Yet another cast change occurred as Stargate Atlantis entered its fifth season; Amanda Tapping moved on to Sanctuary and Jewel Staite and Stargate veteran Robert Picardo were added to the opening credits.
And after some very intense campaigning, it worked out well for the Dr. Carson Beckett fans, too, as Paul McGillion returned for five episodes that each had him involved in a significant way in the story. McGillion told Pop Culture Zoo, “[The fans] have been so incredibly supportive of the show and of Carson Beckett. Obviously, without them Beckett wouldn’t have come back and I’m really grateful to them for that.”
And finally, for all of the Dr. Daniel Jackson fans, there were the two mid-season episodes that saw the man who discovered Atlantis finally visit it during less pressing times and explore the city in the only way that the curious archaeologist could. Most of Daniel’s time was spent with McKay, and actor David Hewlett wrote in his blog right after filming, “We’ve just finished the two-parter where I had WAY too much fun with the…can’t say enough great things about him, Michael Shanks. That guy is such a star – funny, charming and the consummate professional…all with no attitude either!…I was bugging Mallozzi to bring him back after about an hour of working with the guy!” According to writer/producer Martin Gero in the DVD commentary for “First Contact”, they actually would have seriously considered bringing Shanks in as a regular on the show for its sixth season, but unfortunately, that didn’t pan out, because, shockingly and amazingly, the show was not renewed!
And thus we’ve reached the final week for Stargate Atlantis in our Thirteen Weeks for Thirteen Years (13-4-13) series, and it feels way far too soon. The reasons why the show had to end after having had only five years and winning the People’s Choice Award and reaching the incredible 100th episode milestone still aren’t totally clear, but now Atlantis fans anxiously await the filming of Stargate: Extinction to resolve some of the plot threads that were left rather obviously dangling in the wind.
Atlantis Season Five
Pick your favorites in our poll below. And as always, it would be lovely to hear from you in our comments at the bottom of this article.
Joe Flanigan
From “Being John Sheppard” in Stargate SG-1/Atlantis: The Official Magazine #24 (Sept./Oct. 2008):
“I have a very specific belief that the show is successful because of the chemistry of the characters, and because I don’t think the show takes itself too seriously. I think that is really important. You can take yourself very seriously, you can say a whole bunch of profound things, and everything can be really dramatic, but you better be awfully good. The odds are you are better off doing a $150 million science-fiction movie that is serious, but when you are doing a 44-minute television show for $3 million, you have to know what your limitations are. I think we’re lucky that we have likeable characters and you see us having fun. We are making fun of the genre a little bit, and making fun of ourselves. Knowing when the adventure is urgent, and when it’s kind of funny is important. Comedy and humor are probably the saving grace for us. It allows us to keep going, I think.
“As far as this season goes, it seems they have me and Jason working together more, which is always good because it probably means we are going to do some action sequences. We did one episode [‘The Shrine’] where you could say David Hewlett is senile but there’s no real word for it because it’s a fictional disease, and it is a very good episode. It’s nice to do character pieces because everyone wants some character development. On the show, a lot of the time we are engaged with some exterior problem where you don’t have time for character development, so when you do get a script that has some development, it’s nice. I think everyone did a really amazing job, and everyone has really great moments in the episode.”
From “Joe Flanigan: The Adventurer” at SciFiandTvTalk’s Blog (Apr. 6, 2009):
“[In ‘Remnants’], that’s where my character basically gets stuck in his own head, for lack of a better way of putting it, although both he and the viewer doesn’t realize this until the very end. Dr. McKay [David Hewlett] and Dr. Zelenka [David Nykl] discover a probe at the bottom of the ocean under Atlantis and it creates a phony physical environment inside your head. However, it’s one in which, for Sheppard, you can still feel pain. We had Robert Davi back for this episode and some rather dark things happen in it.
“’Remnants’ is one of those scripts that’s almost always better when you see everything that was shot cut together because there are all sorts of bizarre little storylines going on. I thought it was a clever script and a challenging one to shoot. For example, when Koyla tells Sheppard that he’s just a figment of his imagination, as an actor it’s very difficult to go from, OK, my character is getting the crap beat out of him, to realizing that he’s in no real physical danger. It’s an odd transition and we couldn’t quite figure out how to play it, so I hope that it worked out in the end.
“That big fight scene [in ‘The Prodigal’] took a great deal of time and energy to shoot, and I love that stuff. Any action-oriented show is always going to be one that I’m not only interested in doing, but also watching. I think adventure and humor is a winning combo every time. You can do spooky and funny stories, too, but the combination of those basic elements is always the right way to go. Sometimes we go in a heavy conceptual direction, you know, like ‘The Daedalus Variations,’ which was challenging in a different sort of way to do because it was VFX [visual effects] dependent. If the VFX don’t work out it can kill the whole show, and oftentimes they [the producers and director] can’t quite describe to the actor what the VFX is going to be. So you’re trying to react to something that hasn’t even been created yet, and you just pray to God that you’re acting at the right level. Hopefully the threat that they then create using VFX isn’t bigger, or smaller, than you’ve anticipated. It’s kind of a tricky situation to be in.
“So ‘The Prodigal’ was one of those basic types of stories that you could sink your teeth into. It’s a great episode and Connor [Trinneer] did a terrific job in it. Bam Bam [stunt coordinator James Bamford] worked on the fight scene for a really long time. However, I then threw him a curveball because they had planned out this big elaborate fight and I said to him, ‘I’m sorry, but my character just isn’t Mr. Jujitsu.’ Sheppard would probably get his ass kicked and barely hold onto his life. He’s a great soldier, but a pretty sloppy fighter compared to Teyla. He tends to improvise, so we had to rearrange the fight a little bit.
“Carl Binder [Atlantis executive producer and writer of ‘The Prodigal’] and I agreed that the point of this fight was to show how painful it was. I wanted to convey pain, disorganization and fear, whereas the fight originally conveyed an almost Crouching Tiger-type quality. That was cool, but it wasn’t my character. I felt bad for poor Bam Bam, who had worked so hard on the fight, and then I came along and kind of changed the whole thing. I was like, Michael needs to hit Sheppard and he falls to the floor. Maybe then he grabs Michael’s leg and bites it or whatever. Michael is clearly a better fighter and Sheppard has to do whatever he can to make it work out in his favor. So we were able to make some changes and I think it worked out better for us. It’s the difference between watching Bruce Lee and Harrison Ford. The characters they play get into these difficult fights, but one is a martial artist and the other is someone who improvises and just hopes he gets out of the situation alive. It’s an important character distinction, especially for someone like Sheppard, who has a team full of Jujitsu experts, Dr. McKay not being one of them. [jokes]
“Sometimes it’s such a life and death thing for our characters that you don’t get a chance to see them enjoying the adventure. It’s almost as if they’re always fighting for their lives, but Sheppard does enjoy it. It’s like a wild ride for him. Also, he doesn’t have his personal life together, so this has been a replacement for what would otherwise be a normal, healthy functioning life on Earth, which is non-existent for him. Sheppard doesn’t know anything else. As long as he keeps getting Budweiser in space he’ll stay up there.
“[‘Vegas’ is] the script that I’ve been the most excited about all year. You not only learn a lot more about Sheppard, but also I think what’s important about this particular episode is that it sets up the fact that we all live in these parallel realities, and there are infinite and different Sheppard characters throughout these alternate universes. I’m really happy, for one, to go to Las Vegas, where they have free drinks and I can play blackjack, and, two, to get to play a totally different character. On top of both those points, I enjoy Earth-based stories and ‘Vegas’ is a really interesting and well-written script that can hold its own.”
From “Captain Fantastic!” in Stargate SG-1/Atantis: The Official Magazine #26 (Jan./Feb. 2009):
“Shooting ‘Vegas’ with Robert Cooper [was the highlight for me this year]. We shot most of it already out in the Okinaga valley, which is stunning. It looks great because we’re shooting on film, and it was written to capture behavior as opposed to dialogue. A lot of times our shows become about incredibly elaborate plotlines that we don’t have the time or the money to show so we have to explain them. The curse falls primarily on David Hewlett to do that. And doing it in any kind of entertaining fashion where people don’t turn the channel is a major success. But this particular show is not heavy on dialogue, thankfully, except for David Hewlett! Now that I think about it, David actually saves this episode because he explains the whole thing in two scenes! So it’s a lot of fun. I also like Robert Cooper. I like working with him. I think I have a connection with him in terms of the character. He’s written a couple of great episodes for my character.
“I’m going to miss you guys [the fans] a lot! I hope that you are with me on the next project. It’s been an awful lot of fun, and I hope I get to do science fiction for the rest of my life. I do. The fans are awesome. I was warned that I might have weird experiences with sci-fi fans, but, I didn’t have any really weird experiences. The truth is I don’t think it’s weird to be loyal and passionate.”
David Hewlett
From “Close Up: David Hewlett” at MGM’s Official Stargate Website (Jun. 3, 2008):
“You know, [Richard Woolsey is] a bureaucrat. And McKay understands bureaucrats because up until Atlantis, he kind of was one. He’s the academic version of a bureaucrat; he wants everything by the book, by the things that he’s read. So there’s this weird sense of complete and utter disgust at the fact that he’s taking over, but at the same time, he’s not going to argue with someone who takes the safer route through things. McKay’s generally not the one to leap into the fray! So I think there’s a sort of begrudging agreement. It puts McKay in a strange position, because he somehow sees himself somewhere between Sheppard and Woolsey. Somewhere in between those two, there’s a McKay, because McKay definitely has to dial up the hero thing once in a while, but for the most part he’s probably more Woolsey than Woolsey.
