No matter how hard she may try — though we suspect she isn't exerting too much effort to do so — Amy Acker doesn't seem able to stray too far from the sci-fi genre. It's a point driven home by the fact that she's been cast in the Matt Nix-written/Bryan Singer-directed X-Men TV pilot that has no official name at this time.
Acker will plays Kate, the "ordinary" mother of children who have turned out to be mutants, and who she takes off on the run with to avoid capture by the government. Ultimately the family, which includes Kate's estranged husband, Reed (Stephen Moyer), becomes a part of an underground mutant network. Playing Kate's kids are Emma Dumont as Lorna Dane, also known as Polaris, with the power of magnetism; and Percy Hynes as Andy.
Acker gained attention as Winifred "Fred" Burkle on Angel. While the character died during the fifth and final season of that show, the actress immediately took on a whole new persona, the demon goddess Illyria. Other genre roles have included Supernatural, Alias, Dollhouse, and Person Of Interest.
As to genre appeal, Acker details that she had been a dancer, doing a lot of ballet growing up until she was sidelined by knee surgery. Seeking an alternative, she turned to acting.
"I had always been super shy, but I found out that if I said words that other people wrote, and got to be characters other than myself, that it was sort of this amazing thing that I couldn’t imagine doing anything else after it started," she says. "I think that’s part of the reason I’m drawn to this genre. I mean, all of my favorite roles that I’ve gotten to do have been in genre TV. Those roles really allow you to transform, sometimes from a human to an alien, but it also gives you a journey as a character that a lot of other shows don’t always have."