top 10 reasons you should love amanda tapping (happy birthday s'!!)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY mosaiclife!!
I love you hard, heffer. So hard that I finished this picspam all for youuuu.
Funny story, to everyone else: I've had this picspam started since January. Not a joke. This was meant to be for picspammy's challenge way back when, and me being a heck of a procrastinator, did not complete it in time... for anything. But a BFF's birthday sure whips a girl into shape! I tell you. The things you do for your them. :D
So it's mosaiclife's birthday, and you should all head over here to a massive 'Happy Birthday S' birthday post and wish her a happy birthday. And then, of course, check out this picspam which has literally taken me five months to finish. That's GOT to be a record.
Warning: NOT dial-up friendly. Probably not high-speed friendly either. There's a ton of pictures, quotes, videos, etc. So be warned!
number ten
she's beautiful, adorable, sexy
and doesn't know it
Her genuine unawareness is, to me, makes her all of these things. Because time after time, interview after interview, you just come to understand that she doesn't think too highly of herself whatsoever. In fact, she'll practically deny that she's any of these things with a humility that I've never quite seen from an actress. I often wonder how one person can be simultaneously all of these things: both sexy and yet adorable, both gorgeous and yet cute. It really makes no sense, but Amanda Tapping is the grand exception to every law written. She's, in fact, her own law.
"I like playing sexy, savvy, intelligent, unapologetic women...because it's so not me!"
"I'd love to do something humorous. I don't pull off girly that well, I don't pull off that sort of sexy bombshelly, kind of giggly. I can't do that. I wish I could. It's one of my limitations. But I don't feel that I can do that very well, so humor most definitely.
But I think if I were to do anything sort of girly and sexy it would be because I'm smart and strong, [Sam Carter] is smart and strong and therefore sexy in a more mature way. You know what I mean? I don't do girly well."
number nine
she's a hands-on actress
from antarctica to doing her own stunts
Perhaps a lot of actors try to get to the hearts of the roles they're playing before they actually play them. With Amanda however, it seems that she'll not only dive right in and enjoy getting her hands dirty, she does it with a passion. She'll perform her own stunts until 'they won't let her' because it gets too dangerous and yet, she comes out with scratches and bruises still laughing. She went to the Arctic in 80 below weather to film for SG1 and came back refreshed and rejuvenated, realizing how much we've "fucked it up" back in the real world. She's an inspiration.
"[The Arctic] was freezing cold, minus 58 degrees, but beautiful and life-altering. I've never thought more clearly. I've never had such a sense of the importance of what we are doing on this earth and what we are not doing and how badly we are fucking it up."
Scott Ateah: "Amanda is amazing. This girl does her own stunts. Pretty well. We have a stunt girl the covers for her occasionally and she's only had one concussion, whereas our stunt girl has had (counting)..."
Amanda: "I got my concussion during the second episode of the 1st season called "The Enemy Within" where Major Kowalsky throws me against the back of the elevator."
"I beat up a lot of men, which is always fun," she says, laughing. "I've done a lot of my own stunts on this one so I'm throwing all our beautiful stunt boys around the studio, which is fantastic fun. They love it!"
stunt-work
number eight
her laugh
chipmunks and machine guns
Amanda's laugh would be normal and maybe even awkward if it wasn't for the fact that she makes fun of it herself. That makes her laugh the most adorable thing I've ever heard (or seen, because she honestly glows when she laughs). When this woman laughs, you'd swear you just left the ground for a moment, even though she thinks she sounds like a gopher on crack, and her friends used to duck under the table in high school when she laughed.
"I laugh...like a chipmunk. I used to, in high school, whenever I laughed, I sounded like a machine gun. All my friends would duck under the table in McDonalds where we went for lunch."
number seven
she loves conventions
and adores her fans
The fact that her fans are rendered speechless by her renders Amanda speechless. She's changed lives, and hearing that for herself is one of the most beautiful things to her. Every year, she attends the GABIT convention in the UK, an intimate setting with only ~200 fans. The fans who attend this event will tell you it was possibly the best experience they could ever wish for. Amanda adores the nature of her fans and has said time and time again that her convention experience attributes to why she loves her job so much, coming face to face with the people who support her in what she does and hearing their stories.
