We’ve been watching Brian J Smith as FBI Agent Lennix in his new series, Class of ’09 on FX, and can’t wait to sit down and discuss the project with him along with more memories from Stargate Universe and his new documentary!

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Timecodes
0:00 – Opening Credits
00:25 – Welcome and Episode Outline
01:43 – “A House is Not A Disco” Documentary
11:13 – Class of ’09 and AI
19:13 – Working with Kate Mara
22:29 – Lennix Character Development
25:36 – Closing Thoughts on Class of ’09
36:45 – Filming the episode “Air”
38:37 – SGU, Alaina Huffman, and Sense8
42:27 – Fan Questions: First day filming SGU
44:12 – Filming SGU on the last day
45:46 – Starting SGU with a clean slate
47:30 – Any hints for the ending of SGU?
48:16 – Cont’d: Coming back for future Stargate
49:31 – Stepping through the Stargate
50:42 – Red Faction
52:43 – Life Advice
58:02 – Wrapping up with Brian
58:51 – Post-Interview Housekeeping
1:00:21 – End Credits

***

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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read
Hello everyone, and welcome to episode 192 of Dial the Gate the Stargate Oral History Project. My name is David Read, thank you so much for joining me on this Sunday. Brian J. Smith is joining us in this episode to bring us up to speed on what he’s been up to, and discuss something that you should be watching right now because it is very prescient, Class of ’09 on Hulu. Before we bring him in, if you enjoy Stargate and you want to see more content like this on YouTube, please click that Like button. It makes a difference with YouTube’s algorithm 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 the Subscribe icon. And giving the Bell icon to click will notify you the moment a new video drops and you’ll get my notifications of any last minute guest changes. And clips from this livestream will be released over the course of the next few weeks on both the Dial the Gate and GateWorld.net YouTube channels. As this is a live show, if you are in the YouTube chats I have moderators in there, Tracy and Antony today. And they will be looking for questions for Brian that I will then give him in the back half of the show. Brian J. Smith, First Lieutenant Matthew Scott of Stargate Universe and currently Lennix on Class of ’09. What is his position? He’s not a director, is he… What is he Brian?

Brian J. Smith
What was he? I think when it starts in the present storyline, I think he said he’s became an Associate Executive.

David Read
It’s so winding and ridiculous.

Brian J. Smith
I mean, it’s like the FBI has all of these crazy ranks. And I mean…

David Read
It’s crazy.

Brian J. Smith
I don’t know, I did look it up. I mean, we did go to Quantico. And we talk to a lot of FBI people. So I asked them like, “What is this position? What was going on?” They’re like, “Oh, yeah, that’s pretty high up there. You got pretty high up there.” So, that’s all I know. Pretty high up.

David Read
Well I want to talk about this show a fair bit. How are you? You were in Atlanta to shoot this, you’re back in New York. How are things going and what’s going on for you right now?

Brian J. Smith
You know, it’s great. You know, of course, we’re in the middle of the WGA strike right now. And so, things are a little bit weird, but just actually a surprising amount of stuff that’s filming these days. That’s interesting. But yeah, you know, back in the city survived the wildfire smoke.

David Read
Oh, geez, man. Those photos were wild.

Brian J. Smith
Yeah, there was one time I stepped outside when it was really in the thick of it, and I was like, “Wow.” Like I actually got… I felt sick. It was so overwhelming, the smell. And just you felt off. So that was weird. But yeah, I did another mini series that I’m hoping makes it to a streamer near you. Who knows when, I have no idea how these things work. I just, you know, memorize my lines.

David Read
“I put in my days!”

Brian J. Smith
That’s way above my paygrade. And the other big thing that I’ve just been working on, a documentary, since… we were planning it I think when I talked to you last year, we were in the very early stages of pre-production and filmed all summer of last year, pretty much, a good part of the fall, good part of the winter and some early spring of this year. So we got about 140 hours of footage.

David Read
Wow.

Brian J. Smith
We are sort of in the process of turning all of that material into a feature length documentary film. And it’s been awesome. It’s been, like, the most fun I’ve ever had.

David Read
OK, so what’s the title and what’s it about?

Brian J. Smith
The title is A House is not a Disco. And it is a documentary that’s, like, a year in the life of the Fire Island Pines, which is this gay beach community off Great South Bay on Long Island that kind of became famous in the 70s, went through a really dark time in the 80s with the AIDS crisis, and is sort of right now going through a very interesting rebirth and a renaissance. So yeah, we stayed out there kind of embedded in the community for a year and we wanted to see what is it like to live and work and play in a totally queer homonormative community. It’s this little experiment in queerness. You know, running a town, feeding a town, ruling a town, right?

David Read
So the whole community, OK.

Brian J. Smith
I mean, listen, it’s predominantly, predominantly queer. But there are straight people that live out there, of course. It’s the only place in the world that’s really run by, and for, queer people, really. It’s the only one.

David Read
OK. Wow. Now, are you on camera? Are you behind the camera?

Brian J. Smith
Behind camera. Yeah. So, directing, producing…

David Read
You directed this?

Brian J. Smith
I directed it. Yeah.

David Read
Congratulations. Wow, dude.

