The man who brought Dr. Daniel Jackson to life for more than a decade is here to close out Season Three of Dial the Gate with stories from his life and production, and to answer questions LIVE.

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Timecodes
0:00 – Splash Screen
0:37 – Opening Credits
1:03 – Welcome and Episode Outline
2:20 – Welcoming Michael Shanks
2:58 – A Missing Tooth
3:51 – Daniel Has Appendicitis, As Does Michael (“Crystal Skull” and “Nemesis”)
12:22 – Playing Hamlet (Between Seasons Two and Three)
16:22 – Kendall Cross Connection
19:14 – Memorizing and Reciting Dialogue
20:56 – Sleep Deprivation in Season One
0:22:20 – A Practical Joke Played on Michael with “Fire and Water”
0:24:51 – Great Guest Stars Over the Years
0:26:16 – Remembering Elizabeth Hoffman
0:24:35 – “The Torment of Tantalus” and the Meaning of Life Stuff
0:32:17 – Filming “Meridian” with Mel Harris
0:37:13 – Returning to SG-1 & A More Cynical Daniel
0:41:49 – Working Opposite Richard Dean Anderson
0:47:15 – Creating “Heroes”
0:48:32 – Saul Rubinek as Emmett Bregman
0:50:16 – Killing Janet Fraiser
0:55:34 – Following James Spader’s Performance
0:58:29 – Cutting Daniel’s Hair
1:00:40 – Who Ruined the Most Takes?
1:01:48 – Dom DeLuise and “Urgo”
1:03:12 – Archaeological Research Before SG-1
1:04:39 – Crystal Skulls and Conspiracies
1:06:52 – Lexa Doig Joins SG-1 — “You cast my wife?!”
1:08:37 – Day One of “Children of the Gods” Was Awful
1:11:38 – Michael and Daniel Inspiring Academic Degrees
1:13:12 – Robert C. Cooper’s “Unspeakable”
1:18:08 – What Daniel Means to Michael
1:20:05 – The Next Stargate
1:21:39 – Would You Please Do Thor?
1:22:58 – Thank You, Michael!
1:23:38 – What Daniel Means to David
1:25:01 – Post-Interview Housekeeping
1:27:24 – End Credits

***

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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read
Hello everyone and welcome to Dial the Gate, the Stargate Oral History project, my name is David Read. Michael Shanks is joining us for this episode and we are concluding season three of this show. I really appreciate everyone who has taken part in this extended season with me and I’m thrilled to have Michael on to finish this season out. If you enjoy Stargate and you want to see more content like this on YouTube, please click that Like button. It makes a difference with YouTube and will continue to help the show grow its audience. Please also consider sharing this video with a Stargate friend and if you want to get notified about future episodes, click Subscribe. If you click the bell icon you will get notified the moment a new video drops and you’ll get my notifications of any last minute guest changes. Clips from this live stream will be released over the course of the next few weeks on both the Dial the Gate and Gateworld.net YouTube channels. As this is a live show, Michael is with me right now, so if you are in the YouTube chat I invite you to submit a question. Only one question though, I want everyone to be able to participate, so think of a good one and get it over to me. Michael Shanks, Daniel Jackson in Stargate SG-1 is joining us for this episode. Michael, it is so tremendous to have you on. I really appreciate you taking the time and it just means the world to me to have you here.

Michael Shanks
Thank you David and congratulations on three seasons of your show. This is fantastic.

David Read
Thank you so much. How are you doing? How are things going? And everyone, keep in mind that we may have a little bit of a lag. If he takes a moment to respond, that’s why.

Michael Shanks
I’m doing great, other than us being on strike and being relegated to doing nothing, which allows me to spend time with my family which they hate, but I love, so it’s great. Everything’s going good. Oh yeah, let’s tell the story about what happened this morning. If you’ve noticed me looking extraordinarily Canadian today, I just got hit with a hockey puck because that’s what happens in Canada. No. I have a veneer getting revamped so my tooth fell out this morning.

David Read
Oh my god. Ah.

Michael Shanks
Yeah, it’s a really attractive hot look so if you see me around your trailer park later on today, I’m just trying to fit in.

David Read
That reminds, life happens. I’ve heard the story from Cooper and from Wright about the appendix situation at the end of season three. Would you do me a favor and tell this story? I’ve never heard this story from you. I would love to hear it.

Michael Shanks
Oh god. It’s pretty straightforward. We were in the middle of shooting the episode of Crystal Skull and it was Canadian Thanksgiving. I had Thanksgiving dinner the night before so it was a Monday and we had to go to work on the Tuesday. All day from Sunday and to Monday morning I had the flu symptoms. I was like “oh my god, I’m sick as a dog.” When you have the flu it starts to get progressively better; you feel less nauseous. It was getting worse, I had this pain that was in my abdomen that never was associated with the flu and I’m like, “oh my god this is terrible, I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to go to work tomorrow.” As Monday progressed I was getting worse and finally we decided that it was best for me to go to the hospital and at least get it looked at. The whole time I’m just thinking, “I gotta get to work tomorrow.” As you know, in our business, you can’t just not show up, you can’t get somebody else to fill in your job in the morning. I’m like, “okay, I just got to figure out how I’m gonna get through this.” I get to the emergency ward at Vancouver General Hospital and I go in and the nurse at the check in takes one look at me and she goes, “stay right there.” I guess I was kind of white and I kind of came up trying to be brave. Whenever I go to a hospital I always feel like I should be arriving there an ambulance, I don’t want to waste anybody’s time, I was feeling bad for being there anyway. About five minutes later a doctor comes out. He takes me into one of the cubicles in the back and he basically presses down and he asked me the questions. He says, “I think we’re going to have to go into surgery with you.” I’m like, “What? What are we talking about? For what?” He goes “for appendix.” I said, “Well, you haven’t even done any scans. are you sure?” He goes, “we can’t scan for this.” I don’t know if they can now or not, that’s a good question, we never did that episode on Saving Hope. I don’t know if you can scan to see if an appendix is enlarged or whatever now but I was like, “you’re going to cut me open on the hope that this is what it is?” It’s the only way they actually know for sure. I’m like, “how about I go home because I’m thinking about working in the morning?” Don’t do it. Don’t do it Hudson. Don’t do it. If a cat makes an appearance, it will.

David Read
Understood, okay.

Michael Shanks
Two cats will eventually show up. So I’m like going like, “maybe I’ll go home and if I feel worse I’ll come back. If I feel worse we’ll do surgery. But if not, I’ll just go home.” He goes, “No” and I’m like, “why?” He goes “because you’ll die.” I went “Oh, oh, oh. I didn’t know that. There’s things I didn’t know about appendicitis.” Within an hour I was under the knife. I guess what had happened was just as he opened me up, it was hiding, ducked behind my liver or something, just as he sort of opened me up I ruptured on the table.

David Read
Oh my god.