“The episode I’m most excited about so far is called ‘The Shrine,’ which we’ve just finished shooting. It’s Brad Wright’s triumphant return to writing scripts for Atlantis, and it’s just great. It’s a really meaty McKay episode, but the great thing about Brad is that he may write episodes that are kind of McKay-centered, but he’s so good at bringing in all the other characters as well. So it’s just a great ensemble piece where I get to do some acting. I love running around shooting things and techno babble and all, but it’s just nice to go, ‘Wow, I actually have to act…’ I can’t just have fun I actually have to do some serious work!”
From “Science Friction” in Stargate SG-1/Atlantis: The Official Magazine #26 (Jan./Feb. 2009):
“The lines [in ‘The Shrine’ are the highlight of the season for me.] But for ‘The Shrine,’ we did all of the video stuff in a couple of hours one afternoon. We sat and knocked off every different stage of this disease in literally two hours. Basically, it was Brad, Andy Mikita and myself and a very slimmed down splinter crew. This is the way I like making films—with tiny little budgets and tiny little crews. We got to establish exactly where we wanted to go with each session of this breakdown, so that really set the tone—it was great. What was really nice is that Brad Wright was there. I did all of those lines with Brad, which was fun. It’s very hard to look at Brad Wright and tell him that you’ve loved him for some time. He cried, which was very funny! We were doing the scene, and he started crying. I asked him, ‘Are your crying? Hey! You’re crying because your lines are so good, and not because of the way I’m delivering them!’ It was also a great episode for cracking up the other actors while they’re all doing their ‘acting’ stuff—I’m supposed to be in my own little world, so they were prefect targets.”
From “Stargate Atlantis’ David Hewlett – The Deconstructed Man” at SciFiandTvTalk’s Blog (Jan. 19, 2010):
“The dynamic between Daniel [Michael Shanks] and McKay is not a particularly friendly one. He shows up on Atlantis to do some more research, and my character is not happy because McKay then gets stuck taking him around the city while dismissing Daniel’s theories about various things and then ending being horribly wrong on many occasions. The two of them eventually get pulled off to another planet where they meet an armor-clad race, and then get to become a bit of an armor-clad race themselves.
“It was terrific to have Shanks on the show and fun, too, as I got to sort of pick his brain because he did this [Stargate] for so long. As for our scenes together, well, we both talk incredibly fast, and I’m not used to lines being picked up so quickly and thrown back at me in such a way, because Michael adds in these cool little character-related things. The guy is amazing. I don’t know how he does it, and not only that, but he gets younger every time I see him. Actually, the whole SG-1 cast is on some kind of reverse aging process, whereas I’m on an advanced aging process. By the time we finish this conversation I’ll have aged 10 years.
“As I mentioned, Michael and I ended up in those armor-clad suits for a period of time. All I can say is, I now have a new respect for those people at Comic-Con who dress up as Storm Troopers [from Star Wars]; I don’t know how they stand it because you sweat buckets in an outfit like that. That’s what happened to me in that spacesuit. Of course, Michael glowed and was in a really good mood. Again, we had a ball. There’s some fantastic back and forth banter when Daniel and McKay get together, if I do say so myself. You’ve got that great sense of McKay being up against someone who’s as smart as he is and knows as much as he does, so there’s a lot of attitude being exchanged.”
From “Science Friction” in Stargate SG-1/Atlantis: The Official Magazine #26 (Jan./Feb. 2009):
“Unlike the other characters who came in and developed, the weird thing with McKay is that he came in developed, and tore himself apart—you see why he is the way he is. That was a lot of the fun of it. Basically, you’ve got a guest star role who’s there to cause trouble, and he gets kicked up to Siberia or wherever he was. All of a sudden they go back and start pulling him apart, ‘OK, he’s a complete knob about this, why? Let’s learn why he’s the way he is.’ With sci-fi, I think there are a lot of people who feel an affinity to that kind of character. A lot of people into sci-fi are very smart and not always terribly good socially—I know I wasn’t—and part of the whole love of sci-fi is about escaping. The idea that there’s this guy who’s like you is very appealing. He can’t get his smart out fast enough, he has no social boundaries, he says exacty what he thinks, and he does everything you want to do. For me, that stuff usually requires a lot of drinks—McKay just does it! He says whatever he needs to say and then goes, ‘Oh.’ I love him. I really love him. I make jokes about it, but I’ve learned an awful lot from McKay. What you see is what you get with him, he doesn’t try to be nice if he doesn’t fee like it, but he does try when he wants to.”
From “Close Up: David Hewlett” at MGM’s Official Stargate Website (Jun. 3, 2008):
“The scary thing is I feel like I’ve learned a lot from McKay. People always laugh when I say this, but I’m actually quite shy and retiring. I’m not really good with people, I’m not really good in first impressions, I’m not very good at social scenes. And McKay’s kind of given me this like ‘Well, they all hate me anyway’ attitude. It’s given me the freedom to get out of my skin a bit, and it’s given me a certain confidence. And also, to be fair, as an actor, there’s a confidence in having a regular job. One of the hardest things as an actor is to not base how you feel on whether you’re working or not, because so much of your time as an actor is spent not working. But when you’ve got a job like this, and especially a character like this who is so much fun to play, it’s hard not to enjoy yourself.”
From “Science Friction” in Stargate SG-1/Atlantis: The Official Magazine #26 (Jan./Feb. 2009):
“I already miss McKay. Being an actor is kind of like playing the lottery, I mean, you get these roles and some of them stick and when they hit, it’s an amazing thing. I think McKay was one of those roles. I find it weird to let that go. But at the same time, I don’t have to yet. I don’t want to sound trite, it’s like when you break up with a woman, you never really get over them until you meet someone else. And with McKay, I hope I’m not always going to miss him. I hope there will be other characters that resonate the same way. McKay is a great character and I hope he’s not a once in a career character. So, basically, I’m kind of excited because maybe there’s another… I have a sneaking suspicion that McKay is not going to disappear—I think we’ll see him again. …”
Rachel Luttrell
From interview with Fantasy Magazine (Oct. 1, 2008):
“[Teyla has] matured, definitely. She’s come into her own and she’s become stronger. Her journey has become quite broad and extensive. She’s become a very grounded and stronger just because that’s what the situation has called for. I mean just the fact that she’s had a baby definitely has caused her to change.
“I think that she’s pretty much made up her mind at this point, not so much where she’s going to put her focus but where she’s going to divide her energies. She’s still part of the team. She’s come to terms with the fact that what she does is dangerous, that when she goes out on a mission it might be the last time that she’s sees her child but she’s determined to make the galaxy a safer place, especially for him.
“Throughout the past few years, I’ve grown with Teyla, and the shifts she’s undergone have been reminiscent of my own life. I’ve become a mother as well. I think I’d like to see her have a little more fun (laughs). I would! I’d love for her to have some fun and light in her life. To have a moment where she has a sigh of relief. A moment to relax and show a softer side.
“With each character and each personality, Teyla responds in a different way. We have Robert Picardo this year as Richard Woolsey. Woolsey is kind of prickly, but Teyla is inclined to give people the chance to show their true nature. She shows compassion towards him, and in the end, he’s won her over. … I mean, Teyla leaves Torin with Woolsey and trusts him to find the dad.
“I connect with all of them in different ways; even with Woolsey there’s a connection.
“With each of the team members she has a personal kind of affection towards them. After ‘Missing’ she has an affection for Dr. Keller. Dr. Keller rises to the challenge and she knows about the pregnancy first. And of course with Sheppard there’s a kindred spirit connection between them that’s been there from the beginning. With Ronon there’s the great relationship that they have since he’s also from Pegasus. And the only one to share any connection to what she’s gone through. But they all are important to her in different ways.”
From “Queen of Atlantis” in Stargate SG-1/Atlantis: The Official Magazine #26 (Jan./Feb. 2009):
“[Teyla’s] journey has been very broad, actually. She’s gone through a lot. I look back to season one Teyla, and everything that has transpired, and I think she’s just come into herself. She’s become more of a woman. A very grounded, well-rounded, compassionate and strong woman. I think in the beginning, there was still a bit of the girl in her. Certainly, her relationship with the rest of the team has deepened. In terms of self-discovery, she has had all of these unique skills that, in the beginning she was uncertain about— since then, she’s learned a lot about herself and her own powers and capabilities. I think I started off with a character who was filled with potential, and I’ve ended up with a character who’s still very ripe with potential, but who’s quite weighty and centered.
“It’s an honor to be able to play such a character. It’s so wonderful to be able to bring a character to life, who is a woman, who is strong physically as well as intellectually, but without being a bitch or being masculine in any way. She didn’t lose any of her femininity, or strength—that was something I didn’t want to compromise on. … I was very clear that that’s what I wanted to do with her. I’ve had a lot of strong female role models in my own life and one of them have been bitchy! They’ve all been great women. Let’s face it, that’s what we are, that’s what we do!
“I’m sorry but I can’t say ‘The Queen’ [can be considered a stand-out moment for me this year.] That was a hell of an episode. I’m still nursing my son and there I was as a freak monster holding my wee one! Thank goodness he’s so above all of it that he thought it was hilarious. I’d been putting green facemasks on to make sure he was OK. He would look at me like, ‘I know what I signed up for,’ and laugh! Then I knew it was going to be OK, but it was a long, hard episode.
“Sitting on top of the Stargate in ‘The Shrine’—that was a fun moment! We had a ball splashing the water before takes, and we were spraying each other.
“I had a lot of fun with Michael and his demise in ‘Prodigal,’ and being a little bit of a superhero mom. That was good because that’s certainly something that happens when you become a mom—you feel you can take on anything!”
