Summer Glau

Chronicles’ Glau Humanizes Terminator

Summer Glau, who stars as a teenage-girl terminator in the upcoming Fox series The Sarah Connor Chronicles, told SCI FI Wire that her character is a departure from any of the models seen in the Terminator films.

"I didn’t think I had a chance at being cast in this role," Glau said in an interview following a press conference at the Television Critics Association press tour in Beverly Hills, Calif., on July 23. "I’ve seen [Terminator 3 star] Kristanna Loken in person, and she’s so statuesque and she has that icy beauty, and I thought, ’I don’t even want to go on this audition. I’m just going to be embarrassed. I’m going to get in the room, and I’m going to be embarrassed.’ But she infiltrates. And that’s what terminators are going to be now. They infiltrate. They hide. They’re not, ’What is that superhuman person?’ That’s what we’re going to do with this series. And, I think, every week people are going to be watching the show going, ’OK, which one is it?’"

The Sarah Connor Chronicles (whose title may change to Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) was adapted for television by Josh Friedman, who wrote 2005’s War of the Worlds. It picks up the story of the title character (played by 300’s Lena Headey) and her son, John Connor (Thomas Dekker), sometime after the 1991 second film, Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Glau plays a mysterious girl named Cameron, who turns out to be a terminator sent back from the year 2027 to protect John and Sarah in the past.

Glau, best known for her role as River Tam in the series Firefly and the feature film Serenity, said that she was daunted at the prospect of taking on an iconic character who doesn’t have any emotions to draw upon.

"I was, to be honest, very intimidated," she said. "I didn’t know how to play this character. I’ve played very vulnerable characters so far, and it’s kind of what I do. So playing a girl that can’t truly feel anything was very intimidating for me. It was hard to find a way to make the scene interesting. And I worked with Josh a lot of it. And then, in my final test, when I tested for the role, he wrote a third scene where I had to cry. And I was so confused by it at first. And then I realized that he’s really going to take this far. She is really human. She can mimic the most subtle human emotions as well as a spy."

Glau was well aware that the audience may see some similarities between her character and a certain other superpowered teenager from another television series. In fact, when she got the role, she called Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon (who also created Firefly) for advice.

"I called Joss when I got the role, because I wanted his input and what he thought about me doing this," she said. "I just love any opportunity for a young girl to be empowered and to play a role like this. I think we can’t get enough of that in this day and age. And I think there’s still a lot of oppression for girls in Hollywood. I have to be honest. There’s a lot of roles that are still degrading, I think, for girls. And I’ve turned down a lot of things because I want to play roles like this where girls are celebrated and they’re empowered and it’s inspiring." The Sarah Connor Chronicles will premiere on Fox in early 2008.