Michael Shanks at UFC

United Fan Con
November 8th and 9th, 2003
Springfield, MA


This is a complete transcript from United Fan Con, Saturday Nov. 8th and Sunday Nov. 9th, 2003. Questions are paraphrased and simplified in many cases (my tape recorder didn't pick up the questions very well) but MS's quotes are as verbatim as possible (minus a few "ums" and "so's"). At times I had to leave out some questions and banter that was muffled by laughter or clapping.

[ ] = audience questions and comments
( ) = my own comments or observations
….. = MS pausing, changing his train of thought or waiting for audience laughter to subside.
(?) = I didn't catch the word or phrase

- T.O

Saturday, November 8th

(MS hops onto the platform.)
MS: I nearly didn't make that jump. I think my jeans are too tight…..
I'm still on Pacific Standard Time and I stayed up 'til 5:30 last night watching CHiPs on TBS, so if I kind of fade in and out don't take it personally, it's just where I'm at today. Well, this is my first time in this neck of the woods for sure, first time in this state, whichever state it is we're in……. Is everybody here from here or are they from other places? (audience shouting) Who's from here? Who's from other places? (Loudest shouts.)
Who's from Vancouver?

(Someone shouts "Your hockey team sucks.")

MS: (Laughed, had a witty response I couldn't hear.) Who's in first place in the NHL? Vancouuuver! Don't blink, that won't last very long. I guess I'm just gonna, like, answer some questions, just… I'd like to hear your voices and not the sound of my own. If anyone has any questions… I'm not sure of the format here, but I guess you just stand up and holler…[There's a microphone.] There's a microphone back there!? Shoot away. I will sit for a second, then stand in a second after… a second.

MS: Yes!?

(Someone gets up to ask a question. She moves into the aisle as MS waits. [I need a microphone.])
MS: Oh. Okay.
[You're loud enough.]

MS: This is one of those familiar faces I keep seeing popping up all around me. You're…. following me!
[You're going to Australia next weekend, right?] (laughter, clapping)
MS: (Doing his mock surprised eye thing) What's it to ya?
[A small chequing account.]

MS: (Smiling) What's the question?

[You're probably really tired of this, but there are people who have never met you here, and they wanted me to ask you, please would you do the Puff'n'Ruffle and the Wounded Lamb.]

MS: This has become a schtick, hasn't it? For those of you whom I don't know and who I've never met before, the Puff'n'Ruffle, as Amanda Tapping could far better explain to you, is apparently how the male actors behave whenever there's an attractive female guest star actor on the set of Stargate. So what it is, essentially, is the perception from Amanda's point of view of how the men behave, which is….. The men go from this mode (demonstrates cockiness)…. to ……. (demonstrating strutting). Enjoying yourself? Can I get you any water, need a chair or anything like that?….. I'll be sitting over there.

MS: That may be a slight exaggeration, I'm not sure. My response to that was, when I first heard about this story, was OH, I remember very clearly when Jolene Blalock was on the set this year, it happened again, which is the Wounded Lamb, which is the male noticing the female and what she is doing when she sees the male doing the Puff'n'Ruffle and giving the guest star all the attention…..This is the Wounded Lamb of Amanda Tapping. (Demonstrates the pouting postures. Lots of laughter.)

MS: Next question?

[I was wondering when you're directing or writing an episode how much say do you get in the casting?]

MS: Directing we get a fair amount of say; sometimes if it's a specific role the producer will take a more active role and cast a more well-known actor or a more famous actor or something like that. Usually as a director you get a lot of say. As a writer you get nada. The show I wrote this year was cast without my consultation, which is fine. That's fair. Once you hand it in it's over and done with and you move on.

[What's your favourite episode?]

MS: What's my favourite episode? Uh mm…. mmm…..mm… I got a bunch. I think my most recent favourite for a very good reason is a two part episode which has yet to air on the Sci Fi channel this year called Heroes.

[Tell us about it.] (Laughter.)

MS: (jokingly) Wait your turn, pal.
It's an episode that kind of looks at the SGC from a different point of view; you get a reporter with a camera to document the goings on, so you see our team from a third person point of view, instead of the usual audience point of view. So it just involves a lot of different elements, it's a very funny episode, it's very bittersweet and sentimental and everybody really embraced and it was a challenge to do but was also very rewarding. Rob wrote it, Rob Cooper wrote it, and oftentimes when you shoot an episode, it can be over in terms of minutes, and you go back and try and decide what you want to cut to scrape it into a 44- minute episode. What he basically had was a wonderful 60-minute episode and he and everybody who watched it didn't want to part with any of it because the whole thing would fall apart, so what they decided to do was to put a few more things in it and turn it into a two-parter, which can sometimes be dangerous, can sometimes be watered down but I think he did a wonderful job with the extra scenes and it turned into a really, really strong episode. So I think you guys will all enjoy that. So that's probably my favourite so far of the series.

[What's the consensus of the cast members appearing at conventions? Do you like being up here on the stage?]

MS: No, we, we hate these things….. I just do it for the air miles. No I think everybody enjoys it , you know, we, uh, we work in such a small room, oftentimes where we get 10, 12 people working, most of the people who work on our crew are not even watching what we're doing any more. We kinda lose touch with our audience. I came from a theatre background so it's very important to get audience feedback and it's been a great thing to actually realize that somebody's watching it…. It's not just for our own little amusement. So it's been wonderful to get feedback and find out that everybody's so informed about the show, more so than we are most of the time, so it's been a really positive thing for all of us.

[Has anyone ever had an unpleasant experience?]

MS: Yeah, that chick that grabbed my bottom …..

[What's so unpleasant about that?]

MS: Well why don't ya come up here and I'll show ya?……
The only thing about that is it's one of those things about respecting boundaries. It isn't a big deal but it is a common perception too that, you know, if you touch a woman, or if a man touches a woman, there's hell to pay, but if a woman touches a man, what…what,'re you gay, you don't like it? What's the matter? It's not that, it's just about respecting boundaries, you know. Because we don't know the fans; you may think you know us and maybe we'd like to know you a little better but that's not the way.

[Do you ever imagine what Daniel likes to do when he's not at the mountain, and if so, what? Do you think this helps you portray the character?]

MS: Are you trying to push for the ninja (?)? Um, Daniel's a bit of a bookworm, um, so I think he spends a lot of his time now surfing the net….. And getting involved in all sorts of the porn scandals around here….. David Duchovny doing the X-Files had a running gag that he was actually a porn addict, and so I'd like to pass that one along for Daniel as well.

[What did you do in your time off from Stargate?]

MS: In the 6th season? I did two other television shows, Twilight Zone and the, …. oh, ah…. Chris Isaak Show. I did three guest spots on Stargate and a movie in South Africa called Sumuru…. and in the meantime I really worked on my golf game.

[What's your handicap?]

MS: My golf game.

[How do you like working with Richard Dean Anderson?]

MS: He's a nob…… No, working with Richard is a great joy. He's someone who… I was an angsty young actor when I started this show, I was, like, 26 years old, that was so long ago!!! and Richard's philosophy was always about life's too short and it's not worth doing if it's not all fun. And he comes to work every day and he wants to have fun, but if that means… if that fun ends up on the screen, and sometimes it does, but if not then nothing's too important, we're just doing entertainment. We're not saving lives, we're not putting men into space. We're just making entertainment, therefore if it's not fun we shouldn't be doing it and if someone's making that process miserable for other people they should go somewhere else. So I think that working with him has always been a treat; he's like a fifty- four-year old child, he's the biggest brat of the bunch. It's really wonderful because so much of that play can end up on the screen and if you choose to play along with it, the whole new dynamic to buy into is there, which is great.

[When you read a non-Stargate script do you create a background for the character you play or do you work only with what's on the page?]

MS: A non-Stargate script? Yeah, I mean, that's kind of our role; what's on the page is usually just the framework and as actors it's our job to flesh it out and bring a backstory to the characters and present something more than the two dimensions that're usually on the page. It's oftentimes good… if a part's really written well the dimensions are oftentimes there but sometimes if it's quite not so fleshed out it's your job to fill in the blanks.