Brian J. Smith
It was an interesting thing. I mean, it’s an interesting thing to direct a documentary, because I actually feel like a lot of it really is just bringing in people who are interesting in front of the camera, and then sort of like, maintaining and bringing together our crew and our production team — Director of Photography, our ‘Producer’ Producer, our sound people — you know, it’s kind of keeping the ship just not sinking to the bottom. That’s most of my job. Yeah, it’s been incredible. It’s actually, probably, the most creatively fulfilling thing I’ve ever done.

David Read
What has this taught you? Personally, and professionally?

Brian J. Smith
Well, there’s just this whole other side of my brain. I feel like that it’s not an appropriate side of the brain for an actor to ever use, that I like to use, that I’ve never gotten to until now. I feel like it’s, you know, I get to be conceptual and intellectual and thinking in terms of the big picture, right? Like acting, when it is going well, is more like an athletic event. You know, you’re not thinking at all, you’re just reacting to the ball, and you’re trying to just be as present as you possibly can be, which just really does not involve thinking at all. So, yeah, I think this is something I would love to keep doing. I’ve got some other ideas for some other films to make. And yeah, it’s been just wild. Absolutely, just totally the most fun I’ve had.

David Read
Do you have a distributor yet?

Brian J. Smith
No, but we got… you know, the way this thing works is you… the documentary production world is very, very, very interesting and it’s different than the narrative world, right? It’s very, it’s the Wild West. You’re very much on your own, in a lot of ways, until you complete your film. So right now if we can get to a rough cut, that’s the thing that we’ll use to start shopping it around, and then hopefully you get a distributor, like a streamer or a studio, to come on board and help you with the finishing costs and help you get it to festivals, and then it lands online somewhere. And hopefully somewhere good, you know, like on a Showtime or an HBO.

David Read
Of course, more eyeballs.

Brian J. Smith
Right.

David Read
How much more shooting do you think that you have before you get your first locked cut? How far are you?

Brian J. Smith
We’re pretty much done filming. There’s just one other little thing I need to get at to feel like I’ve filmed everything I wanted to film. And we, I think, are going to do that this summer. But you know, right now it’s just all about the edit. It’s all about turning this hybrid mix of interviews, live action scenes, tons of beautiful B-roll. You know, turning it into a film that takes the audience on a journey for an hour and a half or so. And that’s also, for me, been a very fascinating process to think about how you structure a film. These are things I’ve always thought about and that I’ve always wanted to play around with and that, again, I think that there’s oftentimes, if you’re an actor, it’s just like, “Oh, that’s cute. How cute of you to want to do this. Go sit in your cast chair, and we’ll bring you a coffee. Be quiet, please.” Because every actor wants to direct, I mean, come on. Every actor thinks that, you know, “I’m not being used. I’m not being utilized.” Or whatever. So that’s me doing that now, basically.

David Read
Of course. I mean, you ask a handful of creative people, you know, “What do you want to do in your life?” and so many of them will have, “Oh, I’ve got this idea for a novel in the back of my head,” that they never get to, and I imagine for a lot of actors, it’s, “A shot at directing at some point.” You know, taking the reins and seeing what you’re made of, seeing if you’ve got some metal and some scrap to you. So I’m thrilled to hear that you are doing this. This is really cool. And please keep me in the loop. Please keep us in the loop. We’d love to support it.

Brian J. Smith
Absolutely. I will. I totally will.

David Read
We have been watching — I have been watching, and some of them, I’m sure — Class of ’09. Six of the eight episodes have aired, and I suspect that when it was shot, you guys didn’t realize just how prescient it would be in terms of the advancement of technology and how much Artificial Intelligence has spooked us in the last eight or nine months. Tell us about this project and how science fiction is quickly overtaking and becoming science fact.

Brian J. Smith
Here we are, I mean, it’s happening. We, literally, when we were filming this last, like a year ago, it would have been, I think we finished filming I want to say in April? Like late-April, something like that? This discussion of AI was like not a thing. I mean, it was a thing, it was like a science fiction concept…

David Read
It was abstract.

Brian J. Smith
It was abstract, yeah. “What if?” And now, literally, when ChatGPT hit the interwebs, it felt like everything started escalating really, really fast. And they’re already — I was just reading, I think in The Times, or maybe it was the New Yorker today — that this language learning model AI might have already started showing some kind of weird signs of prescience.

David Read
Depending on who you talk to, and there’s gonna be other people on the other side, just as many, who are saying, “Well, you’re reading too much into it.” But it’s already convincing people to kill themselves.

Brian J. Smith
‘Ey?

David Read
Yeah, I’ll send you the story. There’s a couple of them.

Brian J. Smith
Oh my…

David Read
To save the planet.

Brian J. Smith
No! That’s wild!

David Read
At what point — I mean, let me insert this and then I’ll let you get back to discussing the show — at what point does it make any difference what the nature of this creation of our genius really is, if we’re killing ourselves already because of it? At the end of the day, in the final analysis, what difference is it in terms of whether it’s truly sentient or not? I think what matters is what we’re doing with it. And I think what Class of ’09, at the fundamental essence of what that is about, is what we’re doing with the technologies that we’ve invented, what we’re doing to each other. I’m sorry, but please, pray, continue.