Michael Shanks
My appendix ruptured right then and there. They had to suction everything, I guess it was a big deal. Again, things I didn’t know because even the stuff that ruptures out of you is toxic and can infect your body so they were kind of worried about that. The next thing I know I wake up and I’m in recovery. I had to ask, I was with Vaitiare at the time, I’d asked her to contact John Lenic because I didn’t have any handy dandy, text, cell phone, email, things that we have now. John Lenic was our line producer or production manager, I think at that time, it was season three. I’m like, “talk to John and tell him I’m not gonna make it. I won’t be there, I don’t think I’m gonna be there for work in the morning.” Yeah, duh. It’s as simple as that. That’s how close I kind of was and how dumb I was about making it to work. I was in the hospital for the rest of that week because they cut through your abdomen and everything and I was hopped up on morphine. For a lot of the wide shots in Crystal Skull in the actual cave sequence they used my stand in as a photo double. When we did the next episode, once I’d gotten better and was on my feet again, we did the close ups of me in that thing. We were darn near the end of the episode so it all worked out. Then of course, Rob trying to figure out how to write me out of the finale, just wrote “appendicitis, Daniel’s got appendicitis.” Sometimes the easiest answer is the most obvious one. It all worked.

David Read
It’s a continued example of how we have these extraordinary people going into extraordinary situations but sometimes mundane things just happen to them. This is not a sci-fi show set in the future, this is in the here and now and here and now stuff hits them. I thought it was “yeah, we can have this as a solution, there’s nothing wrong with this.”

Michael Shanks
Absolutely. Listen, I learned a ton about appendicitis. I’m sitting there going “well, before modern medicine people just died of this shit I guess?” “Yes sir. That’s exactly what happened before anesthesia. That’s what happened, people just died.” I was twenty…what was I? 27 at the time? I could have died at 27 if I’d lived in the 1800s.

David Read
Which they did. So the scene at the beginning of Nemesis, was that shot a week later? How far ahead was that shot? I’ve heard a lot of it is ad-libbed. Did you get your hair cut?

Michael Shanks
There’s a little bit of that. I had been in the hospital a week and they had already started shooting the finale episode. I can’t remember, what was it called again? Was it Enemies or..?

David Read
It was Nemesis.

Michael Shanks
Nemesis. They had already started shooting that and they had to do a bunch of stuff on the sub first so they kind of reboarded it to shoot it on the sub. In between I was shooting the stuff in the Crystal Skull cave along with doing my scenes in the briefing room as soon as I got back on my feet. So that would have been after the week in the hospital. I think I’d lost probably like 10 pounds or something like that. Great weight loss program, by the way, for anybody looking for a solution. So they shot the stuff with me in the control room talking to the guys on the walkie and then intercutting with the Crystal Skull stuff and Brad Turner stuck around for that. That was great. It was very accommodating, it’s amazing what these guys can can pull off, what that production could pull off on short notice. It was pretty cool.

David Read
That’s wild man. One year earlier, between seasons two and three, you got to perform what I’ve seen is the most coveted role in all of theatre. I’ve never talked with you about this, you played Hamlet and I would love to know what that experience was like. First of all, how do you absorb all of the Shakespeare jargon and the phrasing? How do you play the most coveted character in all of theater and what a rewarding experience that must have been?

Michael Shanks
I remember Morris Panych who is now out east. He was a Vancouver director, playwright extraordinaire for a lot of years; one of one of Vancouver’s pride and joy artists. He had wanted to do a production of Henry V when I had just graduated theatre school and I auditioned for him in the summer right after I graduated and I guess it went well. I worked with him later on that summer on a mini series that I was doing about street kids and he still was talking about that. We just got along really well blah blah, cut to five years later and out of nowhere he calls me up and he asked if I want to be in Hamlet. I was like, “oh geez, wow. Yeah, what part? He says “well, Hamlet dumbo.” I’m like, “holy shit! Are you serious?” Out of all the actors that you’ve worked with…” I’m still pretty new because I was only out of theater school at this point for four years. I was like, “are you sure with all the actors in Vancouver that would die to play that role?” He was like, “no. I saw you read Henry V, I was gonna cast you then for that.” I was like, “holy shit.” I was “of course, yes, but now how do I make this work?” Our hiatus was really only November, December, January, and we would start Stargate in February. Nine and a half to ten months a year we were doing SG-1 because we were doing 22 episodes a season. I’m going “how do we make this work?” They had scheduled it so that it was going to just bump into the SG-1 schedule. I said to Brad and the guys, “this is a great opportunity.” Brad comes from a theater background as well so “this is a tremendous opportunity with a tremendous director. Can we make this work at all? Is it possible?” Basically it was like, “well, we’re going to need you because the way we’ve done the two parter we’re going to need you.” I said “no, I don’t want to be written out. I just need to be boarded so I can work around to do this.” Basically what ended up happening was I was clear up until the last week of Hamlet performances. What ended up happening was I shot SG-1 all day and as long as I was off by about five o’clock I could get to the theater to change and get makeup on to do an 8pm performance of Hamlet for that last week. So it was it was it will all worked out. And it was perfect. And they wanted to hold Hamlet over. But of course we couldn’t because I was we’re getting into the season proper. It all worked out and it was fantastic. Why do it? Before I started Stargate I had trained as a theatre actor. I did my BFA in Theatre at the University of British Columbia, with Kendall Cross by the way, who I saw that you interviewed as well.

David Read
She says hello by the way.

Michael Shanks
Oh great. Yes, she’s lovely, Kendall is like my sister. I’ve known Kendall, she was in grade six I was in grade seven, that’s how long I’ve known Kendall. She might need to remember this because I totally forgot until I looked something up the other day. The first play, the first thing Kendall and I ever did was, I was in grade seven, she was in grade six and we did H.M.S. Pinafore the musical.

David Read
Wow.

Michael Shanks
Yeah, so that’s how far we go back and then we ended up theatre school together. That’s a whole other story. Just before I got cast in SG-1 I was at the Stratford Festival in Ontario, first as an apprentice and then as a regular part of the company in 1996. This was kind of like what I was groomed to kind of do so to have this opportunity present itself was phenomenal. It is weird, especially with that roll, because you for a fact that at least half of the audience…Whenever you get into the soliloquies for that, whenever you start doing “to be or not to be,” you know very well that half of the audience is sitting there [mouthing the dialogue] because they know the words.

David Read
You’re not going to be able to fake it.

Michael Shanks
They know what’s coming so all you can do is you do you, you do your version and let history sort out whether that was accurate or not. It takes a bit of a chip on your shoulder to go up and do it because you know that it’s going to be broken down. It’s also a privilege as well so how can you turn your nose up with that opportunity, it was great. The theatre company was excited because they sold a lot of seats because Stargate was such a big property at the time. People came there for Daniel Jackson and it was a great opportunity for me because I got to slum and do a little Shakespeare so it was a lot of fun.