[Why DID you leave the series and how did it end up that you came back?]

MS: He-yy! Somebody's hit that one right on the nose for a change. Usually it's tap-dancing all around it. I think that the show had reached a point by the end of the fifth season, actually before that, where I thought that the character had suddenly become superfluous, that he wasn't necessary to the ongoing storyline and he wasn't being incorporated. I think that I felt, (?) this notion that it might be better served by a different kind of character than one who only comes to the surface in exploration situations (?) than it being about repetition, doing back to the same kind of place and being in trouble. I think that at a certain point we just agreed that it was better that (?)… so I left the show for a year and was tempted to come back.

[But why did they bring you back and why did you decide to return?]

MS: They backed this large truck of cash into my driveway…. No, very little of it had to do with money. It was actually about ...the 7th year, if you've been watching it, is devoted a lot more to the supporting cast being able to pull off more of the weight for us and that was like a temptation for me to come back and they were more willing to be open to the idea of incorporating the character more, so it was a big temptation to come back. There never was any bad blood or anything between us, it was just a practicality of needs at the time and those needs change and we both agreed it was the best decision to make, so….

[I'm glad you're back.]

MS: Thank you.

[What do you do to get into the character of Daniel and do you ever have trouble getting out of character at the end of the day?]

MS: After doing the show for seven years I find it very difficult to get out of the character period. To get into character any more doesn't really require that much, I think everybody's sort of found that avenue to their characters pretty fast now after so much practice. Going for auditions for completely different kinds of characters, there's always a little bit of Daniel that sneaks into the auditions; I try and check him at the door but he's hard to get out of my system.

[How difficult was it for you to do Lifeboat? I thought you did a great job.]

MS: Oh thank you. I, um, I just sat there and read the script and I said, "You've got to be kidding me!" Sometimes you've got to be really careful what you wish for, 'cause they might actually give it you ya? It was one of those rare opportunities where I looked at it … we usually only get the finished scripts about 4, 5 days before we start filming it. And you look at something like that; you know, when you're a stickler for details and a self-flogging perfectionist it's kind of a mouthful to bite into, but the best advice that was ever given to me was by the director Peter DeLuise who said, "Look, the writer, Brad Wright, trusts… wouldn't have written this story if he didn't trust you to pull it off. So believe in yourself and just do the best job you can do." And it was a wonderful joy to be able work on all the different characters and create them from the ground up and the transitions and it was a lot of fun to do, but once I was done that was it, I said, "Can I just be Daniel now? Say my next (?) and go out there and do whatever the hell I want to do?"

[What was your favourite scene and your most difficult scene?)

MS: Ooh, 7 years of scenes. It was actually on Andromeda where I met this gal Lexa Doig and I got to kiss her in the first scene. (Clapping and cheering.) That was my favourite scene and I think the most difficult scene that I ever shot was probably in the fifth season episode of Meridian; to walk through the gate at the end was actually the last shot that I took in that episode and it was a difficult task to do. Good question.

[I saw Christopher Judge at a convention earlier this season and…]
MS: (cutting her off) I'm sorry.

[You're gonna love this question; he told us that you and he and Lexa like to go out regularly and the both of them drink you under the table on a regular basis.]

MS: Well that's not completely untrue. Lexa… it depends on which side of her shows up; she's half Philippino and half Scottish, so if the Philippino side shows up that night she's an easy drunk but if the Scottish side shows up she can be a quite a piece of work. Christopher is about 230 lbs and with a liver the size of his head so ya, a regular basis …. He used to take me out… I remember the first time I went drinking with him, we went to this bar, and he disappeared to go talk to a lady across the room, he left me with this waitress who kept buying me drinks and he came back to the table and said "Look, okay, let's go out now." I said… this was 8 o'clock…. I said … "no….no…. no," (mimics having difficulty getting up from the table). That was the appetizer; he was just starting the night. He can hold his liquor very well, as I think most cast members from the show will attest to. I think everyone's had it coined his "wild scotch nights". They actually did a trip to Saudi Arabia to visit troops there, where Christopher, Don Davis, and Teryl's fiancé Hal proceeded to drink the entire British Airways lounge out of scotch. So, yeah, he can hold his liquor for sure.

[Are you planning to write anything for season 8?]

MS: Yeah, I'd like to write another story. I've been given the green light to pitch, which is basically going, "Okay, check this out, check this out, check this out … two guys walk into a bar and one guy's got this drink in his hand, and he drinks the other guy under the table… What do you think of that?" It's kind of done like that, so I'm allowed to walk into the room and come up with ideas to write but I don't know whether those will be approved, and to carry on from there we'll have to see, so…..

[They said this season you sometimes film more than one episode at a time and it's not necessary to film in chronological order….]

MS: Well the shows are generally not shot in chronological order, they're shot in convenient production order which means that if we have four scenes in the briefing room during the course of an episode all at various points in an episode all four of those scenes will be shot at the same time and we'll have to know the script in advance to know where the characters are in the story. This year yes, we did overlap a fair bit, which means we shot multiple episodes at the same time. At one point we were shooting three different episodes on the same day and we were shuttling actors back and forth so it did get to be a little bit odd but it wasn't so disturbing, and it was great because we were always working and always thinking. But sometimes it did get confusing because I remember in the last stages there were two different episodes, one where Carter's alone and trapped on the Prometheus ship so she's alone and trapped there, and then we're shooting Death Knell at the same time where she's alone and trapped out in a forest, so we had a bunch of scenes where the team was standing around being very concerned for Carter's well-being and nobody knew particularly which predicament she was in…..(laughter). So we knew she needed help, damn it, and that's all that mattered. So it can get confusing but in order to get the show shot this year it was a necessary evil so I don't think it was that confusing where it would register on the screen. But it can be frustrating.

[re: the wire work on Andromeda]

MS: In all honesty we had really great stunt people… No, it was actually really wonderful. Lexa was a gymnast before so she's one of the few people on that show who's allowed to do a lot of her own wire work and whatnot and worked hard with the stunt people on certain moves that we were doing. We don't do wire work on our show, it's a whole different genre of stunt acting and they do a lot of it on that show. It was so great, to not only really appreciate working with your significant other but to really appreciate the level of skill that she has with it and really be envious of her talent. It was such a great thing. So it was a lot of fun, I had a lot of fun doing that episode.

[You filmed in a location called Jackson's Pit… was it named for the character?]

MS: Um… huh? There's a Jackson Pit?…. I know there's a Jackson Hole in Wyoming… we had Stokes Pit, we had… we had some other pit… the show is the pits, really, I didn't know we had a Jackson Pit, we might have a Jackson Pit. (more from the questioner) Come back with me and show me. I don't know of a Jackson Pit but there may very well be, we have a lot of holes that we shoot in. ……………(Lots of laughter as MS makes some faces.) …… boy, I walked right into that one.

[When they show behind the scenes they show you guys giving Richard Dean Anderson a lot of grief, a lot of practical jokes. How much grief have you given him over the mullet he wore during MacGyver?]

MS: The best thing about Rick and the mullet, he's the hardest on himself about every possible imperfection. He really is, he's a guy that…You can't really diss on him because he did it first and he did it better. If nothing else, he'll bring it up when others don't. When someone comes to the set with a haircut similar to the mullet he makes sure to point it out right away and he makes sure to remind that person that he started that. So, uh, I think he also recognizes that someday that mullet's going to go down in the film hall of fame but we're not sure how it's going to get there. But he's got a great sense of humour and especially a great sense of humour about the show.

[Have you done any voice acting?]

MS: Nnnn….. no. No, uh, Teryl and Chris do a lot of voice work for cartoons and whatnot but Thor's my baby.
Little bald baby.

[When you're preparing for a role, like Lifeboat, do you ever practice at home in front of a mirror or in front of Lexa?]

