(*This is a re-upload of the live episode to correct for an audio imbalance.)

Throughout Stargate SG-1’s run you would see Steve Bacic, from Major Coburn early on in the show’s run to the Goa’uld Camulus in Season Eight and Stargate Continuum. We welcome the actor to our show to discuss his career, his new film, and take fan questions LIVE!

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Timecodes
0:00 – Splash Scene
00:06 – Opening Credits
00:34 – Welcome and Episode Outline
01:41 – Welcoming Steve and Convention Chat
05:24 – “A Shrink, A Flat, and A Broken Key”
18:40 – Alter
20:30 – Auditioning and industry Advice
26:42 – Major Coburn
28:07 – Taylor Sheridan
30:55 – Camulus
36:03 – Stargate: Continuum
36:57 – Cliff Simon
41:17 – Fan Questions: Production differences on set
42:42 – Andromeda
46:38 – Healthy Lifestyle
48:48 – Dream Role
57:54 – Ad-Libbing
1:01:33 – Wrapping up with Steve
1:07:08 – Post-Interview Housekeeping
1:12:34 – End Credits

***

“Stargate” and all related materials are owned by MGM Studios and MGM Television.

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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read
Hello everyone and welcome to episode 195 of DialtheGate. My name is David Read. We have Steve Bacic here joining us in this episode, but before we get to him, I invite you to click the Like button if you enjoy these episodes. If you want to give the show more exposure, consider sharing this video with a Stargate friend. If you want to get notified about future episodes, because we’ve got a few more before we hit 200 and close down season three, click the Subscribe icon. Giving the bell icon a click will notify you 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 DialtheGate and GateWorld.net YouTube channels. As this is a live show, I have moderator Antony, in the YouTube chat collecting questions for Steve. We’ll be able to get those to him halfway through the show. Antony will give those to me and then I’ll pass them on to Steve. Steve Bacic, Camulus on Stargate SG-1 also Major Coburn. Is it [Basic] or [Barchik]?

Steve Bacic
Well, Basic since I was a kid, that’s how we asked people to do it in the American Canadian version. In the Croatian version [Bar-cheech].

David Read
[Bar-cheech], that’s so much cooler.

Steve Bacic
[Bar-cheech]. One of my first conventions was in, I believe, was England. I have never been on a stage before. The first day I bombed. It was a Stargate convention but I was on Andromeda so they brought me on as a special guest with the Stargate people. It was crickets and tumbleweeds. I haven’t done live theater in years and there were 800 people there. When they announced that Teryl [Rothery] was going to be doing signings in another room, almost all 800 of them left. So the next day, I had someone who was my assistant I guess, I’ll call him a close friend, bring me a bottle of Crown Royal. I just sat on the stage and I said “I’m gonna have a good time regardless of who shows up.” That question of “how do you pronounce your name came up” and I said, “Well, why don’t we get half the group to say ‘[Bar]’ and the other half to do ‘[cheech]’?” That became the thing and because we’re in England, they like to do chants. After that, it was just like home.

David Read
The convention crowd Steve is just a beast all on its own and Teryl, especially in terms of the Stargate audience, Teryl commands that crowd. She says jump they say how high, she has this energy. I can understand why if that came up, then everyone just kind of cleared out for sure. I remember you at Gatecon a few years ago and you were talking about “they asked me to come on again, be a God wear a skirt. You know, why not?” And I must say from one man to another, there’s not many guys who can pull off a skirt. You did that well.

Steve Bacic
Just another Friday night. Yeah, just having a good time, sweet party, you know.

David Read
Hey, candy, you look great in that on that floor. For this. We’ll get some beers.

Steve Bacic
I think Camulus had a dark side, his dark side is the opposite. He’s always dark and manipulative and evil but the other side of him is he’s like a seven year old girl. He just wants to play. A little hopscotch, do a little drawing, play with butterflies, play with puppies. Camulus after dark is the most innocent thing you could have ever imagined. So yeah, in my mind.

David Read
I can just see him getting in front of an Xbox playing with the guys, drinking some beer, maybe doing some beer pong, wearing the skirt.

Steve Bacic
I would have gone to a puppet show, something just so far removed from his evil ways and power mongering?

David Read
I obviously want to get back to the sci-fi stuff in a few moments here. Steve, you sent me this this trailer for? Is it called Sanada?

Steve Bacic
Did I lose you?

David Read
I’m right here. Can you hear me? Sure. Take your time.

Steve Bacic
I don’t see. Okay, let’s see here. There you are. Technical difficulties you know.

David Read
This is why people go to NASCAR, for the crashes.

Steve Bacic
Moonlight Sonata is the score that I went with for the trailer because there’s no royalties, it’s an older piece. I was playing with the music for the trailer and the one I sent you was Moonlight Sonata. The movie itself is called A Shrink A Flat and A Broken Key.

David Read
Wow. Okay, A Shrink A Flat and A Broken Key. Before we go any further into this, I want to play this trailer. Now you act in this film, are you involved in any other way as well?

Steve Bacic
Oh, absolutely. Everything from inception, we’ll get into that story later. But yeah, from inception. Right now we’re in the process in frustration of trying to deliver it. It’s 99.9% done, as you and I spoke about earlier, it’s a beast. Most of my career has been as an actor but as I try this producing stuff and creating stuff I hear more and more from people who know that just to get it completed, forget about selling it, forget about festivals, just to be able to complete a project is a beast. The next parts get even harder because you’re trying to get somebody else… Well, there we go again, I’m having such difficulty with my setup here.

David Read
You’re good on my end.