Brian J. Smith
No, it’s true. I mean, of course, like, Class of ’09, really looks at AI through a very specific lens. It’s really trying to explore AI’s role in national security and surveillance. You know, so it’s less about these chat bots and stuff like that. It’s got a lot more to do with like, imagine there’s a terrorist attack that happens in the States that’s so, so appalling, so brazen, that was launched by, you know, let’s say, a right wing, white supremacist sort of movement, which we’re probably getting close to something like that, you know. If technology existed to stop it, don’t we have a responsibility to use that technology, rather than just fussing and clutching our pearls about how bad the technology could be? Right? That’s like one of the major dilemmas, I think, that Class of ’09 is… Oh, hi. Hi.

David Read
Who’s this?

Brian J. Smith
This is Pippa. This is my…

David Read
Can we meet Pippa?

Brian J. Smith
Say hi.

David Read
Ah, hello, Pippa. She can’t hear me, but anyway. She’s beautiful, Brian.

Brian J. Smith
Ain’t she pretty?

David Read
She is. Ah. Let’s take a step back, [for] people who haven’t [seen it] yet. What is this? Can you tell us what Class of ’09 is, in its essence, and the three time periods and how the story is told?

Brian J. Smith
Yeah, so at it’s core, Class of ’09 is about a gifted, sort of extraordinary class of FBI recruits who start off in 2009. And it follows their relationship with each other, and their relationship with the FBI over the course of three decades. So you see them when they’re in their late 20s, early 30s, all the way up to when they’re in their 50s. I’ve been telling people it’s really about the way institutions change us, the institutions that we work with in our careers, you know, how they mold us as the years pass, and also how we, in turn, change — and should change — some of the institutions that we are a part of, like the FBI.

David Read
It’s been extraordinary to watch because, well, my favorite show of all time is Lost, and it effectively takes place, at the end of the day, in really three different time periods. And so much of the story is how it’s told, not so much what it’s told. And I’m watching this thing and seeing so much of, “Oh, wow, I wonder how this is going to turn out at the end of this thing. Oh, we’re getting that in this episode!” Because it’s a fever pitch in terms of the velocity of the storytelling. Now that you’ve told me it’s a limited series, it’s one season, period, now I get it. Because it doesn’t miss a beat. Like, things that would lend themselves to a second or third or perhaps final season, we see right then and there. And so anyone who wants a brisk story experience and not having to wait around for the answers, this is one to watch. And the sci fi premise, in terms of AI and how we create tools and how they can run away from us, is all there. And again, it’s happening before our eyes.

Brian J. Smith
Yeah, also too, the drones. We definitely get into the way that the FBI could conceivably start using drones for security purposes in the future. It’s so interesting to think about it. So that was, again, I feel like… the Russia invasion of Ukraine happened while we were filming. Yeah, that was in the late winter, early spring, I think. It’s just been interesting to see that the role that drones are now going to be playing in modern warfare just going forward from now. So again, that was just something that was in the show, and we had no idea that that would feel as prescient as it has now.

David Read
Who was the most rewarding to work with in front of the camera?

Brian J. Smith
Oh, man. I mean, I had so much of my work to do with Kate Mara. And that was a trip because I’d been a big fan of hers. I mean, she’s one of those actresses that you cannot believe the movies that she’s popped up in. And then I think people really got to know her through House of Cards.

David Read
Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

Brian J. Smith
And you know, she’s just really, really memorable. And yeah, I remember we had to do sort of like a chemistry read but we did it over Zoom.

David Read
Oh, man.

Brian J. Smith
That was how we… a lot of that’s still happening. That’s still how the industry is casting things right now. Like casting offices are a thing of the past, in general, and now people are doing most of the auditioning over Zoom, which is like this. It’s just literally like this. Kate was there on the top of screen, I was seeing myself there on the bottom of the screen and you’re reading these words with this person trying to figure out like, “Do we have chemistry?” or whatever. But she was great. She was really just a trip to [work with]. She’s such a leader too. I mean, she’s a very… the Kate Mara experience is also like who she is off camera, you know. She’s strong, and she’s kind and compassionate, and also, like, you know, not to be screwed with. She has a very, very finely tuned bullshit meter, and you better have it together, or she’s not going to put up with it. She’ll help if she can, you know, but that’s not to say that she is in any way mean or mean-spirited or a bully or got any… the absolute opposite. I can’t tell you, she’s one of those people that you so desperately want her to like you. And she’s so eager and so generous with that liking-ness, that she was just incredible. And also too, just to watch her work. The way that she… there’s something — some people have this and she’s one of them — that she actually becomes the most interesting version of herself when the camera turns on. And I’ve seen it happen a few times.

David Read
There’s a switch that they flip.

Brian J. Smith
Yeah, she’s even more confident, and even more free somehow. She would probably not agree with me, if you asked her that, you know? My insides though, I’m nervous, I don’t know where that goes. Because you can’t see it.

David Read
Yeah, but if you’re delivering, what difference does it make? That’s the thing. She has been great to watch. I have enjoyed her in this more than I have in House of Cards, because I think that her toolbox has grown, in terms of the things that she uses and deploys on screen.