MS: Sometimes, certainly Lexa's been wonderful to work with on stuff to redefine the art of the character. I don't know if either one of us is really comfortable going full form in front of each other in the living room and…. scaring the cats. But yeah, a certain amount of discussion… to a certain degree we work out scenes a lot and a lot of that process takes place at home so it's very helpful.

[One of my favourite episodes was Urgo. What was it like to have both DeLuises on the set?]

MS: Which time? We've had every DeLuise from the family on except for the mom now so …but first of all Dom is a living legend. Dom is like the last man standing from a very bygone era of wonderful actors that I grew up watching. It's wonderful to have him on set, he's such a wonderful man. Peter is truly his father's son. They're really nice, had such a sweet family upbringing and they're genuine people; you can really see that from Dom. Everything he says he means; he's such a big-hearted person. He's great; those two working off each other was fantastic to watch.

[It always looked like you were biting your tongues.]

MS: We always were. He was given full rein to improvise as he saw fit, and he'd sometimes do it …..once we had his shot covered he'd do it off camera, so what we were reacting to was something completely different than what he said. The one who had the toughest job was Chris because Teal'c has to remain stone-faced and the rest of us can at least get by doing this… (hides his face behind a hand) but Teal'c had to….. (demonstrates stone-face). He had the toughest job but that's the one actually that Dom went to work on. So it was great.

[Do you ever get used to people - like in a photo session - getting star-struck around you and is there anyone around whom you would get star-struck?]

MS: Oh, it doesn't really register as star-struck to me, I think that I'm still too Canadian for it to actually register as any kind of star-struck…. I sense that there's something wrong with my face…. ? That I've got an odor coming from me . People look at me, sort of this kind of look (demonstrates shock). I don't know if it's fear or disgust or what; I just sort of go, "Sorry, I'm sorry…" It's very Canadian to do that. Uh, do I get starstruck around people…I think the one I was most starstruck around… I once I had a chance to meet ....yeah, one of our boom operators, the big guy who holds the microphone, and holds it over your head so the camera doesn't see it….yeah, he used to work … he was a roadie for Sarah McLachlan… so just before Sarah was doing her Lilith Fair tour a few years ago we went down to watch her jam and work on some songs at the dome, the Agridome in Vancouver and I got to meet her, and she was so cool and I was so………(acted out how he was giggling and nodding and feeling awkward, laughing at everything she said). I didn't know if I was quite capable of going to that place any more. I've worked with a lot of heroes I've had when I was a kid, so I've sort of gotten a little bit conditioned to it but I was… (demonstrated some more of his giggling and tongue-tiedness) "She's so funny, she's so cute".

[I know that you've done some work with veterans; how did you start getting involved in that?]

MS: My grandfather was one of the veterans of WW2 and my parents have made a devotion in their lives to it, and my grandfather lost a leg in World War 2 and he had a lot of friends that were still in hospital and what not, you know, it's very… as much as we can do, it's not a lot of great fantastic cost to us, we should do more but that's kind of how it got started. I try and do whatever I can.

[Did you see the Stargate movie and what did you think of it?]

MS: Yes. I saw the movie, I think it was in '92 or '93 when it came out, I saw it and I loved the first half of it. I really didn't like the second half. I thought that it had such a great mystique to it and the minute that they panned out to the Horus boy there holding the (?) it kind of went off the track after that and fell into the cheesy zone. I kind of liked the mystery of it, that's what I love most about the show. Stuff like that I love, and then when they give you the answers I go NO, it's not that! So I like it when it remains a little bit of a mystery. My audition for the role came basically from watching the movie two more times on video and imitating every little Spader mannerism I could possibly do. That was kind of what it was.

[Can you imitate James Spader for us now?]

MS: No.

[He's imitated you on (?)]

MS: That bugger.

[What's the difference between having the show on Showtime and Sci Fi?]

MS: We don't necessarily notice the difference. The only difference that I can see in terms of reverence from the two different mediums was that Showtime didn't really care if anybody was watching…. because they're a subscription-based cable company, they want to have original programs and that's what they were keyed into and they knew they had some people watching but they weren't that concerned about it. Sci Fi seems to be very concerned about what quality guest stars we can get on the show and how the ratings are actually doing, so there's a bit of a more hands-on approach, which is basically a positive thing, but they yeah, they are a little bit more reverent to our day to day workings and they tend to be very supportive. That's not a huge difference but we can sort of see it in what guest stars we get.

[We heard that you and Don Davis have started a production company for a film that you're going to be starring in?]

MS: Don Davis and I started a production company for a Canadian film called The Maggie Rose. It's a film about a small community that wants to raise a ship that they'd lost while fishing. The character that I was going to play lost his father on the ship; it's an underlying metaphor for the amalgamation and conglomeration of big business and how it's affecting every individual person and how people can find the strength in themselves to maintain an independence from that. It was about that. It'll be filmed sometime in the summertime on the east coast of Canada, so as soon as we can get a chance to go out there and do it …

[Next question was indistinct.]

MS: I was acquainted with it; whether I was archeologically acquainted with it is a whole other ball of wax. As the show was going on I certainly… from sitting in the writer's chair you have to do a lot more research and then you find out why gods on our show became named Mott… because they ran out of gods so Mott, the ancient god of Clamato…. We had to start digging a little deeper into the mythology and finding other mythologies. I was acquainted with aspects of it but I wasn't adamant about it or anything like that. Since I started doing the show I've become a lot more familiar with certain aspects of it.

[You said you thought it was a positive on the Sci Fi, is the caliber of the guest stars the only reason or are there other positives?]

MS: I think it's more that they seem to be more concerned with the day-to-day runnings of it. We get a lot more feedback from them on a day-to-day basis; they're more concerned about, well certainly they show the show an awful lot. Between the original episodes they're airing and all the reruns they're showing, Stargate represents something like11% of their actual airtime, which is pretty incredible for one show to run. So they're very concerned with the future of the franchise as well, whereas Showtime was, so long as we were doing okay it was fine, but they weren't too upset to see us go either. Sci Fi's much more reverent to us.

[Sci fi is also promoting the show.]

MS: That's true. That's the thing with Showtime, the first season of the show they really sold it out the gate, and then after that they said "okay fine, you know it's there" and that was their attitude. Sci Fi is really intent on selling the show and making Sci Fi available to a wider audience.

[There's not much on the internet about Sumuru. When will we be able to see it?]

MS: I don't know…It's run by the Germans. Apparently it was supposed to come out in September and they pushed it until March, I have no idea why. RTL2 in Germany is the producing partner behind it so I know in Germany it will be on in March but I'm not sure beyond that when America's going to see it.

[Will it be a theatrical release or a TV movie?]

MS: I think it will definitely be TV, I don't think it will be a theatrical release at all.

[Long question I couldn't really hear; re: references to Star Trek on the show and Star Trek guests being on, including John de Lancie. Is there somebody who's a Star Trek fan?)

MS: That's like a 6-part question. In terms of Star Trek references, we always go back to the most famous. We have… one great aspect about Stargate is that because it takes place in the here and now we get to reference every pop culture thing we don't have to pay for. Star Trek becomes a thing, Star Wars has always…. we have one producer, Rob Cooper, who is very intent on making the entire series a homage to George Lucas and Star Wars. But we uh……. your last question was…..? OH, John de Lancie. John de Lancie was great, he was wonderful, everyone knows him as Q, and when you first meet him, when I first met him, it was kind of … (shows awe on his face). He's a gentleman and a professional, unfortunately they killed him, but, as we know, nobody dies in sci fi.

[What is a non-workday like for you… well we know you just got married so we can imagine some of it.]