Steve Bacic
Yeah, it’s gonna fall. You’re gonna see the ceiling and second. I’m just trying to keep this tape on. It’s such a bad setup. But anyway. I refuse to let it let it die. Part of my soul says let it die, because it is so painful. I did go from inception. I had a screenwriter, we would go back and forth and he did the technical aspects of the writing. We wrote it about eight, nine years ago, then COVID happened and I shot another film which I wrote with James Phillips. We were on a series together, The Guard, he was one of the writers on that. I had also worked with him on Arctic Air, he was a producer, writer, and we’ve maintained a good friendship, good working relationship. We came up with Altar, which was released on Tubi over the last year and now it’s going to different platforms. What I was doing was creating concepts that were contained, that if I had a nickel, I could maybe make it. I started making micro budget movies in the States and they were like q quarter million. I’ve been involved in some not so great films that are 1,200,00. These are actually better and I’m going “it’s a no brainer, this should make money”. Was I ever wrong. They don’t make money, somebody else is making the money. There are so many angles where someone can screw you over. Maybe not because they want to but there’s so many ways to lose money. With these projects that I was doing, I decided not to bring any investors in at all. I just did it on my own dime because I didn’t want to be responsible for someone else’s loss. If I was going to lose something, even with this one, with the trailer you’re going to show, I had to do a calculation on “was I to lose the money in time” because you’re only as good as your weakest link. One of the people that I really relied on, you just don’t know what you’re gonna get. You get close to the crew and they disappear, it’s the weirdest thing. I have to convince myself that I did that calculation before I even pulled the trigger on this film. Anyways, I’m talking a lot.

David Read
No, it’s okay. I really want to show the trailer and then we’ll come back and talk a little bit about it some more here. Let me go ahead and play this and then we’ll be right back. If you’ve got little kids watching it’s pretty intense for the next couple of minutes here. Keep that in mind when we go ahead and play the trailer for Steve’s film. [2 minute break for trailer]

David Read
That is A Shrink A Flat and A Broken Key. Steve what’s your character’s name in this?

Steve Bacic
David Averbatch. I apologise if there is somewhere out there with the same name. There shouldn’t be. There probably is but I don’t think so. We did our research.

David Read
Who is this guy? The trailer talks about him having a kind of a unique background. What can you say after that?

Steve Bacic
Well, he’s on his way to consult, there’s a situation at one of the local penitentiaries. He is a forensic profiler and his passion is the mind of the criminal. There is a suicide at the prison and he consults to see if the suicide at the prison was actually a suicide, he goes to investigate. On the way out there he gets a flat tyre. That’s not a big deal but the problem he is in the middle of nowhere. His key fob doesn’t work as the key is broken so he can’t get to his trunk. He backtracks and goes to a farmhouse where he hopes he can find a crowbar or something just to get in the trunk, the problem is, he chose the wrong house. He has to find a way out of a situation.

David Read
Yeah, I am not surprised that the fob is a part of the situation of the story. I hate those darn things. It’s in situations like this where it’s like, it’s really going to do us in when you need to get access to your car and you’re in an area with perhaps no cell phone coverage. What do you do? You walk and you walk in.

Steve Bacic
In the story you’ll see the cellphone coverage is a little bit broken and he tries to get a tow truck out but the guy’s a complete ass. There’s even a latch and the latch is broken. It’s just the perfect storm for him to be stuck. Being a capable guy who deals with criminals for his whole career, he isn’t that worried. I don’t want to give away too much of the story but he relies heavily on his intelligence to navigate the situation. I took this from inception, the technical writing was done. Due to Covid, other things going on and the climate in Hollywood right now the situation is that you have got to create your own work and work on it. I’m fortunate enough to keep working but I get bored inbetween jobs. I want to be creative all the time so I just thought, “I’m not gonna sit here and bitch about the situation”. A lot of people are bitching about getting somebody else to help them out of these situations, they’re not willing to do any of the work, it’s always someone else’s fault. I don’t want to be like that. I’ll do my fair share of bitching but at the same time [I like to help myself]. Even in this particular case, it was a risk. People said, “do it with other people’s money, get this group involved, get that group involved, get guarantees.” That to me sounds like fear and sounds like the opposite of being creative. I’m not in this business to teach anyone, I want to entertain and give my perspective as an artist on certain things. You wouldn’t tell Rembrandt or Picasso how to paint. I think the industry today is telling everyone how to communicate their ideas. I just think, from my perspective, that’s the opposite of being creative. That’s the opposite of any sort of freedom. Art should be about freedom of expression, no matter what that expression is. [inaudible. I don’t care. I just don’t want anyone telling me what to do. [inaudible] They tell you what to do. I go, “okay, fine, I’ll listen.” It’s funny, because in this particular scenario, because of budget, I’m involved with people that don’t have experience. Being an actor first, I want to share, I want to be collaborative and remove ego. That ends up biting you in the butt because they’re so inexperienced that they don’t know protocol. All of a sudden you have got people that don’t have any experience telling you what they want to do and now I’ve created a monster. I always, think that I am going to do better on the next one, but I never learn. Sorry, I’m just adjusting my tape here.

Steve Bacic
No, you’re good. I think it’s important for you to take a risk on yourself and create a vision and and say, “I’m going to do what I have to do to give this project life and give birth to something that has some depth to it and has something to say and that’s a thriller.” That’s something that you’re gonna say, “Hey, you want to have a good time for 90 minutes to two hours. Let’s watch this, it’ll take you away.” Are you still with me?

Steve Bacic
Yeah. The thing fell, like my worst nightmare

David Read
It’s okay.

Steve Bacic
Can you hear me?

David Read
Not yet. There you are. Perfect.

Steve Bacic
So this means for the next 50 minutes or whatever, I’m gonna hold up my tablet.

David Read
Well, you look great from here. As long as that’s okay. Yeah, you’re good. I’m excited for you. Please keep me in the loop on how this goes. I want to continue to promote it and regardless of wherever it turns up I want my audience to be able to see it.

