elcome to Mary McDonnell Vault, your online resource dedicated to actress Mary McDonnell. You better know Mary for her role as Captain Sharon Raydor for the TNT crime series The Closer & Major Crimes. But she also did others like Battlestar Galactica, Independence Day, Donnie Darko, Dances with Wolves, Sneakers and many others. Site is comprehensive of a big photogallery with events, photoshoots, magazines, stills, an extensive press library to collect all the articles and interviews on her and a video gallery section for recorded interviews, sneak peeks and trailers of her projects. We claim no rights to know her personally and it's absolutely respectful of her privacy and paparazzi-free!!!

Battlestar Galactica 2K cast interview

N/A

March 3, 2006


Article taken from Trip Hammered (check the source for more BSG actors’s Q&A)

Do you want Laura to turn out to be a cylon?
I don’t think about it much. I prefer not to think about it. It’s being asked of me more and more, because now, of course, she does have cylon DNA in her and that’s going to probably be something that we have to deal with sooner or later in some way or another. Would I want her to become a cylon? No, I don’t think so. I think Laura’s function in the show, as far as I can see at the moment, is to hopefully find a way to grow beyond the prejudice towards the cylon, as well as maintain leadership. I think that’s her juggling act. I think that that’s our job on the planet right now, and so I love being positioned to struggle with that issue of being in a position of leadership and knowing you’re trying to survive and trying whenever possible to rise above survival instincts and take the higher road. Can Laura get to the point where she would be fearless enough to allow the cylon to not be the other, to me, that would be an unbelievably exciting growth. If she became a cylon, I cannot even imagine what that would be, so I just don’t think about it.

And they way ‘Downloaded’ ended, with Six and Sharon teaming up, it sort of seems like the series may be heading that way. So you think Laura will play a part in that?
I don’t know if she will be used as an instrument, or if she’ll be used as a detriment in order to demonstrate what needs to be instrumental, or some of all of the above. I don’t really know. I think that Laura is a very interesting human being. A lot of people can relate to how she responds to the situation, but we don’t know at this point where we’re headed. I mean, we have a few outlines that we’ve seen for next season, but they’re still pretty vague, so Eddie [James Olmos] and I are kind of sitting there going ‘What? What do you think?! Uhhh, What do you think’s gonna happen?!’ You know what I mean? It’s a lot of fun actually. I really don’t know where they’re going to take her, but the possibilities are endless at the moment. And you know, for me, and Laura, as played and as I experienced it, this gal does not give up easily. She just doesn’t. If she were that kind of person, there’s absolutely no way she would have been able to grow that quickly into her position. Now that she is no longer dying, it’s a little confusing for me as an actress because the idea of my mortality or a shortened existence was central to where I felt her courage came from. Sort of like a nothing to lose kind of thing. Get one thing done to save humanity cause you’re goin’, so it isn’t about you, it’s not about your life, and it’s not about politics because you don’t have any. And you don’t have an administration and you don’t have any of those things that would normally surround a president and influence the way they make a choice. Without that suddenly, and she’s alive and healthy and has cylon DNA, she’s walking around a little bit stumped, and it will be very, very interesting to see where and when she grounds herself and figures out ‘What’s the purpose now?’ What is destiny going to reveal that she is supposed to do next? That’s kind of where she is by the end of season two.

Are you excited about season three?
Yeah, I am. Because we don’t know. We so don’t know what’s going to happen and we’re so all in it together. And we’re so intrinsic to each other and that’s a very exciting thing. We feel so connected. Nobody knows what’s really going to happen to anyone. I mean, we have little bits and pieces and we’ll get the outlines, but mostly we feel like an ensemble waiting for the next way to tell the story, waiting for the next way to keep it relevant. And because the show has grown so much in popularity, it’s being honored right now in ways that are truly gratifying. This show is bringing these ideas to the edge of television. We’re in a whole new place now, and that’s very exciting.

Are you surprised by how rabid the fans are?
I’m not surprised by how much people can love the show because I saw it in the pilot. When they sent me the pilot, I laughed. I mean, Battlestar Galactica and me?! I didn’t see it at all! I’m like the real person and the Sci Fi world, to me, was always so pristine and strange, I said ‘Well, what would I be doing in there?!’ But then I read it and I thought ‘Oh no, I had this feeling when I read Dances With Wolves. I had the same feeling. Oh no, no. This is right there. This is exactly where the culture is. This is exactly what we need to look at. It’s going to bring up a multitude of things from inside of people’s souls. From out of their consciousness will come their response to this show. This is right on the edge.’ So I wasn’t surprised by that. What I have been delighted by is the level of commitment and intelligent response among the fans. Why am I surprised by that? I never did a television show like this before and I guess we all have this idea, which is just a terrible prejudice about Sci Fi geeks. Turns out, wrong. If ‘geek’ means smart and articulate and really devoted, we should all be. You know what I’m saying?! And so I’ve been thrilled.


Script developed by Never Enough Design