Brian J. Smith
It’s a great part for her, too.

David Read
Exactly right, absolutely. It’s a little bit of everything. I was debating whether or not to utter this complaint on screen. Oh, but I’m gonna. OK.

Brian J. Smith
It’s alright.

David Read
Dude, you, by a considerable margin, have had the least character development on screen, and it’s pissed me off. Because of the four — and you may disagree — of the four, the three others have been explored to a considerable degree. And I’m like, “Where’s Brian? I want more, Brian! I want more of my friend!”

Brian J. Smith
I mean, thank you. I wish I could say that that was something that was in the script, you know? But no, I think it’s very much… It was by design. There’s such a thing as foreground and background, right, in a story. And obviously, I think, for me, the foreground elements — and I always knew this, it’s very apparent even when you read the scripts, right — Kate is foreground, Brian Tyree is foreground. Those are the two major movers of the story, in some way. My character is there to illuminate certain things about Kate’s character, right. Also to illuminate certain aspects of her relationship with Hour, Sepideh’s character. It’s this kind of, you know, little triangle here. So, you know, you learn these things, right. And it’s like, “Yeah, I got it. It’d be great if I could meet my parents.”

David Read
Right. They’re referenced several times.

Brian J. Smith
Yeah, it’d be great if I had, you know, certain beats where I could, you know… but, you know, listen, I’m a jobbing actor. I think some people kind of go in and they go, “Ah! I’m gonna rewrite this. I need more blah, blah, blah, blah.” I just, I don’t do that. I can’t.

David Read
You’re not going to William Shatner it.

Brian J. Smith
I’d get fired. We’re not all…we can’t all be like that, you know. You know, and I enjoy that. My job is always to try to help the writer and the director realize their dream for this piece of writing. And you know, beyond that, it’s just not my place.

David Read
You’re there to facilitate the documents, you know, and make a great show. Yeah, absolutely. But I, as an audience member, I’m going to complain, so I just wanted to get that out there.

Brian J. Smith
Look it’s totally valid. And it’s these things that you are constantly, as a writer, I’m sure, trying to balance. It’s like, “Do I throw things out of whack if we know too much about this person?” You know, every time you do that, you have to take away a little bit from someone else.

David Read
We’ve got two episodes left. When everything is said and done, do you feel that this project will come away with more of a warning about the future? Are we going to be left with hope? Are we going to be left in ruins? What do you think? Have you seen it?

Brian J. Smith
Yeah. Well, no I haven’t seen the last episode. I’ve actually only seen the first five. I haven’t even seen episode six.

David Read
OK.

Brian J. Smith
I feel like, based on what I read, which I’m pretty sure is going to be like… I can’t imagine them changing the ending drastically from what we did. But without giving anything away, I think it’s become clear after episode five that the story very much becomes about the effort to deal with the system from the inside, right? And I think that that’s kind of a…

David Read
We have kind of a Skynet situation on our hands at this point.

Brian J. Smith
A Skynet?

David Read
…situation on our hands at this point. Yeah.

Brian J. Smith
What is a Skynet? What is that?

David Read
Terminator. The infrastructure that gives birth to these robotic machines that take over the earth.

Brian J. Smith
Oh, interesting. Right, right. Yeah, I know what you’re saying. I think it becomes about, you know, what responsibility do people have that are on the inside of these institutions to deal with, or try to, fix these threats as they arise?

David Read
Yeah. It’s been a wild ride and I’m looking forward to seeing how it resolves. It’s available on Hulu. I’ve enjoyed watching it. There’s a lot more than what we’ve just said. I think the things that have really hit me the hardest are the implications of how we, as a society, change across time. One of my favorite scenes was when they were in the Tesla and the girls were considered suspects by the system, just because Kate had manual control of the car. And we can see where that’s going. Like, once that technology becomes ubiquitous, people of that era are going to be like, “Why would you dare endanger other people by having manual control of a two-ton piece of metal? Why? Are you that important?” So we can see where that goes.

Brian J. Smith
Right, that’s a really good point. It is a really, it was a very… it was all these little interesting things that they put in about the future, you know, about I think it’s like, what 20…

David Read
Yeah, 2034.

Brian J. Smith
You know, the idea that yeah, once we start having self-driving cars that are reliably safe — not only the prospect of driving a car be just ridiculous — you’re also allowing the state the possibility of taking over your car.

David Read
Absolutely. You give them a good enough excuse, absolutely they’re going to.

Brian J. Smith
And again, it’s that sort of conundrum of it, right? Do you want to live in a world, in a country, that is so safe that you don’t even have to have a gate up around the White House anymore? Do you want to live in a country that is so safe, that you don’t have to worry about mass shootings anymore, right? Well, if you want that, you’re going to have to live in a country that has an absolutely authoritarian, statist surveillance system in place to stop people from potentially committing crimes. That’s the solution. So, do you want that or do you not? And that’s, you know, one of the major dilemmas of the story.