"Science fiction fans are so intelligent. It blows my mind the questions they ask and they're so detail oriented. They pick up on everything. If there's a single flaw in the show they will find it. Which is great, because it keeps us on our toes."
number six
she's a talented, diverse actress
technobabble, comedic timing, and losing her shit
Amanda can go from army boots to stilettos, lapse into a very convincing British accent, go from serious and mellow to losing her shit, all in a matter of just several seconds. She's proven her diversity and talent as an actress in ten years of SG1 and a wonderful season of Sanctuary and will only continue to wow us in the future.
"Gemini stands out because I got to play two versions of Carter. I played the Replicator version of Carter and the real Carter. We have a lot of scenes together. It was probably the hardest episode of Stargate I've ever done, both from a technical standpoint and from an acting standpoint. These are two very different characters and I was doing scenes with them together. So we were doing one side of the scene, then the other side of the scene. Just the memorizing alone was huge, a huge amount of homework. Then I had to do it on the set. I had to make sure I got all the nuances of the characters so that you could see the subtle and not so subtle differences between them. It was a challenge to keep them both real.
She's a sexier version of Carter. She's tougher. She had this little outfit on. She was a tough nut, a lot of fun to play. This year, really, I've played three different versions of Carter: Sam, the Sam we all know and love; Replicator Sam, this cold, harsh character; and later this season you'll see me playing an alternate reality Carter who never went into the military and she's a bit of a science geek and kind of dorky. It was quite fun, a very comedic character."
number five
helen magnus
157 years of living history
When Amanda puts on her army boots slips into her stilettos to play the role of Helen Magnus, she has so many things, as an actress, to consider when conveying this character. First and foremost, the accent, which has had many mixed reviews. As she ironically points out, the Brits love it and the Americans hate it. Personally, I think her portrayal of the accent is brilliant. Next, she has to consider that the woman she is conveying has 157 years of history under her belt, laden with regret, sorrows, experiences, all of which form this magnificent character she has taken up. Episodes like Requiem, however, prove that Amanda has the abilities as an actress to play the part of Helen Magnus. This character has provided some of the "best acting" she has ever done in her life.
"Requiem was very much like the alternate Carter episodes in that I was playing a very different version of my character. It’s always fun to change things up and find the dark side. I just felt that with Requiem I stretched my wings even further. I think part of it is having more life experience under my belt. And part of it is feeling braver as a person. It just felt like a new level for me personally."
"I work with sanctioned beings, each worthy of the same respect that humans - even animals - receive automatically. These creatures are the key to the evolution of our race, both past and future, and yet we revile them, destroy them, and worst of all, pretend they don't even exist."
number four
sam carter
saving the world in army boots, a p-90, and technobabble
Sam Carter is a complicated character. How is she complicated, you might ask? Well, not only is she a theoretical astrophysicist (meaning, she's way smarter than you are) and therefore rambles on and on about...smart things, the role also calls for Amanda to play several variations of the Sam Carter character, sometimes dozens in just one episode. This is because SG1 explores 'alternate realities' from time to time, in which we meet different variations of Carter. Besides being smart, Carter is also a tough soldier with a great attitude, she occasionally deals with the obstacle of pushing away feelings for her superior officer that she's not allowed to have, and she also has a very strong woman who believes in the power of women in society. All of these things Amanda brings out in her like no other actress could.
"One of my favorite episodes for the character in Singularity in which the team goes to a planet where all the people have died from a disease and the sole survivor is a little girl," she says. "This episode allows Carter to open up her heart. She becomes very attached to this child and the child becomes very attached to her. She has to make a difficult choice with regard to the girl. I like the episode because it challenges me emotionally and it allowed us to see Carter's need to be loved and her ability to love, which, in the course of a Sci-Fi Action adventure, isn't always possible."
It's not like it's astrophysics.
"Just because my reproductive organs are on the inside instead of the out doesn't mean I can't handle whatever you can."
Jacob: "It can't be any harder then blowing up a sun."
