You will recognize him as technician “Vern Alberts” in Stargate SG-1, but did you know that this actor was also Richard Dean Anderson’s photo double? Actor Bill Nikolai joins Dial the Gate to discuss memories of working on the set of SG-1 opposite RDA and the cast!

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Timecodes
0:00 – Splash Screen
00:23 – Opening Credits
00:54 – Welcome and Episode Outline
02:35 – “Hey, Vern! How’s the wife?”
08:09 – Bill’s Start with MacGyver
09:53 – Bill’s Background
15:11 – Memories from MacGyver
23:53 – Memories from Stargate
38:05 – Working with the Stargate Cast and Crew
39:54 – Favorite Stargate Episodes and Memories
42:32 – Favorite Science Fiction
44:06 – A Day in the Life of a Photo Double and Stand-In
50:11 – Wrapping up with Bill
52:04 – Post Interview Housekeeping
53:10 – End Credits

***

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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read
Hello everyone, my name is David Read and welcome to episode 213 of Dial the Gate, the Stargate Oral History Project. Thank you so much for being with me for this episode. Bill Nikolai, technician Vern Alberts and RDA’s photo double on Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis is joining us for this episode. I’m really privileged to have him. Before we bring Bill on, if you enjoy Stargate and you want to see more content like this available on YouTube, click the like button. It makes a difference 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, the moment a new video drops, you’ll get notified of any last minute guest changes. Clips from this live stream will be released over the course of the next several days and weeks on both the Dial the Gate and GateWorld.net YouTube channels. As this is a live show, I want to apologize, there’s a storm raging outside my window right now. If I do lose power the computer is on backup and the Internet is a separate system so it will last a little bit. That could happen today so I want to apologize in advance if it does. The moderators, I have Tracy and Antony in the YouTube chat right now to take questions for Bill. They can get them over to me and I can then relay those to bill in the second half of the show if you have questions for him. In the meantime, he’s all mine. Bill Nikolai, Vern Alberts, technician Alberts. Hello, sir. Thank you for coming all the way from Cheyenne Mountain to be here with us.

Bill Nikolai
It’s a total pleasure. Thank you very much for having me.

David Read
Absolutely. And I must ask, Vern, how’s the wife?

Bill Nikolai
Fine, sir.

David Read
You made my day. That’s great. Oh, man.

Bill Nikolai
She’s shopping right now actually, we got some friends coming over for a BBQ.

David Read
I want to talk about that scene first off. That is your shining moment really in the pantheon of the greatest episode that SG-1 created as far as many people are concerned. I was told, I think it was Peter DeLuise that told me and I may be wrong, that it was kind of an off week. You guys weren’t expecting this to be the thing that kind of sets in many respects SG-1’s standard? Can you tell us about Window of Opportunity.

Bill Nikolai
Yes. It was a really fun episode. I think we were way ahead in terms of the shooting schedule for that week so that kind of left the window, a window of opportunity, open for some improvisation. Peter just had people doing crazy things, I lucked out because I got a little tiny acting role there. It was a lot of fun. There was Richard at the potter’s wheel and he was doing the happy face with the chips and fries and it was super fun. Then the cycling thing down the hallway thing where I got to act surprised was also a lot of fun. That’s where the name Vern came from actually. I had had a little nametag when I was filling in for Gary Jones occasionally as a technician. All of a sudden on the nametag I believe is Albert’s so when we’re doing this little improvisation Richard said, “so, what’s your first name?” Paying homage to my dad, his name is Vern, I said “it’s Vern.” Actually my middle name is Vern, that’s where that comes from. My dad’s name is Werner.

David Read
Werner, very German.

Bill Nikolai
I’m just happy I wasn’t named Helmut, no offense to any Helmuts out there.

David Read
No, no, they’re all great guys, seriously,

Bill Nikolai
I would have loved Wolfgang, like Wolf, probably would have changed my whole character.

David Read
It’s one of those great sequences and the show was under time. They were putting it together in the editing and they’re like, “we need more.” Out of that born, I remember laughing so hard when I saw this episode for the first time. When you really open up the hood and look inside at all the parts, it really is a comedy, in many respects..

David Read
Brad bought a new golf set for that. I think he took those clubs. And I think that was Rick’s bike.

Bill Nikolai
They were hitting golf balls through the gate, I believe, so there was a last minute call to get some clubs on set. I can’t remember who they called but they were Callaways I believe.

Bill Nikolai
I might well have been. I think it was his bike, I believe he had an old beater that just hung around set and he would use it to cruise around the lot. If he had to go from the lunch truck to a production meeting he would just hop on the bike and away he went.

David Read
And of course it had a bell.

