How many actors played both the family member of a Stargate character and a god? Actor Rob Murray Duncan, known as both “Seth” “Melburn Jackson” in Stargate SG-1, stops by Dial the Gate for a LIVE episode to share stories from the set and answer fan questions!

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Timecodes
00:00 – Opening Credits
01:14 – Welcome and Episode Outline
02:52 – Welcoming Rob Duncan
07:12 – How Rob Got Into Acting
12:26 – A Role Which Transformed Rob
16:28 – “The Gamekeeper”
22:43 – “Seth”
29:38 – Fan Questions, including Stargate Compared to Other Projects
32:03 – Which Character Took Time to Figure Out
43:18 – Wrapping up with Rob
44:21 – Post interview Housekeeping
49:10 – End Credits

***

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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read
Hello everyone and welcome to episode 135 of Dial the Gate, my name is David Read. Thank you so much for joining us on this lovely Saturday. Rob Murray Duncan who is best known as probably Seth in Stargate circles, as well as Melburn Jackson, is here live with us and we’re gonna be bringing him in in just a moment. But before we get started here, if you like Stargate and you want to see more content like this on YouTube, it would mean a great deal if you click that like button. It really makes a difference with YouTube’s algorithm and will help the show continue to grow. Please also consider sharing this video with a Stargate friend and if you want to get notified about future episodes, click that 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 several weeks on the GateWorld.net YouTube channel and more on the Dial the Gate channel itself when we go into hiatus probably around mid to late June. I haven’t decided yet when the show is going to end this season, as opposed to last season, when I was moving out of my house and said, “Okay, this is the date.” We’ll see what happens as we move forward here. Rob Murray Duncan is joining us live so if you’re in youtube.com/dialthegate you’ll be able to submit questions to our moderating team. They’ll get them over to me and I’ll consider using a handful for the show or as many as are interesting and cool. Without further ado, Seth himself, Rob Murray Duncan. Hello, sir. Welcome to Dial the Gate.

Rob Murray Duncan
Hello, David. Very nice to be here and to see all of you. Although I can’t see you, I am glad that you’re listening in.

David Read
How are you doing? You well?

Rob Murray Duncan
I’m doing well. I’m in California. I’ve lived a few places over the time but things in California were good. During these past couple of years I was actually very busy doing new play readings with a company in New York City called The Circle Repertory Company, so that kept things sharp and kept me awake. That was helpful.

David Read
Okay, any particular plays you’d like to shout out? Anything in particular that has been particularly rewarding for you to work on?

Rob Murray Duncan
In the past I was fortunate to understudy John Malkovich in the production of Burn This. It was actually the world premiere production in Los Angeles so the greater gift was watching them rehearse for five weeks and seeing how that was going on. It was a little bit frightening, there were three understudies for four roles, the other male doubled up. I actually had a nightmare once. You know those theaters where they train medical students and there’s the bed down below?

David Read
The operating theater.

Rob Murray Duncan
I was in one of those sitting there in my underwear. All you shrinks will get a hoot out of that. There was nobody there but me, like right in the center halfway up, and all sudden I hear this door open behind me and at the top, John comes in. He walks down and over and down and over and down and over until he’s sitting right beside me and he goes, “you know, I realize you think you’re hot shit, but just, just…” That was the end of the dream. It was a great experience and I finally got to do the show down in San Diego about four years later so it’s fantastic.

David Read
We want to make sure that everyone knows that both Rob and I are going to be at Gatecon in September over I believe, Labor Day weekend, the first to the fourth, Vancouver. Everyone needs to check it out; it is the Stargate event of the year. We were supposed to have one a couple of years ago, but COVID. Now we are back in action so if you want to check out Rob, meet him live and ask him questions, besides today, obviously we’re gonna give you a chance to do that today, Gatecon is the place to be. Is this your first Gatecon?

Rob Murray Duncan
My first Gatecon, my first Gatecon. I did a Chevron in England.

David Read
Okay. How was that experience? What’s the Stargate convention like?

Rob Murray Duncan
Oh, it’s incredible. It’s incredible. It was my first one. The fans were from all over Europe and they were extremely cool. When people talk about Stargate being a family, often we’re talking about what happens on set, but I realize the family is global. Everybody was warm and charming and funny and just really down to earth and chill. You go off into different groups and you talk to different people and then at night we went dancing, it was a big area, we were all dancing and stuff like that. There were five other actors there as well so it was very, very cool. We were supposed to do a couple more but of course, the last couple of years we canceled those so hopefully in the near future that’ll happen again,

David Read
Where was Chevron? Which city was that in?