MS: (some silence with odd looks as people laugh) I'm feeling very naked on the stage…. It's getting very cold up here….. A non-Stargate day during the season depends on whether….. every second weekend I'm flying to Los Angeles to see my daughter and spending as much time with her playing and doing daddy stuff, and doing trips to the park and Disneyland and all that other stuff. There's kind of that, and the other days are usually spent sleeping in and playing with the cats and catching up on homework and stuff like that. This year I made a concerted effort to get back into playing hockey because I haven't done it for about 3 years. On Saturdays we had the Stargate hockey team that was getting our butts kicked by Smallville and other teams like that. So we try and jam as much stuff as we can. It's usually spent being exhausted when we're shooting, and when not, whatever comes along.

[What position do you play?]

MS: That seems to be related to HER question … (audience laughter)….DEfense, DEfence, DEfence! ….. Ya, I play defence.

[Who's your favourite hockey player?]

MS: My favourite hockey player…….good question! Lately its been Bertuzzi. He's a bull of a player, he's in a caliber all of his own, he's a linebacker slash hockey player. My favourite, all-time favourite hockey player who was not a defenceman was Gordie Howe.

[If you could write an alternate universe episode, what would you do with it?]

MS: I dunno but I want to see Kowalsky again. Do you guys want to see Kowalsky again? (Cheering.) What a great character, I really want to see Kowalsky, so any alternate universe that brings back Kowalsky, that's what I want.

[Pitch it!]

[One of my favourite episodes was the Wormhole Extreme episode. I want to know what you thought of watching someone else try to portray yourself.]

MS: You know…Well….. I didn't actually get to see much. I saw the episode but I didn't get to see much of it on the day. I think some of the stuff that was actually cut out of it was even funnier, like stuff they kept in at the end with all the outake sequence when all the rocks were falling on him, that was Peter's individual shots with all the different characters. It is interesting of course but it's also like watching Galaxy Quest, you know what I mean? Where you sort of go, "ahh, I so lived that!".

[Did you like playing Machello]

MS: In Holiday? Yeah, I loved it. I hated the six hours of make up that came with being the old man but boy oh boy, was that fun. I actually had a friend one day come to the set when I was walking back and forth to the makeup trailer in this hospital gown with the old man head and the face and the arms were opened up too and I was just kind of getting into character and this friend of mine was onset, and I saw him and he looked at me right in the eyes and he kind of did one of those……(demonstrates) "Pardon me senior citizen gentleman" lines and he went off, and because I'd forgotten I was wearing the makeup and I kind of looked at him like "Hey!" And I grabbed him by the arm and he went "Whoa!" And then I remembered very instantaneously so I started ranting and raving like a lunatic, so I think he thought that someone's grandfather had a day pass from the clinic and was visiting the set, so I ….. it was a lot of fun to play. Scenes with yourself is always a very difficult task but it was a lot of fun.

[As a follow-up to that is there any direction you'd like to take Daniel in?]

MS: I don't usually think that far ahead. They usually throw in some great ideas to make the character (?). I don't try and premeditate the specific art. It's better to not know sometimes than have preconceived ideas and just take their lead and figure out what you're gonna do. Most of what Daniel's role on the show has been is reactionary anyway so I kind of like to be surprised by those things.

(baby cries)
MS: (in the wonderfully adorable voice of talking to a small child and looking at the baby somewhere near the front) Yeah. We're almost done, don't worry. The loud man will go away.

[What's the story with the jello?]

MS: I don't know…it's not really part of my back story so I've kind of only noticed the green and blue jello sort of always being present in scenes so I don't know what the exact joke of that is, but I do know that some people are in on it and it's their own specific thing so I don't know what it pertains to but it's kind of amusing. We do lots of stuff to amuse ourselves, when you've worked on a show that long. Have you all seen Martin Woods' wrench? Martin Woods, one of our directors, and Dan Shea who plays Siler, have decided to put themselves as brick and brack in the background of almost every shot that they can, and they used to hang onto this giant wrench, this about three-and-a-half foot long wrench and they'd always be talking about the wrench in the background of somebody's shot over their shoulder or something like that. We do all kinds of stuff too, little in jokes and things like that. Somebody always likes to put phallic devices in the background over someone's shoulder just to keep it fresh and to keep it light, so… stuff that I don't even notice because I'm, you know,….. dense.

([How did you get involved with the SPCA and could you tell us about your cats?]

MS: Well If Lexa were here, she could tell you about the cats. I only know the cats by their nicknames, which are (coughs and growls and mumbles). (Audience laughter.) We actually just recently moved from a townhouse downtown into a full house with a yard on Grouse Mountain, and I realized, after we had just finished moving our stuff in two days ago, and I realized after it was over that we did it for the cats…. Is that wrong?? Or what? ….and I just got it. We've always had cats in my family, and Lexa's family. I was involved in the SPCA, from when my family had cats. I think it's very important to maintain our stray animals and to look after our pets and to make sure that there's not an overpopulation, and also to make sure that lost kitties get homes. It's very valuable.

[What was it like to be on the cover of TV Guide?]

MS: I didn't know it was a big deal. Apparently, it was. When Michael Greenburg came up to me at some point to tell me that Rick had only ever once been on the cover of TV Guide when he was on MacGyver, that I realized it is a big deal. It's very funny, though when you actually look at it, because it's this little, sort of, Reader's Digest-looking booklet that you see on every counter once a week with a different face on the front of it, that that's the most important document in our industry. With newspaper-type pages and type that you need special glasses to read. Maybe it was that big a deal but apparently it was a big deal not only for Richard and myself to be on but for the show itself. Our executives were absolutely over the moon about it, it was very odd considering we'd been on TV for 7 years and just now America knows that we exist. I would have appreciated if the whole cast had been on the cover but it wasn't anybody's choice but TV Guide so it was very nice that the show was recognized.

[I remember hearing that when you pitch an idea to the writers and the producers they wind up passing it along from one to the other and working it out of all recognition from what you originally pitched. If you have a story idea that hasn't been worked out of all recognition yet we'd like to hear it.]

MS: What happens in the room is that it's great when…. on shows like Friends and they have a roomful of 12 writers, and you can either call it opinion or you can call it collaboration and it's a matter of what colour glasses you have on that day. As a new writer to the show, someone pitching stories and whatnot, you have to very much listen to your elders and mind your Ps and Qs because this is their environment and if they came on the show to act you might have a few things to say about them. So it's a new environment, the writers are reverent to your ideas but it is a collaborative process and other people's opinions and other agendas have to be met that you might not even know about just being an actor so you have to have your ear to the ground, you might agree with the changes or you might not but at the end of the day you have to accept that that's the format with which you operate. As for ideas, let me think about that. 'Cause I'm still coming up with a story idea for next year….why are my lips doing that?

[Are you really Chris Judge's running buddy?]

MS: What does that mean, exactly? That sounds like Dick Cheney and George what's-his-name. Apparently that's what he says; if that means we, you know, we go out and get into a lot of trouble together….. yeah.

(long monologue about how MS brings out the best in other actors and how scenes with D&J are her favourite. Question was about the possibility of more D/J scenes in the future):

MS: Oh THAT'S the question. (In deep moderator's voice) Please keep your questions to simple yes or no answers and keep them out of essay form…… Are we going to get more scenes like that? Uh, hopefully; uh, I very much appreciate that you enjoy the scenes of us together, and we really enjoy working off one another. In terms of whether or not they're all serious or all play, most of the time getting a serious scene out of the two of us could be a very difficult task as well, so sometimes what's on the screen may not necessarily be a true reflection of how it got there. You have to catch us first thing in the morning when we're having our coffee to get us serious. But you'll hopefully see more scenes like that this year; I know that we do enjoy working together.

[You said nobody ever dies in sci fi; is there a possibility you'll be back on Andromeda?]

MS: I think so. The original idea of that was written, was actually a scene that ended up being cut from the finished draft which was a scene where we find the character Remiel in a little shop on some distant moon tinkering away at a new Rommie doll. They didn't want to hit that nail so firmly on the head so they decided to have him just sort of whiz off into the universe and we don't know what happens to him until later on or Shanks asks for more money which, you know, kills his ass. Hopefully, I think not this year but in the fifth season of Andromeda, we might see the character return.