David Read
Right yeah, abolutely. “I want it as long as my guy is involved.” But then when an election changes, you know, and then those tools become available to another guy, it’s like, you really have to take the long view in a lot of these situations. It’s like, “OK, what is it that we’ve given birth to that…” You have to explore all the options. “OK, we’ve created this. Now, what can it potentially do?” And I get nervous around people who are like, “Never be designed to do that. That’s not possible.” Why the heck not? If the system is in place… It’s a wild show, man, and I’m glad that you’re a part of it, and it’s been great to watch and I’m looking forward to seeing how it ends.

Brian J. Smith
Yeah, me too. Me too. Yeah. I’m sure it’ll be great. You know, I do remember… because you’re not just ending the future story lines, you’re also ending — I do believe when you get to the last episode — you’re also ending the present storyline, and you’re also ending the past storyline as well. So it’s like each of these things all sort of come together.

David Read
The three different peaks of their lives. They’re graduating from school, you know… How much of filming was done at Quantico? Was any filming done at Quantico?

Brian J. Smith
No, no filming was at Quantico. We found… there’s a couple buildings in Atlanta that sort of had that same red brick 19- late 80s sort of structure that they do have at Quantico.

David Read
So you guys rebuilt Hogan’s Alley, you rebuilt all of it.

Brian J. Smith
Hogan’s Alley was a… what was that set? Where was that?

David Read
Looks like a small town square.

Brian J. Smith
It was a small town square, yeah. It was like this little fairytale town square. It was about two hours, I think, outside of Atlanta. Very interesting place, and we actually did go to Quantico, and see the actual Hogan’s Alley, which was just absolutely fascinating. And they had every conceivable model of home with different stair situations, mobile homes, kitchen configurations. We actually got to watch a scenario play out, where we were inside the house, just pretending like we weren’t there, and there’s someone in the house and the two trainees, FBI trainees, had come in and deal with an interview. That they had some questions for someone at the house, and then something pretty crazy happens and they have to figure out how to react to it. And you can see how fast things really can get out of control and how just constantly alert and present these folks have to be in these situations, because it can change in a millisecond.

David Read
It’s like law enforcement, you know, they’re not allowed to have a bad day. Law enforcement, caregivers, a couple others, you know. We put these people in impossible situations and expect superhuman qualities from them.

Brian J. Smith
Well, that’s the AI. We expect them to be like AI. We expect them to have the super, absolute prescience and zero percent of failure rate as a machine would have, right? And then that’s the point of AI then, you know, so if that’s what we want, wouldn’t you want to have that… If you could guarantee that no one will be wrongly shot, or that some kind of situation won’t be misunderstood and get out of hand, wouldn’t you want that? It’s a conundrum. We don’t solve it. You can’t really solve it.

David Read
No, no. You’re supposed to ask the questions, though. Tayo’s arc is really… his wife comes under attack. She’s assaulted on her front doorstep. And it’s like, you completely understand why these people have come the direction that they’ve come, but I think we’re even beginning to watch, in terms of the episodes that have been released, his transformation that, you know, “If I want to turn this thing off, can I?” We’ve seen how far it can go. You can have absolute safety, but at what cost? How much of humanity have you surrendered to this system? So it’s, I think a perfectly applicable story for our times.

Brian J. Smith
It’s also really interesting, you know, Tayo’s character being African American, right. And having seen how bad corrupt cops and racist cops can be, we know that they’re not like the majority, we know that they’re very…

David Read
No, but they exist.

Brian J. Smith
And he had an encounter with one of them, as a child, right. And it’s interesting that that encounter is the thing that inspired him to want to actually take human error out of the equation when it comes to law enforcement. Totally. It’s those things when law enforcement makes mistakes, we as a public go, “We don’t want those mistakes. We need to erase them and the possibility that they exist.” If you want that to happen, you have to give the system up to machines, you have to give the system up to AI, and what do you give up when you do that, right? These are the ethical conundrums we’re in right now. We have to ask these questions. We have to figure out what the hell we’re doing. Like right now, we’re not doing that. We’re just careening toward this escalation where these companies are trying to outdo each other to get to like the most…

David Read
“What can we make?”

Brian J. Smith
Yeah. And the military wants to know, too. Of course the military has a vested interest in having AI robot soldiers. You know, they’re already looking into it. And it’s, I don’t know, man, it’s… what times we live in.

David Read
Yeah, the Boston Dynamics dogs, you know, we’re already using them in the field to help carry our equipment. You know, you arm these things, you get them running fast enough, they can take out a human. So it’s just wild stuff. May you live in interesting times. All right. I never asked you when you guys were filming Air, your trip to White Sands, New Mexico, one of my favorite places on the earth. What was that experience like out there on the dunes?

Brian J. Smith
Hot!

David Read
So there was no acting involved in that.

Brian J. Smith
Oh, it was so hot. But the sand was like, cold. Cold to the touch, right? It’s like that white sand is completely reflective, so there was no heat absorbing it all, very bizarre. Yeah, that was so cool. That was one of those moments where you’re just looking around, getting on a helicopter, with a camera crew getting dropped off like a mile outside of base camp and being filmed, you know, with nobody else. Literally, I remember they dropped me off in the middle of that desert with a radio and some water and said, “Alright, just walk this way, we’re going to have the helicopter come around and follow you.” Of course, these days you do that with drones, right? But back then, when we were doing SGU, all those aerials had to be filmed with a camera-mounted helicopter. And we don’t do that anymore.