From interview with Sci Fi Now (Aug. 10, 2009):
“You know, there are many things that I would have liked to do with Teyla. I like the direction that she went, certainly, but I still think that there was room to do a lot more in terms of exploring her culture and the fact that she was native to the Pegasus galaxy. I think that there could have been, potentially, a lot more mythology and history woven in there. I’m not going to say that it was a missed opportunity per se, but I just really feel that there was much more depth that could have been explored and it could have been really fascinating.
“Obviously, number one [highlight for me] would be the camaraderie between myself and my fellow cast mates, as well as our wonderful crew. We just had a terrific group of people to work with. It was very fortunate, it doesn’t happen very often…but we all got along with each other. Certainly in the early days we would spend a lot of time with each other and that was a ball, and our crew was great, so the sense of family was fantastic. I also loved being able to play such a strong, vibrant and intelligent, physical character… Teyla wasn’t a cookie cutter, kind of [character]… she wasn’t sexy without intelligence, or smart without the physicality, she was really well-rounded and that was great. It was wonderful to be able to take on such a physical character as well, I hadn’t done that before and so the whole aspect of martial arts and fighting was something that I very much enjoyed as well.”
From “Queen of Atlantis” in Stargate SG-1/Atlantis: The Official Magazine #26 (Jan./Feb. 2009):
“I don’t know whether or not anybody will admit this—I’ll admit it—I think everybody’s a little bit sad about [the cancellation]. I was shocked by it. We all had the carpet pulled out from under us because we’ve been doing so well. Paul Mullie and Joe Mallozzi came to my trailer, with their heads hanging down, with the news. We all thought it would at least go one more season.
“I would just like to make sure that the fans know how much we appreciate their support. We’ve all been touched by the outpouring since the announcement. It’s just been wonderful and we appreciate it.”
Jason Momoa
From “Jason Momoa – At Home on Atlantis” at SciFiandTvTalk’s Blog (Apr. 14, 2009):
“I’ve been with this role for four seasons, and at the end of my first year playing him I really began to grasp the character, so much so that now it’s easy to slip into. As far as the action goes, it’s a lot easier than it used to be. I mean, I’ve been walking in these shoes for a long time, and I’m going to be a little sad when this show ends and I’m not playing Ronon. I’ve never really felt that way before. This is the hardest role I’ve ever had. There’s no way that I relate to most of the stuff he does, but I really like Ronon and I think the writers have done a good job with him. Sometimes it’s hard not having much to say as my character, but, hey, that’s Ronon, so I’ve had to let go of that.
“When it comes to the acting, I’ve learned a great deal on Atlantis. I get really nervous on-camera, so I’ve tried to relax and slow down. This season I’ve had the chance to go much deeper into this character and really experiment with him. ‘Broken Ties’ was a huge breakthrough for me, especially when it came to the scenes where I cried. I find it very difficult to cry, and as an actor you have to look inside yourself as much as possible and be aware of your emotions. Thank God I got to work with [director] Ken Girotti on ‘Broken Ties,’ who’s incredible. He got me to relax and would say to me, ‘You know you can do this.’ When you’re on-set and, for example, the lighting people are doing their thing, the camera guys are moving the camera into place, and someone from make-up is powdering your face, it’s hard to channel your emotions. It takes a lot of practice, and I’m not good at getting all emotional and crying. Ken just came up to me and said, ‘Jason, you know what you want to do. You’re there, just relax.’
“When I heard Ken tell me to relax I thought, ‘OK, just breathe into your stomach and listen for a second to what he’s saying.’ When that one word [relax] hit me, it was just awesome. That’s where you think, ‘This is why I do what I do.’ I’ve had times in my career where I’ve been able to stretch myself acting-wise doing those types of scenes. Action helps that entire process because it throws you into that particular moment. As far as the acting, though, when you get to just perform and do your thing, that’s when you truly realize why you love your job so much.”
From “Dex Appeal” in Stargate SG-1/Atlantis: The Official Magazine #26 (Jan./Feb. 2009):
“‘Broken Ties’ was my favorite episode, acting-wise. I had these super-human powers, which was pretty cool, and I got to take the badass thing to another level. I got to play evil. It was horrible to come off of such a crazy drug, and doing it in that place is pretty funky. It’s meant to be like heroin times 10, and they really let me go with it and create the pain. There was a lot of pain, but it was fun to do!
“I broke two gurneys on the set and the crew were like ‘holy crap!’ I was a broken man by the end of that day—I didn’t have anything left. It was just rewarding to hear them say, ‘I didn’t even know he could do that, he doesn’t even talk!’ That was nice.
“At the end of every season I go up to them and we talk about what I’d like to happen character-wise—like I’d really love to see him beg to be killed, or have a love interest. I wanted to go evil for a while—originally, in that episode my dreads were supposed to get cut off to show the transformation. After I cut my dreads off last season, they made me the wig and we were going to ‘shave’ it off during ‘Broken Ties.’ The Wraith would capture me, torture me and cut all my hair off, as part of the story. The powers that be didn’t like that—Ronon can’t be Ronon without the dreads!”
From “Jason Momoa – At Home on Atlantis” at SciFiandTvTalk’s Blog (Apr. 14, 2009):
“‘Tracker’ was fun because it was just me and David Hewlett, and working with him is always a pleasure as well as laughs and good times. Our two characters are good together because they’re obviously brains and brawn, and now this year they’re fighting over Keller and it’s been great to feed off of that.
“I have to say, too, that Mike Dopud, who played Kiryk, does a terrific job in the episode. He’s a fantastic actor and we had such a good time working with him. Like Mike’s character, Ronon brought death upon an entire village because of the Wraith, so my character is able to relate to him on that level. However, they’re two testosterone-driven don’t-show-any-emotion guys, but they do share one tiny moment of understanding in the episode. I’m really pleased our writers did something like that, rather than having Ronon put the blinders on and have him just seeing red because this Runner took someone who he loves and respects. It would have been neat if they were able to bring back Mike’s character and have him and Ronon take on some Wraith together.”
From “Exclusive Interview: Jason Momoa” at Cinema Spy (Aug. 11, 2008):
“[I’d like to see Ronon go out in] a blaze of glory, man. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, me and Joe, going out. The unspoken word, looking at each other. We’ve had it happen this year, we do one where we look at each other and he’s like, ‘We’re going to die. It’s an honour,’ and I’m like, ‘Same.’ It’s unspoken and you’re going out with your buddy, firing.”
From “The 100th Episode Wrap Party” video at MGM’s Official Stargate Website (May 21, 2009):
“I’m going to miss playing [Ronon]…he’s a fun character, for sure, but I’m also looking forward to smiling instead of—and not beating people up. I’m sure everyone says it’s like family, but it really is. I’ve met a lot of people I’ll take with me and cherish. I’m going to love coming back [to do the movie]. It’ll be nice to have a little break and come back and—you know, I’ve never really been in a feature, so it’ll be nice to do that: this whole big budget and play Ronon, someone I already know, and just having fun.”
Jewel Staite
From “Close Up: Jewel Staite” at MGM’s Official Stargate Website (May 27, 2008):
“They called in the fall and told me that we had been picked up for a fifth season, and once contract negotiations began, they asked if I was willing to come on for more time. It’s a great show, a great cast, the hours are great… It’s a very easy set to be on but at the same time, there’s all these extreme situations that we’re playing out every week, so it’s kind of fun. You never really know what your character is going to go through next, so it’s a bit of a challenge as well, which is good. It shoots in my home town and I’ve bonded with everybody – I definitely wasn’t ready to say goodbye, so I was happy to keep exploring the character.
“Keller has definitely become more comfortable with the group. There are more scenes with Sheppard, which I really like because I didn’t have a lot of scenes with him last year. There’s been more development with the Ronon situation and the McKay situation, but of course, it being Atlantis the stakes are high and we’re in constant danger! There’s been lots of stunt work. So it’s the same old, same old, really. [laughs]
“I got a new leather jacket to wear off world. They’ve given me this off-world outfit and solidified me as more a part of the team, so that’s really cool. She’s still a little bit of a ‘fraidy cat, but what I really like about Keller is that she seems to react the way a normal, ordinary person would in a death-defying situation. I think there’s a lot of humor and a lot of realism in that. But she’s learning and she’s definitely becoming used to being in dangerous situations and stepping up to the plate a bit more. So, slowly but surely, she’s getting the hang of it.
“I feel very comfortable here. I feel like I know everybody very well and they know me very well. I just feel trusted and confident in letting loose with what I can do. I don’t second guess what I’m doing and I don’t worry about whether my choice about something in a scene is going to be wrong, because I feel like I now own this character, and it’s a great feeling. It’s hard to grasp that when you’re just starting a job, especially since you’re essentially replacing somebody who was very well loved in the fandom. It was a little touch and go at first, and I was feeling like the new kid – but that was good because I think Keller felt the same way, so it just seemed to work on set and feel very real. I don’t feel so new anymore. I just feel like one of the gang, which is awesome.”
From “Why Is Jewel Staite Always In Bondage? We Asked Her” at io9 (Aug. 8, 2008):
“No! [It wasn’t fun having the alien spore taking over my body in ‘The Seed.’] It was the weirdest thing in the world. I was basically pinned to the bed literally, they had a prosthetic blanket that went over me, and they glued pieces of the blanket to my face. So once I was in, I was in. It took like half an hour to get out, and then another half hour to in, so if I really really had to go, they would let me out, but I knew it would be a big hassle, so I just laid off all the fluids and I went to the happy place, that’s where I was. Yeah. That was so bizarre. I just laid there and David Hewlett (Rodney McKay) was feeding me at one point. It was a bonding experience. It wasn’t that bad. I basically laid there and relaxed in a very comfortable bed. It could have been worse. An odd way of working, for sure.
