Katee Sackhoff

Katee Sackhoff gives Starbuck a roughness that the solemn company of Battlestar Galactica (2004) needs. As Kara 'Starbuck' Thrace, she makes toughness coexist with vulnerability, leaving room for someone difficult as well as capable. In Ronald D. Moore's series, Jamie Bamber's more guarded Lee 'Apollo' Adama gives that abrasiveness something useful to play against. We warmed to Sackhoff because she helped keep this suspicious crew from feeling interchangeable. Starbuck remains the strongest reason to seek out her work.

The breakthrough could have left her permanently assigned to spacecraft, but Longmire (2012–17) gave her a sustained dramatic role as Victoria 'Vic' Moretti. Riddick (2013) put her physical performance to use in action, while Oculus (2013) took her into horror as Marie Russell. These parts make the career less confined to one kind of television, though they keep action and danger close at hand.

Her Star Wars work with writer and director Dave Filoni offers a different sort of progression. She voiced Bo-Katan Kryze in Star Wars: The Clone Wars from 2012, then played her in live action from 2020 in The Mandalorian (2019). Her consistency of voice across the two forms makes that transition convincing. We recommend The Mandalorian for its brisk frontier adventures and humour, although its masked lead remains underwritten.

The risk with repeated warrior roles is that toughness becomes the whole job, with little left for an actor to discover. We would rather see a part test Sackhoff's strength than simply rely on our recognising it. Starbuck has the advantage of belonging to an ensemble whose contrasting temperaments matter, and Sackhoff makes a clear contribution to that. James Callis's nervous Gaius Baltar and Michael Hogan's abrasive Saul Tigh help make that company prickly enough for her roughness to belong without becoming the only kind of performance on offer. Begin with Battlestar Galactica, provided its persistent gloom sounds like an acceptable price for the performances.