David Read
That’s so wild. I imagine the muscle that you use to absorb all that dialogue is not unlike the technobabble that…well, especially Amanda and David Hewlett had to spout week after week. You had long blocks of text too. How do you get it all to go in, in some cases the night before, and have it all come out, hopefully in the right order? How do you do that? Is it just repetition and it’s a muscle, “I’m working this thing and I have to count on it.”

Michael Shanks
It’s a muscle. I’m not so capable of it now because I haven’t used that muscle for a long time. Your memory is a muscle and mine was never that great. I had to really work hard to memorize things. I would really have to be at it. I can tell this story, my mother will be happy. She always knew I was memorizing lines because I would spend so much time in the bathroom…and I’ll let you use your imagination on that one.

David Read
He’s working.

Michael Shanks
Yeah, he’s working right now. One of the funny things about it was, when I would have long speeches to do and that happened quite a bit, I would be up till the wee hours of the morning. We had to be up later on in the wee hours of the morning so some some nights I was getting two, three hours sleep, maybe one hour sleep, because I was going home to learn this stuff. The funny thing, to tell you an honest story, is in the first season of the show, because of that, because I wasn’t used to how to pace yourself doing a TV show, I remember about halfway through the season I turned to my girl and I was like, “I’m gonna die. I think I’m gonna die. I’ve never been this sleep deprived before.” It was crazy, it just continued, there was no slowing this machine down. Night after night when you drive you’d be almost driving off the road sometimes coming back home and stuff and you’d have to just get up and do it all over again. We as Canadians, we had crappy turnaround time. We had a 10 hour turnaround time set to set, we’d only be home eight hours total. If we were an hour drive away we’d be home a grand total of eight hours. You have to sleep, you have to eat, you have to work out if you’re going to do that, learn your lines and drive back in to be back there for 6:30, 7 o’clock, the next morning. This is with civilized hours, we shot civilized hours on Stargate, but I remember in the first season I was like, “I’m gonna die, this is terrible.” Then I learned how to just use my energy a little more conservatively and not be like this all the time.

David Read
There is a way to get it done. I don’t know if you remember but Jon Glassner and Brad Wright played a bit of a practical joke on you before the season one, I think it was one of your mid-season breaks, with the Fire and Water script. Do you remember this story?

Michael Shanks
Oh vividly. Vividly.

David Read
Speaking of, “I’m gonna die.”

Michael Shanks
Bradley, we were on a flight to Los Angeles. I can’t remember what for, it was something around the release of the series. W were on a plane from Vancouver to L.A, I can’t remember what the event was. Either the premiere of the show or a buyers convention, something, we were always flying back and forth to do different things in Los Angeles that first season to sell the show. Brad had just basic typewritten pages, he just leaned back and I was sitting a couple rows behind him and he said, “hey, read this.” I’m like, “oh, okay.” I read this, it’s the teaser or I think it was a teaser for that episode, the way it was constructed at the time. I believe it was Daniel Jackson’s funeral was the way it started. The episode didn’t end up that way but this is what he had written. I’m reading this thing going like, “when’s the punchline coming?” and then it just ends and that’s the teaser. He’s like, “you done?” I’m like, “yeah.” He’s like, “hand it back!” I hand it back to him and he just turns around and faces the other way the rest of the flight. I’m just sitting there going, “what the hell man? I got my first job and you’re killing me with this?” I literally thought that they were killing me. I’m like, “I guess they can do that. Can they do that? They can do that. I guess they can do that. Shoot!” That was it, that was short. “Oh what did I do?” I went through this whole process and when we landed he took me aside and said “I was just kidding. It’s just an episode about this, that the other.” So yes, it was a practical joke that I certainly bought hook, line and sinker and that’s need all be said about that. Brad had a good chuckle on that one for sure.

David Read
Oh man, it’s one of those earlier great Daniel Jackson episodes. The number of people that you got to play off of…I’m trying to remember the actor who played Nem in that situation. He had also played Tuplo…

Michael Shanks
Gerard Plunkett.

David Read
Gerard Plunkett, Michael Shanks I can always count on you for getting the right names. Who are some of the people who came through those doors that you got to work with over the years that you were like, “I can’t believe…how did we get them? I know we’re Stargate, we’re awesome, but we got them?” Who were some of the people?

Michael Shanks
So many. Some are gone now which is a shame. We’ve had an epidemic of Julian.

David Read
Julian Sands, oh my gosh. Isaac Hayes.

Michael Shanks
Elizabeth Hoffman.

David Read
Elizabeth Hoffman, we just lost her.

Michael Shanks
Of course, Cliffy.

David Read
Cliff Simon.

Michael Shanks
Carmen [Argenziano], Don [S. Davis].

Michael Shanks
Willie Garon, yeah, that was a shock. In the early going, Elizabeth Hoffman I couldn’t believe we’d got. I didn’t know too much about her because I hadn’t watched Sisters or something like that.

David Read
Willie Garson.

David Read
Correct. Tell me a little bit about working with her.

Michael Shanks
Oh, she was great. She was technically retired when she showed up. I didn’t really know her that well and everybody was kind of “we got her, we got her.” I’m like, “I don’t really know her” so I was a little bit intimidated because of how everything had been built up. She was so great. She said that basically she was kind of retired but they sent her the script and she read it and loved the story. She was only going to do things if the story really resonated with her and that one resonated with her. She came in, she’s a tough gal but she’s also heart of gold, generous as heck, helped me because that was my first big episode to shoot. It was an important one to me too, Jon Glassner was directing it, Rob [Cooper] had written the script and it was a really great story. She was phenomenal and on the strength of that we got her to come back for There But for the Grace of God, so she came back a second time. She was just lovely. She was of course professional, wonderful, generous and a treat, just a treat to work with.

David Read
The caliber of these people is just amazing. I always adored her and I went to see her about a year and a half ago. I sent her some flowers and I brought them to her door. I actually asked her a few years ago, because in season eight’s Mobius she was invited to return to kick off the story. She declined and her funeral was written in instead. I asked her a few years later, I said, “if you had a second chance would you have accepted their offer to come back?” She said, “yes, I wish I hadn’t turned that down.” That speaks to the caliber of the product that you guys were creating and what you guys meant to her.

Michael Shanks
Yeah, she meant the world to us too. I think too that she also recognized it wasn’t just the work we had done; she loved the people as well. One of our strengths to get people to come back was that both our cast and our crew were so welcoming and open. We were appreciative to have people come into our little world and those people weren’t used to it because they’re used to a bit more standoffishness. As I’ve grown and done other projects I can understand. It’s a rare atmosphere that we had there, not every show has that.