Sam: "You know, you destroy one sun and suddenly everyone expects you to walk on water."
Jacob: "There you go..."
Sam: "Hmm... Next step, parting the Red Sea."
number three
she's intelligent
it takes brains to correct carter!
One of the more popular questions she's been asked over the years is whether or not the technobabble she often had to recite for Sam Carter was difficult for her, and without a beat, she replies "no". Why? She won both the science award and the acting award in high school, so playing a scientist on TV wasn't at all difficult for her. If she ever got mixed-up, she would break things down into layman's terms until she understood what she was saying. One time, she even corrected the SG1 writers on one of Carter's math problems. Who knew geeks could be so pretty?
"A few months ago, I was in New Zealand for a convention and a fan asked me a very technical question about an aqueduct and hyperdrive engines, and I came up with this answer that even blew me away. I stopped, and the people who were sitting around me said, 'Wow, you really know how that works.' And I went, 'Yeah, I guess I do.' It shocked me. It was just completely impromptu. This man asked me a question and I said, 'Well, you can't do that because it's like mixing water and oil in the... and duh-duh-duh-duh.' And I thought, 'Oh my gosh, I know stuff.' I was proud of myself."
Amanda Tapping vs. David Hewlett
I still think Amanda won. :) A) she wrote it, and B) she actually knew what she was talking about. Sorry David! But good try!
"Actually, not so much anymore, because I truly understand what I am saying, and I've done a lot of research. So now I actually understand the science of what I am talking about, even though the writers really like to cram it in there sometimes. But I like the challenge, and I like the learning."
number two
her sense of humor
puff and ruffle, the 'man', and swans with attitudes
"I don't have any other transferable skills. Although, right now I'm pretty good at renovating. If I weren't an actor, I think I probably would of gone into medicine. Would've like to of been a doctors without boarders. Or a photo journalist. Or a marine biologist. Maybe a vet. A farmer. I'd liked to be a farmer. Or scientist. Doctor-scientist-farmer-journalist-photo-guy...girl."
Me!
(on leading Atlantis) "I used to stick it to the man. Now I am the man. Sucks. I have to be honest, it's really been difficult. There's times in scenes where I want to pick up the slack when Rodney starts rambling and finish his thoughts for him and I can't. Me, Amanda, wants to do that for David but Carter also wants to do that for McKay, and she can't. Her leadership style is very set back and let her people shine. It's a huge transition for her. Huge difference. It's frustrating, Carter finds it frustrating and I find it frustrating a little bit. But you know - I'm also the man so...the man. You know, not a man...a man, not gender man...the man."
"The Asgard puppet [Thor] is a bit of a prima donna. He has, like, an entourage of at least five people. Bit of a sexual deviant. He harasses women. It's what he does. He's touched my bum on more than one occasion and claimed that he didn't know he was doing it. 'I couldn't feel it,' he said, 'through my rubber hands.' I don't know. I think he's a liar."
Have you ever been attacked by an animal?
"I was chased by a swan through High Park. I don’t know what I did to annoy it, I just think swans have an attitude problem. You just need to give them a wrong look and then watch out."
SciFi porn
Mr. McUseless
number one
she's genuine, humble, and real
and a mom, above all!
"Amanda Tapping," she says, clearly on a roll, "is a huge idealist. I don't understand why things aren't equal. I don't understand how people can hate people because of the color of their skin, their religion or their gender. I've never understood it. I find it ultimately frustrating. And I could probably drive myself completely insane if I continue to think about it on a daily basis. But I think the best thing I can do is just try to make my corner of the world as copacetic as I can, as free from this kind of bias as I can." Then almost as an afterthought, she laughs at her small diatribe, and says, "Without being too heady about it, you know - still have fun."
"I have to find the time [to relax], this is something that I'm trying to do now. I go to the gym every morning for an hour, and I've started to actually - I used to just go just three mornings a week, now I'm going every day, just so I can, even if it's just running. That's my time, I'm taking hot yoga, that's my time to myself, but otherwise, no. I mean, there's really - there's only 24 hours in a day and they seem to be pretty full, and I love being a mom, so given the opportunity to give to the gym or hang out with Olivia, I'll stay in with Olivia...You know, give me the opportunity to go shopping by myself or hang out with Olivia, I'm gonna hang out with Olivia. So I don't have a lot of time to myself, but I don't begrudge it at all."