Bill Nikolai
I was interested in bringing my own bicycle as well to set. I live about 7 kilometers from the Bridge [Studios] so I would ride my bike most days. There was one day where I arrived at the Bridge [Studios] only to realize that I was supposed to be at the other studio, the NORCO studio, otherwise known as the narcolepsy studio because it was hot and stuffy and people would fall asleep. As it happened, Peter DeLuise was at the Bridge, just about to drive to NORCO so he just threw my bike in the back of his car or truck or whatever he was driving and away we went. So yeah, there’s lots of good memories from bicycles on set. One day I rode out to a set near the border, it was a 50 kilometer ride with a 7am start, so we’re talking 30 miles. My wife happened to be out of town so I had to get up really early, like 4am.

David Read
It was probably dark.

Bill Nikolai
Yeah, it probably was dark actually when I started. I think that was a particularly long day, I mean long for Stargate, we had relatively short days on that show. Dan Shea, the stunt coordinator, threw my bike in the back of his truck and gave me a ride home at the end of the day. Bicycles have a long history with Richard and with Stargate and MacGyver actually. When I first worked with Richard he was on MacGyver. I remember hearing some great stories about his bicycle tour from Minnesota to Alaska and back. We kind of had some things in common that way. I had also ridden to Calgary on my bike and done some other tours so bicycles go back a long way with Richard and Stargate and MacGyver.

David Read
So you first met Richard working on MacGyver?

Bill Nikolai
Yes, I happened to be at that time working as a Historical Interpreter at a place called Fort Langley, which is a National Historic Site. I would do school tours and students would say, “oh look, there’s MacGyver.” I had no idea who they were talking about, I wasn’t watching a lot of network TV at the time. But one day, I happened to turn on the TV and there was MacGyver. I thought “I do sort of look like that guy,” I didn’t have a mullet but that was going to come later. I didn’t think too much of it but then one day at lunch I was reading the Langley Advanced, a little local newspaper, and it said that MacGyver was about to move to Vancouver. I had worked a little bit in film before, I knew they would need a stand in and perhaps a photo double. I cold called Paramount and said, “hey, I understand you’re moving here and people tell me I look like MacGyver” and they happened to be hiring the stand-ins at that time. Bill [William] Gereghty was the cinematographer who basically hired me, took one look at me and he said, “yeah, you got the same Neanderthal eyes, deep set, you’ll do.” What was important to him was be able to light those deep set eyes properly. That’s how I got started in my associations with these two great shows.

David Read
That’s wild. The fact that they thought that you that you looked like him and that it was enough to instill the seed of that idea. It’s like, “they’re moving to Vancouver, why the heck not make a phone call?” You never know!

Bill Nikolai
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

David Read
That’s it. Wow, that’s wild. So your background sounds much like a teacher.

Bill Nikolai
In fact I’m trained as a social studies teacher, history and geography and that kind of thing. ESL as well, English as a Second Language.

David Read
Japanese, you spent time in Japan, didn’t you?

Bill Nikolai
Yes, seven years in total, two stints. My only memory of Japan was working on a TV commercial where I played like a James Bond type character. The funny thing about that is I had to make up some dialogue in Japanese actually. No, I made up some English dialogue and then they gave me a Japanese line to say. I thought I pronounced it perfectly but in the end they dubbed my voice with that of a famous Japanese comedian. When I first showed this commercial to some of my students, my university students, they just absolutely howled, they were in tears they were laughing so hard. Here’s this comedians voice coming out of my mouth and I was standing right in front of them.

David Read
I love Japan. I spent a few weeks over there a few years ago just before the cherry blossoms were blooming, there were a couple of trees that decided to open. But man, what a great place to visit. I can’t imagine living there. I’m guessing you were fluent?

Bill Nikolai
No, I wasn’t unfortunately. It’s sad to say that I learned enough to get around pretty much. My wife was much more diligent. She’s born and raised in Vancouver, or actually Kamloops and then Vancouver. She was a very diligent student and I remember her telling me one day that she suddenly realized how many dental clinics they were in the city that we were living in. She had just learned the character for teeth and we’re driving around and suddenly there’s Dental Clinics everywhere. I feel comfortable. I was most recently in Japan in February, March and hi to all the Japanese fans out there. I can still get around and pay for things and that kind of thing. I was there on a paragliding trip so I met lots of interesting folks and had lots of adventures when I was there last.

David Read
Yeah, I’ve got some some video of that from your Instagram to show in just a little bit here. You enjoy living life on the edge. There is something to be said for that adventuresome spirit for sure. Let’s talk about that for a second here, I’ll show the imagery in a little bit here. What is it like just absolutely sailing on the wind?

Bill Nikolai
Yeah, so for those of you who aren’t really familiar with it, paragliding involves an inflatable canopy and you literally run off of a bluff or a mountain. People say jump but I don’t jump, I take a couple of running steps and away we go. You can stay airborne for hours sometimes, I’ve been in the air for up to four hours. My bladder generally doesn’t let me do that anymore.