David Read
No. It’s interesting that you key in on Torment of Tantalus if I may take a moment. I saw you guys in first run syndication and I had never seen the film. At that point I had, when we get to Torment of Tantalus I was hooked by that episode. That was the episode that really got me because it spoke to humanity’s potential. It spoke to our potential and it spoke to the fact that there was this group of civilizations that came before us and if we can get our act together we could be a part of that and be a part of something greater; a United Nations of the stars, as Daniel says. That kind of through line is reiterated again in The Fifth Race and a few other episodes but god, what a performance Michael, that was a good show. To someone who was like, “I have the keys right here, if I can just pick the lock.” and Keene Curtis [Ernest Littlefield] is saying to you, “knowledge is worthless if you can’t share it.”

Michael Shanks
Yes. It was the first time on that show that little me looked at it and went, “that’s what this show needs to be about.” We’d been kind of like dipping our feet in different areas and different cultures and whatever and trying to figure out what the show was going to be and that was the first time I went, “that’s what the show is, that’s where it lives. That’s the best of us, that’s what we can give to the landscape of science fiction.” It contains all the best elements in terms of investment, other cultures, understanding of science and the idea of reaching out to be something better, as Daniel said. Jon threw this into the script afterwards because I think when I met with him, when I was talking about it, I was trying to just go over some lines and stuff like that. I said to him just in passing “this is for Daniel, this is meaning of life stuff” so he wrote that into the script. He wrote “meaning of life stuff” into the script because I think he liked it so much which is exactly why I thought it was so great for the character. This was where his heart sat and where I think where I felt the show sat outwardly looking on the landscape of sci-fi. That’s the first time I went, “yeah, that’s the one.” I hope a lot of other people felt that way and I think we continued to pursue that storyline, of course, as years progressed as well.

David Read
Strong stuff. I want to jump ahead a little bit to Mel Harris.

Michael Shanks
Oh yeah, god.

David Read
She has been really good to me anytime I’ve invited her to do something. She loved Oma, she loved that character. I think that the journey that Daniel started at Kheb, in season three, was a perfect dovetail into season five for Meridian. I can’t imagine what was going on in your mind at the time. I’m sure there was a lot of stuff going on, I’m sure you wanted to probably move on to something else but you have this great actress coming in and these God lights coming down from the ceiling. I can’t imagine how hot those were. What was it like sitting there and going all the way down into Daniel’s soul with such an amazing actress? He’s lost Sha’re, he’s lost Sarah and now he’s given his life up for a civilization that’s about to blow themselves to hell. What was it like doing Meridian?

Michael Shanks
Yeah, I had a lot of mixed feelings for that episode. In hindsight it’s a great piece of entertainment. It’s sad as hell but the way that we get there is honest and the way that we built up that storyline since the third season was there, sitting there. What a tough role for an actor to step into, to play Oma Desala. “Oh by the way you’re this omnipotent being. You’re basically an angel and you’re coming in to get this guy. Go!” “Oh, okay, great.” What I loved about it was the sort of neutrality that she kept the whole way through. The way that she monotoned things through, not to use that term disparagingly, but to say that she kept a neutral perspective on everything. There was never a question of opinion of everything and that plays perfectly to Oma’s “walk the line” mentality so it was a great choice to play. I loved your later in the diner as the waitress. That was way more fun.

David Read
Do you want some motor oil?

Michael Shanks
Yeah, she’s great. “Two pigs in a blanket.” But for that, the perfect send off for that character without knowing where this was going to land. At the time it was a little bit difficult knowing all the stuff that was sort of going on and the mixed emotions that you’re sort of feeling in it. As a duel service episode in terms of accommodating the actor and providing a journey for the character and having the audience fully emotionally involved; it’s a great story. Like I said, in hindsight, I think it’s such a nice piece of storytelling. Rob did a great job with it.

David Read
It was brilliant.

Michael Shanks
For Will Waring, it was Will Waring’s first episode. He was a camera operator and he had to direct the damn thing, poor guy. I’m like, “wow, they threw you under the bus.” He did a great job with it, he came in well armed and prepared and continued to direct for many more years after that too.

Michael Shanks
As the explorer it’s the perfect opportunity to be the guy that goes first in that situation too. So yeah, it was a good piece of writing.

David Read
It’s one of those, you have to be sensitive about it. Not only is this a character who’s departing whom everyone loves and resonates with, but it’s heavy subject matter. It’s actually fairly relatively topical in terms of today because the World War III discussions are coming up again. I think that it’s just one of the finer hours of the show and man, you got a hell of a send off. That was good having Amanda and Rick and Chris there; everyone having their moment with you and then sending you on your way. No one was more deserving of the opportunity to explore the next realm than Daniel; the wonder child, his eyes were always wide open.

David Read
When you came back the character had a harder edge. I’m curious to know how much of this was you, how much of this was the writers, how much of this was the two groups working in conjunction with one another? He kind of had the rose colored lenses muddied up because he had been on the other side. Ultimately, in Threads, we find out why he was kicked out because he didn’t like the way that they were going and treating people. The character had a harder edge and was much more cynical. When Rick left the show I think Daniel took on some of those traits. “Well, now that Jack doesn’t have an immediate voice in the group, I’m going to kind of take up some of the snarkiness that Rick would have had.” Do you agree with that, with my interpretation of that and why do you think it was that that was the case? Was that a deliberate approach to make him more cynical about the universe when he fell?

Michael Shanks
I think it was a natural choice. I think for the wide eyed idealist that he was when he went away, thinking that he was going off to someplace better, going to heaven and thinking that we see the light and we go up there. It’s just the same old bullshit and politics that it is here. You have to sit there and go, “oh, I thought this was gonna be better.” What’s the the Dr. Seuss…I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew. You never have troubles, at least very few. You’re about to go and then decide you’re just gonna go back to the beginning and deal with your problems roughly, that’s what your solution is. Instead of going to that idealistic place, let’s solve the problem here. I do agree. Rob and I discussed it when he had called me up. I was in South Africa shooting a terrible movie and he called me to talk about the idea of me coming back to the show. I was in this headspace where I was in one of the most impoverished areas I’ve ever been in filming with a shanty just out my window when I’m talking to him on the phone. “Any problems that I had are seemingly minut in comparison to the real world problems that I’m just looking at. I’m pretty fortunate.”

David Read
You, as Michael, right now?

Michael Shanks
So discussing the option of coming back, I was like, “you know what, we can work this out.” The way Rob had the plan, because Rick was taking a step back from filming, he wanted to spend more time with Wylie and take less time on the show so he wasn’t going to be there as much. They needed somebody to step in and needed to be part of the action sequences. I was totally open to that because I’d been kind of campaigning for that a little bit before I left the show. They wanted the character more action oriented, I was like, “sounds good to me.” I think the the cynicism or the sarcasm, if you will, that eked out of Daniel, that sounded Jack-like, is just Michael. That’s where I think that the switch happened where the James Spader interpretation got really put in a box and it moved on to being a lot more like myself. It was a lot easier to play than continuing to go back to that age old characterization and for the place I was at in life it also made sense as well. It all worked out, it all made sense and it also helped balance the show, as well without Jack being there as much. Although we stilled missed Rick’s wry sense of humor and wit and improv all the time.