"I [love painting] on canvas, I put acrylic on canvas, and Olivia does acrylic on... everything else. The whole house. Yeah. And I love it. Sitting there and mixing colors with her and teaching her about colors."
"[However,] having done so much exploration into [Carter's] heart and soul, she has a softness to her now. We'll see what happens, though, the next time she's in battle. By that I mean with me, Amanda, there's the mother lion in me now. I've realized that for the first time in my life I'm actually capable of killing, and that makes me cry. If anyone tried to lay a finger on my child, I'd kill them, and that's quite a revelation. I relate that to work insofar as there's a new level of fierceness to Carter that we'll see. I always knew that as a soldier she could kill, and she has, but now there's an entirely new drive behind it, because as an actress I can bring that to the table."
"Do I have to be a hundred and ten pounds, and are my tits big enough, and am I pretty enough, and do I need to get a facelift - not that I've ever felt I needed to get a facelift, and I hope I never do feel this way. I hope I can age and allow age to be a factor in what I play instead of just trying to be 'beautiful girl'. Luckily in my career I've never played bodacious bimbos, I've always steered clear of that. Thankfully for the most part I've been given women who are intelligent with something interesting to say."
AT.Com: "You have received a number of awards and nominations for your work as an actor and now as an executive producer. There were Leo Awards, Gemini Awards, SciFi Genre Awards, and personally I hope you get recognized for Requiem. What do you think you 20 years ago would say to this and how would you react?"
Amanda: "I wouldn't have believed it. I think, you know - this is gonna sound...hokey. I'm so happy to do what I do for a living. Honestly, at the end of a day, I love what I do. I love the people I work with. The awards are wonderful, but it's like icing on a really really great cake...the awards that mean the most to me are things like Women of Vision award from Women in Film, where I am being honored by my peers for my work outside of just acting. You know, I was really stoked by the Canadian Comedy Award, because it was nice to be recognized for something outside of sci-fi. But, you know Leo Awards and then Gemini nominations and Saturns...it's sort of like, 'Wow, and this TOO?' I am too lucky! What I get to do, what I love to do for a living, make money doing it and I get awards, too? It just seems, you know, it's too much. It's...I just, I am really grateful. Gosh, I really am."
"I have enough people in my life that are very grounded and caring," she smiles, "who would kick my butt if I started getting an ego, and I hope that if it hasn't happened by this point, it won't. Nothing about it me has changed since I got Stargate, except the fact that I'm actually more humble. I still have the same husband and family, I still have the same feeling emotionally about injustices I see in this world, and I still have the same feelings of joy about things that make me really happy... So nothing intrinsically about Amanda has changed. Every morning I thank my lucky stars. I think the trick in life and in anything you do is: never take it for granted."
THE END
→ do not use any of the above material for artwork please
→ thanks to murphy987 for uploading a few of those YouTube videos for me
→ thanks to lilferret for a few of the 2008 ComiCon photos
→ thanks to savvy_elf for the usage of her Creation Con photo op
→ thanks to everyline for moral support ("ARE YOU FINISHED YETTTT?") over the last five months
→ AND HAPPY FRICKIN' BIRTHDAY TO mosaiclife!! :)
Now, really. Who couldn't love this woman? In all seriousness, she's changed my life in more ways than I can express. If you've been touched by this incredible woman, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Thanks for journeying through this with me! I hope you've gotten a glimpse at how amazing the wonderful Amanda Tapping is from this picspam (if you haven't already experienced the wonder that is her), but don't let that stop you. Here's a few links to check out:
Amanda's Official Site
→ There is currently a HUGELY genius charity project underway called "Sanctuary For All", so I advise you to check that out.
Amanda Tapping Online
→ a wonderful resource for Amanda pictures
puffandruffle
→ A community run by mosaiclife and I for all your latest Amanda news and pictures!
