk around my house and recite Shakespeare, but without an audience it ceases to be an art. You need that… What would I choose? If I had that choice, if I was able to pick and choose, I think what I would hope for would be as much varied experience as possible. I think I would hope to have… I don’t think there’s ever anything one-dimensional. I don’t think drama exists entirely without humor, and I don’t think you can have humor without some… I think there’s always natural overlays anyways. But I would want something different every time. I would hope to be challenged with a different…

David Read:
Kind of like your CBC series and dealing with a woman who has a lot of… and on top of that real world issues. “I have to leave behind my family.” Very different from Weir. But she was still a mother too. To that expedition.

Torri Higginson:
She was. I do feel I sort of get typecast a lot with these women who have… who are… strong, and have big hearts, and are very empathetic. They had those two things very similar, my character and the This Life show was very strong, very independent and nurturing and…

David Read:
Someone thinks you are doing it right then.

Torri Higginson:
I guess so. “I’m a good actor, because I’m cold-hearted at home. I don’t care about anybody.”

David Read:
I guess except for this pupper.

Torri Higginson:
Except for pup. Unless you got four legs, I love ya. Less than four… Meh, give or take.

David Read:
That’s funny. Season three. We’ve been going through a lot of the scarier episodes of the show. You had… I’m getting goosebumps just thinking about it. A tour de force in an episode called “The Real World,” where Weir goes inside of her mind and she thinks that instead of being in the Pegasus Galaxy, and instead of being at the Stargate Program, she’s in a mental institution. Which is, I think, a terror… I mean, Daniel goes through something similar in Season Three of SG-1, so there’s an interesting parallel there. But there is… there was a lot of meat for you, I think, in that episode because there was … it’s a terrifying situation to be in. And a lot of the imagery was very dark and creepy. Do you remember anything about filming that episode?

Torri Higginson:
Gosh, I had a great… That was an amazing episode to shoot. As an actor, it was so… the concept was so immediately accessible. If somebody just came in and told you, “Everything you know is not real.” That’s instant insanity, that’s instant. What do I… and everything… all of a sudden somebody just came and… all the walls fall down and everything…

David Read:
Losing your mind.

Torri Higginson:
It’s such a… So, this woman who has seen so many things has to take that in as a possibility. She has to, because that’s been her whole job up to then. It’s to look at what seems unreal and to accept it as a possibility. That was a really enjoyable and challenging episode to shoot, and I loved it. And I got to work a lot with Richard Dean Anderson, which is always a delight.

David Read:
Yes, and Alan Ruck. Two terrific actors.

Torri Higginson:
He is so great. And I just watched him recently in Succession. He is in Succession right now.

David Read:
Oh, I have not seen it.

Torri Higginson:
It’s so good, and he is so good. He was a joy to work with. It was really fun. I did laugh because I thought, “Oh gosh, whenever Weir gets Weir-centric episodes, she is acting by herself though.” I’m by myself crazy, or I’m acting against my 5,000-year-old self, and I’m like, “Hey, wait a minute, I’m still by myself!” But it was nice because it was such a different energy, such a different episode. Most of my stuff is shot in that beautiful Frank Lloyd Wright set. All of a sudden now we are in this haunted, abandoned mental home.

David Read:
Stargate didn’t do very horror very much. And Atlantis did the most of it, and later on there is the big one too. Big horror episode. But yours really set that tone pretty well.

Torri Higginson:
That Jacob’s Ladder thing. It had that sort of Jacob’s Ladder imagery of…

David Read:
That, absolutely. Being held down and being injected, it’s like it’s… Bam Bam was one of the guards in that scene.

Torri Higginson:
That’s right!

David Read:
Always seeing him there, like, “Spot Bam Bam in the show!” Sometimes he is a Wraith, sometimes he’s an orderly.

Torri Higginson:
It’s so great when he takes part. Because you just know you can just do anything. You know you are going to be safe and you can… you don’t have to worry about hurting him, you couldn’t… He is so lovely when he gets to do that.