[What does your family think of your role on Stargate?]

MS: They don't think of it at all, actually, they just…. they always like to knock me down when I get too big for my britches. As long as I … they don't think of me any differently. They wonder why certain relatives in my family treat me differently all of a sudden. They keep me very well grounded. They enjoy watching me on TV but they don't really watch the show. The evolution of your parents watching you on TV is very funny. The first time… the first ever time when I did my Commish episode they were watching, we were tuned into ABC, they were watching for my two minutes of whatever, then I was on the series and they watched it, yeah, oh they watched it every night for oh, a week, then my dad just said to me after about six months, "You know, I don't really like that kind of stuff." He watches NYPD Blue; sci fi's not his kick so he kind of watches it when I force feed it to him, but they don't really watch it on a regular basis any more. They buy it on DVD and skip the commercials.

[Are we going to see RDA more in future episodes.]

MS: This season, or next year, or…..?

[Any season.]

MS: He makes more prominent appearances in a couple of episodes this year, in the two parter season finale he's very much in the foreground in that. In terms of next year, we'll have to see. ( Question as to what the question was.) Oh, the question was whether or not we're going to see Rick more in the episodes this year.

[How much did you enjoy sci fi before you got involved with Stargate?]

MS: I enjoyed it quite a bit. I was always quite a big Battlestar Galactica fan, and Star Wars, and Space1999. I never quite… I loved the original Star Trek but that was the time in my life when I actually watched TV. Later on when The Next Generation and whatnot came on I didn't really have time for it any more and I certainly love all sci fi movies. James Cameron redefined sci fi for movie goers as far as I'm concerned, so I certainly enjoy it and I'm grateful to be part of a sci fi show. It's a lot of fun and it keeps it interesting every day.

[I don't want you to give away any real secrets but do have any information you can let us have on the premise of Atlantis?]

MS: I have no idea. Yeah, the Atlantis question. I don't know. Nobody knows. It seems that we were supposed to do…. the two shows were supposed to piggyback off of one another in this 8th season, I think there's still a possibility that Atlantis might start up in mid stream with Stargate this year but that's the latest from the office. I have no idea what the premise will be, other than operating along relatively the same time lines so I don't know any more than that.

[I was wondering if you and Lexa would consider going to conventions together?]

MS: That's recently been brought up. We were hacked into one but not specifically a Stargate convention but Brian had asked her to sign a few autographs and give a couple talks and she felt quite out of her element, but sort of the idea, there is that notion of forever being locked into the category as a the sci fi couple; so there has been that consideration given to it. But we always travel together anyway so there has been that bandied about, so it may happen very soon.

[Now that you live on Grouse Mountain have you been to the Capilano Suspension Bridge?]

MS: I have never been to the Capilano Suspension Bridge. Never. I don't have a fear of heights but you know, the idea of staring down into a gorge just doesn't yank my crank. But it's a lot closer to my home now so who knows, we may wander down it. Across it.

[?]

MS: The question was, do we enjoy the Wizard of Oz quotes in Stargate. First of all, it's MGM property so we're not going to get sued for mentioning it. It kind of started off with Brad Wright making a couple of references in the pilot and then Rick taking the ball and running with it. It is a wonderful, wonderful movie. I actually wanted to do an homage to it, not a musical episode but an actual dream kind of episode where we all took on the characters we really do represent..

[Pitch it!]

MS: Oh I already pitched it, honey. They felt it was a little too risqué.

[Aww!]
[Which character would Daniel be?]

MS: Oh, come on!

[Glenda?]

MS: (Imitating the lion; low growl and fists prepping) In grade twelve I actually played the lion in the Wizard of Oz so it's not that big a stretch. But there's Rick's scarecrow, and you know, who's the tin man; come on.

[Have you thought about pitching a story where SG1 goes to an ice planet, where you get to play hockey?]

MS: Well, for those of you who don't already know, there's a specific episode taking us to Antarctica so if any of that remains, if we keep that little world alive there, who knows. I might be able to bring it up.

[When's Daniel going to get a new girlfriend?]
[Who doesn't die!]

MS: I don't know, you know? I mean I know Amanda always complains about the boyfriend thing and stuff like that. But they just always end up getting knocked off. It never lasts. It never does last.

[Daniel's significant others get snaked. It's Amanda's, or Sam's, that all die.]

MS: But the ones who get snaked die anyway. They just die later.

[Is that what we have to look forward to for Osiris?]

MS: No…. I never said that….. I never said that……. I never said that.

MS: Ok, I got room for one more question.

[Favourite Shakespeare quote?] (Laughter.)

MS: Parting is such sweet sorrow.






Sunday November 9



MS: Hi everybody! Who's here leftover from yesterday? I feel like a leftover from yesterday. I trust everybody….. we had a long session yesterday, I think we asked every question or I heard every question that could be asked…No? You had some time, you thought up some new ones? Okay.
Okay, let me ask a good question, who's here for the first time today? [Today?] (thinking about that) Who's here for the second time today? Ohh…... Who's still in bed?
I like the shout out questions from yesterday, 'cause it saves time going up to the microphone. So if you have a question shout it out and I'll listen and repeat it if nobody heard it…. (no one shouts out.) Hands?

[Why do all the aliens speak English?]

MS: Ah, shut up.
Um, it's actually a time saving device? And it prevents the writers from having to create all sorts of new alien languages. Think of all the stuff where they did the translating - that whole sequence, the half-hour long sequence where Daniel figured out how the languages were spoken and remembered them, and the evolution of it? That happened off camera.

[But we have how many languages on this planet?]

MS: Oh, let's not debate this point. Come on. Seriously. Don't try and make sense of this…. Suspension of disbelief.

[Universal translators. All the science fiction shows have them.]

MS: Yeah. (Skeptically) Yeah. It's like the metric system, right?

[There's a very raging controversy going on right now online between all the Daniel fans…..]

MS: Oh god.

[…..We need you to make a decision for us. We need to know which Daniel prefers….. the boonie, or the BANDANA!?)

MS: I think we know which side you're on.
Um… um. I think he prefers the bandana.

[How difficult was it for you to get into the emotion in Absolute Power? You just transitioned into this really nasty Daniel.]

MS: That was really easy. I try and keep that Daniel at bay at all times, he just comes out every now and again. But it was a fun episode to do. It was kind of one of those things where it was important that Rob really caught the ball with Absolute Power ….was to not tip the hand, that always made it look like he was trying to be earnest and trying to do the right thing the whole time and then we only see at the end that he knew what he was up to the whole time.

[What are your five-year goals other than starring in a hockey movie with the Vancouver Canucks?)

MS: My five year goals. Hmmm….. Turn 37….. Um, I don't know. I've been asked that question a lot lately and I really don't have any grand plans. I kind of take every day as it comes so I don't have any notion of where I want to be in five years. But I want to see my daughter turn ten, so….. awwww. Seriously.

[If it were up to you to come up with the ending for the series, how would you do it?]

MS: I wouldn't. (Audience clapping.) I think the show has so many great possibilities that I don't want to see it end. There's no way to tie it up in a nice little ribbon, I think that it can just continue to go on and on, and there's so many different avenues to go down with the concept, that I think it should just perpetuate and grow and expand the universe. So, um, I think it shouldn't end.

[Any chance that Sam and Daniel will ever be more than friends?]

MS: Is this a raging debate question too? No, but you never know, you know, we get alien devices on heads and alien drugs put in our system so you never know.

[Wouldn't you be worried about dying again?]

MS: (Laughs) Oh yeah, that, ya, cause then I'd be dead.

[You said yesterday that one of the reasons you came back was the way the supporting characters are being used; not to say anything against Rick but do you like that now you get more chances to work with Chris, Amanda, Don and some of the other characters?]