David Read
They have bottles for the purpose.

Bill Nikolai
Actually, you know, some guys do fly with let’s just say catheters of some kind.

David Read
Of course. Are you allowed to drink while you’re up there?

Bill Nikolai
Oh, of course, yeah. You can bring snacks and do whatever you want. I have one great shot that I was doing for charity calendar at the college I was working at where I’m holding a book while I’m flying. It’s called Inside the Sky, a fantastic book by William Langewiesche about aviation. Within reason, you are kind of governed by Transport Canada rules and regulations. or in the US I guess it would be the FAA. Within reason you can do things but you have to be safe. So what is it like to fly? Well, it’s amazing because you’re working the air currents. If you’re close to the ocean you’re working dynamic lift off the ocean, it bounces off the bluff and you can ride the lift back and forth for hours as long as the wind is sustained. If you’re near the mountains you’re riding warm air bubbles and you can take yourself up to 9000, 10,000, 12,000 feet.

David Read
You’re basically just aloft up there, you’re a fixed wing animal.

Bill Nikolai
Yeah, yet you’re subject to strong winds. If the wind is blowing more than say 40 kilometers an hour, you’re virtually parked. Your glider only has a top speed of about 50 kilometers an hour so you gotta be careful with conditions and how they change over time and so on and so forth. Living on the edge, it is literally living on the edge. What I love about it, I like many things about it, but one of the things I love is it really kind of focuses you. You’re really in the moment because you’re not thinking about anything that;s going on down below on terra firma, you’re really thinking about what you’re doing at that very moment. That’s something that carries through into something like acting, you really need to get into that mindset of being in the moment. It’s very difficult to do sometimes especially when you’re on set with 40 or 50 crew members around, the pressure is on you need to come through. Paragliding kind of gives me that same sort of sense because of self preservation.

David Read
Right, you have your life in your hands, you and God up there and that’s it. Tell me about your time on MacGyver. What was that experience? What are some of your favorite memories from from that production? Did you know Don while you were working on it?

Bill Nikolai
Don Davis, yes. In fact, he was also a professor at UBC, the university I graduated from. I believe he was teaching scene design. He was responsible for some of the big sets that were created for the bigger productions out at the university. I’m not really sure how he got involved in the show but…

David Read
Dana Elcar’s stunt double.

Bill Nikolai
Yes, I think initially photo double. Difference between photo double and stunt double is…and I was Richards photo double on MacGyver as well. As a photo double you’re getting the camera behind you taking shots of the back of your head as you’re driving MacGyver’s Jeep or close ups of your hands as you’re playing with the Swiss Army knife and the duct tape and so on. A stunt double of course you’re doing something that’s more dangerous, more precarious. It was a fascinating experience for me. I have a lot of photographs actually that I took on set. It was back in the day where there was no internet, there were no social media. Producers were not as concerned about images and stuff like that being spread around before the show had even hit the airwaves. I was fortunate in the sense that I would bring my 35 mm SLR with me for the entire season. I only worked one full season on that show, I worked a little bit as a photo double subsequently. There was a writers strike at the tail end of that season so I took a job as a film technician at UBC. I’m pointing behind me because that’s exactly where the university is. I was only there for one season but I did have that camera with me all the time. I took mostly crew photos but I got lots of great shots of Richard and some of the co-stars. One of them was Elyssa Davalos, there was a two part episode called Love Lost which I think was the first two episodes of, I guess it would have been season, let me think about this, season three I guess, the first season they were in Vancouver. So that’s kind of fun, I think I have that binder up here in my shelf somewhere. I see it right up there in the corner. Maybe I should just grab that for a second. Let me just see.

David Read
Sure, go ahead. I love show and tell. Wow. Holy cow.

Bill Nikolai
Can we see any of this.

David Read
Yes we can.

Bill Nikolai
There’s a lot of reflection. There’s a big explosion. So this is all shot with 35 mm film. Here is Richard with a flame thrower. There’s some great makeup work which I think already at that point was the artistry of Jan Newman. Those are scars on the back of Bruce McGill. I can’t remember the character’s name, he was MacGyver’s sidekick.

David Read
Let me see here.

Bill Nikolai
In fact, here is Bruce in the same episode. Can we see that?

David Read
Jack Dalton.

Bill Nikolai
Yes. So he’s tied to a steak and there’s the scars on his back getting whipped. What else have we got there? Sorry. We’ve got some great shots here. Here’s a couple of nice shots of Richard with the Make a Wish Foundation.

David Read
Ah, that was a big part of both of those shows.

Bill Nikolai
Yeah. I’ve never spread these around the internet because there’s a lot of individuals here who may not appreciate having these images spread around. There’s some stuff that was shot at a local ski area, this episode was called GX-1.

David Read
Hot air balloon.