Steve Bacic
The other one is called Altar. I don’t know where the distributor is putting it next. It was on Tubi, I think it’s coming back. Similar theme again to A Shrink A Flat and A Broken Key, dealing with serial killers, a mother and son team which is usual. I don’t know if there are subtle messages in there, but there’s definitely some messages about hypocrisy, morality and those sorts of things. The one Altar, was more dealing with schizophrenia, mental illness in a different way and possible possession. You don’t know what what’s going on. I like to create red herrings and do little twists and things like that in story. I don’t know if you need money to be creative, I don’t think you need money to be creative.

Steve Bacic
Look at Blair Witch.

Steve Bacic
Exactly. Exactly. Isn’t it one of the, in terms of ratio, it grossed some of the best money in terms of what it cost compared to gross revenue ratio?

David Read
If you have a good idea and you have the right platform and view, money is not always the name of the game.

Steve Bacic
Oftentimes the sequel is not as good as the original which had no money,

David Read
Right for sure. Steve, can you tell me…

Steve Bacic
I have a problem. Here we go. That’s funny. Anyways, okay, let’s keep moving.

David Read
Can you please take me back to your first audition with SG-1 with Major Coburn? How long were you aware of Stargate? Have you seen any of it before? Tell me about getting that first roll. I think season three,

Steve Bacic
I read for Teal’c believe it or not.

David Read
You did?

Steve Bacic
I don’t remember a lot of things because you get I gotta keep my short term and my long term memory, I gotta delete things as I go. I do remember going in for that. I had this vest that on one side was brown leather and on the inside it was a white sort of cottony fleece. Pretty thick, interesting looking vest. I thought “if I turn this thing inside out” and that’s who I wore it. I unzipped and went in. The show hadn’t aired yet, I had no concept of it. It’s almost laughable some of the things I did in audition rooms. If I could go back and talk to my younger self I would say “you fool. One, get out of the business and secondly, don’t cry. Don’t do that. Whatever it is that you’re about to do, your choices, don’t do those.” I was actually surprised, I read quite a bit for the show. As you know composition and personal preferences can keep people who are competent from certain shows. I knew actors that never got on Stargate and they were good actors. For whatever reason, either someone didn’t like them or could be casting, could be one of the producers, whoever the power was. Or perhaps they just looked too similar to someone on the show. That often happens, that can work for you and that can work against you.

David Read
Do some actors just audition poorly?

Steve Bacic
Oh yeah, hell yeah. I think my audition was like my golf game. Sometimes there’s a great shot and sometimes they’re just miserable and horrible. These days I think I can turn in pretty decent work consistantly because I have a better understanding of what’s going on. It doesn’t guarantee you anything though, it doesn’t mean you’re gonna get the role. I remember some auditions where I was like,” oh my god,” I was so embarrassed by them. Then you get shortlisted and you actually get the roll and you think “what are they thinking?” But then you realize that they probably thought that maybe you had a bad day, they look at your resume and you’re the right fit. The business that we’re in, there’s no rhyme, there’s no reason at all. My piece of advice to anyone that wants to get involved at anything creative is don’t ever go for an end result. Don’t go for the job, don’t go for the fish painting, get deeply involved in process, whatever the process is. Be in the moment, engage, do all your work and enjoy it. Even in my movie everybody wants their credit, everyone wants the shiny object. No one was up with me at four o’clock in the morning doing re-writes or dealing with putting out fires. Everyone wants money, give me this, give me this, give me this but people don’t want to do the work. As I said in a conversation with someone yesterday, this business, I don’t know what people think it is. But it’s hard, it is very, very hard and you have got to be mentally tough to deal with it. You cannot rely on someone else. They might think you are great but that doesn’t matter. Don’t make it about that. You have got to be aware and conscious of your performance. You personally can measure it and ask yourself “have I improved, am I getting worse?” What do you measure it against? It’s supposed to be art. If I ever advise anyone who wants to get into the business I advise them to read as many books on acting as you possibly can. Consider who you are, know who you are, except who you are and then share who you are. From that standpoint point you can expand into anything because everything’s about personal perception. The only way to alter personal perception is to know what your perception is. So often people just work in these masks, we’re not really connected to anything. I suggest you get to know yourself, look at all the different techniques that they’re trying to teach you and figure out a way to tell the truth. Whether you’re reading for Coburn, Camulus or whoever, you have to be at some point somehow, through your emotional energy, connected to that being and their truth, through your truth. So technique, whatever that is, I don’t care what the technique is but there’s a lot of bullshit out there. There’s a lot of fucked up greedy people out there who create formulas have their teachings or books or cults. A lot of them don’t work, they don’t work and they’re teaching people what to do. It’s insane. I was a victim of a few of those people and I was lucky that I ever worked because I believed some of them. Does that make any sense?

David Read
It does. I think casting is purely subjective. I think you’re giving some fair warnings as to what to expect. I’m delighted to hear that you read for the role of Teal’c and I think that you would have made a good one. They brought you in for Coburn, what was it like getting your feet wet into Stargate, it was already in season three at that point. Compared to some of the other stuff that you worked on, what was Stargate like to experience?

Steve Bacic
There wasn’t much to do. They always give you that thing of “it’s recurring, you could develop into…” I happened to be one of those stories where I gave one of the writers an idea in season one and I came through the seasons and had a major part in season four. I already knew that there was always a possibility of more development [in Stargate]. At that stage of my career, I was just happy to work. I didn’t have a bigger concept of it. I didn’t understand the scope of the show and how popular it was going to become. As far as the fan base goes, it’s got an extremely loyal fan base, to this day. I’m surprised they’re not making movies, continually.

David Read
With Stargate, the rights and acquisition by Amazon is a separate conversation. It’s one of those where sooner or later it’s got so many legs that it’s just a matter of time before it comes back in some other form.

