LOS ANGELES — Actress Katee Sackhoff broke on to the scene starring as Captain Kara “Starbuck” Thrace on the hit series Battlestar Galactica. She’s now starring as Deputy Sheriff Victoria “Vic” Moretti on the A&E series Longmire and recently started her own advocacy organization, Acting Outlaws, a charitable biker gang that rolls across the country to raise money and awareness for issues such as HIV stigma and environmental destruction.
Sackhoff, who just participated in the fifth annual Kiehl’s LifeRide for amfAR – a 12-day, 1,500 mile bike ride from Wisconsin to New York City that raised $170,000 – sat with HIV Plus editor in chief Diane Anderson-Minshall to discuss her first HIV test, learning her friend was HIV-positive, what she has in common with Vic Moretti, and why the world would be better with a woman in charge.
Select excerpts from the interview include:
On her first HIV testing experience:
“I’ve been tested numerous times. I think as an adult, and as a person who is sexually active, it is your responsibility to get tested as much as you think you need to. If you are promiscuous and don’t use protection, I believe you should be tested as much as possible. It’s your responsibility to your next partner to have the knowledge of your own health. And d so I was tested a handful of times in my life, and every time it doesn’t get easier…But it’s something as a sexually active person, you have to do. And people don’t. They are so scared to get tested. Some people have that kind of ‘Well, I’d rather not know.’ And that’s all fine and dandy for yourself, but if you’re sleeping with other people, it’s not OK. A lot of people live their lives with their head in the sand.”
On the founding of Acting Outlaws:
“Acting Outlaws really started because Tricia [Hefler] and I really have always kind of questioned what to do with the soapbox we’re given as actors. She and I had wanted to kind of really marry our love or finding motorcycles with our sort of lifelong ethical [responsibility]. So we decided, well, let’s start a company and let’s make a habit out of doing this on a regular basis.
On learning her friend was HIV-positive:
“In 2002 a friend of mine told me that he was HIV-positive, and it was a really interesting conversation because there was so much fear in the announcement and not because of the disease per se, but because of the fear that people wouldn’t love him anymore. It was one of the most interesting conversations I’ve ever had because I couldn’t understand how a person could think that this disease would make them unlovable. And I realized in that moment that not only did I need to convince him that I’d love him until the end of my life, but that this disease had so much fear attached to it and so much stigma that I realized whatever I could do to help raise awareness and funds for this disease that I would do that for as long as I could.”
On relating to her Longmire character Vic Moretti:
“I’d always played characters that were incredibly flawed and not just like normal-person flawed, like incredibly flawed and dangerous. I’ve never really played a character that wasn’t toxic. I was really looking forward to playing normal. I like wearing jeans every day. It’s nice to go to work and throw my hair in a ponytail and just kind of walk on set. I do feel like she’s kind of an everywoman. So many people can identify with her and her daily struggles, which seem so normal, and that’s kind of what I like about her.
On why the world would be better with women in charge:
“Well, I do think, [it’d be better] if we had a woman running things. Sometimes my girlfriends and I joke about it, that if the world was run by a woman that things would be totally different. We would probably all cycle together, which would be really bad, but otherwise I think that there’s an honesty that women have – this desire and need to just talk that I think sometimes needs to be more the norm.”
Check out HIV Plus’s full Katee Sackhoff feature at:
