Hewlett Talks Hissy Fits and SGU Jitters

Noted SciFi reporter Steve Eramo recently interviewed David Hewlett at Eramo’s site, SciFiAndTVTalk. David spoke at length about his great experience filming a small role on Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the much-anticipating film opening world-wide on August 5. He chats about the film he shot in Bulgaria last year, Morlocks, and the hissy fit he threw on set when they wanted to shoot a cannon-load of bloody sponges at his face. He insisted they do it to a stunt man first and felt vindicated when it didn’t work correctly. 🙂

Perhaps most interesting was what David had to say about guest-starring on Stargate Universe. David had given an interview prior to his guest spot in which he’d joked that he wasn’t watching SGU because they were eating his sandwiches, likely a reference to the craft services food that’s served on sets. Well the SGU actors had read the quote, and it affected David’s reception on set:

“What’s interesting is when I first got on the set I definitely felt a little weirdness from people. Like we first did when we started on Atlantis, this cast got a lot of flack at the time about the fact that they had replaced Atlantis, and they were in a much tougher situation because they did replace Atlantis. We didn’t replace SG-1. As I had to keep saying over and over again, we were a complement to SG-1 throughout the same time. They got a good two more years out of that show while were on at the same time, right?

“So I picked up a little bit of initial weirdness on the SGU set. They were all very sweet and very nice and very welcoming, but I definitely felt that they weren’t sure how I felt about things. One day I was doing a scene with Lou Diamond Phillips [Colonel David Telford], and in-between takes he said to me, ‘So, you don’t mind us eating your sandwiches anymore.’ I was like, ‘What?” and Lou jokingly said, ‘I read that in an interview. Everyone knows what you said.’ In an interview I’d said, being typically Hewlett, that I hadn’t as yet watched SGU because they were eating my sandwiches.  It was a joke. With me it’s all about the food – food and resentment – and Lou called me on it. I said to him, ‘Wait a sec. You guys have to understand that we talk like that with one another about each other and our own show. That’s just our thing.’

All ended well, but it’s very interesting to have this insight from David on how actors from the two shows interpreted what was going on.

Visit SciFiAndTVTalk to read the entire, fun interview!