David Read
No. Well, in this case, you know, you can be dropped off and leave no footprints.

Brian J. Smith
Exactly. Yeah.

David Read
The production value that was poured into that show, even by today’s standards, is just staggering.

Brian J. Smith
They really put a lot of money into making it look super, super, super high-end and super, super, super top-shelf, and man, they did a great job. I haven’t seen it actually, in a while. I should go back and watch it. Every once in a while, it’s kind of fun to go back and look at your younger self, you know, aghast.

David Read
Alaina came on, and a few days later — oh gosh, her Spaniels are gorgeous, just gorgeous, and I didn’t realize that she had also gotten one or two, like when you did when you got Cassie — but a couple of days after she had come on, she posted online that she was rewatching the show and she was like, “Yeah, this was… I mean, I knew it was good, but this is good. This is a great experience.” And I’d be interested to hear your take on the show.

Brian J. Smith
I think it’s probably one of those shows that, you know… I even felt this a little bit with Sense8, I remember when Sense8 came out everybody was just kind of like, “What the hell is this?” The critics didn’t like it, people were just kind of like, the present-day reaction to it was very negative.

David Read
Wachowski’s are on another wavelength, you know. I mean, you have to get them, you have to be in their space or you’re not going to get it.

Brian J. Smith
But then you go back and you look at Rotten Tomatoes now for a Sense8, and it’s like, you wouldn’t know that that was the initial reaction at all. And like, a lot of those reviewers, I shit you not, like this is why I roll my eyes at critics, they went back and recanted their negative reviews. And it’s just really interesting, right? I’m not saying that people get things wrong, but it’s just funny how our ability to watch things freshly and, I don’t know, kindly. You may not have the ability to do that in the moment. And I think that that was probably the same thing with SGU. I mean, we were always in the shadow of the franchise people wanted, understandably, wanted the thing that they were being given for decades, you know. So I think that now, with a little bit of time, I think people will find SGU as its own sort of thing, I think will probably appreciate it in a way that they wouldn’t have been given the chance to with all that negative feedback in the air that was happening when we first came out.

David Read
What friendships from that era have really withstood the test of time for you?

Brian J. Smith
Oh, gosh. I mean, I would say all [of them]. I mean, I haven’t seen any of them for a while. I mean, David Blue, of course. But he lives in LA, I live in New York, it’s difficult to meet up. But anytime I’ve been in LA I’ve made sure to go see him and say hi and hang out, because David’s the best. He’s so sweet. All of them. There’s not a single person on that cast that I wouldn’t jump at the chance to see them if they were around and wanted to say hi. It was a very special experience. It was very sweet. It was a very sweet experience, you know. I get this little nostalgic feeling when I look back on it, right? We had a great time, and it was a great time for me too at that point in my life. It was just a great… it came right when I needed it to, and it gave me a lot of confidence, and it taught me a lot of stuff. I have nothing but great vibes when I think about SGU.

David Read
Lockwatcher wants to know about your first day on set.

Brian J. Smith
On SGU? Sorry, SGU, my first… No, oh my gosh. First day filming, I don’t remember. I don’t remember what my first day filming was. I think we might have been doing the exterior of the Icarus base when it gets attacked by the bad guys and we’re on a cliff, and there’s a big gun, right? There was a scene that took place when we all kind of meet each other for the first time there and I think that was my first day. I was terrified, I was nervous. I’d never been on a TV show like that before. I knew that a lot of money had been spent. You know, you’re there and you’re thinking, “Oh my god, I hope I don’t get fired. Are they sure that they didn’t mix my headshot up accidentally with the person that they really wanted to cast it in this?” You really do think about those things. Believe it or not, yeah. But it was so thrilling, we were at Bridge Studios there, in Vancouver. And that was just a fantastic place to work. It felt like our family. God, now it’s just all these memories just kind of washing over me. What can I say? It was just magical.

David Read
What about your last day?

Brian J. Smith
Oh, last day. I remember, we filmed a scene, we might have filmed… I think we did film, for those of us who did go back into the pods, we did film those last, I think.

David Read
Were those done after the Thanksgiving scene? The Thanksgiving scene, I love that scene.

Brian J. Smith
Is that when we’re all around the table? Yeah, that was our last day all together. For sure. I don’t know if that was my last day on set specifically, but that was the last time that we were all together. And we didn’t know at that point, if we were coming back or not. We didn’t find out until I think a couple months later that the show wasn’t coming back. So, at that point there was still a little bit of hope, right? But I think we knew at that [point]. The show was airing already at that point, the ratings were you know, not stellar by any metric. So it did feel like a goodbye, and it did feel like we got to have a little bit of a goodbye, a little bit. It would have been nice, of course, to maybe have one more season or something to round the thing out, but hey, that’s life in the circus.