David Read:
You can hurt him, he is OK.

Torri Higginson:
Oh, you’re perfect!

David Read:
We got a pupper down below right now, he’s just stretching and… “Hi… Yes! That’s a good boy.” So, Sunday was later on in that season, before things wound down for you and your Stargate journey. There was… one of the things that frustrated me about Weir is that she really never did have someone to lean her head on.

Torri Higginson:
To confide in.

David Read:
Yeah! And I think that that really, probably… Were Atlantis real, that probably would have been Tayla. It probably would have. Had girl’s night out and things like that. But I wish we would have seen more of her companionship with someone. A guy, a gal, whatever. Someone where she could say… because it’s heavy. What is it they say? The person on the top. The burden is always so strenuous.

Torri Higginson:
I think because you couldn’t get to know… I agree with you. I’m glad to hear you say that because I felt the same way. I thought, “We need to see her where she can be questioning herself, and where she can be vulnerable, and where she can be…” and we couldn’t. She just always had to have this thing about, “I’m defending my decision,” or, “I’m make”… and I agree with you. I think that would have been interesting.

David Read:
Because she’s not a perfect being. It’s so easy to look at a lot of these sci-fi series that have “these perfect women and they can do anything.” Sam Carter did get that criticism from time to time.

Torri Higginson:
Really?

David Read:
I think it was… I think Weir was a lot more balanced in some respects than Sam, because we did get to see her humanity. There weren’t always situations where, “Oh, I’ve got the answer!” And we got to see her confront that a lot, but interpersonally I think that the character would’ve been better served with a little bit more of that.

Torri Higginson:
Yeah, me too. I agree with you, and I think it would have been… as an actor it would have been nice. Because it would be easier to make really bold choices, like the Michael stuff, if we’d seen her struggle with them. If we’d seen her personally what it cost her. And you never really got to see what those decisions that she made cost her because you didn’t get to see her in her own… in an environment where she was just able to be authentic. So, I agree with you on that criticism.

David Read:
Yeah. And I think what really came to a head for me in… and I’m sure for you as well, particularly that in terms of making decisions or being subjected to observing decisions that you disagree with. In the final episode of Season Three, it’s an episode called “First Strike,” and a decision is made to go and attack an enemy preemptively. Well, nature… I mean, the name “First Strike…” Because we see them building warships against us, we’ve taken a look at them from high orbit and we find that they’re building ships. And so, this race of Replicators, which we’ve had a little bit of a relationship with David Ogden’s character, we go and wipe them out. And there is a great scene, and it has almost immediate consequences too, but there is a great scene with you and Teyla, and Rachel, where it’s like, “You know what? If we make it through this, I think I may have to step down. I can’t keep doing this.” There’s a problem that comes along. The military takes over and does it. They take over and they act with very little input from you. Was that… that must have been very easy to play because that’s what you had been, as Weir, dealing with.

Torri Higginson:
Exactly, exactly. It was… I remember… I had forgotten about that episode. I remember being relieved it had that scene, because I felt I wanted to express that frustration, so it was nice to be able to express that, that she was feeling that. The “Am I actually the leader, or am I not? And if I’m the leader, then you have to listen. Even if I make a bad choice, but I’m the leader.” But she didn’t have that. She did not have that autonomy. She didn’t. The military was…

David Read:
Easter egg for ya. That’s the same scene that you named Chuck.

Torri Higginson:
Oh, really?

David Read:
Yeah, the technician. Was that an ad-lib? Do you recall that? Was that in the script or did that just come out?

Torri Higginson:
I don’t remember now! I don’t remember. He was so lovely, that actor…

David Read:
He was a good guy.

Torri Higginson:
He was such a lovely… and he was… I can’t remember if we just… did we collectively decide he needs to be named now? He’s been there….

David Read:
And he was named himself!