MS: Yeah, it's always fun to work but we do miss Rick. We have a lot of fun when we work together so I probably miss him the most out of everybody. It's been great to have other opportunities; like when Chris and I were doing scenes this year, we're like… I think when we did the Changeling in season 6 we had forgotten what it was like to work with each other 'cause it had been so long, and it was so much fun we really enjoyed it. It has been fun to work with Amanda and Chris a little bit more this year than usual, it's also been fun to work with guest stars a little more than usual but Rick is missed, you know? We certainly have a certain dynamic that feels lacking when we take too long apart in episodes to do it, so we do miss him.

[This is another raging debate, um….]

MS: There are so many raging debates I'm missing!

[(continues) Is Don coming back in Season 8? Will we have our General Hammond?]

MS: I don't know actually. I know there was something on the internet or something in the newspaper about two new characters being introduced to the series and as far as I know that's not happening. But that's not for me to finalize or decide, 'cause I really don't know, it's not like I keep phoning the office when I'm not there. In my off time I like to leave it and not talk to anybody so I don't know what's going on. I know that as of about two weeks ago Amanda, Christopher and myself had agreed to come back to the show. Perhaps that the expression of two extra characters was meant to try and extra persuade us to come back to the show. I know that Don hasn't so far signed the contract so I don't know what the plans are at this point. I have no idea.

[Does Richard Dean Anderson ad-lib some of his lines?]

MS: Yes, Rick has Tourette's Syndrome when it comes to his dialogue sometimes. And he has this tendency, he doesn't even recognize it himself because his memory is fleeting from day to day. He'll read the script beforehand and he'll say to the writer, he'll show the writer what his changes are going to be. And then when he gets his lines on the day, he'll go, "what is this crap?" And when he's… eventually somebody will tell him, remind him, "actually you wrote that, Rick." And then he'll end up saying, - because he doesn't want to say it the way it's written on the page - he'll end up saying it the way the writer originally wrote it, just because it seems it's comes full circle. So his adlibs almost end up being scripted so to speak, so, um, ya, it's great, it's a lot of fun, it keeps us in the moment, so to speak. It's kind of like working with Robin Williams, I think, so…..

[According to what I read, when Amanda Tapping talks she really sounds like she knows what she's talking about; I've heard she reads up on that stuff. Do you read up on archeology?]

MS: Well Amanda knows what she's talking about when she's talking about it and nobody else does. In terms of the archeology stuff, most of it - unless we're talking about some mythology elements that we've introduced ourself into the show - that when it comes to the basis of stuff, we keep it pretty simple. I think she has a lot more verbal diarrhea to say than I do, so when Daniel talks he keeps it pretty simple. So it's not like I know, "Oh yeah, I know all about that," it's like I go "Oh, it's kind of pretty straightforward, I've heard that," or something like that, but I don't do a lot of research into it to figure out the depth behind what I say, just because that would take a colossal amount of effort, and I'm lazy.

[Someone points out somebody who has the same last name as he does, asks if they're related.]

MS: And apparently there's some archeologist out there named Michael Shanks as well, I think based out of England, who's published a few books that some people have decided to send me….. No relation to him, either. Although there are a few Shanks in the world so who knows, maybe our second brother's cousin's sister slept with somebody… so I don't know.

[Who on set can take the most "punishment" during a long day of shooting?]

MS: (Laughing) Usually the directors, but usually they're usually complaining about the actors. In terms of who can take the most punishment I'm not sure what that's in reference to. Um… I'd say Rick would be able to…. but he's never there for a long day of shooting. I think Don can probably take the most, out of anybody. He's the one we give the hardest time to and he seems to take it like a trooper, so I would say it would have to be him.

[Do you ever have any regrets about taking a particular role?]

MS: I never really ever look back and say "why did I take the role", I usually look back and say "what the hell was I thinking when I was doing it." But I don't think I've ever regretted working, I think it's kind of like life, that there are no bad experiences so long as you learn something from it even if you screw up. So I never have too many regrets about it; I think they're all just learning experiences. It keeps me moving forward.

[How do you feel being a father?]

MS: I was watching a movie just before I went to bed last night that I had to turn off, I don't know if any of you have seen it, it's called Thirteen? Ooh, God. Like, just slit my wrists, bang me over the head with a sideboard right now; it's a parent's worst nightmare come true kind of thing, and I was just watching it about a daughter with a single parent who grows up in Los Angeles…….. and all the different things that get in the way of her growing up. And it was kind of depressing. So ya, it is, I think, it's an absolute joy to be a parent but I think the worrying never quite stops, and you do wake up after a certain period and go, "What just happened? …..You're five now, you're talking, you were just spitting up food like two days ago."

[Wait till they're 17!]

MS: (Laughs.) God! I've got a little bit to go there so let me enjoy the five-year-old phase, thank you.

[A second question about Lifeboat]
MS: I enjoyed it immensely. We had this question yesterday. It's absolutely wonderful to get an opportunity like that, to do all that. It takes a little bit of homework and research to create four distinct people in four days. It requires watching a few movies and stealing a few caricatures and things like that; I won't mention which ones they're based on, I'll let you decide. But it was a lot of fun to do. It's very unusual for our show to go down that avenue and it gave me a great thing to bite into so I had a lot of fun.

[Was there any kind of backstory to Daniel's appendicitis?]
MS: Yeah, I got appendicitis.

(Revised the question to refer more to the story behind what Daniel went through.)

MS: Yeah…. he had appendicitis. It's very funny, it's actually quite a funny story, because it was on Canadian Thanksgiving that year. We'd had turkey that night and I thought I had food poisoning the next morning and I woke up and instead of, you know, where food poisoning you're throwing up and all that other stuff where you think it's going to get better at some point but it kept getting worse. So I finally went to the hospital and all I'm thinking was I had to work the next day, we were filming Crystal Skull and we had a big heavy day the next day, and all I'm saying to the doctor is, I'm saying, just be SURE, 'cause they're never sure with appendicitis……. Who's had appendicitis? (A scattering of hands go up.) Not that many people. But they're never sure, this is what I never knew; unless it explodes, they don't actually know. So they actually have to cut you open, and they always say, "Well while we're in here, even if you don't have appendicitis, while we're in here, we've cut you open, we may as well take it anyway 'cause you don't really need it." (He makes a lot of expressions with his eyes.) It sounds like a cleaning service….. "Anything else you want to grab while you're in there? A spleen, or, any major organs you need to sew?" So I didn't know that, and the guy's saying to me, and I'm saying, "You have to be sure before you cut me open, because you cut me open I'm out of commission for two weeks, I have to work tomorrow." I'm not in sort of a normal job where you can just call in sick , because if you're not there they can't film anything that was written for you to be in it, so you have to kind of be on death's door to not show up for work. So what ended up happening was I was debating with the doctor and right in the middle of debating the appendix exploded. (Audience reaction.) Not that…. it didn't actually, like, explode (makes "poof" actions with his hands); but they finally convinced me, 'cause I said, "I'll just go home and if I don't feel better in the morning I'll just come back." No big deal. And the guy said, "Nooo, you'll be dead."……..Oh….. Compelling argument. So anyway, they knocked me out and I woke up and I couldn't move for the next week. So that's the kind of backstory where the writers literally had to have a meeting the next morning to figure out how to write my character out of the season ender that year. And it was basically written where they were trying to come up with all sorts of… I think it was as simple as this, like the scene in Indiana Jones where a big swordfight takes place and he says, "Why don't I just shoot him?" It was kinda like that, and they said, "Why don't we just say he has appendicitis?" So if there's any backstory to it it's as simple as that. They tried to come up with this complex…... "he's off on another planet doing something we'll get back to at some point…" … I just did a Shatner, didn't I. (Laughter and clapping. That line did sound exactly like Wm Shatner as Capt. Kirk.)
And Rob Cooper just basically turned to him and said, "no, he's got appendicitis". "Oh, okay, great." The only other scene, because we had to shoot it literally when I just got out of the hospital, they hadn't really written the scene where we addressed the appendicitis… so Rick and I kind of improvised this dumb scene, about you know, "did you cut your hair" and all that stuff. It was just kind of spontaneous banter that we made up in the moment so it was a lot of fun.