Bill Nikolai
A hot air balloon, yes. That was actually suspended from a crane in the parking lot at the studio. I think I’m in one of those shots there standing in with two other stand-ins, two other second teamers. Lots of those moments from that particular season are kind of captured in some of these photos.

David Read
Let me switch over here, give me just a second while I switch my system over here. I want to share what you sent over with me here, give me just one second to do that. It’s always so tricky to do this live but I want you to be able to see the content as I do.

Bill Nikolai
I can do a screen share as well. I think I have some photos, probably the same. Actually there’s a few other ones here from Stargate.

David Read
Yeah, I got the ones that you posted. Let me share this here and share this here and here. Okay. Just one second. David, get it together. Okay. There we go. Can you see that?

Bill Nikolai
Oh, yeah. Yes.

David Read
Tell me about these.

Bill Nikolai
Yeah, so this was a photo double scene from, I don’t recall the episode, but it was MacGyver. We were shooting in North Vancouver which is pretty wild territory and there’s a river there. I believe it was Lynn River. Richard is in a biohazard suit because there was obviously some sort of biohazard involved in this episode and I was photo doubling him with the head gear on and also flying around in a helicopter. It was my first ever ride in a helicopter so that was a great memory. There we are. That’s the hockey episode. Usually, once a year, Richard would do, I should say the MacGyver folks would do one hockey episode. I grew up in Minnesota, played ice hockey, there we are out at the University of British Columbia and the rink there. This is the first episode that Dan Shea ever worked on, I believe. He was the coordinator. There were a bunch of varsity level hockey players who played on this episode. Dan not only coordinated that but he also was Richard’s double and stunt double on this episode. That’s kind of an interesting junction in both of our lives. At this point, Dan had been working I believe as a, he’ll correct me I’m sure when I see him in the neighborhood here, he only lives a few blocks from me. He had been working as a fitness instructor/coordinator at a local community center and this is I believe his first episode on MacGyver. Had it not been for the fact that Dan shoots right, as does Richard, and I shoot left, there’s a possibility that at this point maybe our careers would have diverged radically.

David Read
That’s amazing.

Bill Nikolai
Yeah, I’m not saying that in any way I regret it.

David Read
Absolutely. It’s just a little twist of fate.

Bill Nikolai
Yeah, exactly. Okay, this is obviously in front of those movie production company trailers and it’s two dummies posing together. I was photo doubling Richard there. They were also, I believe, throwing him off of big ship or something. At some point they elected to use an actual dummy for that. That’s what that’s all about.

Bill Nikolai
To the dummy, that dummy. I look like a dummy.

David Read
I would think that there would be an issue with those. How do you keep it from flying end over end to be “okay, that’s clearly not a person.” I think you would have to do it a few different times in order to make it get the…because it catches air and then it’s tricky. Bill Murray did the same thing in Groundhog Day for those wider shots of him jumping off the clock tower, they used a dummy. The likeness Bill is striking, I must say.

David Read
Let’s have a look at some Stargate photos.

Bill Nikolai
Sure. Yeah, that says “Vern Alberts,” I don’t recall what episode. That may have been Urgo which is one of my favorite episodes, mainly because I got the chance to work with Dom DeLuise. I don’t think I had much to say in that episode, I never did on Stargate. Dom was such a sweet, sweet man and we had some great conversations. He had an interest in Japanese so we had lots of talks about that. But yeah, that’s Vern Alberts.

David Read
I can’t imagine what it was like for Peter to have his dad on set playing the titular role of that episode. That had to have been just a milestone for him.

Bill Nikolai
Oh absolutely, I could see it every day; Peter’s demeanor and Dom also was delighted to be there. As I said, just a really, really sweet person to be around, to work with so hat’s a big highlight for me. There he is again Okay, so this was, I believe this is Double Jeopardy if I’m not mistaken. Richard on the right, Dan Shea in the middle. In that episode I ended up wearing a lot of dots on my face.

David Read
I’ll have one of those.

Bill Nikolai
Yeah, they were doing some CGI stuff where they had Richard playing against himself. When it was actually shot, it was me but through the magic of CGI, etc…and we’re talking about 2000…there we are. Through the magic that was being rendered there they were able to, in the finished product, put Richard where where I am so you would see him wrestling with himself? It was a really great experience for me because there was dialogue there that was going on between the two Richards. I had to actually deliver that dialogue in the scene to Richard. One of the things I loved about working on Stargate was as a stand-in and even as a photo double, I would frequently get the opportunity to do off-camera lines for other actors. It’s something that doesn’t happen very much anymore, part of it is union rules, it was a little looser back then. It was just a great training experience for me to be kind of put on the spot a little bit. Occasionally I got paid for those efforts. If they were dressing me up and catching a big piece of me as my back was to the camera but I was delivering lines to one of the guest actors then they would pay me as an actor, which was fabulous.