David Read
What was it like working opposite that man? You once told me they’re such perfect foils for each other? It’s Jack and almost like his younger brother; sometimes you just gotta go “Daniel, shut up ‘wack’.” What was it like complementing that energy and having some of those exchanges, those on screen fights of “you don’t believe in mythology, rumors, lies, you don’t believe in my perspective at all?” What was it like chewing those scenes up with him?

Michael Shanks
I will couch it by saying this. Rick is not the easiest guy to work with on a regular day to day basis. He’s Rick, he’s kind of O’Neill, he’s kind of grouchy, he’s kind of impatient, a bit short tempered. Richard Dean Anderson the man is incredibly intelligent, he’s incredibly funny, he’s incredibly talented. When you work with somebody, all of us, on that kind of schedule, your impatience and stuff comes out. I was new so I was a bit more wide eyed and idealistic and “like me, like me, like me.” Rick was a lot more cynical and a lot more “hit your mark.” At first there was this hot cold aspect to it but whenever we could get into that kind of stuff, talking to him off screen, we had a brilliant rapport, we got along incredibly well. He’s still a close friend of this day and we love the same things and we stay in touch as much as he allows us to. He’s not the easiest man to get hold of, he lives on an island, not really, but you known what I mean. But whenever it came to that stuff, the common ground we always found with everything was humor. When he started going off the page, when I could counter that with just my own stuff that balanced it out, it was great. It was fantastic, lightning in a bottle. That’s when they started writing a little bit more of that and then we started doing it kind of like Laurel and Hardy. “hey do you want to do that thing? You know the thing thing? Yeah? Okay, great.” We started almost communicating without words about how we were going to bounce stuff off each other. Are we going to shoot this in a two shot so we can just do the banter and pick up the cute? That kind of stuff which is technical humor kind of stuff but it’s what we do on our side to make sure that what we’re doing is going to resonate as funny with the audience and we’ll just keep doing this till we nail it, nail the timing and stuff like that. That was the common ground so once we started doing that stuff, then it just persisted, that was our common ground through all of it. When it came to the personalities of the characters, what I loved about it that was so similar to me as well, because we eliminated the need for language really early because Daniel as the linguist was unnecessary because everybody spoke bloody English. Okay, well there goes one of my jobs out the window. What ended up happening to a large degree is when we would go from planet to planet, all it was, I used to call it, “he’s just the American and I’m the Canadian.” He comes in and says, “What? Why are you doing it like that? You can’t do it like that.” I come in saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. What he means is you seem to be operating very dangerously close to the precipice and we think you should pull back.” It was kind of like that; he was the brusk American and I was the Canadian that apologized for everybody who tried to say exactly what he said, gentler. That was my way of translating between the two parties, that became a sort of dynamic of where Daniel fit in and where his relationship was with Jack; trying to tone down his bruskness to every other planet we would go to. Talk about the United Nations of the stars.

David Read
I remember the scene in Red Sky where O’Neill’s men are dead, they’ve shot the rocket to hell and Jack’s just had enough. He’s like, “I’m gonna get on this apple crate in the middle of the village square and I’m gonna tell these people who their gods really are. I’m gonna tell them that they’re little grey men and Daniel’s like, “I don’t think this is a good idea.” Sometimes Daniel could pull him back and other times it’s like, “well, here we go.”

Michael Shanks
Yep, absolutely.

David Read
Just wild. I want to go a little bit more into a softer space with Heroes. Can you tell me about receiving the script for Heroes? I know they made a lot of changes to it, it got longer, things like that. Tell me about reading that and what were your first reactions to getting to the page where Teryl dies, where Janet dies?

Michael Shanks
Well, to be 100% fair, we never read the script entirely until we were almost done shooting the script, if you will. I’m sure you’ve talked about this with other people, the way that that was shot was it was what was called the second unit episode and Andy Makita was directing it. We’d be doing one an episode, it was just supposed to be kind of almost like a clip show that they were going to have this guy come in and everybody was going to piss him off and we might cut to some clips. It was kind of being the low budget episode that we were kind of using as the clip show, that’s how it started. That changed when they got Saul to play Bregman because he came in with so many ideas. I know that there was some controversy because he and Rob were rewriting the script as they went because because he’s a writer, he’s a director, he’s enthused about the stuff that he’s part of and he likes to be active in it. Rob being smart, sat back and “don’t turn your back on a good idea.” I remember Mike Greenburg was a little taken aback at the fact that this guy was kind of coming in and railroading the episode and making it about him, that Saul was doing this in real life. He was kind of saying, “Rick’s not there man, you got to put this guy in his place.” As soon as I worked with Saul I was like, “Mike, he’s good, this is good stuff. I have nothing to say. What he’s doing works.” Mike was a little bit [grumbling] but it all worked and it just kind of expanded from one episode into a two parter and kept getting bigger. It was being shot, like literally, say for example, I would shoot half a day of scenes for the episode Revisions in swason seven and then I’d go back to the studio and I’d shoot scenes for this second unit episode. We shot this over the course of probably four months so it wasn’t until we were near the end that we started to see how it was all shaping. Then, of course, we get to with what you’re talking about, the moment with Doc Fraiser. The most fair way to put it, again, I’m sure you’ve talked about this with numerous people, is that we didn’t know; we thought we were done. They wanted something big because it was piecing up to be such a good episode, they wanted a big climax to it and an emotional stake payoff. It can’t just be Bob no. 13, Redshirt no. 4, because we need to feel something. Because we didn’t think we were coming back Dr. Fraiser seemed to be a natural choice as somebody that the audience had grown to appreciate and that they weren’t gonna kill off one of the four characters or General Hammond certainly couldn’t be there and blah, blah, blah. But it’s still tough, it’s still tough. I can’t remember the exact feeling I had but I probably had less feeling about it then thinking we were going to be done. Also, having my character having died already too, I was probably like, “well, that’s show biz kids.” It was probably when we came back in season eight and I went “well, that sucks.” We found out we’re coming back for another season and it’s like “we just did this thing. Who’s gonna be our doctor?” They played around with a lot of characters playing a doctor in season eight that never quite found a home and certainly nothing could replace Dr. Frasier, nothing could have replaced Teryl. For Daniel to be there when that happened, that was important. Teryl and I had always played around because they were always playing around with the idea of Carter and O’Neill and their sexual tension bla, bla, bla. Just for fun Teryl and I decided we were going to play that as well. It was influenced by absolutely nothing, we completely came up with out of thin air. We just did like lingering looks, we weren’t even thinking that they were going to ever cut to it or use it but I guess they got a sense that we were doing it and that’s why it became Daniel’s job to be there and be the recipient of that firsthand grief. We sort of had this secret relationship that only we knew about, meaning myself with Teryl, that they thought “this is a good time to use it.” Carter being there’s a natural choice because they have the established relationship but Daniel being there is the surprise choice. I love the fact that they also did that scene with Bregman, with Saul and her, so he had an emotional stake in it too. That’s good storytelling.