Steve Bacic
Exactly. I think Taylor Sheridan just has to do it. Thinking of Taylor Sheridan, he can make anything now, it’s like you’re stuck with him. Many years ago he was an acting coach. He was an actor who also coached. I was down in LA, I can’t remember what I was reading for but one of my friends recommended him. My agent was saying, “look, you’re getting good feedback but there’s something missing. Everyone’s getting coached so go and get a coach” and Taylor was the guy. He just gave me perspective of the psychology of the room. He said “what you’re doing as a performance is fine but what are you doing in the room?” Here’s a guy that now just does whatever he wants to do. It’s incredible. After Sicario he must have formed some really good relationships with key actors. His body of work, or his body of experience, having helped so many actors, was immense. He was able to apply that and execute it. All those relationships, knowledge, timing, it’s all these things. There might be another person like him out there that you won’t even know about because it’s just that one little nudge, all of a sudden you can greenlight anything.

David Read
Yeah, once your through a certain number of doors, it’s like you’re at the next phase.

Steve Bacic
I was watching an interview with Robert De Niro and they’re at this roundtable. His perspective. I really love. It’s the same idea of never take it too seriously, never take yourself too seriously because you could disappear like that in this industry. Never take anything for granted, which I think is fantastic.

David Read
Yeah, it’s also a good in life policy as well, in day to day life.

Steve Bacic
We’re just a blip in an immense vastness of nothing. The fact that we’re sitting here and having this experience, yeah, it’s cool. Otherwise, it’s the abyss again, which is fine, too.

David Read
Well, I prefer this to the abyss. But yeah.

Steve Bacic
I have no idea. I don’t remember the abyss. Send me a postcard. That’s funny. The IDs on the other side of the gate.

David Read
Steve, tell me about the Celtic God Camulus.

Steve Bacic
What do you want to know?

David Read
I want to know what it was like to return to the show for season eight. What it was like being a part of that last round of goa’uld who were really the rats on the Titanic. They know their dominion is over and they know that they’re in trouble. They are coming with hat in hand to Earth, completely 180 degrees from what the goa’uld were doing to them five years before?

Steve Bacic
Right.

David Read
What was it like playing that party? Yeah, what was like playing the part?

Steve Bacic
To me, it was like a little scab on the body; I only got to pick at it a little, I didn’t get to play as much as I wanted to play. I felt kind of unfulfilled. I just got to play Richard a little bit, we got to have a little bit of this and that. As an artist, as someone, I’ll give 100% of whatever I got to whatever it is at the time. But ultimately, with that, I felt that there could have been so much more. What that particular series of events and scenes and what he was going through was poker, it was a poker game. That’s how I approached it. Who’s bluffing who? What can I get? Ultimately I was at the mercy of whoever controlled the table. It wasn’t me anymore. I pretended it was me but it wasn’t me. So psychologically, that’s where I went with it. That is always enjoyable. Acting is pretending and then in the pretend you are pretending. So, yeah, that’s how I approached that.

David Read
It was such a shock when Elizabeth Weir, played by Torri Higginson, comes down to the cell. He basically says to her, “please don’t send me back, I can be of use to you here.” It’s like, “whoa, this guy, if he goes back through, he knows that Ba’al is gonna kill him.” He doesn’t want to go back. It was one of those moments where it is completely uncharted territory for us dealing with our arch enemy. That was wild and you played it very convincingly.

Steve Bacic
That’s the goa’uld, right? Like I said earlier, whatever the truth is for that character, for me, that’s what I’m trying to accomplish. Everything has got to be relatable. You’re also dealing with the writers and the directors and whatever their concept of it is. If they let you go, you just go and that’s when you have got to have your work ready. Sometimes when you don’t have strong choices you think they’re going to direct you and they don’t. Other times you have all your strong choices but they’ll redirect you. You have gotta be ready for anything. I try to, I hate to say the word, humanize him, in his vulnerability in that moment. I have to connect with the other character. To get what I want from anybody I have to find something in them that sympathizes with me. That was the idea behind that scene and subsequent scenes after that. I think that Camulus, ultimately, if he got what he wanted, he would have messed shit up on Earth as much as he could. I would hope he would never learn and never become a good guy, or good god, I should say. I would not have allowed it. I would have had my little secret look to the camera when the other characters “trust me”. You know, “better not trust me.”

David Read
Even Ba’al when he ended up on earth, he was still more of a smarmy businessman. The goa’uld, they’re always going to have their secrets. I always wondered what happened to Camulus when he took that ZPM and walked back through the Stargate. I wonder where he ended up. I wonder just how long he survived wherever he ended up because we don’t hear from him after that. That’s it. Someone cut him off?

Steve Bacic
I think he should be in the sequel of Guardians of the Galaxy if they ever do another one. He’s out there.

David Read
You showed up in Stargate Continuum? What a delight was that with all the other goa’uld? Mardi Gras part two! Tell us about coming back for Continuum?

Steve Bacic
I think Martin directed that one too. By that point I had got to know the rest of the cast. Martin had directed us in Andromeda and I got to know the writers and producers. I’m still friends with a lot of them, it was a blast. My only regret with it was that I hadn’t become part of that family a little sooner and we just couldn’t play a little bit more. Personally, I liked so much of the cast and crew and professionally, the scope of it, it would have been very good for my career as well.

Steve Bacic
How well did you know Cliff Simon?

Steve Bacic
I’m sorry, you broke up a little bit there.

David Read
How well did you know Cliff Simon?

Steve Bacic
Who?

Steve Bacic
Cliff Simon, Ba’al?

Steve Bacic
Just to see him at conventions, I didn’t really know him. We didn’t hang out off-set. I’d see him at conventions but I didn’t really know him.