David Read
Absolutely. This was Michael Shanks’ outing as director.

Bill Nikolai
Okay, I didn’t remember that. But yes, I think you’re right.

David Read
That’s his show.

Bill Nikolai
That was in…

David Read
Season four, end of season 4. There’s Dom.

Bill Nikolai
Yeah, that’s just a fabulous photograph. I have it I think glued inside a cookbook that Dom had put a line with his autograph.

David Read
Great guy.

Bill Nikolai
I believe, at that point, Richard was a General perhaps, I can’t remember.

David Read
I’ve seen Colonels…If I’m right about this is Between Two Fires in season five when they’re just getting back from Tollana. This is the outfit that he wore after Omac’s funeral.

Bill Nikolai
Okay, so still a Colonel at that point?

David Read
Yes. Who is this down here? Is it William Gereghty?

Bill Nikolai
Mr. Menard.

David Read
Oh, Jim Menard. Okay.

Bill Nikolai
Yeah, so he was probably DOP-ing at that point, Director of Photography. And of course there’s Peter who I’ve run into occasionally in the last few years for different reasons. I had the opportunity to be Amanda Tapping’s dead husband on Sanctuary,

David Read
“So Bill, how would you like to be Amanda’s dead husband?”

Bill Nikolai
Yeah, it was pretty funny because I was lying on the floor, I believe it was at the same NORCO studio that we used on Stargate. I’m lying on the floor, the cameras on my face, I’m supposed to be dead. I’ve got major scars along the side of my neck where some monster has clawed me to death. Peter’s directing and he’s giving me grief because you can see a little flicker under my eyelids plus you can see the vein in my forehead throbbing.

David Read
Yeah, exactly.

Bill Nikolai
“Bill. Bill! I want you to stop that vein.”

David Read
Nothing you can do about it. “It’s autonomic, sir.”

Bill Nikolai
He says “ah nevermind, we’ll fix it in post.”

David Read
This is one of my favorite human beings, period, right there. He’s very important to me, he’s just a great guy.

Bill Nikolai
And a Vancouver resident still, I believe.

David Read
Yes he is. So this is one of my favorite sequences from season one and I always wanted to know how this was achieved and here you’ve given me a photo. This is really cool. What are you doing?

Bill Nikolai
My hand is sticking up through that table.

David Read
It’s your knuckle. Yeah, it’s your hand and the arm is…

Bill Nikolai
Yeah and the wristwatch is…I don’t want to divulge all the magic here but the wristwatch is hiding the joint between my hand and the prosthesis they were using. Richard has a box cutter or a surgical knife of some kind and he’s slicing open his forehand to reveal a bunch of mechanics in there, sort of bio mechanical stuff. It was a fairly interesting cheat. We’ve got Richard there wielding the knife, we’ve got my hand sticking through there twitching and doing whatever and then there’s the prosthetic that was created for the scene that’s actually being sliced open.

David Read
Were you controlling the servos that we’re moving inside of the arm as well or was that all…?

Bill Nikolai
No, that was all done remotely. I can’t remember who did that. The only thing I controlled there was my finger movement.

David Read
It’s amazing the sleight of hand that is done in Hollywood and in projects like this when you just put your mind to it. You can you can pull it off 50 different ways. That’s wild, thank you for that, this is really cool stuff. This is The Other Guys, season six.

Bill Nikolai
Okay, yeah, that was at our desert planet location which was just south of Vancouver. It’s a place called Lulu Island in Richmond, the suburb’s called Richmond. There’s actually some sand dunes there, I don’t know if they still exist.

David Read
My understanding was they were reduced season over season until basically they were a postage stamp. There was only so much you could do with it but I was curious. So Lulu Island was the location?

Bill Nikolai
Yes, that’s right. A lot of people don’t know the name Lulu island but that’s what it’s officially called. It’s part of the city of Richmond which is where the airport is for Vancouver. That sand dune is where my dad used to drive with our little Volkswagen Beetle back when I was about six years old to gather sand for our sandbox at our home in south Vancouver. My memories of that sand dune go way back.

David Read
The Warrior, season five. Man, you look like him. You sell that man?

Bill Nikolai
Well, you know, with the hat and the glasses and everything else and the wardrobe that’s just about fixed by the way behind there in the background. I don’t recall who that is with the cell phone.

David Read
It’s a Jaffa, so it’s an extra.

Bill Nikolai
It’s either a stunt performer or a background performer, probably a background performer. I think it’s pretty funny that he’s got a cell phone in his hand. It reminds me of the time I was in Rome where I saw these gladiators who pose for tourists and they were taking a coffee break and they had a cigarette and cell phones.

David Read
Yeah, that sounds about as strange as when I saw Captain Kirk at Comic Con with a cell phone on his ear. I had to get a picture of him because I was like, “that’s your fault that that exists.” It was actually Shatner but it was someone who was dressed like him and looked a lot like him. Another Warrior!