“In season four, I was kidnapped and bound and gagged. This year, it’s happened to me twice so far. And I just read yet another script where I am again bound and gagged. I don’t know what I did. … I’m starting to wonder. It’s a fetish thing. And it’s the same writer every time that writes the episode where I’m being kidnapped. Maybe he likes seeing me dragged through the woods. I don’t know what’s going on. And you know what? I don’t question it. I guess. At least he’s writing for me.”
From “Exclusive Interview: Jewel Staite” at Cinema Spy (Jul. 30, 2008):
“I think in terms of doing a series, the writers get to know you as a person, besides you as the actor, and start incorporating a lot of your own personality into the character. As time goes on they can’t really help but do that. If you are playing this person every day, there’s a little bit of you that goes in there no matter what you do. I’m very laid back and I talk to everybody and I’m the type of person who gets along with everybody, and I think she’s like that too. It’s not that she has this intense bond with everybody. It’s just a friendly, amiable quality about her that is there. There’s a really interesting scene coming up [in ‘First Contact’] where Woolsey is writing a speech and he’s really nervous about it and she can pick up on that and she interrupts him and says, ‘What are you doing?’ and she sits and laughs with him and relaxes him. I don’t think he’s had that with any of the other characters yet on the show. I like that she’s able to get along, at least, with everybody. She doesn’t have a beef with anybody. She doesn’t have an aggressiveness about her, or any major past issues that bring a certain coldness to her that somebody like Ronon would have, or even McKay.
“I’ve been able to help develop the relationship between Keller and McKay a lot more. They’ve become much closer and better friends. I’ve been a lot more involved this year. I signed on for more episodes, so it’s been almost every day and I feel good. I feel like I’ve realised my place here and know everybody and feel very at ease and comfortable. It’s really nice.
“The thing I’m most excited about is her confidence. I’m so happy to see more of that. She was a bit of a scaredy-cat in Season 4 and was apprehensive and kind of shy and full of anxiety a lot of the time. A lot of that is dissipated this year and she’s become more forthright and believes in herself a little bit more and I really like that. She’s becoming a strong female character on the show and that’s always good to have more of those.”
From “Interview with Amanda Tapping & Jewel Staite of Stargate Atlantis” at TVaholic (Sept. 30, 2007):
“I’m usually just drawn to really well written characters. I don’t limit my career choices on any particular genre. And I guess I’ve just fallen into this world of sci-fi over and over again because a lot of the time in this genre there’s some really well-written, intelligent women characters to play, luckily.
“And as for her biggest strength, she’s really great under pressure. I think that’s when she’s at her best, especially when she’s in her element; anything to do with medicine or a complicated medical situation she’s just there. She’s just on. She’s very, very, very smart and very focused.
“I think [the character moments are] so important in a show like this. I mean there’s so much action and there’s so much going on and special effects and that kind of thing and that’s important, but I think it’s so much more interesting when there are those special moments between the characters where they let their guards down a little bit. I really like that. I think that’s really integral to a good episode.”
From “Shutting Down The ‘Gate: ‘Stargate Atlantis’ Ends Its Five Year Run” at Pop Culture Zoo (Jan. 8, 2009):
“I knew the show was in a groove, having been running for so many years, so I expected a well-run set and a lot of camaraderie. And I couldn’t have been more on the mark. I’ve never worked with such a talented, easy-going crew! I was always amazed at how much we were able to achieve in a twelve hour day, and everyone really seemed to be enjoying themselves. Since I was the new kid stepping in to some hard shoes to fill, I was a little worried about fitting in, but they all made me feel so incredibly welcome, right from the very beginning. I’ll always remember the cast and crew for that.
“Nearing the end of season five, Dr. Keller was just beginning to show her true colors. I would love to explore more of that in the future!”
Robert Picardo
From “Close Up: Robert Picardo” at MGM’s Official Stargate Website (May 20, 2008):
“I’ve enjoyed not only playing the character but the experience of working with both casts. The writer-producers have treated me very nicely and I think rather amazingly they’ve rehabilitated a character that was originally introduced, not so much as a villain, but as an unpleasant bureaucrat. I think the producers kind of liked me [laughs], and they thought, ‘Well this guy’s not so bad, why don’t we try to bring him back?’ So my next appearance, they rehabilitated him quite a bit by making him a guy that may rub people the wrong way and may be annoying, but at least he means well. He has a high ethical standard and thinks that secret military operations really need to have civilian oversight to stop them spinning out of control. And when he found out that he was being manipulated by the evil senator Kinsey, he provided evidence against Kinsey at extreme risk to himself—career-wise and probably also health-wise! So he’s shown a certain courage and backbone.” [Note: These are references to Woolsey’s first episodes during Season Seven of Stargate SG-1.]
“What I find interesting about this challenge as an actor is I guess the same challenge that Woolsey is experiencing as a character. He is reinventing himself. After years of being a conference room guy, someone who has a great legal mind, a lot of legal training, and knows a lot about military protocol—he knows enough to evaluate anyone else’s command, but he’s never had to make those decisions himself. So it’s fun to take the guy who can so easily come in and evaluate you and suddenly put the mantle of power around him and say, ‘Okay, what are you going to do now? How are you going to handle the same challenges that you used to critique other people over?’ The whole notion of a middle aged man completely trying to reinvent himself is something that I think audiences will find interesting to watch, and I certainly find interesting as an actor to play. It’ll be an interesting evolution.
“I had some chats with Joe Mallozzi. We had got a little comic mileage, especially in the two part episode I did with Richard Dean Anderson [Season Four’s ‘The Return’], where Woolsey is afraid in a dangerous situation. And I said, ‘Well, we certainly won’t be able to mine that territory for comedy any more. We can’t look to the new leader being afraid to lead. But I think we can still find some comic possibilities in his bad people skills. He doesn’t have an easy way of getting on with other people—he can be a little brusque and arrogant. What I find interesting is that he’s aware of his limitations and he wants to work to change them. There was a wonderful moment I had with Amanda Tapping’s character last season. I’m brought into evaluate her character, and I say, ‘It’s been brought to my attention that I can sometimes rub people the wrong way.’ She just looks at me and lets the comment hang, until about four or five eggs are dripping off my face! So he has an awareness that people don’t find him easy to get along with, and he wants to work on that too. That’s part of him building himself into a leader. I love the idea that he wants to leave the boardroom and enter the command room, and I hope that they’ll put him in missions later in the season. In anticipation of that, I chatted to the writers about whether or not he might try to train himself, first physically, and then with regard to weapons and combat, and then try to get some basic boot camp training that he never had because of the career he’d chosen. So I think there could be all sorts of fun possibilities!
“The very first episode that I’m featured in is the second episode of season five, called ‘The Seed.’ Woolsey has to handle his first crisis—which I of course won’t give away. He is immediately amazed at his own behavior, that he chooses to break protocol and not follow the by-the-book way of dealing with the security threat that the base is facing. He turns away from that and makes some riskier choices in order to try to save one of our endangered crew members. The book clearly states, ‘restore security with minimum collateral damage,’ which means sacrifice the one life for the good of the many. He doesn’t do that, and I think he’s kind of shocked by himself. There’s a quite nice scene that I have with Joe Flanigan at the end where he confesses to Sheppard that if he can’t trust the rules that he’s supposed to follow, he doesn’t know whether or not he can really do this. He’s a theorist that’s put in a real situation, and he doesn’t know how much of the theory that he’s memorized he can truly trust to guide his decisions. That’s a major step for his character right off the bat. The Woolsey that you saw in the alternate time line at the end of season four [in ‘The Last Man’] is the guy before he faced this kind of crisis and finds out that he cannot lead effectively the way he thought he would.
“It’s been great so far. We’re only on the fifth episode right now and I appear in four of the first five. So I’ve been having a fun time getting to know my fellow cast members and, of course, the crew. And we’re getting some comedic moments out of the fact that Woolsey is the new guy, who doesn’t know the base very well. He doesn’t know how things work or his way around. So there’s some things with him getting a little bit lost and with him not knowing how to get the doors open, so we have been having some nice humorous moments, which I’m happy about. We’re also learning more about his back story. He’s divorced, obviously married to his work and he doesn’t seem to have a lot of friends. He seems a little lonely in his new position. So I think they’re getting some things lined up for later on, with people trying to get him to socialize a little bit. To let his hair down if you’ll excuse the irony of that image!”
From “The Last Commander” in Stargate SG-1/Atlantis: The Official Magazine #26 (Jan./Feb. 2009):
“It’s been a delight! It hasn’t been too terribly taxing—there’s only been about four episodes where Woolsey was fairly heavily featured and there were big dialogue days. After my years of spouting techno-babble on Star Trek it was nowhere near as memory-taxing. You’re allowed to actually change a line or two without having to go through seven layers of protocol, the way you do in the Delta Quadrant!
“The most fun for me to shoot was ‘Remnants,’ which Joe Mallozzi wrote. It has a certain emotional journey for the Woolsey character—there’s a good deal of humor in it, but also it has a surprisingly touching pay-off. And, I get to flirt with a girl, which is always a good thing! Woolsey can see this woman that he’s attracted to, and other people can’t. When he becomes aware the he’s going a little crazy because he’s not sure if he has an imaginary friend or not, there are scenes where he’s torn between hearing what the person no one else can hear is saying, while trying to appear to everyone else that he’s not talking to imaginary people. That dynamic is funny. Like Harvey! Those scenes were great fun to play.
