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Early years:
Penikett is the son of former Yukon premier Tony Penikett, who is of British ancestry, and Lulla Sierra Johns, of the White River First Nation in the Yukon. He has two siblings, twin sisters Sarah and Stephanie. He graduated from the Victoria Motion Picture School and studied at the Lyric School of Acting in Vancouver.

Among his early acting work were stints on assorted Canadian TV series such as Cold Squad. He also appeared on the TV show Smallville, in the episode "Resurrection" in Season 3, and in the Season 6 episodes "Nemesis" and "Prototype". He portrayed a police officer for a predominantly gay neighborhood in the 2004 The L Word episode "Losing It", which coincidentally starred Battlestar Galactica co-star Nicki Clyne in a related storyline.

Battlestar Galactica:
In 2003, the 1978 science fiction television series Battlestar Galactica was "reimagined" as a three hour miniseries on the SciFi Channel. The miniseries was filmed in Vancouver, Canada, and Penikett, a local actor, auditioned and was cast in the part of Karl "Helo" Agathon, an officer in the Colonial Fleet. The miniseries proved highly successful, and a Battlestar Galactica series was commissioned.

The role was not based on a character in the original series, and was meant to be confined only to the miniseries; in the miniseries Helo is shown giving up a spot on a spaceship fleeing the doomed planet of Caprica, with the implication that he was left to die. However, both the producers and test audiences were sufficiently impressed with the character, and Penikett`s performance, that the decision was made to make Helo a recurring character on the show. A plot that took place over much of the show`s first season was that the Cylons on Caprica kept Helo alive in order to have him fall in love with, and impregnate, a Cylon (Helo was chosen because his crew partner, Sharon Valerii, was in fact a Cylon, and another copy of the same model was sent to pretend to be her). By the second season, his character had returned to the Galactica; as the father of the only successful human-Cylon hybrid; this character and his family became central to the show`s mythology.

Personal life:
Penikett currently lives in Vancouver, as do his father and sisters.

In support of the Babz Chula Lifeline for Artists Society, which is raising money for their friend and fellow Canadian actor Chula`s cancer treatment, Penikett and his Battlestar Galactica colleague Kandyse McClure auctioned off the opportunity to have dinner with both of them in Vancouver in April 2008.

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