I love you hard, heffer. So hard that I finished this picspam all for youuuu.
Funny story, to everyone else: I've had this picspam started since January. Not a joke. This was meant to be for picspammy's challenge way back when, and me being a heck of a procrastinator, did not complete it in time... for anything. But a BFF's birthday sure whips a girl into shape! I tell you. The things you do for your them. :D
So it's mosaiclife's birthday, and you should all head over here to a massive 'Happy Birthday S' birthday post and wish her a happy birthday. And then, of course, check out this picspam which has literally taken me five months to finish. That's GOT to be a record.
Warning: NOT dial-up friendly. Probably not high-speed friendly either. There's a ton of pictures, quotes, videos, etc. So be warned!
number ten
she's beautiful, adorable, sexy
and doesn't know it
Her genuine unawareness is, to me, makes her all of these things. Because time after time, interview after interview, you just come to understand that she doesn't think too highly of herself whatsoever. In fact, she'll practically deny that she's any of these things with a humility that I've never quite seen from an actress. I often wonder how one person can be simultaneously all of these things: both sexy and yet adorable, both gorgeous and yet cute. It really makes no sense, but Amanda Tapping is the grand exception to every law written. She's, in fact, her own law.
"I like playing sexy, savvy, intelligent, unapologetic women...because it's so not me!"
"I'd love to do something humorous. I don't pull off girly that well, I don't pull off that sort of sexy bombshelly, kind of giggly. I can't do that. I wish I could. It's one of my limitations. But I don't feel that I can do that very well, so humor most definitely.
But I think if I were to do anything sort of girly and sexy it would be because I'm smart and strong, [Sam Carter] is smart and strong and therefore sexy in a more mature way. You know what I mean? I don't do girly well."
number nine
she's a hands-on actress
from antarctica to doing her own stunts
Perhaps a lot of actors try to get to the hearts of the roles they're playing before they actually play them. With Amanda however, it seems that she'll not only dive right in and enjoy getting her hands dirty, she does it with a passion. She'll perform her own stunts until 'they won't let her' because it gets too dangerous and yet, she comes out with scratches and bruises still laughing. She went to the Arctic in 80 below weather to film for SG1 and came back refreshed and rejuvenated, realizing how much we've "fucked it up" back in the real world. She's an inspiration.
"[The Arctic] was freezing cold, minus 58 degrees, but beautiful and life-altering. I've never thought more clearly. I've never had such a sense of the importance of what we are doing on this earth and what we are not doing and how badly we are fucking it up."
Scott Ateah: "Amanda is amazing. This girl does her own stunts. Pretty well. We have a stunt girl the covers for her occasionally and she's only had one concussion, whereas our stunt girl has had (counting)..."
Amanda: "I got my concussion during the second episode of the 1st season called "The Enemy Within" where Major Kowalsky throws me against the back of the elevator."
"I beat up a lot of men, which is always fun," she says, laughing. "I've done a lot of my own stunts on this one so I'm throwing all our beautiful stunt boys around the studio, which is fantastic fun. They love it!"
stunt-work
Click to viewnumber eight
her laugh
chipmunks and machine guns
Amanda's laugh would be normal and maybe even awkward if it wasn't for the fact that she makes fun of it herself. That makes her laugh the most adorable thing I've ever heard (or seen, because she honestly glows when she laughs). When this woman laughs, you'd swear you just left the ground for a moment, even though she thinks she sounds like a gopher on crack, and her friends used to duck under the table in high school when she laughed.
"I laugh...like a chipmunk. I used to, in high school, whenever I laughed, I sounded like a machine gun. All my friends would duck under the table in McDonalds where we went for lunch."
number seven
she loves conventions
and adores her fans
The fact that her fans are rendered speechless by her renders Amanda speechless. She's changed lives, and hearing that for herself is one of the most beautiful things to her. Every year, she attends the GABIT convention in the UK, an intimate setting with only ~200 fans. The fans who attend this event will tell you it was possibly the best experience they could ever wish for. Amanda adores the nature of her fans and has said time and time again that her convention experience attributes to why she loves her job so much, coming face to face with the people who support her in what she does and hearing their stories.