David Read
Well, he passed away about two and a half years ago now. He passed away, when was his death? Let me see when that was. March of 2021. He’s been gone for two years, three months now. It was devastating. The entire Stargate community wept. He was always considered in the same sphere as Camulus.

Steve Bacic
Oh my god he died on my birthday. I have two birthdays, my actual birthday, it’s got nothing to do with me, but my actual birthday is March 9, my legal is March 13, which we can get to later. Shit, there’s Cliff right there.

David Read
Was it wind sailing, wind boarding? It was some kind of ocean activity. It was sudden, well I mean, it wasn’t like cancer or anything. It was wild. I had an interview with him scheduled for three days after he died. We had to scramble, I had to go on the air. My announcement video is still on DialtheGate with me sobbing my eyes out having just heard 15 minutes before that my guest for the weekend had just been killed. It’s one of those that, just back to the point from earlier that you were saying, you never know how long you have got before you return to the abyss.

Steve Bacic
Well, the one thing I would say about that is he loved what he was doing. He was very adventurous and I know that he spent a lot of his time rescuing animals as well. He did a lot of things that were scary and I think t’s pretty amazing that he was able to go out that way. I had a friend who died at 62. He was a rigger on set and he was very, very active but he started getting a degenerative condition. His spine was affected, his shoulders, he constantly happy but his bones were giving out. Then, out of the blue, I find out Derek’s dead. I’m like “what?” He was going down a run at Whistler, one of his favorite runs, one of his favorite things to do and that’s how we went out. I’m like, “okay, that’s cool.” I think it’s amazing that if you’re able to go when you’re doing something you love or while you’re sleep, one of those would be good. Rest in peace brother.

David Read
Absolutely. If you have to choose between debilitating illness or going out doing something that you love, I know what I would pick. I guess that really comes down to everybody and what their definition of debilitating illnesses. I loved him, I miss him and you just never know how long you have. I’ve got a few questions from fans.

Steve Bacic
Yeah, I’m sorry, that’s kind of moved me a little.

David Read
No, it’s all good. It’s all good. I appreciate your words for him. I think a lot of what you’re saying is very, very true in terms of how we live our lives and what it is that we have to remember that we’re here to accomplish before, or what we can choose to accomplish, before we return to wherever else we came from. Lockwatcher says, “you played Coburn in season three and four. Did you notice anything different between how production was going earlier in the show before you returned to Camulus in season eight or was it just like slipping back into the same production? Everything was running exactly the same?”

Steve Bacic
Um, I think the only difference was the level of knowing people on set and the familiarity. When I was playing the Coburn it was a little more nerves so my perception of things was probably a little bit more stressful. Playing a goa’uld and getting to wear that beautiful wardrobe, it was more me. I was not a stiff. Even though that character was very serious and straight faced there was that sense of mischief within him. For me personally, it was definitely a lot more creative, relaxed and fun. If I was doing straight on military or that sort of thing, I would have to find something within that character to keep me grounded that wasn’t just military. The character changed a lot of how I perceived or dealt with production.

David Read
Absolutely. Mack Bolans Conscience – he wants to know about Rhade [Rah-day]. Was your return to Andromeda always, I have not seen Andromeda just so you know, was your return to Andromeda…I know, it’s on my list. I have a long list. Was your returned to Andromeda always planned? General Maximus wants to know if you have any fond memories from that production?

Steve Bacic
No. I was in a pilot for Andromeda and they killed me. I remember Robert Hewitt Wolfe, who was the show runner, saying “it’s a shame we are killing you because we really like you.” I’m like, “well, it is sci-fi. You can always bring me back as my clone.” I actually threw that idea out there and people laughed at me. Oh I can’t believe you told Robert that, it was like a big deal. Well, that’s how they brought me back! I came back in a couple of flashbacks. I had no idea but I do remember when, I can’t remember Keith’s last name. They needed a replacement for him because he wasn’t gonna come back in season four. My ticket came up and I’m like “cool, let’s go.

David Read
Keith Cobb. Keith Hamilton Cobb? Wow, that is so cool. What a twist of fate.

Steve Bacic
I love that. Between seasons four and five I was doing a civil war film. I played a character who was a lot stiffer, a character guy who shaved and made a little goatee but he was really rigid and uptight. He’d gone off somewhere probably to the abyss and came a raging addict of something or everything, his ideology had collapsed. Everything he believed in had gone and you find him in some bar somewhere and now he’s got a beard and long hair. That was a lot of fun to play, getting to loosen it up a little bit and fight and really get into some of the comedy of the character that I always loved; trying to bring a little comedy with the action. That became a treat. That was a lot of fun. We were talking about a spin-off show as well with Kevin. The laughs were fun. I always love going for laughs and they let me loose. Even when I was stiff, I try to get a laugh.

David Read
Of course. Some of my favorite moments, even in Continuum, are Camulus rolling his eyes, like [rolls eyes]. He’s this far away from just knocking everyone out. It’s like, “I can’t believe I’m having to deal with this right now.” It’s registering all over your face.

Steve Bacic
There was so much of that, so much potential to keep going into something else. I think Kevin wanted to go and do a sitcom. A lot of it rode on his shoulders in terms of where we we’re gonna go after that. You never know where things are going to go whether in life or in the business. One of the bad things about this business is actors will bitch and complain about not having a gig. As soon as they get a gig they want to go home. It’s so funny. You know “when am I gonna go home?” It’s like “you’re fighting to get on this set. What are you doing, man? Enjoy it.”

David Read
“Now you want to get out of here? Come on, stick around. You may create something cool.”

Steve Bacic
We’re nutty. People are nutty.

David Read
Yeah, absolutely. That’s true. Philippe Canat wants to know, I don’t know if this is in jest or not – please tell us what is the fountain of youth you’re drinking water from? I think he thinks that you haven’t aged at all. Or maybe you’re in a sarcophagus.