“They could obviously go with one of their prior leaders or another leader [in the movies], but the fact that they now look at me as the leader of the expedition is very flattering, and I would be delighted to do it. Also, it’s nice to keep a hand in the genre. I love doing all kinds of acting. I love working on stage, I love doing comedy and I like doing regular non-genre drama on television because it’s fun to do everything. I can’t imagine a better situation than to have an ongoing way of keeping your hand in science fiction, and still have time to do other types of work—that would be the best of both worlds. I hope the first movie gets made, I hope it’s well received and I hope we get a shot at doing more than one!”
“I will have to admit that I had an unfounded initial fear of having Amanda on the show, which was Atlantis losing its distinction from SG-1. I didn’t want to become ‘SG-2’, and, again, that fear was unfounded. To Amanda’s credit she’s such a pleasure to work with and able to tackle all that incredibly crappy exposition that I want to avoid. Jewel [Staite] is very good at that as well, and I think she and Amanda both have a fan base that will hopefully widen the circle of our fan base. I have to say, too, that I miss Paul McGillion, you know? It’s not a case of either or. If it were up to me I’d love to have everyone on the show.
“[‘Adrift’ and ‘Lifeline’] were fun to do, and there are some big surprises in store for our viewers. I love the idea of the city having to leave home and be marooned in space. I actually wanted us to be out there for seven or eight episodes. That would have been cool. I’m not sure why we didn’t do that, but there must have been a good reason. Then, of course, we eventually had to land the city. When we did that, I hoped we would end up on a planet that was distinctly different from the last one, so that it perhaps felt like we were in an inhospitable place that would make survival a bit more challenging. However, we landed on a planet similar to the previous one and looks not unlike various areas surrounding Vancouver. [smiles]
“As an actor I had evil twin syndrome with [‘Doppelganger’], which was a challenge from a stunt perspective because I had to fight myself, and then turn around and fight myself all over again. You’re not only doing a lot more stunts than normal, but you’re also doing twice as many as you think because you have to do them a second time.
“‘Outcast’ came from an original idea that I had that Ronon and Sheppard had to go back to Earth because Replicators had gotten on world and were being insidious, but it was basically us running around on Earth in familiar areas and blowing things up. They liked that idea and wove some backstory in it about my father passing away. It really took it to the next level, and we got to see a lot more about Sheppard and who he is.
“As for the sandstorm, I enjoy that kind of stuff. There were these little tiny wood chips that didn’t all get chopped up and some of them hit me, which kind of hurt a bit, but that also lent a greater realism to the situation. I like when our characters go through intense physical adversity because those types of things just read well on screen. It’s also what makes me watch a TV show because I’m always fascinated how someone could physically survive an ordeal like that. And I always think that that’s a smart way to go with our series in general because Sci-Fi plots can sometimes be a bit esoteric, so to show what the physical price is for something is more fun acting-wise than it is to explain something like, for example, the implosion of a planet.
“This job is funny because it’s unlike a lot of others in TV. By that I mean in Atlantis we get to do a variety of things. Because there are no real [creative] boundaries, we can do an episode that’s funny, another that’s dramatic, one that’s scary, etc. In many ways we’re the freest form of TV out there, which you sometimes have to remind yourself of and remember not to take for granted.
“It feels like, Stargate, we’re the kid brother or sister of Stargate, and when that started, it was almost 11 years ago now, I feel like TV has changed. I think Atlantis is a product of that. The audiences are much more savvy, and I think the content that we’re seeing on television is darker, so there’s definitely more of a bite to Atlantis than perhaps there was to start off with. I think it’s a good thing, though. 
“Obviously, the biggest [change that makes Atlantis darker] is [the] change of characters. We lost a couple of our leads, effectively, and added a few more, too. Again, from an entirely selfish standpoint, I got Amanda Tapping and Jewel Staite to work with. I’ve got two female icons of sci-fi that I get to play with on a daily basis. It’s fantastic. But, by knocking off these characters, you don’t know what’s going to happen next. I mean, they’re talking about the cliff-hanger for Season Four, and I’m like, ‘I hope it’s not me.'”
“It was funny, someone came up to me and said, ‘Wow, the makeup’s amazing and the way they gave you a little pot belly and stuff.’ And I was like, ‘I just let my belly out a bit.’ Getting up the stairs, frankly, by the end of the season, I was just so creaky and sore anyways. Generally it’s the best thing to play at the end of a season because you’re so tired by episode 20 that you look like a thousand years old anyway. Basically I just allowed myself to move slower and complain more. 
“I’m still pleasantly surprised by [Rodney’s journey so far]. Because originally when I took this job, my vision of where it was going—and think their vision to some extent—was that it was going to be basically me standing beside a computer yelling out things at people every so often. Rodney was a surprise to them, because he suddenly became part of the team. Originally the idea of Rodney going on missions, everybody would have laughed at it. The idea would have shocked him. Rodney was incredibly unhappy about having to go on these missions in general—where some people see adventure, he sees a potential health hazard.
“I made a conscious choice off the top to make [Carter] out of her comfort zone, to be a leader that was about listening to her team and throwing it out to them more often than making the decisions for herself. I tried to make her as respectful in this new situation as possible and I think in doing so watered her down a bit and then I think that we didn’t have the opportunity to flesh her out as a leader as much as we would have liked. And it was weird to watch teams going through the gate and to be staying behind, it was really hard at first. I was like ‘well, I should be on that mission, I might be able to help out’ but what Cater was trying to do was make sure that the team felt respected, that their positions were all safe and they felt respected and that was Carter’s MO as a leader and I think in some ways she could have shown a bit more strength. When she was able to show backbone she showed it but I think we could have fleshed her out a bit more.”
“I just want to address this right off. It was a very difficult decision, not to say that I walked away from Stargate: Atlantis, because I haven’t. I still want to be a part of the show. They offered me a very nice contract with the caveat being that I had to make Stargate: Atlantis my first priority, and I totally understood why in terms of timing and scheduling, but I couldn’t do it because I knew there was a good possibility that Sanctuary would get worldwide television broadcast. Had I said ‘Yes’ to what the folks at Stargate: Atlantis wanted, I would’ve essentially shut down Stage 3 Media and Sanctuary. So, as much as we tried to make it work, and executive producer Joe Mallozzi and I were on the phone a lot trying to work things out, we just decided at the end of the day that the timing just was not going to happen. He was very cool. They were wonderful.
“I think at the end of the day it’s a perfect compromise. I’m moving on to my own series. It’s a whole new role for me. It’s exciting, and it’s an interesting show, and I think the fans will love it. I’m not turning my back on Stargate. I’m certainly still a part of the franchise. Sam Carter is still very much a part of me. I think my Polyanna view of things that’s the perfect-case scenario. And I just hope a lot of the fans will eventually see it that way, too.”
“The new season in particular has new characters. We’ve lost a couple of characters and there’s some shifts going on there, which changes the tone of the show. But the actors and characters who we’ve added I think will be embraced by the audience. Amanda Tapping is joining us and Jewel Staite, who I think sci-fi fans will know from the series Firefly, and then Serenity the movie. Right now, I’ve only read the first four scripts and we do 20 in the season. But I think that the tone of Teyla, my character, is going to shift ever so slightly and we’re going to start to see, even though she’s very strong, I think what we’re going to start to see is perhaps even more strength and a little bit of an edge, a little bit more of a darkness that will hopefully be tempered by depth. And we’re going to also get to see, thankfully, a little bit more of her people and how they influence who she is. That is something I’ve been hoping to explore for quite a while.”
“I spoke to the writers prior to beginning Season 4—a good month before we started—and they had in mind, as they always do, how the story arcs were going to play out for that season and what they wanted to encompass in Teyla’s journey. And I came to them and dropped the bomb [that I was pregnant]. But they ran with it and they did a wonderful job and they were able to blend portions of what they wanted for the season and encompass the journey that I was going through. And I think it made for a stronger, colourful character for me to portray that. 
“Once the crew and the cast knew—I actually didn’t tell anyone except for our producers until I was three months along—everyone was so incredibly accommodating. They got me my own reclining cast chair, which was fantastic, which the rest of the cast were fighting for, but sadly, didn’t get. It was actually really good. This season, as it turns out, ended up being one of the most physical seasons that I’ve had to do thus far, which is kind of funny considering I was pregnant. … certainly during the first part of the season while I was still capable and while it probably wouldn’t be offensive for the audience to see. I wasn’t showing, and so I did a lot of very physical things. I did a couple of fights that were the biggest that I’ve done to date, so there you have it. But looking back, I really enjoyed it and pretty much my entire pregnancy has been documented now on Stargate.
“It doesn’t feel like a different show or anything like that, but there are new energies in it. Not having Paul McGillion here, who is a good buddy, it is just a little different. But the new members of the team are great. I mean, Jewel Staite is a sweetheart and I have a lot of stuff with her this year. It is just different because your friends aren’t there but as far as character-wise, I don’t like anyone anyway so it just works out!” [laughs]
“Since I started here, I’ve been kind of compared to Chris Judge on the other show, being we’re both dark-skinned and fight…and aliens, and I get to meet up with him, finally. I don’t like him and we have to be stuck together and defend Earth. It’s a lot of fun. We’re shooting that right now. We’re bruised and battered—huge fight scene—probably one of the biggest fight scenes we’ve rehearsed for. We spent three days rehearsing for it and a lot of blood. … I mean, the whole thing’s lots of fights and today—like, last night was all gun fire. I forgot to put my ear plugs in—sightly deaf in this ear today. I know, dumb, dumb!
“I just had this [tattoo] done in Hawaii. My cousins have this and it’s an ‘aumakua, which is like your guardian. Like any other tribe, they use like an animal for whatever their warrior tribe is, so this is the shark. … I did it kind of without permission for the show. But, my guy’s got tattoos on his neck and stuff and I said, ‘Well, it looks spacey,’ you know? We wrote it into the show, which is great. They actually did the tapping—in an episode I meet up with all my people who I think were dead on my home planet and it’s funny, they are tapping it on in the episode and I decide to smack the guy. He sunk it too deep and I just went [SLAP].”