(Someone later asked what Daniel's role was in the original script for that episode; what Daniel's part would have been had MS not had the appendicitis attack, and he answered that the part wasn't very important, he was with Sam or something but not with Jack on the sub. Since that story hadn't gone to filming he didn't really remember what had been written.)

[Michael, did you and Lexa first meet when you did the guest spot on Andromeda?]

MS: Yeah. Actually, odd enough story, we had actually previously met about five or six years before that. When I was auditioning for a separate show in Toronto we had met in the waiting room and just conversed, you know three or four sentences to each other kind of thing. I said to her years later when I remembered that and we were discussing the audition that I went to when I was in Toronto, that she went "Oh, you were that cute guy in the room." I said, "You were that quite chatty….. talking, cute chick that was talking to me, right?" It was very funny to realize that we'd actually met a couple of years before, we just didn't remember each other until we talked about it.

[Speaking of backstories, in your Warp Zone interview you said you wanted to write a backstory for Daniel, why he was descended, what happened with the Ancients. Are you still working on that? Are you still thinking about that?]

MS: I'm still thinking about it. I have to come up with a few pitches because I don't know if they want to go down that road. Necessarily. They do like to evolve stories that involve all the characters or at least as much of them as possible. And to just follow Daniel back into ascended land would just be a Daniel story, and nobody else. I'll see how that can work out. I think it's a great opportunity to explore something but we also don't want to give too much away.

[But you gave a lot of ideas in that interview, that really sounded like they were a good way to go.]

MS: There was a lot of possibilities. We'll see what happens. They didn't buy my Wizard of Oz story so… you know, I don't take anything for granted.

[Christopher Judge, who plays Teal'c - has there ever been a time when he cracked up on the set with his lines?]

MS: Oh yeah. He's usually pretty good, but it's always funny because his façade is so steely that when it goes, it goes full warp. That's why Dom DeLuise - that was the time he cracked up the most, when Dom just went to work on him. Dom insisted on being off camera for everybody just in order to see them crack up and he just looked at Chris and he basically summed up everybody and said "Okay, this is the guy who's going to be the hardest and I really want to work on him.". And it worked.

[Talking about Chris Judge, he used to make a point of stressing how shy you were, and you don't come across that way, so I'm wondering if you've changed over the years, or if you find you've changed.]

MS: Yeah, I think I've learned the ability to seem …. that's actually a line from The Madness of King George ….. where I've learned a way to put that part of yourself that you know you need to keep away for protection and find a place for it and create a persona that is able to get on the stage and do all this stuff as me instead of as a character. And that's why a lot of people always wondered, they'd say, "You're shy, why'd you become an actor, dumbass?" And I think that what they don't recognize is that's kinda how shy people get out sometimes; they don't have to be themselves. They can be somebody else. So yeah, I've certainly gotten a little bit better but that's still part of me.

[In the episode1969, how hard was it to learn the lines in German?]

MS: I'm still trying to learn them. I didn't realize it until afterwards, that I had a dialogue coach for that, a dialect coach for that, and it wasn't so much the words as learning the dialect. And what I realized, what Lexa actually informed me of years later when I gave her the name of the dialect coach, she said "She's not German, she's Hungarian". I had a Hungarian German dialect coach and that's why that there's a strange accent. We have a … one of our directors of photography is German and he said, "That's not a proper German accent." I said, "She's saying it right there, she says it is, that's what I was taught." And then I find out later that she was actually Hungarian, so yeah. You live, you learn.

[Will Jack and Daniel ever go fishing together?]

MS: Is that a raging debate too?… (pauses for a bit.) [Yes.]
Is that a metaphor for something?………. Always with the gay stuff, huh? Just hit the nail on the head, honey. …..I don't know. Metaphorically speaking,…. I doubt it. Practically speaking,……. maybe……(audience laughter). Is sci fi just a big sexual metaphor? Is that what it is? I mean, let's be honest here, I really gotta know. I need to know if there's some sort of subliminal thing I'm missing out of it. We always talk about it…. But we kinda think we're joking about it. It's like, the… Stargate…… (making circular motions with his hand and dragging each word out slowly and deliberately). How do you jump through? Well it has to get …..wet first. Sna-akes. Ser-pent gods. Staff weapons. No, that's the thing, we all hide behind this big intellectual façade; you guys are asking me some intelligent questions and I'm trying to sound intelligent…. but we're just in the gutter.

[I know you've received a lot of stuff over the years; is there anything you've ever received that you just went, "Wow"?]

MS: (Laughing) Somebody baked….. when I was doing Hamlet in Vancouver, somebody baked….. it was Valentine's Day and somebody baked 150 shortbread cookies and had them delivered. It wasn't like they were bought, they were baked, and delivered them to the cast of Hamlet, which was very interesting. The problem is, and this is not a bad thing; you can't eat 'em, just because it's a little dangerous, you know what I mean? It was a very nice gesture but it had to be thrown in the trash, so….. But that was pretty impressive, that somebody would go to half a day of trouble to drop them off at the theatre…… And yes, yours was very nice too (laughing).

[If you had a whole day to yourself, how would you spend it?]

MS: I'd play video games. And, I DO. My wife has had to - I've given her permission to scold me when she s not being - um, when she needs her attention and I've been playing Baldur's Gate for six straight hours or something like that, she's allowed to interrupt. So….

[Can you teach him to do that? (someone indicates her husband.)]

MS: No, I can't teach anybody to do it, I'm still learning. So……

[(Something about still being in the gutter)]

MS: (Cutting her off) Honey, you're there full-time.

[(Now, something about taking his shirt off in scenes.)]

MS: You know, Peter DeLuise, I know he's straight but he's the gayest straight man I know. I don't know what it is but he's always trying to get me out of my damn clothes. In the second part of Evolution there's a sequence where we're trying to break out of a …. Have you guys seen Evolution on Sci Fi? The first part? Daniel ends up being captured in this Nicaraguan rebel camp, and myself and Bill Dow's character - Doctor what's his name? Lee? We named him Bill - Bill Lee - that's a true story - we have to break out of this little hut that we're trapped in because everybody in the camp is going a little cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, and so there's this whole sequence where…. because Peter had written the episode as well, he had written this sequence where Daniel takes his shirt off and uses it to …. twist it in a knot so it breaks the beams, and crushes them together, and I was like going, "Oh, Pete.". He's in the gutter, trust me on that. But then we realized on the day that both Bill and I had been wearing these leather belts the whole time and he was so disappointed. Because it was like, (sounding extremely disappointed) "You guys have been wearing the belts, so why don't you use the belts." He was still trying; "Make the shirt to, like, twist the leather belt". He was still trying. Yeah, I don't know if it will be written any time soon but Peter DeLuise will probably be the guy that'll talk me into it.

[At Gatecon Teryl Rothery was saying that in Season 4 or 5 the two of you were doing something on the screen about what was happening with your two characters off the screen. The two of you were acting like you had a relationship. Were you doing that?]

MS: Yes. Teryl and myself decided…. you know, there's all this Sam/Jack, Sam/Jack, Sam/Jack, so we said, "Hey, what about (wink) Dr. Frasier and Daniel?" So in the episode 2010 we decided to…. there was this strange line that was written and Teryl always says her dialogue as it's scripted, and her line was something like, "I have to go," and Daniel says to her, "Really?" And it just seemed like an aside, the conversation didn't go anywhere, and so I said, "That's kind of a strange thing to say." I have to go. So that's how we played it. We decided there's a whole backstory to these characters that we hadn't discovered yet, or explored, so we decided, every time we had a chance, and the writers started actually writing it. So there's a couple of scenes…. I think there's one in that episode with the guy… ? Rite of Passage. Where they wrote an extra scene, it was short so they wrote this extra scene where Daniel's really concerned about her a little bit too much, holds her hand a little extra too long. That kind of stuff. So we decided to play into that a little bit. There's this whole subtext of a relationship.