Steve Bacic
Yeah, it’s a sarcophagus. I’m greying. I’ve got my Andromeda mug here. I think it was the summer of 2019 I became vegan. I’m not promoting it. That’s what I did, for personal health reasons. I think that’s definitely helped me regain some of my vitality, but you have got to be a healthy vegan. I am constantly moving, I have to move. When you were calling me I was going to the gym, my back was tweaked a little bit and I had to loosen it up. I hate not being able to go and workout full force. I am one of those people who stays away from the help. Not that there is anything wrong with it but a lot of people are on testosterone or growth. I’m trying to do this as long as I can just with my food and with activity. So humor, got to laugh at the stress and you have got to move. If you get stressed you have gotta move. [I think hereditary genetics some into it as well.] My mom was in her mid 80s when she passed and her skin was still great, was amazing. I think there was a little bit of Mongolian in her genes. I’m from Croatia but Genghis Khan came through that area. I don’t know if that’s some of it. I’m quite dark. I think I’m getting darker as age, it’s crazy. I don’t know what’s going on, plus the lighting in this room is actually really good. Trust me, I look like shit most of the time.

David Read
Steve, if you could have your choice of anything to work on for the full run of a TV series what would your dream role be? Would you want to do more comedy? Would you want to do more drama? More science fiction? What would your focus be to sink your teeth into a character for five, six seasons?

Steve Bacic
I own worst enemy? I like comfort, but I don’t like comfort. In the wisdom of it to maintain awareness and moment to moment activity, I would love a role that constantly challenges me. Some of the hardest things to do is comedy as well as the physical aspects of that. I love what I’m doing. I love making things. When I work on other productions I try to infuse humor, I try to infuse some form of complexity if they allow it. I dig sometimes a little too deep and sometimes I gotta back off. I don’t know if it would matter the type of role, but it would be something where I’d have to collaborate. [inaudible] My goal is never about self, I don’t try to make a scene about my character, myself. I try to make it about the story, what is going to move the story forward. I know it’s self-proclaimed and selfishness but I don’t believe I am selfish. I have no idea. [I would like] something with not too much fighting, a little bit of action, a bit of comedy. Of course, there has to be a depth, there has to be a cost to it.

David Read
How do you expect to get invested as an audience if there idn’t something to lose?

Steve Bacic
Exactly. I think that the best stories are relatable to us. Comedy is funniest when it’s based in truth. The problem these days is that you are not allowed to be an actor anymore. Everything’s a type; are you this, are you that? “No, this is me personally.” Even me, personally, is fluid. I don’t like to identify as anything, I want to be considered a human being. I want us all to consider each other as human beings. When I go to work, my chosen profession, I want to play other people. I want to play other situations and something that doesn’t necessarily line up directly with my sensibility. I want a little bit of a challenge.

David Read
You should be allowed to be clay that can be molded into many different shapes. It doesn’t mean you can do anything. But why not? Pretty close.

Steve Bacic
That’s the point of art. This is show business but in this particular form, what the audience experiences is the actor on the screen. Behind the actor is the director, writer, producer, yada, yada, yada, camera operators, all the crew, lunch lady, whoever, they’re all there. But what the audience is there to do is to see a story through to them, through the characters, through through the sets. You have got music, you have got dialogue, you have got the actors, even in the silence, it’s all designed. It’s something to be interpreted individually. We’re not there to just go “oh, that’s a bad guy, play a bad guy. That’s a so and so, just play a so and so.” Can’t name names, you know. It’s like, “no, my job is to convince you that even though I don’t seem this way, that’s who I am. That’s my job.” That’s what acting was but I don’t know what it is anymore. I have no idea.

David Read
I’ll never forget watching Hairspray for the first time. It said that John Travolta was in it. I think I’m talking about hairspray. I got to the end of it and I looked at the folks I was watching it with and I was like, “where was he?” “David, he was the mom.” It’s like, “Oh, yeah yeah.” I didnt know it was him. You get sucked so far into it that it’s nothing about who the person is in real life, not about their gender or whatever. It’s what they’ve molded themselves to be for that project. That was so cool. I went back and watched it and I’m like, “okay, I can see him but I wasn’t looking for him.”

Steve Bacic
The problem is today, I maybe the old guy saying “I remember in my day” but the problem is today that everybody with a phone is a celebrity. Let’s just take a look at influencers, for example. The ones that can sustain it, they have to actually start creating content. You don’t see ones that can sustain it for very, very long because to actually create content is hard, it becomes a skill set. There are a few that have gone and done very well and have a certain skill set. But just because an influencer or personality says something, it’s just a thing. It’s not based on a craft that say an actor or a musician or whoever, whatever art form you’re talking about, even athletes or even a good speech or anyone, to develop that mastery. I think today there’s a disrespect for process and it’s no wonder most of the stuff we’re seeing is shit. They’re not filling it with people who have earned that position, they’re just filling it, for whatever reason. I don’t disagree. I don’t disagree with a lot of the ideology, but the sort of application of that ideology doesn’t work because people are greedy by nature.

David Read
So you are against that, that people are greedy?

Steve Bacic
People of similar background, gender, whatever in the room, and they have to fight for roles. Trust me, they’re not going to give a shit that they’re similar. They’re gonna cut each other up, they’re gonna pull out the blades. Very few humans will lay down. I don’t care if it’s you know, it doesn’t matter, it’s so naive. Or it is sometimes worse than naive. It’s as if we the public are supposed to believe all this bullshit, like something is better than something else. It’s all subject to interpretation.

David Read
It’s subjective.

