Tricia Helfer: Actress tries to keep life in perspective

PASADENA, Calif. — While growing up in Canada, Tricia Helfer was carefully schooled for what she would later do for a living.

Her parents insisted that she and her three sisters master the practicalities.

“I grew up with what I would call a level head,” the actress said during a recent interview.

“I had to have my own bank account since I was 8. I had to pay to go to school. We had a farm. I was a farmhand, and I made a wage and had to buy my own school supplies.

“We had a budget that we went over every week. So I always went at it as a business. You have to at least attempt to be smart about things.”

The philosophy proved invaluable when, at 17, she was spotted by an agent who encouraged her to try modeling.

Her parents were skeptical, she said.

“They checked him out with the Better Business Bureau, and he had them speak to some other parents of girls he represented. I just got lucky; he was a very legitimate agent who was in it for the love of business. I didn’t really move away until almost 18, and I was ready to head for university anyway.”

A flurry of prestigious modeling assignments followed — her first fashion show featured clothing by Chanel. But after 10 years of being the toast of every exotic coast, Helfer was ready for a change — a decision that landed her in Los Angeles to try acting.

A year later, she had snagged the role of the humanoid Number Six on Battlestar Galactica.

More recently, she has traded in her Cylon persona for a Stetson as the no- nonsense Texas Ranger on Killer Women, an ABC drama for which she performs many of her stunts.

Helfer plays Molly Parker, the daughter of a sheriff.

The show — adapted from the original series in Argentina and produced by Sofia Vergara of Modern Family— hasn’t done as well in the ratings as the network had hoped, according to The Hollywood Reporter. It is scheduled to run through the end of February.

Although she was a tomboy as a kid and involved in sports, Helfer later suffered severe back trouble.

“Growing up tall and skinny and being very athletic, having a bit of scoliosis as a kid, a bunch of things together (forced) back surgery in December 2009,” she said.

“That was definitely life-changing. It brought back a renewed sense of youth. The first two weeks were kind of hellish, but, by month two, I was shooting Two and a Half Men. By month three, I was filming a cop show, Dark Blue, on TNT.”

An almost-tragic incident while picking berries with her family when she was 12 taught her an even more lasting lesson.

“We ... were walking back to the truck and going down a hillside. My dad was in front, and the four girls and my grandmother. She leaned against a tree to help stabilize herself, and it was a dead tree. It fell over and perfectly landed on my dad’s head 20 feet down. We thought we lost him. ... He came back to and miraculously wasn’t hurt except for a sore neck.

“But I remember at that moment (realizing) everything can change in an instant. I need to listen to my own advice sometimes, ... try to enjoy being in the present. I don’t always do that.”