A true sci-fi heroine is coming to Northern FanCon.
Amy Acker is a Saturn Award winner (Best Supporting Female Actor On Television, 2003, for Angel) and an Indie Series Awards winner (Best Guest Star-Comedy, 2014, for Husbands) and a face well known to science fiction and superhero audiences for a large body of work far and above a single role.
"She has street cred like crazy," said Northern FanCon organizer and arranger Norm Coyne.
"In 2017 she was one of the favourites at Calgary's fan expo, she gets a lot of attention at events like ours. She's a major player."
She is best known for starring as Winifred "Fred" Burkle (and also a supporting character called Illyria) on the highly popular supernatural drama series Angel.
She was Kelly Peyton on the action drama series Alias.
She moved on to play Root on the science-fiction drama series Person of Interest and also voice the role of The Machine on that series.
Acker was pivotal as Dr. Claire Saunders/Whiskey in Joss Whedon's Dollhouse series.
As of 2017, she's been starring as Caitlin Strucker on the superhero drama series The Gifted based on Marvel Comics' X-Men, bringing her to a whole new and current prime-time audience.
In smaller parts she has been cast in shows like How I Met Your Mother, The Good Wife, Marvel's Agents of SHIELD, Human Target, the horror film Cabin In The Woods, the lead part of Amanda in the movie Amanda & Jack Go Glamping, a recurring guest role in Suits, some screen time over two seasons of the rebooted MacGyver series, and most recently she plays the part of Kathleen Shepherd in Grey's Anatomy.
"A lot of people will know her from Con Man and that's one that Alan Tudyk was also a major part of, so we are now starting to have crossovers happening at FanCon where guests know each other from mutual projects. We have a team-up," Coyne said.
A true craftswoman, Acker was a student of ballet, jazz and modern dance in her youth, then went on to earn a degree from the acclaimed Southern Methodist University theatre program.
She and her college roommates had weekly Buffy The Vampire Slayer pizza parties, when little did she know her first big break would be a major role in the Buffy franchise, doing five seasons of
Angel alongside David Boreanaz, Charisma Carpenter, J. August Richards and other cast members.
Acker has done everything in the industry from voice-over work on cartoons to Shakespearean theatre.
Few actors can touch as many popular franchises as Acker, putting an extraordinarily familiar face with an extraordinarily wide range of audiences into the laps of local convention goers.
For a chance to meet Acker and hear her tell personal stories of her many connections to the film and television industry, be there for Northern FanCon May 3-5 at CN Centre.
