Rachel Luttrell, who plays Teyla Emmagan in SCI FI Channel’s upcoming original series Stargate Atlantis, told SCI FI Wire that she had to bone up on martial arts to play the leader of an alien world. "I do a lot of fighting. That will be a definite part of my presence on the show," Luttrell said in an interview on the show’s set near Vancouver, B.C. "So I’m learning kali, which is a form of Filipino martial arts [stick fighting], and now I’m learning a bit of kung fu and ... boxing and hand-to-hand and knife [fighting]."

Luttrell’s character is a human on the alien world of Athos in the Pegasus galaxy, who encounters a team of Earth explorers. "I come from a civilization which is, in comparison to Earth, slightly more primitive," Luttrell said. "We have some technological advances, like we can start fire with lasers and ... stuff like that. And ... we have a civilization that has reached a certain level of advancement. But we’re kind of keeping that under wraps right now, because we’re living under the threat of this horrific enemy called the Wraith. So we live in tents, and we move our settlements again and again and again to try and stay away from the Wraith. And essentially what ends up happening is ... the Atlantis team members find us, and we end up battling with the Wraith, and my people end up having to evacuate the planet. And so we move to Atlantis, and I end up joining the team."

Luttrell, who had some training as a dancer, had to learn a variety of fighting skills to play the warrior. "I am the leader of my people, so I am a warrior, and I am probably, at this point, the one who knows the most about the Wraith," she said. "So I make a good addition to the team." Stargate Atlantis premieres with a two-hour episode, "Rising," at 9 p.m. ET/PT on July 16.