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TORONTO -- Yancy Butler's not an android anymore; her work ethic just makes her seem that way sometimes.

The actress is in full trouper mode, making the best of a tough schedule and a painful ailment on the Mississauga set of TV's Witchblade recently.

"I try to do the best I can, you know. It might be a curse in that I'll kind of bop 'til I drop, as they say," Butler says, smiling despite a tear-duct infection that had inflamed one side of her face.

After a doctor's appointment and a little extra makeup, Butler is proceeding as planned with the day's shoot of the fantasy TV series, as well as with several interviews, a gallery photo session and taping of TV promo spots.

With typically self-deprecating humour, Butler explains, "I know how much money it costs and how difficult it is to schedule things, so I try not to let a broken fingernail get in the way."

As if.

As Sara Pezzini, a New York homicide cop who fights evil with the help of the Witchblade, a powerful and ancient gauntlet, Butler is in almost every scene. But she brings to the role a resume filled with action experience, from her feature film debut co-starring with Jean-Claude Van Damme in John Woo's Hard Target to playing opposite Wesley Snipes in Drop Zone, portraying an android on TV's Mann & Machine and walking the police beat before on Brooklyn South.

"I'll kick for as long as they'll let me and as long as I can," says Butler, who turns 31 on July 2. "Yes, there's a lot of Epsom salts. There's a lot of soaking in baths. But it's par for the course."

Her male co-stars have a time keeping up.

Will Yun Lee, who is cast as Sara's murdered partner Danny Woo, is a fifth-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do.

So, can he take Yancy? He laughed.

"I don't think so," he says. "She's tough."

Actor Eric Etebari, a former pro beach volleyballer who plays Sara's mysterious pursuer Ian Nottingham, says simply, "She sets the standard."

"It makes you really question when you're tired, question when you're hurt, question when you're upset about something when you look over and there's Yancy Butler moving straight ahead and working twice as many hours, doing twice as much," says Etebari, whose character is the henchman of Kenneth Irons (Anthony Cistaro), a billionaire obsessed with owning the Witchblade, even if he has to kill Sara to obtain it.

The series, which also produced its movie-length pilot here last year, wraps shooting of 11 episodes June 22. Regular locations include a police station set on Fraser Ave. and the Gladstone Hotel as the dive bar Shaughnessy's. The Who's Roger Daltrey guest stars as a Catholic priest caught between the Nazis and the Vatican in one episode.

The show premieres June 12 on the American cable network TNT. So far, it has no Canadian broadcast deal, but CHUM/City is considering picking it up.

Although Witchblade is based on the popular Top Cow comic book, it has been tweaked somewhat for TV. In the comic book, Sara boasts rather fantastical physical proportions and is often scantily clad.

"Yeah! She's quite a babe. We've deviated a bit," says a laughing Butler, who admits she accepted the role before she saw the comics, then went, "Oh my gosh, I'm in a lot of trouble and they're going to be very disappointed."

So far, they aren't. The TV pilot was well-received by the comic's fans and the cast was relieved by the interest shown when they appeared at a San Diego comic book convention last fall.

Butler's Sara is more likely to be costumed in baggy jeans, men's underpants and a leather jacket, a choice prompted more by a desire to depict reality than by modesty.

"Running down the street being a detective in a metal bra, I would not buy that," Butler says. "In a (comic book) cel, where it's one frame, that's one thing. But when you're moving and talking and interacting, you have to wear sensible shoes. You have to be a real person."

Helping Butler keep it real here in Toronto is her mother, Leslie, her assistant/roommate. Leslie was a longtime New York theatrical company manager (Butler's father is Joe Butler, lead singer and drummer for Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Famers Lovin' Spoonful), so she's familiar with the production grind.

"She travels with me," Butler says. "It's a nice balance. She excuses me a lot more than maybe a regular assistant for being cranky. I have my moments. We all do. But she's also my best friend. She understands. She says, 'You know, you're allowed to be as tired today as you want to.' "

Not that Butler would likely let on.