Steve Bacic
I don’t want to be in a situation where I’m being told, from one extreme to another extreme, how to think or what to believe. The problem is that most people are extremely lazy. I’m one of them where you go in and go, “oh, this is who I am.” I believe in that, but they don’t look behind the person. They don’t get person’s actions, their history, none of it because it is convenient to believe what you see. It supports what you believe and people don’t want to question their beliefs. I’m like, “no do it, question all of it.”

David Read
Don’t take anything for granted.

Steve Bacic
Nothing. Yeah, nothing. Gravity for now is free?

David Read
It does. It does suck.

Steve Bacic
Yeah, gravity will suck. Yeah, it’s good. I mean, otherwise, we wouldn’t be spinning around the sun, we’d be dead. We wouldn’t be here. We wouldn’t exist. I think what the powers to be rely on is how lazy we are. You can literally brand something and that’s the whole idea of brand. You trust it, you build this thing and you go and identify with that, this is my brand, that’s my gang or that’s my tribe. For me it’s about human, human tribe. Even though I was born in this country here [points to Croatian flag] and it was Yugoslavia before, which was a nightmare. It was socialist, it was really really bad. That doesn’t identify me. It’s where I’m from and I love my country but I realized that I’m not like other people because that’s where I’m from. I don’t want to fight anybody because we all gotta get along.

David Read
Yeah, if we’re gonna make it, absolutely, I completely agree. Teresa Mc – what is your feeling about ad libbing lines? Straying from the text a little bit? Is that something that you enjoy or do you feel like you as long as it’s being true to the texts?

Steve Bacic
I think it’s irresponsible to do it. For example, imagine you’ve spent six months writing a script and you’ve thought of the nuance, you have thought of what everything means and then you have someone coming in and go, “I’m just gonna go willy nilly.” Me as an actor, I’ve done that. Me as a writer, I’ve allowed that. But if it doesn’t line up with what my vision of it is as the writer or director or whatever I will allow it because sometimes a fresh set of eyes is good. Sometimes it’s just because they’re either too lazy, they don’t understand the text or they haven’t done the work and then I don’t like it. I’m very careful when I do it. I just did a reboot of a show for Hallmark. I was told by the director, “this is what I want this character to be.” I read the script and I said “do you mind if I give me some notes because the definition of that character is not evident in the script and we know the editor is going to have a field day with this if I come in with something different.” So they made some adjustments. On the day, I spoke to the other actor and I said “for our characters to work, we have to have some clear definition between your character and my character in terms of out relationship” because they wanted some comedy in there as well. That’s only gonna be clear if there are clear boundaries. I will start, I will ad lib something at the beginning, I’ll button a scene and usually I get a laugh off camera and it’s good but I do it in a way that “are you okay with this?” You always gotta be respectful. Check the temperature. Once one person starts to do it, everyone starts doing it and they’re not good at it. Not that I’m always good at it, I’m okay at at it because I look at the whole story. I don’t just look at it “well, this would be a clever line.” Some of the worst things you can do to a story is put out a clever line because it doesn’t line up with the story, it takes you out of the story.

David Read
It’s like you were saying, is it about you or is it not? Are you servicing the story?

Steve Bacic
A lot of actors, they won’t learn their lines apparently. They’ll come in and depending on their power position if it’s their show, or especially if it’s a comedy, the director might just “try this, try that, try that.” I like that. I personally think I am more creative out of structure. The greatest challenge is, they create the structure for you, “there’s the building, you got to go live in it. Let’s just see how you occupy this space. You do have some liberty, but not a lot. Try to make the best out of that.” It’s interesting, but it requires you not to be lazy. I think the best ad libbing comes from a place where you’ve got all the work done and now you can just be in the moment. If something comes up, it comes up. If they say “nope, don’t do that” you can fall back into the proper dialogue and it doesn’t throw you off. That’s just my process.

David Read
Steve, before I let you go, one last question and you opened this door. I’m really curious now about your birthday. What’s the story behind that?

Steve Bacic
Oh, yeah. I was born in former Yugoslavia at the time. You had to serve in the army so sometimes they didn’t give your birth date until a year later. I came from a small village and I think the registers were at least a few hours of walking away. I think maybe it was just the day my dad went over and said, “hey, I got another son.” It happened to be the 13th. I was born on the 9th but my legal birthday is the 13th. One of my sisters has 10 days between her birthdays, in two different months. Three out of the five kids, I think, have their real birthday. Who knows?

David Read
That’s wild. I was born on this day, but the document says this day.

Steve Bacic
I don’t really care about that as much. I used to care about in college because I could party between the 9th and the 13th. Let’s go.

Steve Bacic
Absolutely. I have my birthday week.

Steve Bacic
Where’s my damn gifts? Let’s go, five days of gifts. Didn’t work out, I never got that many gifts. We got annoyed.

David Read
Steve, this was really cool. I appreciate you taking so much time to talk about your work. I’m really excited for A Shrink A Flat and A Broken Key. Did I get it right?

Steve Bacic
A Shrink A Flat and A Broken Key. It’s causing me a lot of stress these days.

David Read
Well, as an editor, I am here. You just let me know. If you want me to take a look at it I’d be happy to. I think that you’ve you’ve got a vision and you’ve got the commitment to see it through to the end. You’re going to take your licks and you’re going to get through it and you’re going to come out the other end a bigger, better person as a result.

Steve Bacic
I don’t know. That’s the thing. I don’t know. It’s just experiences right? [inaudible] like things that turn out alright.

David Read
Right. Absolutely. Thank you so much for your time. What did you say?

Steve Bacic
If Camulus doesn’t kill you, he’ll just want something else from me. He’ll get you eventually.

David Read
Absolutely.

Steve Bacic
Let me give a shout out to my boy, see this right here, if I was quick. I’m gonna give a shout out to my boy Stipe Miocic, he was the UFC heavyweight champ. He’s from Cleveland actually, you’re in Chicago right?