Rob Murray Duncan
It was in London, specifically Heathrow, out by Heathrow airport. I was once in the Governor General’s Foot Guards in Canada, I’m originally from Canada. It was great to go and watch the Changing of the Guard in London and be inspired by that. It’s very British and I had a day off sp I could go and do that. That was cool.

David Read
I would argue there’s nothing more British than that.

Rob Murray Duncan
Other than the Queen inviting you to tea.

David Read
Exactly. Geez, man oh man. What made you get into this field? How old were you? What did you see? What did you experience where it was like “this is what I want to do with my life?”

Rob Murray Duncan
So in about seventh grade a teacher took us out on a field trip to see a film and it was the first film I’d ever seen. It was the old black and white of Romeo and Juliet. I just was in awe of the world they created and I kind of fell in love Olivia Hussey. That was the first real impact and then some fellows from high school went and did these native stories in the Museum of Natural History for young kids over the weekend. Again, I saw it back at me where they’re just like, “ah” [amazed] and it was a real connection. The final thing that did it for me was when I moved to Kingston, Ontario, my theatre arts teacher, Gord Love, who I’m still in touch with, was incredibly inspiring. Theater class was different than anything else because it was a collaboration of people working together and being really chill with each other and trying to make something out of that. It’s different than sitting through English class or mathematics or anything else, Gord was incredibly inspiring. I ended up living in Ottawa, most of my life and everybody works in the government. I applied to work in the government and I ended up working with the Mounties. I thought, “Oh, this is a sexy job, maybe I’ll join the Mounties.” I thought, “I don’t really have great credentials,” so I quit the job. I went into the Foot Guards and I was top recruit and they wanted me to join as a marksman and all this stuff. When I went for my medical exam my doctor was like, “you want to be a cop, a police officer?” and I’m like, “yeah.” He goes, “is that what you want to do?” I’d already been doing a lot of theater and musical theater around Ottawa. I said, “well, I guess, it’sOttawa, everybody works in the government.” He goes, “well, my wife is a psychologist and she’ll do some tests. She’s not going to tell you what you should be but she’s going to give you some ideas.” We did the Rorschach test, my favorite one was there was a white eight by eight card with a black ink drawing on it. All of these, there are about eight of them, she said, “tell me what’s missing” and she’d hold one up. I got them all except that one and it was a pony running down a hill out of control with a saddle but no rider. I left and I called and said “I know what it is, there’s no rider.” She goes “err, too late.” I liked that rebellious tone to the whole idea. A week later she says “okay, come on in, I’ve got some information for you.” I go in and she says now “these are just metaphors, these aren’t factual jobs you should be doing, this is just an idea.” She said, “on one hand you’re a dancer and on the other hand you’re a captain of a ship.” In the end that kind of came true in some ways in that I got into directing and producing which is to be creative guidance of a ship. Just to hear those things was good. My application for the Mounties was already at play and I saw them come on to the base to talk to my sergeants and stuff. They went to my girlfriend’s father and her brother came up to me later and he said, “I’m not supposed to tell you this but Dad told the Mounties he thought you really wanted to be an actor.” What was cool about that David is that my father wasn’t present so I never had permission to even think of acting as a job. Even though it came at me secondhand a light bulb went off and said I can try and do this. My mom at that point, historically it was great, she said, “you know Robert, you’ve got a job, you’re at a certain age, maybe you should try to find your own place now.” That changed my life. I was shocked, I was a little angry because it’s that moment of growing up.

David Read
You’re being pushed out of your comfort zone.

Rob Murray Duncan
It was so necessary. I went to Toronto, I started acting, I started asking questions. The director said, “you need training” so I got some summer stock work up at Red Barn Theatre with some famous Canadians, Tom Kneebone and William Needles. I asked Mr. Needles, I said, “Mr. Needles, where do I get training?” He said, “well, if you want to work in Canada and the United States, go train in the US.” Understand there was not much going on in Toronto at that point, training wise. Then he said, “if you want to work in Canada and England go study in England.” I auditioned for RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art) and the Neighborhood Playhouse. The RADA thing is another story but I went to the Playhouse in New York City and I was literally interviewed by Sanford Meisner. He had retired and got bored so he came back to teach in the two years I was there. That launched everything. Every one of those moments, when I look back, was critical to me being in the acting world.

