CTV’s Nikita has developed a loyal fan base in the U.S., where it is telecast as La Femme Nikita on the USA cable network. The thriller, based on the 1990 cult French film and the uninspired 1993 American remake, Point of No Return, already has spawned numerous Web sites and fan clubs. Australian actress Peta Wilson plays Nikita, the street girl-turned-government agent/pawn.
She has quickly become the femme du jour, gracing the pages of numerous magazines and making the talk-show rounds. There’s even talk of holding La Femme Nikita conventions. Executive consultant Joel Surnow (The Equalizer, Miami Vice, Nowhere Man) is thrilled with the reception, even if it is on a smaller scale than for a hit on one of the major broadcast networks. "It’s kind of great being a little underdog show - a little cable show - that doesn’t have huge expectations," he said. "It’s really been neat."
Wilson’s Nikita is a young woman who, while living on the streets, was wrongly accused of murdering a cop and forced into a new life as an operative of a ruthless, secret government organization known as Section One. If Nikita doesn’t follow orders, she’ll be terminated.
Montreal actor Roy Dupuis (who starred in Scoop on Radio-Canada) plays Michael, the enigmatic agent who becomes Nikita’s trainer and mentor. Alberta Watson is Madeline, the cool, mysterious master strategist, and Eugene Robert Glazer is Operations, the efficient bureaucrat who operates Section One.
The series wasn’t an easy sell. USA turned down the original pilot script, which was very close in concept to the feature films: Nikita was a punkish killer given a second chance by becoming an assasin for a covert government agency. So Surnow came up with a new concept. "I pitched them on the idea of making her an innocent who was at the wrong place at the wrong time," he said, "and then has to survive by pretending to be the person she isn’t. She wouldn’t be an assasin. She will be killing, but that’s not her job. She’ll be killing just as if a cop would kill if he had to."
Nikita, Surnow maintains, marks the first timne on TV "where you have a female action hero. It’s not Police Woman, where she’s more cerebral. She’s actually twisting guy’s necks and kicking and shooting and killing. It’s a real person."
Casting Nikita was arduous. Surnow auditioned more than 250 actresses from all over the world. "It’s a really hard part to cast because you have to have many different opposing qualities. You have to have vulnerability. You have to be able to kick ass."
The blond, blue-eyed Wilson had a "rawness" about her that Surnow loved. "She grew up in tribal New Guinea for the first 10 years of her life with an army-colonel father," Surnow said. "I think that’s still in her."
Wilson says the experience of living in such a primitive area is "ingrained" in her bones and her blood. "I think I was much more in touch with the Earth (then). Had I not had that time in New Guine, it wouldn’t be so easy (to shoot) under the pressure I am under. It takes seven days to shoot an episode and we shoot 10 pages a day."
The actress was fresh out of drama school when she was cast as Nikita. "I did an audition where I just terrorized the office," she recalls. "I came in a mess, with no makeup on, in character like I was doing a play. After we did the audition, I acted like a normal person, which just blew them away. There are many actors out there who are just as good as me, if not better, who were waiting desperately for this break. What a great thing."
The second season will explore different issues. Surnow said. "The second season will be more about her and Michael. That’s all I’ll say about it."