David Read
No, absolutely. Yeah, he likes her and he’s making a connection with people there at the Command and he gets it. He’s not just Ken Burns, journalist, going in to get all this documented for the President and have it locked away for 50 years now. He he connects with the people and I think that that’s one of the great things about the scene with the two of you in the surgery room at the end. He’s made Daniel think and even Hammond comes around and says, “I’m a big enough man to admit when I’m wrong.” There’s a great part.

Michael Shanks
Yeah, there was a lot of Saul’s poking and prodding. One of the things that we always did there – not a lot of people do because there’s a lot of egos in this business – is best idea wins. “Why the hell would I turn my back on your idea when I can take credit for it? Come on.” The idea that we would simply be territorial with Saul’s notes and input, I’m glad that we didn’t. It’s one of my personal favorite episodes. Given where it started and how it was supposed to go, just a complete 180 from a clip show to one of the most heartfelt episodes that we did. That character, in two episodes, is more memorable than most characters on the show, it was powerful.

David Read
Absolutely, I agree. I’ve got some fan questions for you, a couple of fan questions. ZubiForce – when looking back at Spader’s performance, what were you carrying over into the show and when did you feel more comfortable to add more and more of your yourself? When I had watched the pilot I went back and watched the movie a couple of days later and for a few minutes there I couldn’t tell the difference. It’s like “it’s the same guy, they got the guy.” That’s all you.

Michael Shanks
You weren’t alone. You weren’t alone. I was blown away by some people not realizing that, going. “It’s James Spader. He’s been around since the early 80s. How could you miss him? I’m not him, I wish I was him, I’m not him.” Probably around Torment of Tantalus ish. The only reason I say that was the time period was because that was when, right at that time, shooting that episode, was when we found out that…We had started the show knowing that we were guaranteed 44 episodes, which is crazy. Nobody gets that, especially nowadays. We were guaranteed 44 episodes on cable. Halfway through the first season of filming they renewed us for two more seasons after that so we knew we were doing 88 episodes of television in the first five months, four months, five months. That’s when I went, “oh my god, I’m going to be stuck doing an imitation of another actor’s work, or another actors mannerisms, for like four or five, four years, five years. Who knows how long this could go, right?” That’s immediately when I started saying, “Okay, I got to start putting my own stamp on this.” I went to the guys and was like, “can we start pulling away from that?” Of course, everybody was really open to that because they understood, they wanted that look and feel for the pilot. Now that I was the character, had established the character, that wherever I took that, so long as it wasn’t dramatic, they were content to do that. We started to do away with some of the mannerisms and the sneezing. It went away, not soon enough, it went away eventually. That was in the movie but I was like, “really? Were going with that? Okay, all right.”

David Read
When was the haircut? Was the haircut your push? Did you want that sooner or was it like “two seasons is enough?”

Michael Shanks
Yeah, I’ve got really shitty fine hair so growing it long and keeping it, especially with film for continuity reasons, you got to keep it, it’s got to stay still. We’re filming outdoors in the pissing rain of Vancouver and I’m getting the blow dryer run through; it was a nightmare for me who doesn’t like to be high maintenance at all. I said, “Hamlet’s coming up, I know I’m going to do this in the wintertime. This would be a great time when Daniel wakes up out of the box, in the next season, can I have a haircut?” They were like, “well, it’s a two parter and it goes from the end of the cliffhanger here to that one so we have to do it now.” I’m like, “can we do it now?” We did a terrible first run at the haircut. Poor Patrick was used to working on it when it was long and hadn’t given it a short haircut so it kind of like was a little bit goofy looking in the first episode. When I came I was like, “okay, I guess we’re going with this, whatever this is.” It reminded me of the 70s all of a sudden. That was part of me putting a bit more of a stamp on the character, getting rid of the mop look and becoming my own version of this rather than continuing to rip off poor James who I’m sure is wondering what the hell that was. As Kurt Russell pointed out, it was a little too close to home, I guess, the invitation.

David Read
Well, for one, thank you Hathor for the freezing haircut.

Michael Shanks
Yes, absolutely.

David Read
And number two, dude, you rocked those sideburns. Holy cow!

Michael Shanks
It was the 90s, man. What am I going to do?

David Read
That’s funny. Let me see here, Jim Kite – Who was the biggest offender when it came to ruining takes by cracking people up?

Michael Shanks
Rick!

David Read
Really?

Michael Shanks
This is back in the day when we would film with film so we were shooting on 35 mm. Oh boy, he would have three lines and he would run through entire mags for one take. He would run through an entire mag of film trying to get out those two lines and in the meantime we’re off camera busting up because he either can’t remember it or he’s yelling about something that he doesn’t like about it or all this stuff, but it was always funny. We’re killing ourselves off to the side and then when he’s off camera he’d continue to improvise sometimes. It’d be like, “oh my god.” So yeah, definitely Rick, only to be usurped for one episode by Dom. Dom got us all.

David Read
Christopher Judge said that Urgo was impossible to get through because Dom was just so amazing in that role. Can you tell us a little bit about Urgo?

Michael Shanks
Dom picked on Chris because Chris was so stonefaced so Dom focused in on Chris which is why all those little “Kree,” stuff like that, was just completely improvised, he’d just throw it in. When he ran out of stuff he’d just be like “Kree.” Chris trying to keep a straight face, literally, was the target of Dom’s improving because he wanted to see him laugh and he got it because Chris is not like Teal’c in real life. Dom’s hilarious, Dom you will see in films, he’s just the same off camera. He’s a loving warm human being and generous and all the other things, but hilarious to shit and again, improvising. Of course, Peter’s directing it so he’s just “keep it rolling.” We’re just going through and Dom was wild. It was a good time.

David Read
Emma Bentley – today is my 38th birthday. Did you ever do any real archeological research in preparing for the role or was it “okay, I’ve got this on the page, I’m going to deliver it like a pro?” Were you ever interested in knowing more about what it was that you were peddling sometimes?