Bill Nikolai
Yes, it is probably the same day. Of course that’s Peter DeLuise who’s directing. Off to my right in the background is Alex.

David Read
In the pink?

Bill Nikolai
Yes in the pink. I have forgotten his last name, I think it was like Paris [Pappas] or something, a Greek last name.

David Read
Okay. This is the “easy stick boy” scene. I forget the actor’s name but we lost him in the last couple of years. He’s no longer with us, his name is not coming to me right now. Peter took inspiration from The Matrix to create this shot with him and Christopher fighting at the end. That was Rick Worthy’s episode.

David Read
Hang on one second, I’ve lost your screenshare. Let me just see what’s going on. I don’t know what happened there.

David Read
Let me try it again. Can you see me?

Bill Nikolai
I don’t see you either. There you are. Yes, we’re good.

David Read
So that was really a cool sequence because you had Rick Worthy and Christopher. Rick did most of his own martial arts for that and they had the camera just around this disc.

Bill Nikolai
The disc was moving. Yeah, it was very interesting that scene actually.

David Read
So this is one of my favorite moments from Atlantis. This is The Return part two and Jack has to save the Atlantis team. In order to do that he goes for a little swim. Tell us your memories of this sequence?

Bill Nikolai
That was at the University of British Columbia, UBC, in their marine engineering building where they have this large tank where they could build scale models of vessels and other things. That’s where this was shot. As it happens I was already a library school student at that point, I started a second master’s degree at the age of 50 in 2006. I got three days though. I think they paid me as a stunt performer on that show. As it turns out, Richard did all of his own underwater stuff; swimming and holding his breath and so on and so forth. I spent most of my time just hanging out watching. I had this camera with a dive housing so I got lots of great photographs and some video as well actually. I believe Martin Wood was directing that episode so it was just fascinating watching how that was being done. There are obviously lots of technical challenges to deal with when you’ve got cameras being submerged and actors who are holding their breath.

David Read
Absolutely. It’s a whole complicated process, what a great sequence.

Bill Nikolai
I was lucky because I had quite a bit of experience doing recreational scuba diving hence the call to come in and photo double and perhaps even stunt double Richard. That worked out well for me as well in a show that I acted on called First Target starring Daryl Hannah. In that show I get wooed by a beautiful woman, she’s an assassin.

David Read
Of course, they always are.

Bill Nikolai
Who then drugs me after I get to kiss her. Druging, kissing and then I get knocked off my boat and drowned by my head being shoved under the water.

David Read
Oh my god.

Bill Nikolai
Yeah, so that was a lot of fun, First Target. That’s one of the bigger acting roles I’ve had and by big I mean like six lines. It wasn’t much, but a lot of fun. Sometimes your recreational pursuits can come in handy when it comes to doing stuff like this.

David Read
Speaking of recreational pursuits.

Bill Nikolai
That was probably two or three weeks ago. Just doing a few mild wing overs using one of my favorite go-to cameras now. It’s the Insta360, I’m gonna throw in a little advertisement.

David Read
The Insta360, it’s so steady.

Bill Nikolai
Yeah and it’s amazing because it literally shows you the whole world. In these shots here I’ve got the camera on a selfie stick shoved into my leg strap. Occasionally you can see a shadow from the selfie stick on my leg. Yeah, there’s one right there, you can see it right over my right leg. That’s my playground in North Vancouver, lots of interesting times over there.

David Read
It’s beautiful. It’s just absolutely beautiful.

Bill Nikolai
Yes, Happy Canada Day.

David Read
Thank you so much for sharing these with me. These are really cool to see. So many people are responsible for bringing this show to life on a regular basis and you never think that it takes as big a village as it does. You’re all key players in bringing this thing to life.

Bill Nikolai
Yeah, it becomes a community. You spend so much time there that you get to know people pretty well sometimes. A lot of the time, especially from a stand-in’s point of view, it’s kind of not really downtime, you have time to stand on the sidelines and quietly chat with somebody. It was the kind of show where people stuck around too, they weren’t just there for the day. Some of them were there for I think probably the entire ten seasons, I was there for five seasons. Some of the people that were on Stargate had worked on MacGyver many years previously. It’s a really, really wonderful situation to be in and you find a lot of support there for things that are going on in your personal life. Back in 2003 I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. It was something that I was kind of dragging around in my psyche when I went to work and fortunately for me there were people there who were willing to listen to some of my fears and anxieties, etc. It becomes almost like family, actually, when you’re working on a series that goes on for so long.

David Read
Well, congratulations on beating that.

Bill Nikolai
Thank you. Yeah. Nice to still be here.

David Read
Absolutely. I have some fan questions. Raj Luthra – What did you enjoy most about working on SG-1 and what episodes are you a fan of most?