"Science fiction fans are so intelligent. It blows my mind the questions they ask and they're so detail oriented. They pick up on everything. If there's a single flaw in the show they will find it. Which is great, because it keeps us on our toes."
number six
she's a talented, diverse actress
technobabble, comedic timing, and losing her shit
Amanda can go from army boots to stilettos, lapse into a very convincing British accent, go from serious and mellow to losing her shit, all in a matter of just several seconds. She's proven her diversity and talent as an actress in ten years of SG1 and a wonderful season of Sanctuary and will only continue to wow us in the future.
"Gemini stands out because I got to play two versions of Carter. I played the Replicator version of Carter and the real Carter. We have a lot of scenes together. It was probably the hardest episode of Stargate I've ever done, both from a technical standpoint and from an acting standpoint. These are two very different characters and I was doing scenes with them together. So we were doing one side of the scene, then the other side of the scene. Just the memorizing alone was huge, a huge amount of homework. Then I had to do it on the set. I had to make sure I got all the nuances of the characters so that you could see the subtle and not so subtle differences between them. It was a challenge to keep them both real.
She's a sexier version of Carter. She's tougher. She had this little outfit on. She was a tough nut, a lot of fun to play. This year, really, I've played three different versions of Carter: Sam, the Sam we all know and love; Replicator Sam, this cold, harsh character; and later this season you'll see me playing an alternate reality Carter who never went into the military and she's a bit of a science geek and kind of dorky. It was quite fun, a very comedic character."
number five
helen magnus
157 years of living history
When Amanda puts on her army boots slips into her stilettos to play the role of Helen Magnus, she has so many things, as an actress, to consider when conveying this character. First and foremost, the accent, which has had many mixed reviews. As she ironically points out, the Brits love it and the Americans hate it. Personally, I think her portrayal of the accent is brilliant. Next, she has to consider that the woman she is conveying has 157 years of history under her belt, laden with regret, sorrows, experiences, all of which form this magnificent character she has taken up. Episodes like Requiem, however, prove that Amanda has the abilities as an actress to play the part of Helen Magnus. This character has provided some of the "best acting" she has ever done in her life.
"Requiem was very much like the alternate Carter episodes in that I was playing a very different version of my character. It’s always fun to change things up and find the dark side. I just felt that with Requiem I stretched my wings even further. I think part of it is having more life experience under my belt. And part of it is feeling braver as a person. It just felt like a new level for me personally."
"I work with sanctioned beings, each worthy of the same respect that humans - even animals - receive automatically. These creatures are the key to the evolution of our race, both past and future, and yet we revile them, destroy them, and worst of all, pretend they don't even exist."
number four
sam carter
saving the world in army boots, a p-90, and technobabble
Sam Carter is a complicated character. How is she complicated, you might ask? Well, not only is she a theoretical astrophysicist (meaning, she's way smarter than you are) and therefore rambles on and on about...smart things, the role also calls for Amanda to play several variations of the Sam Carter character, sometimes dozens in just one episode. This is because SG1 explores 'alternate realities' from time to time, in which we meet different variations of Carter. Besides being smart, Carter is also a tough soldier with a great attitude, she occasionally deals with the obstacle of pushing away feelings for her superior officer that she's not allowed to have, and she also has a very strong woman who believes in the power of women in society. All of these things Amanda brings out in her like no other actress could.
"One of my favorite episodes for the character in Singularity in which the team goes to a planet where all the people have died from a disease and the sole survivor is a little girl," she says. "This episode allows Carter to open up her heart. She becomes very attached to this child and the child becomes very attached to her. She has to make a difficult choice with regard to the girl. I like the episode because it challenges me emotionally and it allowed us to see Carter's need to be loved and her ability to love, which, in the course of a Sci-Fi Action adventure, isn't always possible."
It's not like it's astrophysics.
"Just because my reproductive organs are on the inside instead of the out doesn't mean I can't handle whatever you can."
Jacob: "It can't be any harder then blowing up a sun."