David Read
Nashville, but my family’s from Chicago.

Steve Bacic
You’re in Nashville? Okay. Okay,

David Read
Yes sir.

Steve Bacic
He’s also a fellow Croat. Whenever I’m doing these things, I always have it as my background for whatever reason. He’s a good guy and I want him to get another shot at the heavyweight championship. That’s all I am going to say, before he retires.

David Read
Okay, Urius Tosh asked “did you ever consider becoming a pro wrestler?”

Steve Bacic
I played a pro wrestler.

David Read
I believe it. Absolutely

Steve Bacic
Yeah. No, I actually never considered it. Those people are real athletes. I’ve worked with the biz, Mike what was his last night name. Miss, the Miss? We did some marine, Marine Something Six. He was a real wrestler, my size, but they’re tough is heck. I’m not tough.

David Read
Marine 6[: Close Quarters], let me see here, Michael.

Steve Bacic
They called him Miz or the Biz

David Read
Shawn Michaels? The Miz. Mizanin.

Steve Bacic
That’s him.

David Read
Yeah. And WWE Superstars. Okay. Yeah. Wow, that’s wild.

Steve Bacic
I think he was on one of those shows first then he started doing movies.

David Read
Yeah. Steve, this has been great. Thank you so much for taking the time. Please stay in touch on this project. I’d love to hear about it.

Steve Bacic
I might pick your brain.

Steve Bacic
Sure thing. You have my number.

Steve Bacic
We might be coming to Nashville actually.

David Read
Oh, that’d be great.

Steve Bacic
We were supposed to be coming to Nashville. We were supposed to come for Creation.

David Read
Creation has a Nashville event?

Steve Bacic
That’s right. We were for Supernatural. Then it got pushed because of COVID other reasons. We just did it last summer? No, was it this year. I think it was this year.

David Read
Supernatural has a huge convention following. There are fans who are ravenous for that show.

Steve Bacic
Yeah. I had a pretty funny episode in that one too. So yeah, there you go.

David Read
I’m gonna wrap up the show on this end, sir. Thank you again for your time. You take care of yourself okay.

Steve Bacic
All the best. To all the fans, god bless.

David Read
Thank you, Steve. Be well. Steve Bacic, Coburn and Camulus in Stargate SG-1. And also Rhade [Rah-day] in Andromeda. I hope I’m pronouncing, R H A D E, I think that that’s correct. Before we let you guys go, I want to make sure to answer the questions that were given to me here. Jakub Olejarz – as a fan of Lost, have you seen From yet? And if yes, what do you think? What is From? So no, I have not. From, TV series. Let’s have a look at this thing. From stylized as From, American science fiction horror television created by John Griffin for Epics. Harold Perrineau, is in it. “Walt!” Eion Bailey. Okay. I have not seen this. Nightmarish town in middle America that traps everyone who enters. Unwilling residents strive to stay alive and search for a way out plagued by terrible nocturnal creatures in the surrounding forest. Okay. It actually reminds me a lot of a kind of…what was that show? When Amazon was first toying with television series, they produced a pilot and it was actually really good. It came out for one episode, The After. The After, that’s what that reminds me of. I kind of get that vibe from it. It was created by Chris Carter who did the X0Files and it was trying to go for like Dante’s levels of hell in the end of it. I will definitely check out From. Talking about Lost, I just started Manifest. I am about five or six episodes in because it just wrapped on Netflix. I’m not proud of this, but I don’t watch a show until it’s done so I know that it has like an ending, a serviceable ending to it. It’s the rare TV show that I will watch on a cliffhanger. I’m enjoying Manifest so far, it has a lot of the kind of the same energy as Lost. If you’ve not seen Lost, it’s my favorite television show. I cannot recommend it to folks enough. Jeremy – are we going to do something wacky for episode 200? There is a 200th episode planned with someone special. I’m just nailing down the information right now. Wacky will probably be episode 199. That’s what I will say about that, I’m still coordinating. We are barreling forward to 200. It’s interesting trying to line it all up because if I have the guest that I want to have for it, it’s gonna be interesting to coordinate for sure Teresa Mc – do you have in your collection models to scale to show their size comparison if they were actual size? I do not, I just have the space for them to fit on my shelf. There is a Stargate ship scale map, you can you can Google it. It’s pretty legit and of course I can’t pull it up. Let’s see if I can pull this up here and it’s a postage stamp in size. Let me show you this real quick. There are assets that you can get online that do show those, I just don’t happen to have. They were built for shelf size, not so much for scale with one another. I think that’s what we have here for everybody. Thank you so much for tuning into DialtheGate. Thanks again to Steve Bacic for joining me. Thanks so much to Antony for moderating this episode, for making the show possible. To my Producer Linda “GateGabber” Furey and my webmaster Frederick Marcoux who keeps DialtheGate up and running. This coming week. I’m planning to have Gwynyth Walsh coming on to talk about her role as Egeria. That’s going to be a pre-recorded episode, she’s not going to be on live for that. That’s currently slated for this coming Saturday, June the 17th at 11 Pacific. I may move it around depending on who else I get because I want to line up the runway for 200. Stargate Trivia 9 hosted by Colin Cunningham, that’s going to be this Saturday June the 17th at noon Pacific time. Rob Fournier, the armorer, one of the armorers for Stargate SG-1, Atlantis and Universe the following Saturday, June the 24th at 12 Noon. Of course on June the 18th at 1pm Pacific, Wormhole X-Tremists is going to be back for Learning Curve and Point of View. That’s all the news that’s fit to print. I appreciate you tuning in. This series is just continuing to grow and I appreciate everyone for watching. Thanks again to Steve Bacic for making this episode possible. My name is David Read for DialtheGate and I’ll see you on the other side.