“I just find myself a little bit more nostalgically tragic [than an action hero]. Just more of a—I didn’t want to play an action star because it’s just such a gimme. I’m not that way, I don’t want to be that way. I dreaded my hair because I don’t want to be the pretty boy and the hunk. I didn’t want it to be all about my face; it originally started from that and I hated that. Because I’m just not that. From that spawned the dreads. I just wanted different roles. Now that I have this role, it’s great, because Joe’s the number one. And you don’t find someone like me—big, tall—next to someone that’s the leading man on the show. Normally the sidekick’s going to be someone like David. It’s going to be someone funny. I play right next to Joe and it’s awesome. I’ve worked on shows when guys aren’t that cool with it. …It’s interesting that Joe—he’s a Harrison Ford type of guy, super confident and with his own style and we work well together. I’d love to work with Flanigan for the rest of my life. He’s great.”
Stargate legend Richard Dean Anderson made three appearances this season. He had a pivotal role in the mid-season two-parter “The Return,” teaming up with Robert Picardo as Richard Woolsey for most of his scenes. The two needed Sheppard’s team to rescue them from the 
“One of the interesting things is that there are parameters for a hero—to be a pillar of morality and strength and to come through at all times. That is what the audience wants, and it’s funny, when you watch the show sometimes [as an actor] that’s what you want too. But as a performer, the richest material is in problems and weaknesses. And so I find myself not able to explore problems and weaknesses that maybe other characters can explore. You can’t lead and be indecisive or have problems. And those problems are what’s interesting from a creative standpoint. So you actually have to exist within pretty tight parameters, that a heroic character has to exist in lest he become less heroic. At some point, his heroic properties will be diminished if he continues to explore weaknesses and bad decisions.
“[Working on ‘Common Ground’] was a great time from beginning to end. Will Waring is one of my favourite directors on the show, it was a strong script and Sheppard got to go toe-to-toe with a Wraith. It’s what I said before about us having more individual stories this year and more character development, the latter of which really comes out in this episode. ‘Common Ground’ was mainly Sheppard and a Wraith and we had some neat scenes that are both funny and dramatic. Even if the episode hadn’t turned out as good as it did, I still would have said it was a positive experience and I’m thankful to the writers for putting it together. Luckily, the final cut was great, and hopefully they’ll decide to do more of these mano-e-mano type stories. The only thing I didn’t like, though, were the prosthetics. They take forever and I can’t stand them. I’m just praying I look a heck of a lot better than Sheppard did when I get older!
“Robert Davi is a superb actor, and so he knows exactly what to do, which is cause tension in a scene, and he’s good at it! He took something small and sucked the life out if it. He did it for, what, seven episodes or something like that. And they killed him off and they didn’t even need to. He could have gone on and on. He was a formidable opponent, and it was hard to find a formidable opponent, and when you do you need to keep them coming. Colm Meaney was another guy that was very good. Those guys were good. They’d just lay it into you and it just comes through, and it’s hard to find guys like that.”
“I just love working with Connor [Trinneer]. He’s a talented actor and a great guy. As for this story itself, I made a point of going up to Brad Wright’s office earlier today, as well as phoning writer Carl Binder yesterday and told them what a good episode I think ‘Vengeance’ is going to turn out to be. Sometimes we [actors] will call the producers with notes about things we feel might be wrong about a script, so they were probably surprised to hear that in this case I thought all the elements came together. I’m a pretty tough critic when it comes to my work and the series, and I like this episode a lot because it enters into the psychological arena. It becomes very much an X-Files-ish sort of thriller, and, honestly, if, like our characters, you’re exploring space and running into weird and spooky creatures, then things are going to turn deeply psychological, do you know what I mean? This is a direction that I’ve been trying to get Atlantis to go in for a while, but for one reason or another it just hasn’t been possible. Then this script came along. I’m a big fan of Carl Binder. He’s a very strong writer and the dialogue in ‘Vengeance’ is wonderful. It was a fun episode to work on, but the actual location wasn’t so hot. We shot in the hollowed out tunnels underneath an abandoned mental institution, which were dark, dank and had this ‘stuff’ on the walls. After a week, most people’s eyes were red and I got sick, so as cool as the story looks, hopefully now audiences will know that there were ‘sacrifices’ involved in making it look that way!”
“I like the big action episodes, and I’m always pushing for more. I actually like being out and about. I prefer to be outside more than I do being inside. All I can do is say to myself is, ‘Is this a show I would want to watch?’ I’m not a big TV watcher, but I will watch certain things, and that’s the only measure I have. So I try to push for that. One of the things that I watch for in a show like this is a lot of action. I’m probably less interested in the interpersonal relationships, although I’m happy that it goes on in our show. I think that’s always tied in with the action, although I think revealing character moments happen during the action. Simply exploring relationships is not what I’m interested in. I’m just a simple guy, what can I say? I’m just a two-dimensional man. I like action and great looking girls!”
“It’s kind of difficult for McKay to evolve, because once you know people like the character, you can’t change him that much. He goes through stuff, but the reality is, people don’t want too much of a dramatic change. The advantages that I have with McKay are that the situations he gets put in change him temporarily. Every single time something goes wrong it’s an absolute disaster for McKay. I get so much range within my episodes—which I think is a fine line to walk. I remember when we first started; the original concern was that you have this sarcastic bastard, who came in for a couple of episodes of SG-1. How does that become part of a show without turning it into Lost in Space’s Dr Smith? Not that that is necessarily a bad thing, but that’s not where they are going with this.
“I’ve got to say that one of the characters who I hadn’t had a chance to really play with up until this season was Ronon. We got to do a number of scenes stuck in a cocoon. Ronon and I are from different worlds. Our characters, and in fact in life as well are absolute opposites—what he does for cool, tall and good-looking I do for the nerds of the world. We’re like Romeo and Juliet. So being stuck in a cocoon with him was fun, because his reaction to being trapped is very different to McKay’s, who gives up before they’ve actually finished building the cocoon. So there’s a lot of fun there. We actually got to shoot that a couple of times because they had a change in design halfway through, and they decided to re-shoot stuff. We’ve been doing lots of exciting things. They’re really concentrating on the characters this year, on bonding all of the characters together. I don’t know how that works for McKay! I’m not supposed to get along with anybody. Its fun making that work—the anti-bond.
“‘Sateda’ is a season unto itself—people might get hurt watching it! They witness McKay getting hit in the ass by an arrow. I am struck by an arrow in the gluteus maximus in one of the first scenes and spend a large portion of the show on my front on morphine. It was interesting—one forgets that one has an arrow in one’s ass after a while, and then the jokes eventually just get tiring, because every single person on the crew has to mention something ass related or arrow related, I suppose. Those were definitely some of my funniest scenes to do. [Robert] Cooper, I believe has no other life. He sits just coming up with awkward, possibly embarrassing situations for McKay to be in, and then he smiles about it! He comes in like he’s done you some big favour. ‘I wrote you some great stuff!’ And it’s like, ‘Well, no you didn’t, you wrote me some embarrassing stuff that my parents will disown me for!’
“When we did ‘Hot Zone,’ where [McKay] confesses he has a sister it had originally been written as a brother. And I said, ‘Look, just on the off chance, I’ve got a lot of sisters and one of them happens to be an actress. I’m not saying you have to cast her, but on the off chance, can I say ‘sister’?’ And they said ‘Oh that’s a good idea. That’s fine.’ I’ve just worked with Kate, because we just did this film together in January. And she’s fantastic. And that’s me saying it—I’m usually tougher than anybody on that kind of stuff. And one of the producers actually saw a couple of things she did recently as well, and said she’s good.”
“In McKay’s mind, he’s done the legwork and really committed his entire life to his profession. As such he’s become part of Atlantis. His sister, however, just happens to speak the language of mathematics and has this innate flair for it. One day she’s playing at home with her children and out of the blue solves a scientific conundrum that she sees no practical use for but it is, in actuality, and interesting theorem that bridges parallel universes. For laughs, Jeanie posts it on the Internet and it attracts the attention of Stargate Command. So my character’s job is to persuade her to sign a nondisclosure agreement and give us a hand implementing her theorem. Sadly I can’t reveal the precise repercussions of all this, but suffice to say we discover that the parallel universe has a few more things running around in it than we expected.
“Funnily enough, this is a very scientific episode in that it deals with an awful lot of the Science Fiction elements of the show, but it’s also one of the most character-driven stories we’ve done yet. There’s this incredible family dynamic between McKay and the rest of the team and then his sister comes along and they’re like ‘She’s quite nice. Why can’t we have her around all the time?’ It’s a pretty neat story, and Kate is fantastic in it. She’s almost as good as me. Seriously, it’s a pleasure to work with Kate, especially as I was personally responsible for trying to stop her from acting. When she first said ‘I want to go to theatre school,’ I was like ‘Are you nuts? Get a real job and forget this acting stuff.’ I did everything I could to dissuade her from acting, but, quite wisely, she ignored me, and things could not be going better for her.”
“Filming that last scene [in ‘Sunday’] with Paul was quite subdued. We’d goof around all the time, no matter how serious the scenes were. Even in ‘Sunday’ where we lost Paul’s character, he goofed around to the end; that’s Paul. However, prior to us shooting that little tag scene at the conclusion of ‘Sunday,’ everyone was laughing and saying ‘Oh David and Paul on the blue-screen. Like that’s not going to be goofy,’ and it actually ended up being kind of morose and really quite depressing. That said, it seemed like a suitable send off for Paul and his character, and it was heartfelt.”