Michael Shanks
Oh yeah, completely, completely. For starters, I thought that before I took the role, before we started shooting it. I got cast in January, I had about a month and a half off and I was in Toronto and I kept going to the Field Museum to go to the Egyptian section, like that was going to help me somehow by being close to artifacts. I don’t know what we’re going to do with this, I’m just going there going “I guess I’m doing research? I don’t know.” I don’t know what I was doing, I was just killing time and I was excited about the opportunity to play the role. As time went on, yes, I wanted to know more. We took the stuff and we bastardized it anyway so it didn’t matter if I did any research for it. We were just taking it and throwing it out the window anyway because we would take it off on some tangent and say, “history says this happened but actually this happened and this was this space battle blah, blah, blah.” It’d be like, “okay, forget this crap. There’s no point in doing this.” The only time it mattered was when I was writing for the show and then doing the research was important. For example, my input for the Crystal Skull episode was the Crystal Skull. I was writing an episode, Michael Greenburg was kind of encouraging me to write, I was writing an episode or at least a treatment that included the Crystal Skull. Our generator operator on set, Costas, he used to talk to me like I was the character. He had every ancient, alien conspiracy theory under the sun so he would peel my ear off daily talking to me about all these accepted historical facts, they are all bullshit and they’re all sweeping under the rug and the Smithsonian’s lying to you and all this other stuff. He gave me books of all these basically conspiracy theories about artifacts found in the Grand Canyon and the Crystal Skull and all this stuff that was kind of like ripe for the show. I’m like “Costas, man, you need to lay off the weed” but it was perfect. The books he gave me became the prime things that when I was writing I went, “well, just grab one of Costas’ books and start peeling it back.” When I read the Crystal Skull myth, which I didn’t know about before, I was like, “that’s a good one.” To this day Michael Greenburg thinks that Indiana Jones ripped us off which I’m not saying, just saying “we ripped them off first.”

David Read
I knew Daniel had a bullwhip somewhere, I knew it.

Michael Shanks
Yeah, exactly. Totally, he does, but it’s just in his bedroom and I won’t talk about it.

David Read
Oh my god, Lexa! .

Michael Shanks
She doesn’t know about it, it’s not for her.

David Read
That’s funny, man. What was it like having Lexa join the cast in season nine? It’s like, “finally, we’ve got a doctor that’s not rotating out.”

Michael Shanks
What I love about that is most people assume that she got cast for something to do with me. The hilarity of that is, and she reminded me of this last week when we were at a convention together, is that when Rob cast her in that part the first thing I did was go up to his office and say, “you cast my wife? Really? Really?” He said that she had done the best job and as it turned out, to be absolutely 100% fair about it, it was great for us. We were parents, we had two little ones at home, at that time Tatiana and Mia, and on set was the only time we could sit down, have lunch and talk to each other without interruption. We could actually have grown up conversation, was on set, so it turned out to be a fantastic gift to have her there. She’s friends with everybody as well so it was a real blessing, it was a treat to have her there.

David Read
Wow. A lot of people are like, “I don’t want my spouse at my work” but this is finally time that you can actually see one another.

Michael Shanks
Absolutely true, it was fantastic that way for sure.

David Read
Absolutely. Andy H – do you remember any moments on that very first day of shooting? I remember that the camera ripped, I think, the film down the middle. It was raining and the sets were blowing over. Is any of those moments that you’ll just remember forever?

Michael Shanks
That first day, because it was so exciting for everybody, it was the scene where…The first day of filming, people don’t know, we filmed this stuff out of order. The first day of filming was just after O’Neill uses the staff weapon to blow the hole in the side of the prison and we’re escaping with all of the captured people that they were going to try and host on Chulak.

David Read
That’s right.

Michael Shanks
It’s February in Vancouver so it’s monsooning with rain. This is when I first discovered the magic of having long hair, shooting in Vancouver, because it’s pouring rain and we’re just trying to get through the first shots with 40 people. The extras are getting soaked, there was almost an extra revolt. They wanted to shoot French hours to get us through which means no lunch breaks so the extras we’re cold, wet, hungry and ready to revolt against the production. We were so excited, we were bringing our umbrellas over to them because we were like, “oh, we just want you to be happy, blah, blah, blah.” In the meantime, I think the film became unusable for that entire day. Talk about a disaster, the Titanic in the making, it’s like you break the bottle on the side and the ship sinks. We’re going, “oh my God. Have we just made the biggest mistake of our lives? Are we cursed or something?” I don’t think there was a stitch of usable film for that day, so we wasted a whole day of filming for absolutely nothing. Everything after that was downhill because that was so awful. But as a first day, it’s memorable because it was so like, “oh god, what have we done? I don’t think it’s our fault.” It was those kinds of feelings, right? We were so excited to start and then to have it go that way was like, “oh my god,” but memorable to say the least. As I always say in the business, “when things go well, there’s no great stories.” When things go absolutely south, do you get the great stories. The greatest filmmaking stories of my life come from all the crappy movies I’ve made, not from the good stuff. It comes from the crappy movies because it goes south so quickly that they’re hilarious stories to tell. The good stuff was great to be there but it’s not nearly as much fun to to recount.

David Read
For sure. gorsk_bs – Daniel Jackson was a massive inspiration for me to go get and finish my PhD. How do you feel knowing you’ve pushed so many people into fulfilling their academic dreams? I’m sure you’ve gotten this comment before?

Michael Shanks
Yeah, guilty. When people say, “I became an archaeologist because of you” or “I became an anthropologist because of you” I’m like “are you enjoying it? Don’t kill the messenger but I’m sure there’s less space battles in your life than there are in my character’s life.” It’s an experience and if they love it then I’m like, “I’m happy for you, I’m glad I could be an inspiration.” But my first reaction is always reticence because Indiana Jones and Daniel Jackson don’t sell the profession in the sense it should be; it’s a little less action oriented.

David Read
That’s funny. I am always blown away by the number of people who I’ve come across who said, “I got into my career because of Carter. I do what I do because of Daniel.” The influence that you guys had over so many people over the years can’t be understated. You have been blessed to work on a number of amazing programs over the years and I haven’t even talked about Unspeakable which I think was a brilliant piece by Robert, a very personal piece by him. You guys were amazing in that. If anyone hasn’t seen that, god! Lexa too, Lexa was good. You guys did yourselves proud with Unspeakable. Can you speak to that really quick?

Michael Shanks
The best thing that I can say about it it was tremendously brave of Rob to do that. It encompasses a lot of his personal experience both with the disease and with his childhood, basically. From that time period there was so much stigma attached to having it, to having that condition. His mother in fact, they didn’t talk about it, Rob didn’t talk about it. I was aware that he had dealt with it but it was kind of one of the things, Rob doesn’t like to talk about it but he’s also been trained not to talk about. It was accepted that he had hepatitis and through transfusion got this disease. The stigma was so much that even when he was writing it, even when his parents were on set when we were filming it, his mother still was like “are you sure you want to do this? Are you sure you want to tell this story?” He admitted it, openly admitted that, “so now you understand why I am the way I am because this is how my mother was in reacting to us actually filming this show.” Here we are, 2018, well removed from the 1981/82 time period that this first happened to him and still like, “let’s keep this under the table, let’s not talk about it.” Powerful stuff, powerful stuff, so very brave of him to tell the story. It’s one of those ones, it’s a tough sell. Entertainment wise, it’s a tough sell.