Torri Higginson:
Yeah, or did it just by accident slip out his name? I don’t remember, to be honest.

David Read:
OK, that’s fair. At what point along Season Three… and I’m going to leave this up to you as to how much you want to share. At what point along Season Three did you determine, or what is not in Season Three at all… did you determine that… or whatever happened, that it was that this was going to be it for you? Was it a point in Season Three when it was like, “You know what, I think I’m ready to move on?” or did it come between the breaks between Season Three and four? Is this scene where Weir gets blown in the face a result of you wanting to move on, or the producers wanting a change, or was that just always written that way? Because I personally have never known.

Torri Higginson:
Well, OK, what happened in my perspective, everybody has a different perspective as well, especially with time and memory. In my perspective I was definitely frustrated in Season Three, because I felt that there’s this great character who wasn’t being utilized. I felt a day player more than actively being a part of moving the show forward, like moving the storyline forward, and I thought, “Gosh, they are paying this actress number two,” and I’m working one or two days of the week. So, I sort of felt not utilized, and I felt I would rather be there less often than, when I was there, actually doing something. Be more… integral.

David Read:
Yes, because you came back!

Torri Higginson:
Yeah, so I… my perception… I wasn’t thrilled with how I was… the information that was shared with me. It was brought to my attention, “This is what we are gonna do the end of the season, and it’s your choice if you wanna come back as a recurring character or not at all.” And I said, “Well, I’ll give it a try as recurring.” And then in Season Four I felt the way again. She was used, I thought, “This isn’t really doing it.” And to be honest, and no disrespect to Brad and those guys, I had such a good relationship with Joe now, who I was working with on Dark Matter.

David Read:
Yes, you did!

Torri Higginson:
My feeling at the time is, “Joe hates me. They just don’t like my character. They don’t want to write for her.” So, OK, so I left the show feeling that the new guard had just decided they didn’t like Weir. So, I left feeling a little bit hurt, to be honest. It’s been wonderful doing Dark Matter, getting to know Joe and going, “Oh, no, it was…” They had the same frustration that she wasn’t being utilized and, “What are we doing with her?” And it was… a challenging character to write, because it is a military show, and to have this leader who is not military, and I…

David Read:
She doesn’t fit a specific type in that environment, that is what made her interesting, I think.

Torri Higginson:
Yeah, and I think it made it at that point too. These writers who were now writing two different series, because SG-1 was still going, so they were having to double down on scripts. There is already thoughts in their minds probably about Universe, so they’ve got three different… So, what I think is happened… my perception is they weren’t excited for writing her because she was a very challenging person to write for, and they thought, “Well, let’s just dive into what we know really well, what we’re really comfortable with, and it would be easier to cut her loose.” So, when it was offered to be recurring, I said, “For sure.” And then, the nature of the show’s fifth season, they came back, and I said, “I’ll do it if I can read it first.” And I kind of felt I wanted them to tie her up because I felt Weir deserved more than just floating around in space.

David Read:
Oh, the ending where she walks through. So, you were given “Ghost in the Machine” in Season Five to review, to potentially play her…

Torri Higginson:
No, I think in the end they didn’t even give it to me, and I said, “Without that, I won’t do it then,” because I feel like she’s just floating around. “You are not tying up her storyline and I think she’s the kind of character that either has to be here with purpose or has to be honored and let go.” And I didn’t feel she was being there with purpose, or being honored and let go… so I did finally, for Season Five, say, “I kind of feel you are using her as a carrot to the fans, going, ‘No, no, Weir is here!’” for the people that love Weir, but there was no real reason for her to be in those episodes.

David Read:
So, you said “Floating around space,” and I’m thinking to myself in the end she is literally floating in space, so is that what you were referring to?

Torri Higginson:
Yeah.