“It’s so odd because I think as the years go by, the more you do a show, the more like life it becomes. You begin to react to it in the same sort of way. Like in life, you have these horrible, horrible things happen; there’s no rhyme or reason, and you sort of begin to take that on with the show as well. It was quite a shock. We lost a very popular guy—both on set and off set—we lost a very popular character. He’s got that great sort of Scotty-like quality. He’s just a fun character to play with and we had a lot of fun bouncing our various grating personalities off each other. It was an odd episode. In fact, it was over before I think we even really figured it out. That last scene was really quite… I was amazed at how sort of choked up I got. I was like, ‘What the hell? The guy’s not dead! Just his character died.’ They can always bring people back. It was a tough episode to do. I certainly had my doubts when I heard about the exploding tumors.”
“I think it’s interesting that the writers chose to put a woman in charge on Atlantis, because Stargate has always been very military oriented, so putting a woman who isn’t military in charge in very interesting. I think it puts out great challenges for the writers and the actors, because how do you write a person in authority who is not military; commanding military people. We’re always going back and forth of which choices empower her, and which choices lessen her power. Also being a woman, men are really not wanting to listen to what women say, just ask my ex-boyfriend! [Laughs]
“Jason Momoa had an amazing episode [‘Sateda’] this year, which I think our entire year’s budget went to this one episode. It was filmed like a feature film, I think they shot it for 20 days, and our usual shooting time is 6 days. So my episode this year [‘The Real World’] was just me alone in padded cell. [Laughs] But I liked that more, because I come from a theatre background and SCI FI is new for me, so the less money they have for special effects usually the happier I am. It’s about acting then, and goes back to the stories and characters.”
“I think we [Weir and I] are similar. I think it is compassion, I think we both have a lot of faith in human nature; I believe that most people are good, I always say it is just unfortunate the bad people are louder. But most people are good and I think she believes that too, and that was her battle with military all the time because the military attitude is beyond the defensive, it is most people you don’t trust. And she was for trust first until they tell you not to trust. So I think we are very similar. She has a lot to teach me as far as discipline and ambition [are concerned], she’s much more disciplined and ambitious than I am.”
“I think all the spaces in between is everything I brought and I think that I did. Something I get moved by when I get letters of people [who] make that comment too, [who] say ‘you didn’t have much to do in this scene, but the pauses in between…’ Because I was trying to fill her, because I was frustrated with how she was written a lot of the time when I just went, ‘She’s not being active. She’s being quite passive,’ and I thought, ‘How can you be a leader and be passive?’ There has to be—so I had to find what I would do in that situation in order to find her strength. So I think I brought a bit of myself that way. But she’s much more patient than I am, she’s much more measured than I am, and she’s definitely much brighter than I am.
“In season three we get to see a lot more of the light-hearted side of who Teyla is. We’ve got a lot more humour injected into the season—in fact, two of the episodes are purely comedic. For me, I play a character who doesn’t really get to laugh all that much, so that was fun for me. We also get to see a little more of who she is when she isn’t on duty, a lot of her interests. There’s an angle that has been touched on right now, which is love interests. It’s always been toyed with for a couple of seasons… I think we’re going to get right into something, which is intriguing and fun for me to play, cos it’s a totally different aspect of who Teyla is.
“To be truthful, we really haven’t had a chance to bite into anything … I haven’t had a chance to bite into anything that I feel really progresses Teyla in the eyes of the audience. I mean I have my ideas about who she is, but this season thus far we really haven’t had an opportunity to show that to the fans so … so yes, that’s how I feel. So we’ll see if we’ve got a few more to do, the season is not over yet but we shall see.
“It’s wonderful to bring [Teyla] to life. I mean, she’s feminine, but she’s also tough. She doesn’t lose any of her womanliness by being a kick-ass girl, and I love that about her…that’s something that the fans really enjoy as well. I’ve met a lot of young, cute girls who are inspired to take action and to learn martial arts and to just be empowered just by watching Teyla, so to me, that’s a thrill.
From “The Warrior Within” in Stargate SG-1/Atlantis: The Official Magazine #13 (Dec./Jan. 2007):
“Robert was fantastic to work with. I hadn’t talked too much with him before that. He’s a very quiet guy and I never go up to the office unless there is a serious problem. I came with my ideas and when I first met him, they were having a little meeting so I went in and gave him the hugest hug. I had to prove to him that I could act. He was there every scene, if I needed the set to be quiet, he would make sure they were. He gave me my time. Not to float his boat but he is definitely one of the top directors I’ve worked with on the show, let alone my career.”
“I love being Sheppard’s ‘sidekick’, because the way Joe plays his character, he’s like the unsung hero. And it’s nice, because Ronon was one of the top [military] guys on his planet, and when he came in, he had no trust for anyone else. Sheppard is the one he does trust, and throughout ‘Runner’ he trusts him more and more. I think it’s just a level of respect that we both have [for each other]. It’s really nice. Whether they call it a sidekick or his partner, it’s great and we’re a perfect match. I think it’s good for Joe because he’s got someone to go, ‘Ronon, kill!'”
“Sheppard is Ronon’s commander but to me, he and Teyla are the only ones I can trust. I go to Teyla for everything because Sheppard isn’t big on the emotional things. If I had a problem, I would go to Teyla since we are both aliens. She’s like my sister. Shep is like my best friend through the whole thing. Weir is just my boss. I don’t know too much about her but at the same time, I respect her. Rodney is the brains and I’m the brawn and it will always be like that between us. I can kick his ass but he’ll outwit me. Beckett saved my life numerous times and in these episodes, you’ll see he’s probably saved me more than anybody. He is someone I trust and Beckett is like a good buddy now.
“Season 3 has certainly been an eventful one for Carson Beckett. Stand-out episodes for me include : ‘Misbegotten’ – the retrovirus story is very interesting and I believe it’ll be developed further. ‘Irresistible’ – working with Richard Kind was a real pleasure and Beckett crying with Sheppard in a puddle jumper is always something to behold. ‘Phantoms’ – I thought it was such an interesting script that Carl Binder wrote. Seeing all the main characters encountering moral dilemmas made for a really exciting episode of Atlantis. And finally ‘Sunday’ – well, when you watch it you’ll know what I mean!
“‘Misbegotten’ for Beckett was interesting. The whole Michael/retrovirus aspect of the storyline is really developed heavily in that episode. The great thing about Beckett is they wrote him with such humanity, and he stands up for his cause. As much a cowardly lion as he is, when push comes to shove, Beckett is very brave which I really like about the character.
“…I loved ‘Phantoms.’ It was great because every character was stepping outside their normal beats and insecurities surfaced. It was a cleverly written episode by Carl Binder and i enjoyed the opportunity Beckett had in it. As an actor, it really let your muscles stretch.
“I initially found out about Beckett’s demise right after I filmed the episode ‘Phantoms,’ which Martin Wood directed and Carl Binder wrote. Shortly after we finished that, I was back on set and John Smith, Brad Wright, and Robert Cooper asked to have a chat with me and brought me up to the office. To be quite honest, I thought they were going to say ‘Really good work on ‘Phantoms.” To say the least, I didn’t see it coming. They said ‘We want to shake the show up a little bit, we don’t know if Stargate SG-1 is going to go for another season, and in doing that, sometimes you have to kill a character off that will make a big impact. Unfortunately, it is your character we are going to kill off.’ They told me their reasons for it and what their thoughts were. I was a little shocked and at the same time, disappointed. On the other hand, it has been such a great opportunity. I’ve done almost 60 episodes of the show and went from a recurring character to a main cast member, so I have nothing but good things to say about those guys.
“Initially, that scene [at the end with McKay] wasn’t in the script. They added it in later which I thought was a nice move. It was really difficult. David Hewlett and I are such good friends and have really grown close over the years we’ve been on the show together. McKay and Beckett had a terrific energy together and David and I certainly do. I think the fans would agree on that one. We didn’t rehearse a whole lot and I think it was difficult for David. He was amazing and supportive throughout the whole process. That is the goodbye scene and you could hear a pin drop on the set.
Up until Momoa’s reveal, Rainbow Sun Francks appeared in the opening credits, but afterwards, he was noticeably absent. His character Lt. Aiden Ford left Atlantis after he underwent a life-altering ordeal at the hand of a Wraith. Discussing this change, the actor confided in an audio interview for the 
“Well, first and foremost you can’t possibly give enough credit to Stargate SG-1 [for Stargate Atlantis‘ success]. It paved a very comfortable place for a spin-off, so there’s no doubt we have an edge on a lot of shows in that regard. We’re probably going to get a greater audience flow than a new science fiction show would, so that helps quite a bit.
“I once had a bug attached to my neck for the entire episode. That was very uncomfortable. This season I had to turn into a bug, which was challenging. There were a lot of prosthetics and that was interesting. I wouldn’t want to be under prosthetics for too long, but the guys who do ours are such artists and it’s nice to watch them work. As an actor it’s fun to morph physically into something else.
“I tend to be more in the Harrison Ford vein [motions to taking out a gun and makes a shooting sound]. That’s pretty much where my skills come in. I have a sloppier, more improvisational approach to winning battles. They’re not well choreographed. It’s funny because James Bamford, our stunt coordinator, and I talked about that. In the beginning of the show, he was like, ‘Oh, you know this guy is going to be like, ‘Waaa Waaa” [Mock karate sounds]. I thought, ‘I don’t think this is actually the character. I think the character is a more regular guy in extraordinary circumstances who just feels like he is flying by the seat of his pants, and will be lucky if he pulls this thing off, as opposed to ‘Waaaaa….” It’s fun to have those characters on the show, but I just thought my character is not going to be that. Chances are, on his off-time, he won’t be sparring… He’ll be drinking beer or playing golf.”