Sam: "You know, you destroy one sun and suddenly everyone expects you to walk on water."
Jacob: "There you go..."
Sam: "Hmm... Next step, parting the Red Sea."
number three
she's intelligent
it takes brains to correct carter!
One of the more popular questions she's been asked over the years is whether or not the technobabble she often had to recite for Sam Carter was difficult for her, and without a beat, she replies "no". Why? She won both the science award and the acting award in high school, so playing a scientist on TV wasn't at all difficult for her. If she ever got mixed-up, she would break things down into layman's terms until she understood what she was saying. One time, she even corrected the SG1 writers on one of Carter's math problems. Who knew geeks could be so pretty?
"A few months ago, I was in New Zealand for a convention and a fan asked me a very technical question about an aqueduct and hyperdrive engines, and I came up with this answer that even blew me away. I stopped, and the people who were sitting around me said, 'Wow, you really know how that works.' And I went, 'Yeah, I guess I do.' It shocked me. It was just completely impromptu. This man asked me a question and I said, 'Well, you can't do that because it's like mixing water and oil in the... and duh-duh-duh-duh.' And I thought, 'Oh my gosh, I know stuff.' I was proud of myself."
Amanda Tapping vs. David Hewlett
I still think Amanda won. :) A) she wrote it, and B) she actually knew what she was talking about. Sorry David! But good try!
"Actually, not so much anymore, because I truly understand what I am saying, and I've done a lot of research. So now I actually understand the science of what I am talking about, even though the writers really like to cram it in there sometimes. But I like the challenge, and I like the learning."
number two
her sense of humor
puff and ruffle, the 'man', and swans with attitudes
"I don't have any other transferable skills. Although, right now I'm pretty good at renovating. If I weren't an actor, I think I probably would of gone into medicine. Would've like to of been a doctors without boarders. Or a photo journalist. Or a marine biologist. Maybe a vet. A farmer. I'd liked to be a farmer. Or scientist. Doctor-scientist-farmer-journalist-photo-guy...girl."
Me!
(on leading Atlantis) "I used to stick it to the man. Now I am the man. Sucks. I have to be honest, it's really been difficult. There's times in scenes where I want to pick up the slack when Rodney starts rambling and finish his thoughts for him and I can't. Me, Amanda, wants to do that for David but Carter also wants to do that for McKay, and she can't. Her leadership style is very set back and let her people shine. It's a huge transition for her. Huge difference. It's frustrating, Carter finds it frustrating and I find it frustrating a little bit. But you know - I'm also the man so...the man. You know, not a man...a man, not gender man...the man."
"The Asgard puppet [Thor] is a bit of a prima donna. He has, like, an entourage of at least five people. Bit of a sexual deviant. He harasses women. It's what he does. He's touched my bum on more than one occasion and claimed that he didn't know he was doing it. 'I couldn't feel it,' he said, 'through my rubber hands.' I don't know. I think he's a liar."
Have you ever been attacked by an animal?
"I was chased by a swan through High Park. I don’t know what I did to annoy it, I just think swans have an attitude problem. You just need to give them a wrong look and then watch out."
SciFi porn
Mr. McUseless
number one
she's genuine, humble, and real
and a mom, above all!
"Amanda Tapping," she says, clearly on a roll, "is a huge idealist. I don't understand why things aren't equal. I don't understand how people can hate people because of the color of their skin, their religion or their gender. I've never understood it. I find it ultimately frustrating. And I could probably drive myself completely insane if I continue to think about it on a daily basis. But I think the best thing I can do is just try to make my corner of the world as copacetic as I can, as free from this kind of bias as I can." Then almost as an afterthought, she laughs at her small diatribe, and says, "Without being too heady about it, you know - still have fun."
"I have to find the time [to relax], this is something that I'm trying to do now. I go to the gym every morning for an hour, and I've started to actually - I used to just go just three mornings a week, now I'm going every day, just so I can, even if it's just running. That's my time, I'm taking hot yoga, that's my time to myself, but otherwise, no. I mean, there's really - there's only 24 hours in a day and they seem to be pretty full, and I love being a mom, so given the opportunity to give to the gym or hang out with Olivia, I'll stay in with Olivia...You know, give me the opportunity to go shopping by myself or hang out with Olivia, I'm gonna hang out with Olivia. So I don't have a lot of time to myself, but I don't begrudge it at all."