Bill Nikolai
Well, like I mentioned, Window of Opportunity for sure because it was so much fun to work on. Urgo, Dom DeLuise. I still have the call sheet from from a day, I think it was a second unit day, where Dom was, I think, number one on the call sheet and I was number two, or vice versa. I can’t remember but I was pretty thrilled about that. There was just so many moments, as for a favorite moment? I don’t know if I really have. What did I like best about it? Here’s something that’s rather kind of prosaic really. It was a pleasure to work on the show in part because it ran like clockwork. I mentioned that there were people there who’d been on there forever and we had really great producers like John Smith who kept things going in a relaxed way but very, very efficient. We never worked more than 12 hours unlike a lot of shows, including MacGyver. where quite often you’d be working Fraturdays. Fraturday is the industry term for what happens. Typically what happens in a show is you start at 7am on Monday and because of turnaround rules and so on if you go deeply into overtime on Monday, you’re going to be starting later on Tuesday. You go into more overtime and before you know it 7am on Monday becomes 8am or 9am on Tuesday and then by the time Friday rolls around you’re starting at 1pm and finishing at 4am in the morning. There goes a large portion of your weekend. One of the things I liked best about Stargate was that I could be home every evening, it’s actually worth a lot.

David Read
Absolutely it is. Your sanity and to having a life out there; work life balance, it’s very important. I’ve been trying to teach that to myself for 40 years.

Bill Nikolai
There were no prima donnas on the show. Everybody really, really was leaving their ego parked at home.

David Read
Rick, Mike, the producer, they wouldn’t allow it.

Bill Nikolai
Yeah and they were just some fantastic people to work with. Because I was often doing off camera lines I had the chance to work with Amanda, delivering Richard’s lines to her. She’s just the sweetest person to work with, really, really professional and just really lovely to be around. There are lots of examples of people like that, crew and cast alike on Stargate.

David Read
Absolutely. Theresa Mc – Are you a sci-fi fan and if so, what are your favorites?

David Read
Behind you!

Bill Nikolai
Wow. Not so much a sci-fi television fan but I read a lot as you might imagine having had a life career as a librarian.

Bill Nikolai
Oh, yeah. Yeah, there is still a lot of print back there. I do have a Kindle, it’s hiding here somewhere. There it is, it rarely gets cracked. So sci-fi, I mean, I just recently read…Where is it? It’s here somewhere.

David Read
Is that the Celebration of 10 years book?

Bill Nikolai
Oh yeah, I got that here. Yeah, Celebration of 10 Years.

David Read
Yup, I have one myself. It’s a great book.

Bill Nikolai
I got that out to remind myself of some of the episodes that we worked on. 1969 right there. I recently read The Midnight Library by Matt Haig which I would call sci-fi so I highly recommend that book to anybody who’s interested. What’s interesting about that book is it’s about possibilities. What might have happened if this life had occurred rather than the one that we started with, at the beginning of Matt Haig’s book. It’s almost like a butterfly effect kind of story, but it’s definitely sci fi. I highly recommend that. I don’t watch a lot of sci-fi but occasionally, Apple TV+, For All Mankind, I love.

David Read
I’ve heard it’s good. Dad wants to watch it so we’re probably gonna give it a go at some point. Lockwatcher wants to know “was there a difference between your days when you worked as a photo double rather than on screen as Vern and what was a typical day for you like?”

Bill Nikolai
Typically I was working as a stand-in; essentially a crew member. You’re making the stand-in’s wage, which isn’t huge, I can tell you right now it’s currently at around $27 or $28 an hour Canadian so in real money that’s probably only about 20 bucks an hour.

David Read
Real money, it’s all fake now, jeez. Yeah, the stand-ins…please continue.

Bill Nikolai
You were about to say…

David Read
You guys are responsible for helping to light the sets, you’re there before the actors show up so that everything is configured properly. There’s a lot that goes into that.

Bill Nikolai
Typically for a stand-in what happens is the actors will be brought in to block the scene which means they run through it a couple of times. The director is there watching closely. As the scene is blocked the camera assists start putting down tape on the floor or colored sandbags if they’re outdoors, marking where the actors are moving to within the shot. Once everybody’s happy with that the first team goes away, the first team being the actors, and the AD will call for second team. To this day, if I hear second team somewhere like if I’m working on a project somewhere and I hear “second team,” I’m jumping and wondering if I should be happy. Second team takes over, they stand on the marks and the camera guys and the lighting guys basically adjust everything to make it look good for a half hour down the road or whatever time it takes to set things up. They get rid of the second team, first team comes in, they shoot the scene and then it all happens all over again throughout the day. That’s typical for a stand-in now. When I was working as Vern Alberts it was like Cinderella. All of a sudden I have got a dressing room with Alberts on the door, people will hand me a bottle of water. It really was like being Cinderella.