David Read
It’s not a comfortable thing to watch.

Michael Shanks
No it’s not. Because of the stigma and because of the coverage of it, it’s not something too many people…I didn’t know that much about it. I was educated making this thing because it wasn’t part of my life. I knew people were going through it and it was something on the news in the 80s when I was growing up as a kid. It wasn’t something that ever affected my life so being that close to it, I was educated by it. Nobody talked about it. It wasn’t something that was…we’re so open about everything nowadays. I think the internet has opened it up and social media and all this other stuff has opened up, almost too much, the conversation, if you will. But then it was like, “No.” The people that had those ailments didn’t want the stigma and the people that didn’t, didn’t want to know about it.

David Read
Anyone who’s out there I recommend watching it. It’s available on Amazon and Google Play. It’s an extraordinary mini series and you play the father of one of the boys, Will Sanders, if I’m not mistaken.

Michael Shanks
That’s right, yeah.

David Read
It’s a great show and it’s one of those stories where it’s like, “yeah, it’s time for this to be told to people who didn’t hear it before.” Before I let you go Michael. what does this franchise mean to you? Without it you wouldn’t have had Mia, who released her first single by the way yesterday, which was amazing. I loved it. Excuse me, Tatianna. Is it Tatianna? I got it mixed up?

Michael Shanks
No, no, no, no, no. Mia is the singer. Tat’s the film maker, Mia is the singer and actor.

David Read
Okay, her single was great by the way. I can’t recommend that highly enough. What does this franchise mean to you after all these years? What does Daniel mean to you?

Michael Shanks
Boy! The fact that we’re still talking about says a lot. Whenever you are doing something in our business it’s all snakes and ladders, right. There’s so much luck and chance that can affect a career; every step you make, every step you don’t make. It’s literally one of those situations where, “oh man, you didn’t get a part? Maybe it’s because this one was waiting for you” like this kind of thing. It becomes these opportunities that make stars out of people or it means career opportunities. People always go, “you did this for 10 years! Aren’t you typecast?” It’s like, “yeah, but I don’t know what I would have become without this and what a great way to spend my time [in the early years of my career].” People are still so passionate about this project, as if they’d just seen it, and the fact that those people who saw it when they were kids who are now adults are introducing it to their kids. Those kids are watching it with those same wide eyes and are appreciative of it. It’s given so much to my life, and continues to give, so it’s really the only project I have out of everything I’ve ever done in my professional career that I can say that about. It continues to be a great source of positivity and support and conversation like we’re just having. I’m, just like everybody, waiting to see what the next incarnation of this project is going to be. I want Brad to do it but if they’re not going to let him then what are they going to do? I’m curious, we’ll see, I’ll sit in judgment.

David Read
Yeah, they’re going to do something and they’d be foolish not to reach out to him and say, “hey,” at the very least, “what are your thoughts?”

Michael Shanks
Yeah, they’ve been foolish before so I’m not putting any bets on whether or not they’ll do that. They should but they’re obviously permitted to do whatever they want, it’s their sandbox and they can invite whoever they want to play in it.

David Read
Well you guys did an amazing run; your Guinness world record holders. You created entertainment that people love and enjoy and people like me continually find topical in new ways as we move forward. It’s like the Revision stuff with Neuralink and everything else. It’s like, “wow, we’re actually doing that now, entering human testing.”

Michael Shanks
Right!

David Read
Yeah, it’s wild. You guys were prophetic in many ways. Hopefully it speaks to the good in humanity that we should be so lucky to reach the stars, if we can get our asses in gear, man.

Michael Shanks
Not soon enough.

David Read
That’s it. I have one small request before you go. Would you please do Thor?

David Read
Yup. Well, boy, um. The funny thing about Thor is Thor also evolved over time. He started off as as, oh god, Michael, memory. When I was at Stratford I worked with Dougie Rain, the actor who did the voice for Hal in 2001 and 2010. So I went, “if I’m going to do this character I’m going to kind of do him in that monotonic neutral form and I’m going to talk like this.” But over time, the way he got more dialogue, he started to become a little bit more like Stewie from Family Guy and his voice kind of went up a little bit a little bit like this, hmm, hey, what do you think about that? [Thor’s voice] “I like the yellow ones.” That’s my best version of Thor.

David Read
Thank you Michael. Thank you for this time together with you. Thank you for everything that you’ve done for me, over the years, always been there for me. Thank you for your work and appreciate you taking the time with us today.

Michael Shanks
Thank you David.

David Read
I apologize for the wireless issues. I appreciate your time and hopefully we’ll have you back for season four. You have a great holiday.

Michael Shanks
Absolutely.

David Read
Be well sir, thank you.

Michael Shanks
Thank you.

David Read
Michael Shanks, Daniel Jackson in Stargate SG-1. This was a treat for me and I hope it was a treat for all of you. These stories from such an extraordinary show are why I continue to do this. To be able to share the stories that make up such an important part of sci-fi television and the stories of hope for the human spirit and the human condition are I think important. There are days that are dark and we are arguably in some of the worst of them right now. I think that it’s important to remember that there are people out there who we can look up to and see the best parts of ourselves. I think that the show that Brad and Jonathan and Robert created contains great examples of that and Daniel is one of them. So again, thank you Michael. I hope all of you who have tuned in today, I apologize for not getting to more of your questions, but this was a really great episode and a great way to finish out my season. Thanks so much to my Producer, Linda “GateGabber” Furey, for helping to make this and every episode possible. My moderators, I could not do this without you guys. Sommer, Tracy, Antony, Jeremy, and Rhys, thank you so much for pulling me through this season, To Frederick Marcoux at ConceptsWeb, he keeps dialthegate.com up and running. Keep an eye on the website for when we’ll announce the return of Wormhole X-Tremists. It will be in December so we’ll be returning with SG-1 rewatches then. I expect Dial the Gate to return around March, that is my current target. I appreciate everyone who’s tuned in for this episode, I hope you enjoyed it. It certainly was great for me. Thank you for tuning in throughout the season, we’ve been running 14, 15 months this season because of the writers strike and the actors strike. It gave me an opportunity to really connect with people behind the camera as well as in front of it. I’ve had a privileged opportunity to really sit down with a lot more of the production people because they haven’t been working nearly as much as they should be. At least the WGA strike is over and hopefully the SAG-AFTRA strike will resolve itself before the end of the year, would be really nice. I really want to thank all of my contributors over the course of the season, everyone who came on the show, we nearly hit 100 episodes in season three. Couldn’t have done it without all the help that I have from everyone on my team so thank you guys. And to my transcript team, we are building a library of transcripts on dialthegate.com for every episode that has run. We’re about halfway through, man, they are slogging through it and they’re doing amazing work. Thank you again to my team. Thank you to Michael Shanks for closing me out of season three, it means so much to me to have him for this episode. My name is David Read for Dial the Gate and I’ll see you on the other side.