Claudia Black started life as a nice private schoolgirl in Sydney, but has since travelled a dark road, becoming a vampire, a mutant and a warrior. "My body count would be huge," she told The Age. "And after September 11, I wasn't so proud of it."
She has paid a high price. She's been eaten by aliens, irreversibly contaminated, died more than once, and is now known as The Mutation.
In short, Claudia "Mutation" Black has been one of Australia's busiest actors since she entered the world of science fiction. She is now the centre of a micro-cult, with her own action doll, available for sale on the Internet. "Some fans do become obsessive," she said.
Black was in New York on September 11, 2001, working on "Farscape", the American show that has kept The Mutation and several hundred other Australians employed. It's a bizarre career path for the daughter of Judy Black, professor of pharmacology at the University of Sydney, and Jules Black, a Sydney obstetrician / gynaecologist.
Their brainy, ambitious daughter lasted just three weeks at university. She wanted to be an actor. This led to nightclub singing, soap operas in New Zealand, and sporadic roles in Australian TV before being cast as a founding member of "Farscape" in 1998. The pace has been manic ever since.
"The show takes 80 hours of my time a week and for the last four years I've only had one week off over Christmas," she said.
"Farscape", which begins its primetime run on Foxtel on Tuesday, has a high profile in the U.S.A. In June, the cover of the American television bible, TV Guide, featured Black and her co-stars of what it called "the sci-fi cult hit" about to air its fourth season.
However, "Farscape's" days appear to be numbered. Although it has about two million regular viewers in the U.S.A., where it has been a prime time anchor for the Sci-Fi Channel, and has rated well in the U.K. and sold into other markets, the network has pulled the plug.
Even "Star Trek" had to survive such a near-death experience before it was saved by an outburst of Trekky protests and picked up by another company.
"Farscape's" creator Rockne O'Bannon is working on a movie version of the show which, if it eventuates, would ease the pain of the uncertainty, and keep a sizeable segment of the Australian acting community employed. Much of the show is made at Homebush Bay. If the "Farscape" journey is about to end, The Mutation, in the great tradition of actors, worries that, having turned 30, yesterday, her busiest days are already behind her.
"In some ways I'll be lucky if I ever work again. There's a huge prejudice against sci-fi."
Although "Farscape" is a U.S. series for the U.S. market, the only American in the otherwise Australian cast is Ben Browder, who happens to play the only true human among the lead characters (the clear-eyed, granite-jawed astronaut, John Crichton, the love-interest for Claudia Black's character, Aeryn Sun). In real life, Black lives with a "glorious" man who shall remain nameless.