David Read
The technicians were important, they they made it spin. Spinning is so much better than not spinning.

Bill Nikolai
There were lots of times where I was hooked. I was thinking maybe I should just lurk outside the studio here and kneecap Gary Jones so that I’m on the show more regularly. Sorry Gary.

David Read
That’s funny. There’s so much work that goes into being there to shoot all of those close ups with your hands. A lot of the business that’s being done, I suspect in MacGyver for that year there was a lot of that, he’s constantly working on something.

Bill Nikolai
There was a lot of that. Quite often the master has already been shot and the second unit, which is another film crew, will pick up stuff like inserts, so close ups of hands and that sort of thing or the back of MacGyver’s head as he is driving the Jeep, as I mentioned earlier. Interestingly, my hands don’t look anything like Richards, but they decided that they did. I recall one instance, and I can’t recall now who was directing the second unit that day, but it was a promo that they were doing for MacGyver where he’s touching some electrical wires to something. There’s a light bulb that just suddenly explodes and this is in the days prior to video, it was all being shot on 35 millimeter film. There was no CGI, we’re talking 1987. I’d done a lot of photo doubling at that point but for some weird reason I miss-anticipated the contact of the wires with this device. I didn’t react until like a pretty much a full second after it exploded. The director was just, I wouldn’t say livid, but he was rolling his eyes and talking “how…what…I mean?” To this day, this is like how many years later, like 30 something years later…

David Read
It still bothers you.

Bill Nikolai
Yes. It still bothers me.

David Read
You can’t fire on every cylinder every single time. Sooner or later there’s going to be something like “yep, I screwed up. Can we do it gain?”

Bill Nikolai
There’s stuff that goes into jobs like photo doubling that people aren’t aware of. I mentioned standing on the tape, but it’s actually more than that. You’re watching the action as the actors are rehearsing the shot. Tape is going on the floor, you the stand-in are supposed to be watching what the actors are doing, which hand did they use to open that door? That kind of thing. When they are rehearsing with the second team just before they bring the first team back in again, they want to make sure that they’re doing the right camera moves. If you haven’t been paying attention as a stand-in and you’re not able to replicate what they had established, not on tape, but in the rehearsal while they’re blocking them, then you’re not doing your job right. Those are some things that people aren’t aware of. A lot of people will do a stand-in job without really knowing what’s entailed and they’ll fail miserably because they just don’t pay attention.

David Read
Yeah, you gotta be watching because you’re mimicking.

Bill Nikolai
Yeah, exactly.

David Read
All right, Bill, this has been a real treat to have you.

Bill Nikolai
Likewise, same here.

David Read
You’ve provided a lot of fun stories and it’s always fun watching your stuff on Instagram. Keep sailing, you only live once. It’s awesome that you have those passions, you remind me a lot of Cliff Simon. I see a lot of that.

David Read
He was an amazing individual actually. So sorry what happened there? He was a kite surfer, right? Yeah, something I haven’t done.

David Read
Yeah. he was kite surfing. In the scheme of things you know, if we have a choice on how we’re going to live our last day and we know we’ve got to go out, I wouldn’t be surprised if I would pick something like that myself. As long as I’m not taking anyone else with me, that’s the important thing.

Bill Nikolai
Getting back to Matt Haig’s book, Midnight Library, it’s all about regrets and not having regrets. I think in many ways the way I think an ideal life is led is to lead it in such a way that you anticipate the end which is going to occur with all of us. The anticipation is that you won’t have any regrets so that’s what I encourage people to do when they’re making those day to day decisions. Kind of a sombre note to end on.

David Read
You were part of a great show, you have some beautiful memories to carry with you and I really appreciate your show and tell with the photos today and sharing some of your stories.

Bill Nikolai
Thank you so much for having me and hi to everybody out there and thank you guys all for tuning in.

David Read
Thank you, sir. You take care of yourself okay.

Bill Nikolai
You too. Take care.

David Read
Bye bye. Bill Nikolai, technician Vern Alberts on Stargate SG-1. There are so many people who are responsible in bringing the show to life and it’s such a privilege every week to be able to bring them on and discuss the show with them. My name is David Read for Dial the Gate, I really appreciate you tuning in. Erick Avari is going to be joining us momentarily here. My tremendous thanks to my production team, Linda “GateGabber” Furey, my moderators Sommer, Tracy, Jeremy, Rhys and Anthony for continuing to back me behind the scenes here. Frederick Marcoux at ConceptsWeb, he’s our web developer at Dial the Gate, he keeps everything up and running. We’re going to churn these out for a little while longer here. Since the writers and actors strike is going on a lot of these behind the scenes people have a little bit more availability and I’m appreciative of them for coming on. That’s what we’ve got for you for this episode, Erick Avari is coming up soon so stay with us. My name is David Read for Dial the Gate and we will see you on the other side.