Claudia Black may have achieved fame as "Farscape's" resident female Peacekeeper, but as she tells Verbatim, there are still some personal territories left to chart. The last time we saw Aeryn Sun was when she and John Crichton christened their son and the camera pulled back to reveal a "Farscape" galaxy load of possibilities. So ended an era of cosmic hi-jinks, galactic derring-do and a huge fan campaign to give the cast and crew a satisfactory send-off. But the uncharted territories remained, especially for the actors involved. How do you follow and capitalise on such a cult success without cutting yourself on the double-edged sword of stereotype?

Claudia Black is the kind of actress that really should have Hollywood at her feet. In an age where you can't walk down a sidewalk in L.A. without tripping over an aspiring actress carved from the traditional mold, there's no doubting that Claudia would be better described as sexy and striking rather than the often misapplied word 'glamorous.' She has strong features, a frame that suggests she could seduce you or snap you in half depending on the mood. If Hollywood could get over its idea that sexy is merely a code-word for thin and connected, and that women who are meant to be tough should actually be able to look as if they wouldn’t faint at the first sign of a calorie, Claudia would likely be at the top of their call-back list.

"I've never felt the pressure, in terms of my body-shape and my own body-image, from anyone to look a certain way. For instance, I made a decision for Stargate, it was like a sick experiment, I have a fast metabolism, so I’ll see if I can Linda Hamilton myself within reason. It requires a certain level of dedication in terms of diet and hours that you put in and I find the exercise mind-numbing. Someone once told me 'What's the point of developing a bicep because the size to which some people in the gym will develop them, you'd think they needed to lift cars.' It's purely an aesthetic thing and agenda. But I thought it would be interesting to see what my body could do and whether I could train myself, things like going down to skimmed milk," she explains. "I got a free program that came with a gym membership. I got written a program and I followed it while I was in Vancouver, Canada. I did 20 to 30 minutes every couple of days and I was seeing some results. I don't think I'd want to maintain that. I think it would be incredibly difficult and I intend to prioritise other things. I genuinely prioritise food, I love it. I have a very healthy relationship with it. I love to cook, it's one of my most favourite things in the world. That's why I stopped being a vegetarian. I didn't want to serve people things I hadn't tasted myself. After 10 years of eating vegetables and tofu I found my husband-to-be and courted him through his stomach! I needed to taste it to make sure I wasn't ruin my destiny! His first gift to me was a recipe book with notes and hints!"

Claudia was born in Sydney, Australia, in the early 1970's, but it was clear from an early age that she would need her energy channelling into some sort of creative medium. As she herself admits, she started at the age of around 5 and simply hasn't stopped since. "My teacher in 'pre-school' said I talked too much in class. When the Christmas play came around she gave me the part of the narrator who had most of the talking to do. I think that decided my future. I played Sadie, the cleaning lady role with a cloth wrapped around my head and a broomstick and basically narrated a twist on the nativity tale. We had a fantastic extra-curricular department and so my education was really about the hours around the normal curriculum. I probably spent more time after and before school than anyone. I just lapped it up and made the most of it. I just never grew out of the bug," she smiles. "We also had an amazing music department, so I did a lot of the musicals and as a child it made sense to me that people would speak on stage and then suddenly break out into song. Now that someone has pointed that out to me, as to why they don’t go and see musicals, I really kinda get their point. Having said that, I'd love to do a professional one someday. I think, yeah, it just happened at school. Mum had to sit me down and say 'You've become a big fish in a very little pond and it's a big ocean out there, so if you really want to do this it will be a tough road.' Having that little bit of resistance from my parents and their bit of doubt, maybe a lot, as to whether I'd be okay and survive out there, just gave me the determination to try and never fail."

The work came in, including appearances in Australian and New Zealand shows such as "Good Guys Bad Guys", "City Life", "Water Rats" and "A Country Practice." Not only was she learning a craft, but also creating the building blocks of what she admits is still a firm feeling of independence. "My dad played a song for me once, a wonderful rendition of Gypsy in my Soul, which he said would suit my voice perfectly. He was right. I really connected to the lyrics, but I’ve always loved to travel. That was the incentive. When I got my first long-term job on a television show I was about 20 and I had to relocate. I loved everything about it, apart from the hours. You work so hard on television. At least in film it's for a small block and you can see the end, but on television you need to learn to have that extra bit of stamina."

Timing is something that rarely goes quite to plan in the acting world. Much of it is governed by the practical 'hurry up and wait' atmosphere of the set and lives and careers are ruled by availability, schedules and last minute changes. Claudia says that you have to be very careful about how much of that takes it's toll on you. "If you're passionate about it, what an opportunity to be able to do what you love every day. But I tend not to spend lots of time around people who are in the business with me because I spend an inordinate amount of time with them during the week, but they do become your friends and family, so it's difficult to find that balance. I've been very careful with my husband, my lifestyle when I'm shooting is brutal. My day is put under my door every morning by somebody else. I have very little control over it and I didn't want to bring him in as a hostage to my lifestyle. He's been very flexible, very good at adapting. When your life can change with one telephone call, overnight it normally only affects one person, but once you have a family it becomes more serious. Someone said to me 'If you ever had children, would you keep them away from the stage?' But how hypocritical would that be of me?"

