Kandyse McClure is a Canadian actress who is best known for her roles as Anastasia ‘Dee’ Dualla in the SyFy series Battlestar Galactica.
Born in Durbin, South Africa in 1980, Candice McClure’s parents were Marcel and Lizzane McClure – a musician and an educator, respectively.
When she was young, her family moved to Canada, and she graduated from West Vancouver Secondary School at the age of 18. An only child, Candice enjoys a close relationship with her parents.
Acting was not even on her radar when her mother told her about an opportunity to try out for a role in Athol Fugard’s play Valley Song, to be performed at the Vancouver Fringe Festival.
She was cast in the role of a South African teenage girl with dreams of being a star, which was very much like playing herself. The experience changed her life as she enjoyed the performance so much that she found an agent and began to pursue a career in acting.
She is best known for her roles as “Anastasia Dualla” in the remake of Battlestar Galactica and Dr. Clementine Chasseur in Hemlock Grove.
Early Career
Early in her acting career, she changed the spelling of her name to “Kandyse,” more as a joke than anything else. She would later try to change her name back, but when she realized the confusion it would cause, she abandoned the attempt.
Her first film was the character of “Brandy” in the 1999 made-for-tv movie In a Class of His Own, starring Lou Diamond Phillips.
From there, she had minor roles in Romeo Must Die, TV movie The Spiral Staircase, and a few others in 2000 before she earned a more significant role in television that same year.
Higher Grounds was a single season television drama series in which teens experiencing troubled home lives in the Pacific Northwest navigate adolescence.
She appeared in all 22 episodes of this television drama, playing the part of Katherine Ann “Kat” Cabot, an adopted child struggling to feel a sense of belonging and coping with the loss of her sister.
Notably, one of her co-stars was Hayden Christensen, who would go on to play a huge role in the Star Wars prequel trilogy of films and her other costar, Jewel Staite, would be part of the sci-fi series Firefly.
Despite this success, it wasn’t until four years later that she would land the part of Anastasia “Dee” Dualla in the television series Battlestar Galactica, which would prove a turning point in her career.
Acting Career
After Higher Grounds, Kandyse played several roles in television and supporting roles in movies, notably the 2003’s telefilm rendition of Stephen King’s Carrie, in which she played Carrie tormentor “Sue Snell” to critical acclaim.
She also appeared in seven episodes as “Elizabeth Munroe” in the series Jeremiah, an apocalyptic show in which a virus has wiped out all the adults.
The latter would set the stage for her many future Science Fiction roles.
Battlestar Galactica (2004)
When Kandyce joined the supporting cast of the 2003 miniseries remake of the 1978 Science Fiction series Battlestar Galactica, she was expecting a one-off role. However, that small part became something far more significant as the two episode miniseries became the introduction for a larger, four season show.
Before she knew it, her character, Anastasia “Dee” Dualla, had become a beloved series regular on a blockbuster Science Fiction show that kept viewers on the edge of their seats with its nonstop tension and fast-paced action.
The show chronicled the planet Caprica’s invasion by former war machines called the Cylons, and the Starship Galactica’s subsequent search for the legendary homestead “Earth,” pursued relentlessly by the machine host and their human-like leaders, some of which have infiltrated the Battlestar.
The show was nominated for many awards, winning several, and its success resulted in spin-off shows including the TV movies Razor, Blood and Chrome, The Plan, and prequel series Caprica.
However, while Kandyce was credited in some of those spinoffs, she did not appear in any of them (warning: spoilers ahead!).
This was mainly due to her character’s controversial end in the final season of the main series, after the Galactica crew finally discover that Earth, the central hope that has kept them going, is in ruins. Dualla enjoys a day with her friends on board the ship, outwardly fine, then goes to her room and commits suicide with her pistol, the loss of the dream of Earth more than she could handle.
This was a shock to fans as well as Kandyse herself, who figured something was up when contract negotiations did not add up to what she expected.
In interviews, she explained that she understood how her character felt hopeless, but was really sad that she was unable to finish the entire show with her castmates and be there at the series wrap.
Hemlock Grove
While she enjoyed great success on the set of Battlestar Galactica, Kandyse made mostly one-shot appearances on television shows and small or supporting roles in telefilms or feature films from then until 2013.
Some of those roles included the movie Cole and another Stephen King telefilm adaptation, Children of the Corn, in 2009.
In 2013, she played a supporting role as “Jessica” in Broken Kingdom before signing on for a recurring role as Dr. Clementine Chasseur in the first season of the horror series Hemlock Grove that same year.
In it, her character is a former marine and wildlife officer sent to investigate a series of murders. She is a religious character, but also a covert member of the Order of the Dragon, hunters of supernatural creatures that are viewed as the enemies of God.
Whether fans liked or hated her character, she provided a strong female lead in what would be another of her most popular roles.
Minor spoiler alert – The ultimate fate of the character, unfortunately, made it impossible for her to return in the subsequent seasons of the show.
Ghost Wars, Charmed, and Motherland
Once more, Kandyse fell into a routine of playing supporting characters and recurring roles, never taking the spotlight for herself.
The most significant role in television she played from 2013 to 2020 was Dr. Landis Barker, a main character on the paranormal action series Ghost Wars.
She played the lead scientist and not-so-secret lover of smuggler Billy McGrath in the show, which revolved around the protagonist “Roman Mercer,” a man who is able to see ghosts.
Once the single season of this show ended, she found herself playing “The Guardian” on 2020’s reboot of television series Charmed, an ancient witch and former “Charmed One” named Ishta who provided wisdom and occasional assistance to the three main protagonist witches throughout six episodes of the show.
Near the end of this run, Kandyce also joined Motherland: Fort Salem in its third season and has made nine appearances as an alternate form of the character Nicte Batan that originally appeared in the second season, played then and now by Arlen Aguayo.
This show, if “Salem”’s appearance in the name wasn’t an indication, also deals with witches, albeit a different kind. Nicte is a witch leading a contingent of other witches in an organization called “The Spree,” a collection of guerilla cells which attempt to stop the conscription of their kind into the military.
Both Charmed and Motherland are in their final seasons.
What is Kandyse McClure doing now?
While Kandyse has not announced any new projects, there are no indications that she intends to stop acting.
As Motherland and Charmed are wrapping up their final seasons, it is likely that she is already considering new projects.
In the meantime, she is known for participating in philanthropic efforts such as CARE Canada, which assists with world poverty, the environment, and social justice for women and girls among other noble efforts.
Also, while he has been secretive about her personal life, she is married to her long-time boyfriend Ian Cylenz Lee, known as a musician and director at Blakgold Productions.