Heather Doerksen

Heather Doerksen
PerformerRDM
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Portrays:	Brandy Harder
Date of Birth:	February 12,1980
Date of Death:	Missing required parameter 1=month!
Age:	46
Nationality:	CAN
Related Media
		@ BW Media
Official Site
IMDb profile

Heather Doerksen (pronounced "Dirk-sin") is a Canadian actress born on February 12, 1980, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, of Dutch descent. She portrays Sergeant Brandy Harder, a marine aboard the battlestar Galactica, in the Re-imagined Series, appearing in four episodes across Seasons 2 and 4 (2005–2008). She has also built a voice acting career in animation and video games, with recurring roles in Lego Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu and the DreamWorks/Netflix series Dinotrux.

Career

Doerksen grew up in Winnipeg intending to study biological sciences before an acting class at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia changed her direction. She had performed on stage since childhood, having been cast as Mary in The Christmas Story at five and as Maria in The Sound of Music at sixteen, before enrolling at SFU and earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre. At SFU she performed in university productions of Antigone, The Cherry Orchard, Big Love, and Hedda Gabler, and upon graduation co-founded Genus Theatre with five classmates, through which the founding members collectively wrote, directed, performed, and produced their first productions.

Her first screen roles came in 2005 with appearances on Smallville and the Re-imagined Series. She returned to Smallville four times through 2008 in roles including Isis Receptionist and Martha's Aide. In the Re-imagined Series she plays Sergeant Brandy Harder, a marine who first appears in "Resistance" during Season 2 (2005) without a named character credit, then returns in "He That Believeth in Me," "Escape Velocity," and "Revelations" across Season 4, in the last of which the character is identified by name for the first time.

Between 2005 and 2008 she appeared in six episodes of Stargate: Atlantis as Captain Pat Meyers, across "The Siege, Part 3," "The Intruder," "No Man's Land," "First Strike," "The Kindred, Part 1," and "The Last Man." She also appeared in one episode of Supernatural (2007, as Gloria Sidnick).

In 2007, Doerksen appeared as Mother in the re-imagined Bionic Woman pilot, a production that also featured Aaron Douglas (as Prison Guard) and Mark Sheppard (as Anthony Anthros).

Her feature film work in the late 2000s included supporting parts in The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008, as Regina's Aide) and The Uninvited (2009, as Mildred Kemp), followed by an appearance in Joss Whedon's The Cabin in the Woods (2012, as Accountant). In 2013 she played Lt. Sasha Kaidanovsky, co-pilot of the Russian Jaeger Cherno Alpha, in Pacific Rim under director Guillermo del Toro. She described del Toro convening the full cast on the first day of the table read with 3D models of the Jaegers and Kaiju, walking everyone through the world's scope before principal photography began.

Also in 2013–2014 she played Sarah, wife of the Knave of Hearts, in three episodes of the ABC fantasy series Once Upon a Time in Wonderland.

From 2018 to 2020 Doerksen played Gryla, an ancient Icelandic yule witch, in Netflix's Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. She had originally auditioned for the title role of Sabrina; writer Roberto Aquirre-Sacasa cast her at thirty weeks pregnant and had the pregnancy written into Gryla's storyline. From Season 4 through the series finale in Season 5 (2019–2021) on Syfy, she played Michaela, one of the vampiric brides of the Dark One (played by Tricia Helfer), in Van Helsing. Her Season 4 death scene, shot opposite Jennifer Cheon Garcia in "All Apologies," was choreographed around her pregnancy at the time, and for Season 5 showrunner Jonathan Lloyd Walker invited her back to shoot a flashback storyline on location in Slovakia. Also in 2021, she played the celestial being Aladria of the Perfecti group in Season 3 of the CW's Charmed reboot.

Voice acting

Doerksen has voiced characters across anime, animation, and video games since 2007. She played Kiyomi Takada in six episodes of the English dub of Death Note (2007–2008) and voiced Amber Bailey in Dead Rising 2 (2010).

Beginning in 2013 she voiced Princess Leia and Mon Mothma in Lego Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles and subsequently Lego Star Wars: Droid Tales, and from 2015 voiced Skylor in Lego Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu, a role she continued through 2022.

For the DreamWorks/Netflix series Dinotrux (2015–2018) she voiced two characters: Snowblazer, an eccentric Plowasaur who lives alone in the Arctic with only a carved pet rock for company, and Xee, a Crescent Wrenchtool Reptool. From 2019 she has voiced Hegan, a pterosaur, in the Disney Junior animated series Gigantosaurus.

References