From a take-no-prisoners Cylon on "Battlestar Galactica" to a take-no-prisoners handler on "Burn Notice," model-turned-actress Tricia Helfer says she worries about being typecast, but at the same time there are some roles she's just not interested in.

"I'd rather play an ass-kicking destroyer or a super strong spy or agent than some meek, vulnerable character," Helfer recently told a group of reporters that included Airlock Alpha. "I don't want to get typecast as one thing, and that's certainly some of the other things I've been doing in hiatus, doing other roles."

But still, the ass-kicking aspect can't escape her, especially in an upcoming role in the NBC series "Chuck."

"I don't know how well my not being typecast is going, but they're great shows," she said. At the same time, however, "I think it's important as I go to some of my next jobs [that maybe some of them] are a different take, a different type of character, but they're certainly fun characters to play.

They're smart. They're strong. Who wouldn't want to play a strong female charater?"

While Helfer did have roles early in her acting career in shows like "CSI" and "Jeremiah," her big break came with "Battlestar Galactica" on SciFi Channel as Number Six, a robotic woman who is pretty much the first face fans saw of the Peabody-winning series that is ending its four-season run in just a few weeks.

On "Burn Notice," which airs on USA Network, Helfer plays Carla, the handler for former spy Michael Westen (Jeffrey Donovan).

And while both shows are completely different, Helfer says she does find some similarities between Westen and Gaius Baltar, played in "Battlestar" by James Callis.

"They're both incredibly intelligent characters, but with Gaius, Number Six never had to worry of him outsmarting her," she said. "even through he's obviously the genius scientists, he's so genius he's a little bit socially inept in some ways and Michael Westen isn't. he's so adept at becoming other people and other characters for his work that you want to be concerned that you're not being taken advantage of or that he's not pulling a fast one over you, so to speak.

"Baltar is a little bit more 'you see what you get.'"

Fans do have something to look forward to on March 13 and March 20 when the final hours of "Battlestar Galactica" air, however.

"Shooting the last episode is intense," Helfer said. "Not only do emotions run really high because obviously this is the last time you're working with a lot of these people and you become like family over five years, but it's also very intense because last episodes tend to come in very long. I think we had a four-hour script in a two-hour timeframe to shoot that we were maybe given a couple of extra days. So we really shot incredibly long hours and everybody was kind of like zombies at the end of it."

The world of "Battlestar Galactica" will soon move into the hands of its prequel series set for a 2010 launch, "Caprica," but that might not be the end-all of the universe, the actors hints. It's possible more spinoffs could come in the future.

"Without giving away the finale, I guess there sort of could be," she said. The finale is "definitely a closing in one respect, but now that you mentioned it, there could possibly be a spinoff. I don't expect there to be and I don't think that's their intention, but I guess you can never say never in this business."

"Burn Notice" airs Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET on USA Network. "Battlestar Galactica" airs Fridays at 10 p.m. ET on SciFi Channel.

Additional reporting by assistant news editor Alan Stanley Blair