David Read
Exactly right. “Where do I stand and what do I say? OK. OK.” General Maximus, you’re starting a new series, 15 seasons of established story and mythology, how much did you have to fight off the knowledge that you were coming into this established machine? And did you spend a lot of time just focusing on starting something fresh with a clean slate? Or did none of that occur at all and you were just there to shoot your day?

Brian J. Smith
Yeah, it didn’t, I really didn’t know anything at all about… I went and watched some other episodes from the franchise just so I…

David Read
The feel.

Brian J. Smith
The feel of what was done before, but we were so clearly doing something that was so much different that, it was a different show. Let’s be honest, it was a different show. It was not, you know… So to answer your question, no, I was totally, blissfully ignorant coming in of any kind of expectations around us in relation to the rest of the franchise. We just had so many… it was such a big undertaking, it was a massive production with a lot of elements in it, and we were just wanting to do the best job that we could possibly do, as you normally do. So it wasn’t until later that you kind of realize, “Oh, shoot. Wow, there’s like an existing fan base and they…” Just, I hadn’t even thought of it, I really hadn’t even considered it going in.

David Read
Jamie Hunter wanted to know, were you given any hints about the future of the show, beyond what you guys had shot?

Brian J. Smith
I don’t remember, I don’t think so, I don’t think so. I think that they were pretty… I do think that obviously, those guys always know, right? They’ve got their beat sheets and treatments of what they want to do next season. They’re thinking about that stuff as they write the season that they’re in, always right? I would be interested in knowing. And it’s interesting that we don’t know. It’s so funny in shows like this, in franchise shows, there’s always just this little… they don’t want to completely let go. They don’t want to completely — and I mean the creators and the people that are in it — There’s always a little space like, “I mean, will we come back in like 30 years, for like a reunion show or something?”

David Read
Things happen.

Brian J. Smith
But you never count on it, you never expect it. Who knows? I’ve certainly never been approached by… I know that they’re going to start doing other Stargate things, right? They are going to start doing other Stargate shows.

David Read
Amazon’s tinkering right now with something. How concrete it is, is a question for deliberation. But yeah, there is certainly that aspect, and Philippe Canat wanted to know, and I think we’ve asked you this before, how willing would you be to jump back in?

Brian J. Smith
Sure. Yeah. Why not?

David Read
Absolutely.

Brian J. Smith
I’m game, you know. I’m like Nike, you know, just do it.

David Read
Yeah, absolutely. Teresa MC, would you step through the Stargate or would you want to stay earthside?

Brian J. Smith
I don’t know. I think I would. I mean, it’s like “Oh, it sounds kind of cool, you know.” But if I really think about it, and I was really in my room right now there was a Stargate, and the idea that I was going to sort of be dematerialized and thrust through a wormhole, you know, so I… it’d be like bungee jumping. I’d probably have that same feeling of you’re standing over, you’re about to jump into this overwhelmingly terrifying situation, I would imagine that’s actually the same thing. [The] feeling of going into Stargate, the reality of it would be like, “Oh, shi…. yeah, yeah, yeah, I don’t know.”

David Read
Absolutely. Some of those situations, you can’t really tell how you’d respond unless you were faced with it. It’s like, “OK, so this is reality here, so what am I gonna do? Well, let’s let a few thousand people go first, and then I’ll think about it. Let’s see what the survival rate is.”

Brian J. Smith
Yeah, “You guys go. Let me know how it is.”

David Read
Right, exactly. Red Faction, does that ring a bell to you?

Brian J. Smith
Oh, Red Faction. Yeah.

David Read
Mack Bolan’s Conscience, I remember the Red Faction movie. How did you like the movie, and would you act in more movies based on video games, like Warhammer?

Brian J. Smith
Yeah, that was, I remember this was, this was a while ago. But there was this whole thing of making movies that are based on these video game franchises, and Red Faction, they were trying to maybe feel that out, it’s a pretty rich universe. That was a tough one. I mean, we were filming in Bulgaria in the middle of the winter in a studio that wasn’t heated or properly outfitted to have production in it, frankly, at all. I mean, it was wild. I mean, literally, you’d be walking and pieces of the set would be falling off right next to you, something would fall out of the ceiling. I mean, it was just, it was absurd. But actually, Michael Nankin directed that, he was one of the great directors from the Battlestar Galactica reboot universe. One of the best directors I’ve actually ever worked with. That was a really great experience working on it. Watching the movie, is it a great movie? Like, oh God, no. Again, considering that they gave Michael like $5 and some duct tape to pull this thing off.

David Read
Look at what he made with it.

Brian J. Smith
In Bulgaria, which is not an easy place to film, right? For a lot of reasons. The fact that he pulled it off, and he got it together, on time and on budget was a victory, you know?

David Read
Dude, it is so awesome to catch up with you as always and to watch your career continue to evolve, and the person that you are continue to evolve. Tracy wanted to know, what is a piece of advice that you have received and found helpful that you would want to pass on to others?

