Higginson: Playing Weir is a challenge

With two years as Dr. Elizabeth Weir under her belt, actress Torri Higginson is still impressed by the challenges of playing the leader of the Stargate Atlantis expedition. In a new interview with GateWorld, the actress shared her special insight on what makes Weir tick — and on what makes her such an unusual character for television.

“I’ve had to fight against a lot of my instincts,” Higginson told GateWorld. “As an actor you want everyone to like you. You either want everyone to hate you or you want everyone to like you. You don’t want to be the middle person. And [Weir] kind of is the middle person. She’s not a hateable character because has does have a lot of heart. But she does have to say ‘No’ a lot of the time against these exciting missions. So that makes people irritated or short with her.

“That’s been something that I chose to then make her more internal. That was a choice that was frustrating because it meant, ‘Oh, it means I don’t get to show everything I can do.’ You always want to show people your heart. I’ve had to reel that in and hold on to my heart a bit more and be strong and stoic and silent — and be OK with asking questions instead of knowing the answer, which the first thing as a leader you feel is ‘I should know the answers to all these things.'”

By playing a strong leader who doesn’t always have all the answers and isn’t always sure of her decisions, Higginson has shaped Dr. Weir into a more personable and vulnerable leader.

“That’s been an interesting journey to decide actually her strength is not knowing so much — just compiling, sort of being the Kofi Annan character, trying to compile all of the information you can and make a right decision.”

Read GateWorld’s complete interview with Torri Higginson now! Brand new episodes of Stargate Atlantis return to The SCI FI Channel in the U.S. January 6.