“I pitched Brad Wright a number of different ideas, some of which had already been done, because they’ve done five million episodes of SG-1. The ones that I came to him with had been done in one form or another. I had another idea and he liked the basic concept and he had some other ideas with it, so we just collaborated. I came up with the storyline and he wrote the script. … I had an idea that there was a void that I walked into and got stuck in. I didn’t think of doing it as a different time dimension. Robert came up with that idea and it was a good one, so we ran with it [in ‘Epiphany’].
“Fortunately, the more you see of McKay the more you realize, yes, he’s incredibly arrogant, but he’s also incredibly daring, and there are other facets to the guy as well. Last year my character was put in situations where he got to be a hero, a villain, a Space explorer, etc., and that’s something we’ll be doing more of this [second] season. From a character arc standpoint it’s a dream come true for me. McKay has gone from being a bookworm to a full-fledged member of the Atlantis team. Throughout it all, though, we haven’t lost the fact that McKay doesn’t play nice with others. Not that he doesn’t want to. It’s just that sometimes he forgets to try because he’s far too busy in his own little world.
“It’s like the monkey’s paw…If you make a suggestion, all of a sudden it shows up in a script and it’s just not what you planned. Last episode [‘Runner’] they had me hanging upside down in a hazmat suit, hanging from one leg, in the middle of a forest at night, while it’s pouring with rain. Which was fine—until they started spinning me. And then it sort of fell apart for me. That’s when McKay leaves and David just fights nausea! I’ll just say something like ‘Could it possibly be more miserable that shooting ‘The Storm’?’ And then Robert Cooper will step up to the plate and go…’Sure! It can be! You can be wet, dead and upside down!’ So that’s the monkey paw aspect of it. Useful comments that I make are very few and far between!
“[‘Grace Under Pressure’] has some great banter between Carter and McKay which began for me and my character back on Stargate SG-1. It was, of course, a total pleasure to work again with Amanda. I couldn’t believe how full of energy she was considering all she had to do work-wise plus taking care of her new baby. To top it off Amanda was filming both SG-1 and Atlantis at that point. Even with all that on her plate she still came to the table with so many ideas.
“The reality of it, however, is that I’ve been given so much great material to sink my teeth into with this role. If I’d written this I couldn’t have written myself a better part. I keep saying this and it sounds so cheesy, but there are always a couple of scenes in every episode where I get to cackle to myself while rubbing my hands together and thinking ‘Ooh, I can’t wait to do this.’ There’s a fantastic scene in this season’s ‘The Long Goodbye’ where our two leaders Dr Weir and Colonel Sheppard have gone ballistic and are shooting at each other because they’re possessed by alien beings. Meanwhile, me, Mitch Pileggi [Colonel Steven Caldwell] and Paul McGillion are up in the Atlantis control room and, in this particular scene, are yelling at each other and going ‘OK, I’m in charge now! No way, I am! Shut up, you’re like so not in charge!’ To me that dynamic was just so hysterical and we had a ball shooting that scene. It was one of the best days I’ve had on Atlantis.
“I sound like such a suck when I say I really don’t have a favourite episode. Off the top of my head, in no particular order: ‘Duet,’ ‘Grace Under Pressure,’ ‘Runner, ‘The Long Goodbye.’ There are some that are my favourite action shows, and others that are my favourite acting shows, and then there are some that just ended up being my favourite episodes to shoot.”
“I’d like to be out there doing the exciting stuff.
“I always thought it would be interesting to have the episode where you see all of the characters at 3 in the morning, right? Lying awake in bed and worrying about the decisions that they made that day or regretting choices that they didn’t make and I always thought that would be very interesting. Because I think Doctor Weir made some very tough choices and she was in a world that she didn’t know existed a year before she was put there. You know a year before it’s like somebody says to one of us, ‘You know, you’re going to work on another planet,’ and you’re like, ‘What?!? You’re crazy, that doesn’t exist!’ So she went from that to all of a sudden living that and I think she made some bad mistakes too. You know, in order to learn you make mistakes and I think she is a very compassionate person and I think that was hard for her to deal with the guilt of having made certain mistakes and hurt some people because of those mistakes.”
“I will say this about bringing Teyla to life, she presents so many challenges, but one of the biggest ones to me is that she is meant to be human, but is meant to be other worldy from a different galaxy. So there has to be something about her that sets her apart, though she is human. That was a particularly interesting challenge for me when I started to portray her to make sure there was always that balance, the fact that she was human, but she’s different. And then the second largest challenge, to me, was learning the martial arts and starting to incorporate that into who Teyla is. The physicality of that was also challenging. But both of those have added to my enjoyment of portraying her. They were two things that I had to surmount, but I’m still finessing them but when it comes to the physical element.
“I’ll share this funny (story), or I think it’s funny, the day we shot the kiss [in ‘Conversion’], it was a day when my parents happened to be up visiting me from Los Angeles. They had come up for a few days and they wanted to be on set. (So) they were there front and center, and even though I love them and they are so supportive, it was very very nerve-wracking, and it was a particularly challenging scene to shoot because it was a fight sequence that ended up in a kiss, and my parents were right there watching every moment, so that that was a unique situation…They thought it was great, they were champions of it, they thought it went wonderfully well. They thought Joe looked great. They’re big fans. They were happy, they were pleased.
“I [was the one who came up with the idea for me to sing], because I love to sing, and it was always something that I thought we would be able to use in terms of a link [to] her people, to Teyla’s people. It would be very interesting, kind of a historic look into who her people are, and their beliefs. I went and I talked to Brad Wright about it, and how I thought song and dance have been historically used for funerals and grief, and spiritual purposes, in various different cultures. I thought it would be an interesting way to incorporate it, and also to get to know a little bit more about the assertions. Which I’m always anxious to learn more about, Teyla’s history and their people. (Brad) was game, and incorporated it [into ‘Critical Mass’]. Something that I brought forth.
“They flew me to Los Angeles twice. I had a few conversations with [composer Joel Goldsmith] over the phone about the feel of the piece, what I had envisioned, what he had envisioned, and we came to a common ground. I had a lot of fun working with him. It was really exciting, because we built the song from the ground up, put various instrumentation to it, and discussed how we wanted the song to feel. It was really, really good. The funny thing is, I flew to Los Angeles and recorded the song with him, then immediately flew back to continue shooting in Vancouver. Then one of my producers, John Smith, came up to me on the set, and said, ‘Rachel, we’re going to have to fly you back to Los Angeles to re-record the song because it sounds too good.’ So they then sent me back to Los Angeles to rerecord it and to not to make it sound quite as polished. That’s what we ended up with. It was a very interesting experience working in a sound booth, and working beside the composer, the musicians and what have you. There is a lot that goes into recording a song, but I really did enjoy working with him.”
From interview at 
“I think in the first season I had more fight sequences, and in the second season they had to establish Jason’s character, Ronon, as being kind of a go-getter, scrapper, fighter—will throw himself into the fray at any given second. So yeah, that has definitely changed the dynamic a little bit. It’s also a good thing for Teyla from the perspective of character that she now has somebody onboard the team who shares her references, and being that he has grown up with a similar background, and that has been a good thing for her. Ultimately, it will be a good thing for the show. I think he definitely has changed the dynamic for the best.”
From interview with Gilles Nuytens at 
“I went to high school in Iowa before moving to Hawaii where I worked on the shows Baywatch Hawaii and North Shore. … I auditioned for the role of Ronon, but I had met the casting director, Paul Weber, about a year before on something completely unrelated. So he thought of me for the part of Ronon Dex when it came up and I was immediately attracted to the whole package. I had never done any action based roles before and Ronon is my complete opposite—I’ve never shot a gun in my life! So this has been a totally different mindset for me.
“I’m actually the opposite to Ronon Dex. We’re the same height and have the same hair, but other than that, we have nothing in common! So where Ronon’s intimidating and gruff, I’m kind of a softie and a goof ball! He’s more comfortable with a gun or a sword in his hand and I’m happiest doing my art or writing. We both like action though…I just prefer to be out in nature rock climbing or something, and Ronon prefers to be fighting someone!
“When I first showed up on set, I was grabbing Ronon’s gun and spinning it. If you feel a real gun, it weighs three or four pounds. I came up with this idea right on the set, to just spin it, do these shots, and they loved it. I just made it a part of my thing, that he was to be flash in some ways, and it’s just like watching old Samurai movies and getting into that, ‘I’m an action hero.’ It’s great, man. I’m never going to play a cowboy. I will probably play the Indian, or the bad guy in some way, but I’m not going to play John Wayne. I’m not going to play that, so it’s fun to play a gunslinger and be able to do all this kind of stuff And with it being a laser gun, I can do all kinds of stupid stuff that no one would do with a 9mm gun. I’m not going to play SWAT team but it’s going to have that flash. With swords, I’m not going to play a Samurai either but we have a great action adventure show where we do stuff very fast like, bam, bam, bam. Something that should take a couple days to shoot, or should be at least eight hours, we get in two to three hours sometimes. We cram it in.”
“Dr. Carson Beckett is a very interesting and complex character who wears his heart on his sleeve. He is passionate about his work and has a very moralistic backbone. The character has developed greatly since the pilot—thanks to his interactions with all of the other characters and great story lines from great writers. From comedy to drama—Carson has seen it all and will hopefully continue to get bigger and broader with every encounter and challenge.
“I love my cast mates, they have become really great friends. Again not to sound cliché but it is like a family in a lot of ways and I really learn to respect all their individual talents as well as their friendship. David Hewlett is one of my closest friends now and I wouldn’t have met him if it wasn’t for Stargate.