Brian J. Smith
Oh man. Well, relax and enjoy the dance. I mean, life isn’t… all of this is… I don’t know, maybe this is just getting older, you know — I’m not that old — but you get older, you get a little wiser. I’m a lot less thinking in terms of targets and goals and ambitions and trying to get there, and only being happy if I get there, and being a little bit more like, “What is the process?” You know, let me enjoy… you get one life, as far as we know. Even if you believe it in the Catholic Church and Muhammad and all this stuff, right, as far as we know, this is it, in terms of what this is. So if this is all you got in all of eternity, just enjoy the ride, enjoy the process of it, enjoy the people you meet. You’re going to be on your own path. I don’t know if that means you’re going to get rich, you’re gonna get famous, if you’re not. Man, your life is a gift, your health is a gift. And I think the other one is, happiness is a choice. It really is a choice. I’ve seen people be happy in situations that would appall a lot of us. And it’s a state of mind that you cultivate, and it’s a practice and that’s become more and more apparent to me, the older I’ve got.

David Read
Yeah, not to be ignorant of change or injustice or anything else, but you can still be happy. And still fight for change.

Brian J. Smith
And happy people are effective people. Miserable people are not really that effective. I mean, if you think about if someone starts insulting you on the street, and you start getting really nervous and tight and indignant, you can’t think, you can’t really respond. You know what I mean? But if you’re just relaxed and chill and just sort of enjoying your life, you’re like, “Hey, man, that’s great.” You know what I mean, that’s… and oddly enough, that’s a lot more aggravating for people.

David Read
Well it is, because you’re attaining something that… they see that they’re not getting to you.

Brian J. Smith
You got to be really vigilant. You know, like your peace of mind. You have to… it’s this thing you have to balance and be very, very constantly engaged in, otherwise it’s just so easy to get thrown off balance and end up doing something so stupid on a bad day, saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing and doing it on camera, because we’ve all got these things [phones] right now, it can ruin your life. So it’s kind of in our best interests to just learn to be moment-by-moment happy.

David Read
I will Uber sometimes, for some extra cash, and…

Brian J. Smith
Oh, I thought you were like riding in an Uber.

David Read
No, no, I will drive for Uber. And we’re stuck in traffic, and people are like, “How do you deal with this?” And they’re always surprised when I say, “You know, you got to find the cord in your brain that’s bothered by it, and cut it.” And some of them are like, “Oh! Yeah, yeah.” And there’s some that are like, “Oh, I could never do that.” You know, and it’s like, “Why? Why could you never do that? What’s leading you to say that?” Some part of you must be enjoying this. Give yourself permission to let go from wanting to fight– “I’m being paid to sit here!”

Brian J. Smith
If you think about it, I always think about in those situations like, “Where are you going? Where are you really going?”

David Read
“Like, existentially?”

Brian J. Smith
Like, “Yeah, you gotta go drop the person off, or yeah, you got to make it to this meeting on time. But if you don’t, where are you really going?” This is about your life. And it’s about the place that you’re really going, you hope, is to show up and to be, to share love, and to receive love. That’s what you’re here to do. So you can do that in traffic, and you can do that when you’re late, and you can do that when everyone else around you is going nuts. And it’s really powerful. I’ve seen people do it. I’ve seen some people being able to hold on to that in really stressful situations, and it’s the most beautiful, life-affirming, powerful thing to see.

David Read
Make good ripples. It’s your choice.

Brian J. Smith
Make good ripples. Yeah.

David Read
Yeah, absolutely. Brian, thank you so much for coming on. And congratulations again with with Class of ’09, and with your documentary. And please stay in touch.

Brian J. Smith
I will. Same.

David Read
Alright, brother.

Brian J. Smith
I’ll let you know how the documentary is going. We’re probably… we’re a while away. It could be at least a year. But yeah, we’re on it. I think it’s going to be pretty cool.

David Read
Yeah, these things have a process. So you know, we’ll do whatever we can to help fuel it. When we get closer, I’d like to at least get a clip of it and have you back so we can discuss it.

Brian J. Smith
Yeah, I would love that. That’d be awesome.

David Read
Alright, pal. I appreciate your time. I’m gonna go ahead and close out the show on this side.

Brian J. Smith
Alright, thanks David. Bye.

David Read
You take care of yourself. Brian J. Smith, everyone. Lieutenant Matthew Scott on Stargate Universe. A couple of questions for me. How was your trip? So I just got back from LA. I spent a month out there editing my first feature film. And so that’s done. And I can’t yet announce the movie, but it was the director’s cut of a feature, and I reconstructed about 30% of the picture. It is a comedy, because I mean, you know, you look at me and you think, “Oh, man, he’s so funny.” And I’m really, really proud of it. So as we get more information I’ll let everyone know. Alien World Airsoft, Stargate question, I’m making an Airsoft Stargate loadout. I have a P90, but what is the sidearm I should get, Dial the Gate? I don’t know. But the person who does is Stitch’s Loft and so you’re going to want to go over to stitchsloft.com, I have that on the screen right here. All right, folks, that’s everything that I have for you. We’re going to be moving on with Wormhole X-Tremists this afternoon. A lot of episodes are coming up on dialthegate.com as we move closer to our 200th episode, so visit dialthegate.com and see the complete list. We’re gonna get rolling. Thanks so much for Tracy and Antony for moderating today. Thanks again for Brian for coming on. Always great to have him. My name is David Read for Dial the Gate, and we’ll see you on the other side.