"I [love painting] on canvas, I put acrylic on canvas, and Olivia does acrylic on... everything else. The whole house. Yeah. And I love it. Sitting there and mixing colors with her and teaching her about colors."
"[However,] having done so much exploration into [Carter's] heart and soul, she has a softness to her now. We'll see what happens, though, the next time she's in battle. By that I mean with me, Amanda, there's the mother lion in me now. I've realized that for the first time in my life I'm actually capable of killing, and that makes me cry. If anyone tried to lay a finger on my child, I'd kill them, and that's quite a revelation. I relate that to work insofar as there's a new level of fierceness to Carter that we'll see. I always knew that as a soldier she could kill, and she has, but now there's an entirely new drive behind it, because as an actress I can bring that to the table."
"Do I have to be a hundred and ten pounds, and are my tits big enough, and am I pretty enough, and do I need to get a facelift - not that I've ever felt I needed to get a facelift, and I hope I never do feel this way. I hope I can age and allow age to be a factor in what I play instead of just trying to be 'beautiful girl'. Luckily in my career I've never played bodacious bimbos, I've always steered clear of that. Thankfully for the most part I've been given women who are intelligent with something interesting to say."
AT.Com: "You have received a number of awards and nominations for your work as an actor and now as an executive producer. There were Leo Awards, Gemini Awards, SciFi Genre Awards, and personally I hope you get recognized for Requiem. What do you think you 20 years ago would say to this and how would you react?"
Amanda: "I wouldn't have believed it. I think, you know - this is gonna sound...hokey. I'm so happy to do what I do for a living. Honestly, at the end of a day, I love what I do. I love the people I work with. The awards are wonderful, but it's like icing on a really really great cake...the awards that mean the most to me are things like Women of Vision award from Women in Film, where I am being honored by my peers for my work outside of just acting. You know, I was really stoked by the Canadian Comedy Award, because it was nice to be recognized for something outside of sci-fi. But, you know Leo Awards and then Gemini nominations and Saturns...it's sort of like, 'Wow, and this TOO?' I am too lucky! What I get to do, what I love to do for a living, make money doing it and I get awards, too? It just seems, you know, it's too much. It's...I just, I am really grateful. Gosh, I really am."
"I have enough people in my life that are very grounded and caring," she smiles, "who would kick my butt if I started getting an ego, and I hope that if it hasn't happened by this point, it won't. Nothing about it me has changed since I got Stargate, except the fact that I'm actually more humble. I still have the same husband and family, I still have the same feeling emotionally about injustices I see in this world, and I still have the same feelings of joy about things that make me really happy... So nothing intrinsically about Amanda has changed. Every morning I thank my lucky stars. I think the trick in life and in anything you do is: never take it for granted."
THE END
→ do not use any of the above material for artwork please
→ thanks to murphy987 for uploading a few of those YouTube videos for me
→ thanks to lilferret for a few of the 2008 ComiCon photos
→ thanks to savvy_elf for the usage of her Creation Con photo op
→ thanks to everyline for moral support ("ARE YOU FINISHED YETTTT?") over the last five months
→ AND HAPPY FRICKIN' BIRTHDAY TO mosaiclife!! :)
Now, really. Who couldn't love this woman? In all seriousness, she's changed my life in more ways than I can express. If you've been touched by this incredible woman, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Thanks for journeying through this with me! I hope you've gotten a glimpse at how amazing the wonderful Amanda Tapping is from this picspam (if you haven't already experienced the wonder that is her), but don't let that stop you. Here's a few links to check out:
Amanda's Official Site
→ There is currently a HUGELY genius charity project underway called "Sanctuary For All", so I advise you to check that out.
Amanda Tapping Online
→ a wonderful resource for Amanda pictures
puffandruffle
→ A community run by mosaiclife and I for all your latest Amanda news and pictures!