Ben Browder has talked about his mixed feelings in returning to "Farscape" to do the mini-series. Claudia also admits that she was glad to be able to come back and finish what they had started, but again the timing was far from ideal. "I find it very hard to go back to things. I've probably settled down more over the years but I always like the idea of moving forward and looking to the future. It was a really tough time for me to go back and do the mini-series. I'd relocated to America, I was about to get married and this came back in the middle of everything. They wanted me to start shooting 2 weeks before the wedding and I only had a month to organise the wedding. I'd arrived in Sydney, Australia, to do that final frantic scurrying. This was after 2 years of Brian Henson saying 'this may be happening but if you don't hear from me by this date, it's definitely not.' That date came and went and I thought 'Right, it's not happening this year, maybe next'," Claudia sighs. "For it to happen so suddenly, I have to say it was tough after finally feeling free of the dangling carrot. Every year we didn't think we were coming back and then, at the last minute, the Sci-Fi channel were able to find the money and they really were doing their best to make it happen. Bonnie Hammer was fond of the show but we simply weren't getting the ratings. It had ruled our lives and then I was having this huge wave of moving forward with my life. Then I had to put everything on hold. But I did feel that the fans, the characters, everyone who put their lives into that show deserved "Farscape" to have a better send off. I think it's a franchise in which Brian Henson has invested emotionally and financially and I imagine he wants to keep that franchise alive in some capacity. It became more likely that a feature could happen for him, or maybe a 'Next Geneneration' "Farscape", if we were able to do the mini-series at least. It was very interesting to go back because poor David Kemper had to throw a whole season into 4 hours. A show-runner has to know about certain points, you have to plot points to wear the story could potentially stretch so you can see an over all arc. Everything else in the middle and how you get there is up for grabs. But he always had an idea of how he wanted these characters to go out in this chapter."

Of course it wasn't long before a different part of the cosmos came calling. Claudia was cast as Vala, a cosmic fingersmith who flirted and faux-pas'd her way across the galaxy and onto the lap of one Dr. Daniel Jackson played by Michael Shanks in the season 8 episode of "Stargate: SG-1" called 'Prometheus Unbound.' "I think the first day I was on set for 'Prometheus Unbound', almost every crewmember said 'You'll be back!' There's a real history with that show. Because they have eight years to draw on, they can bring back guest characters that they've established. They said they'd brought a lot of people back and they were sure I'd come back. Crew members said they had read the episode and I didn't die. But like that matters in science-fiction? I've died a million times on "Farscape" and come back," she jokes.

She was indeed asked back and, with cosmic irony that only a casting director can conjure up, found herself back alongside Ben Browder as he stepped into the "Stargate SG-1" franchise as a regular new character, filling something of the void left by the departing Richard Dean Anderson. Vala was almost the polar opposite of Aeryn Sun. While her "Farscape" character had often had to play the serious side of things, Vala was a comedian's delight. Wisely, Robert Cooper and Brad Wright avoided too many in-jokes with Ben and instead created moments of comedic chemistry between Claudia and Michael. "Absolutely, I played the 'straight man' on "Farscape" for so many years. A lot of the time Ben would be talking to me and asking me what was more funny, and what way he could say something. I would get my opportunity to inject some humour into the show vicariously through Ben. We would throw in lines or we'd make each other laugh. He'd get to play out all the glorious moments while I played it straight. That's actually something that's impressed me a lot about Michael Shanks. He was more than happy to feed into the jokes for me. He was incredibly generous that way and we would stand and talk together, just as Ben and I had done, but Michael and I have had an opportunity to be more of a comic duo. Michael and I would say 'How can we make this the funniest, how can we squeeze this gag until it's dead?'" she explains. "To be essentially a comedian in this role it changes the way I work, my mood, the way I go home, the way I turn up to work. Aeryn was a tragic figure in some ways. Everything that could possibly happen to her in the soap-opera world happened and it gave me a great opportunity to flex my dramatic muscles, but I've always wanted to do a good slab of comedy. Robert Cooper gave me that opportunity. He saw what I did with the role on the 'Prometheus Unbound' episode and for some reason he felt it had wings."

Though some projects have had to be put on hold because of her other work, Claudia has several irons in the fire with regards to upcoming work. She says that television or film are both fine as long as the work's good. She'll gladly take on new challenges, but won't change too much to get an elusive role. "I don't really see myself going the plastic surgery route. If no D/P has enough light in their truck to light me I'll know it's time to become a producer." That time is very far off.

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