[Someone asks for the Puff'n'Ruffle again.]

MS: What'd you call it? The Puff'n'Stuff?
The Puff'n'Ruffle? Has anyone ever not seen the Puff'n'Ruffle? There's like… okay, there's like twelve of you. Oh dear.

[She admits she wants to get it on video.)

MS: Oh-h! You want it for your own little movie. That's what this is about. Can I act, re-enact any scenes for you while I'm here? Any Shakespeare? (Someone calls out, "Henry the V.") I don't mean for you to be selfish or anything but look around honey. You're going to bore the crap out of 300 other people for your little home movie.

(The audience calls out rounds of, "Do it!")

MS: OK, for the captive audience and Camera A, I'll now demonstrate the Puff And Ruffle. For those of you who don't know - all twelve of you - the Puff'n'Ruffle is when an attractive female guest star shows up on the set of Stargate and others notice the males start to behave peculiarly ….. female…… (acting it out):
Enjoying yourself? Can I get you anything? (etc etc.) I'll be here. (Continues with the mime.)

You didn't ask for the Wounded Lamb so I'm not doing it . ("Aww"s from audience.)
Ok, female actors, generic Stargate female actors, watching male actors gawk and gaze at female guest star……….. (etc.)

[Something about what age group or demographics Stargate is aiming for.]

MS: The age group. I don't actually know. I don't know if we were looking at a specific demographic. We certainly had an eclectic mix of characters and personalities out of the gate - out of the gate…. I keep doing that today, I don't know why. We have the large black man, the fifty-year-old action hero, the 30-year-old white boy, the blond female girl; I think they were just shotgun-blasting the whole thing and seeing what happens but I don't know if they were going for a specific demographic. And quite frankly, looking around this room I see a tremendous demographic and variation so I don't know what we've actually achieved or what we were going for.

[A good show.] (Clapping.)

MS: Thank you.

[(Long comment I couldn't hear very well.)]

MS: One thing I've always liked about the show is it doesn't just involve otherworldly concepts, it really sort of digs into our own history and mythology, so it's not so much in the minds of just the imaginations of the writers; it's actually baased on something we can all discuss and theorize about. It's something I've always liked about Stargate.

(Question about how he felt doing such a dark character in Suspicious River)

MS: You know, some people go home and they kick their dog…… I don't know those people ….. but we get to express a lot of different things as actors, and that's…. to a certain degree it is an art form, and we're not painting or building a house. In Suspicious River I played a really nasty guy and I heard a lot of actors didn't want to do it. Paul Gross didn't want to do it. A few other actors didn't want to do it and I just really liked the chance to be that sort of nasty, so it's a great way of getting out your frustrations.

[Was it hard to keep doing the same scenes in Window of Opportunity over and over and over again?] (Also a question about the games he likes to play other than Baldur's Gate.)

MS: To do the same scenes over and over and over again it was really easy to remember our lines. That's what we actually liked, because scenes that were reused and reused sometimes, for most of us except for Rick, they just used our same coverage over and over and over and over again and Rick had to react differently each time, so our days were pretty simple. In terms of gaming, oh - now there's something; I used to play Dungeons and Dragons a fair bit when I was a kid, well, not when I was a kid actually; the last time I played I was at Stratford. A bunch of actors got together and we decided to put together a new group of Dungeons and Dragons. There were a couple of other games, I can't remember them right now, but Time Master was something I was into, that's an oldie now….. there was one more…. a superhero one, whatever that one was.

[You've had to play other roles on Stargate, Jack in Holiday and Carter in Foothold. How would you play Teal'c?]

MS: It's actually really simple. Stand in one spot (he demonstrates) don't move and say (deep voice) "Indeed".

[What video games do you like best?]

MS: What video games do I like best? I earned a nickname when I was in high school….. all my friends were all, and still are, video game addicts; the great thing about when you become an adult that you can go out and afford a big screen TV and all your friends come over and go, "Cool!" Chris just got the most ridiculous sized projection television set, it's a projector and the screen's about the size of…. this frame in the wall, and I came over to his house the other day and he was playing NCAA football on it and the characters were life-size. So there's a wide variety of games I like. For Play Station I usually like role-playing games; for computer, the other stuff… Vice City, the ultra violent ones, what's the latest one - oh, uh… Boomstick, the Army of Darkness one - who's played Boomstick? with Bruce Campbell doing all the one-liners for it too and picking off the zombies with the chainsaw…. and I could go on for days.

[No NHL?]

MS: Oh yeah, NHL yeah, oh yeah. Actually in the fifth season of the show, Christopher and I every day would square off in his trailer for at least two games a day where he could never beat me. He came really close a couple of times, and he's so competitive, my thumb was aching, I was getting carpal tunnel syndrome in my wrist, I wanted to let him win just so I could stop playing the damn game.

(I didn't hear this question at all. Something about introducing Teal'c to XBox?)

MS: Actually in, um, what was it this year…. (someone yells out "Fragile Balance", just as MS says "Fragile Balance".). (He stops. Long pause.) Somebody's readin' my mail. ……Why don't you just say what I'm thinking?….. Yeah, we had an XBox in Fragile Balance this year and Michael Welch, who was playing young Jack, got to play it for hours and hours, so I dunno, I think that if we introduce Teal'c to it, he might… you don't want to make him angry, that's the only thing.

[I hear you're a cat lover; how many cats do you have and what are their names?]

MS: I used to be a cat lover, now I'm a cat tolerater. Um, yeah, you know, when your wife disciplines the cats that are pulling out all the threading in the furniture by going (stroking) "Don't do that, daddy will get mad", somebody has to take up the reins and launch the kitties or at least tell them that's a bad thing. Our cats are actually named Rosencrantz and Gildenstern, which we shortened into Rosie and Gildie because they're two short-haired gray barn cats, basically, who are sisters from the same litter and they're both gray and you can't tell them apart. One has a little white patch, this little tiny white patch, that's the only way you can tell. So when they were kittens I called them Rosencrantz and Gildenstern which is Rosie and Gildie and as I said yesterday, now they're (mumbles……).

[One of the recent rites of passage for a lot of Canadian actors - any thoughts on doing the Red Green Show?]

MS: Do any of them shoot that any more? I find that kind of annoying? I never quite paid attention to the Red Green Show so I can't really say if it's a good show or not, just every time I saw it, it just looked like a Sesame Street set. It wasn't my cup of tea and I'm not much of a TV watcher so I've kind of flipped through it. No, I can't say I've ever really considered it. He said, you know, hitting the nail right on the head.

(Re the hockey teams he mentioned yesterday, SG vs Smallville)

MS: On all the crews in Vancouver, there's so many productions that shoot there at any given time, and of course being so many Canadians there that there's a lot of hockey players on all the crews, so it's not really a league. It's just sort of…. we just do it for fun, but everybody makes up a jersey and so all the different television shows have hockey teams. Very few of the actors actually play; it's mostly the crews and sometimes there's unfair advantages when you get a show like Riddick, the movie that's shooting up there that has something like 500 crew people in it and 200 stunt men, and then you get our show which has 100 crew and one stunt coordinator. So of course then it came down to, "We're a TV series, stunt boy; movie's going away. What's gonna be here tomorrow for you? Come play for us." So we have a lot of fun. Another actor who plays hockey is Michael Rosenbaum and we played against his squad a couple of times, and they trounced us. Mike's pretty good, he's okay. He's okay.

[Would you take off your cap?]

MS: No. There's a reason why this is on today, sweetheart….. There was a shower prevention unit this morning.

MS: I have time for one more question and then that's it. So…….?

(Tape couldn't hear the question.)

MS: Yes, I'm beside myself. See? Here I am and…. here I am. Oh, the ninja story. What does Daniel do late at night when the SGC is shut down? People think he's studying going to the library? He's a ninja. I want to see fanfiction devoted to that. Thank you very much for having me here in Springfield and I look forward to seeing you again. Thank you.

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