David Read:
OK. I loved the episodes that you were in in Season Four. I thought that they… it was a noble sacrifice that she’s staying behind with the Replicators and allowing the others to get away in that jumper. It was a strong sequence. And when you came back it was telling more of those questions of, “What are we?” because she comes back as she’s been… not as herself because her physical form has died. And she’s part of a group of Replicators who are trying to figure out how to become energy and how to become more than what they are and trying to surpass being human or Ancient or whatever. And let me tell you something: I had a Stargate party the night that “Be All My Sins Remember’d” – 4.11 — aired, and we’re watching it and we’re loving it… the explosions and everything else, and we think it’s over. And there’s this little ship that comes through these asteroids or whatever’s left of the planet, and you appear in the last moment. And I’m still getting goose bumps thinking about that scene. That was so cool and unexpected! It was the most surprising moment out of the entire series.

Torri Higginson:
Is that when I’m my own spaceship and I’m in that brown leather outfit? I’m like, “Yeah, bring back… She could be evil Weir, she could be anything.”

David Read:
Yes! It’s time to begin. That was so cool. That outfit of yours in that last moment was so cool. Valerie Halverson designed that jacket.

Torri Higginson:
Wow!

David Read:
And I got to sell it at auction.

Torri Higginson:
How cool!

David Read:
Isn’t it amazing?

Torri Higginson:
Why didn’t they give us the chance to buy it? Cheeky.

David Read:
It had to go into storage in the event that someone needed to reuse it or reference it…

Torri Higginson:
That’s very cool. That’s very cool. I didn’t quite have her legs, but I wish I did. That’s cool, I love that outfit. I’m like, “Really? Really? I get to wear this now?” Like, “Three years in a red shirt.”

David Read:
It was fantastic, the leather and…

Torri Higginson:
It was great.

David Read:
What was it about any particular… so that was your favorite outfit?

Torri Higginson:
Yeah, without a doubt.

David Read:
I’m trying to figure out.

Torri Higginson:
I actually forgot about that and she brought it, and I was thinking… the black outfits we did at the end of Season Three, but I forgot about that one.

David Read:
It was shot very dark on camera, and then I saw it in person for the first time and thought, “Wow, it’s so different.”

Torri Higginson:
It was awesome!

David Read:
So, the costuming, the props, any particular gadgets or whatever that stood out to you over the years?

Torri Higginson:
I’m just amazed by everything they did. Both of those teams were extraordinary. How much stuff they had to come up with, how creative they had to be.

David Read:
Pretty much everything was built internally at that point. It was such a well-oiled machine.

Torri Higginson:
It was amazing. They are an amazing group of people, really lovely, really talented.

David Read:
I appreciate you taking the time to walk down memory lane here with us. This has been extremely exciting for me and something that I’ve been looking forward to for a really long time. You are such a cornerstone. You and Daniel and only a couple of others are the foundation of a series which is always trying to tell us… when you read between the lines… tell us about a better way to live and the possibilities that there are for all of us, if we listen to one another.

Torri Higginson:
That’s nice.

David Read:
And assume that the other side may be telling you something that you would want to hear and incorporate yourself. So, thank you for taking the time.

Torri Higginson:
That’s beautiful that that is what you get out of the show. That means… that’s lovely.

David Read:
I do!

Torri Higginson:
Thank you! It was lovely, it was lovely to revisit. What a memory lane.

David Read:
To the fans who have been watching you for 15 years. And the cameramen.

Torri Higginson:
Huge thank you to the fans. It amazes me now because, as I said, “You’re freelance, so I could work non-stop for three years and I might be really scared for four years,” like it literally does that, your whole…

David Read:
Ebbs and flows.

Torri Higginson:
There are times, the fans… you’ve gotta do convention and you are unemployed, you are frightened you might not work again, and people are lining up to say, “Thank you for the work you did in the past,” and it’s the most fabulous thing and amazing thing. I’m humbled by it, and so grateful for it, so thank you.

David Read:
Thank you for being here. I appreciate it very much.