David Read
Tell me about a role that transformed you, or your perception, in a way that you didn’t expect or that pushed you in a way that you didn’t expect that kind of has carried with you for the rest of your life. Is there one that you can point to that has kind of done that?

Rob Murray Duncan
In some way Burn This. They do tend to be theater because I’ve done a lot more theater and the theater roles tend to be more intense emotionally and stuff. There was a play called Fakes and it was about it’s a true story about Han van Meegeren who was a famous painter around the time of the 1930s, 40s. He was so angry that the critics wouldn’t pay attention to him that he painted a painting in the style of a Vermeer. It wasn’t a copy of a Vermeer, it was one that when you looked at it, you thought “Vermeer did this.” right. It worked and he was supposed to say, “see, you don’t know what you’re doing. I’m the artist,” but he made so much money that he kept doing it.

David Read
In someone else’s style.

Rob Murray Duncan
Yes. But they kept thinking they were unfound Vermeer’s.

David Read
This is a true story?

Rob Murray Duncan
It’s a true story. They built a wing in one of the Dutch countries for his paintings. There’s a lot of scrutiny when you’re selling paintings because they’re millions of dollars. That scrutiny was reduced because it was the time of the Nazis and they were buying stuff all over the place and they weren’t paying attention, so all of these things got sold. Then it became known that he did this and strangely enough they were done so well they didn’t believe that he made them. He had to prove that he painted them or face the death penalty for selling a national treasure in the time of the Nazi invasion. The writer wrote a beautiful speech and they called it “paint for your life.” The judge said, “I need you to prove it so go in your cell, you’ve got four days.” It would take me six months to do one of these or a van Meegeren. It’s like having a gun to your head, that whole identity stuff. There’s something about that play, because in slightly deeper meaning, I could copy Malkovich, but he still originated it. I didn’t copy him, I borrowed a couple of things. If someone copies something, that’s still not an original work of art, even though it looks beautiful. The artist is the creator of something new and van Meegeren was never that. His cause was shallow. It was just a lot to think about in terms of what we value in our lives and all of that. It was an extremely emotional play and that’s always fun; reach out and destroy your audience.

David Read
Absolutely. Was it one scene or was it like a whole series of moments over his career? I’m interested to hear how this particular play was configured.

Rob Murray Duncan
It was and I think the writer really wrote it as a film script because the scenes are so quick sometimes. It was over a pretty long period of his time. I don’t know if this is true but in the story he met a gallery owner and she’s an older woman, very wealthy. They lived together and he has a forum to put his paintings out there. It was probably over about a 20 year span because when he got all the money he started getting into, I don’t know what the drug of the day was, but he got all screwed up from drugs. He was just partying, a very decadent time.

David Read
Wow. Tell us about your first episode on Stargate, The Gamekeeper. Tell us about getting that roll.

Rob Murray Duncan
Yeah, that was cool. I didn’t know much about Stargate. The cool thing was I had met Michael Shanks about five years earlier when I did a pass through Vancouver to check it out, I was there for like a month. I don’t know the date but X-Files was the only thing that was going on so I left. Where I was staying, the friend of a friend was saying, “hey, let’s go see this. A friend of mine is doing his final production at University British Columbia” and Michael was doing the Shakespeare piece. I am embarrassed I don’t remember the exact play but I remember him; he was just like, boom. When I got on set we talked about that. He remembered me because he knew I understudied Malkovich and all that kind of stuff so we got to talk about that. Getting on the set that day was very cool, we had the hippies kind of vibe going. The actress came in from Toronto, Lisa Bunting and the director, Bill Corcoran was also very good. The scene we had repeated over and over and over again and they just enjoyed what we were doing. It was a cool family. Speaking of family, when I went to the craft services table which is where you can get snacks and coffee, I was going for a coffee. It was in another room but you opened the door and it was another studio. It was huge and it was full of props. There were set pieces, there was a Stargate, there was a this, there was spaceships, it was really wild. I saw these things so I went to Michael Greenburg, producer, writer and I said, “Michael, I’m directing a play right now. It takes place in New York City and if I could get four of those…” They were like 30 foot columns with cross steel with bolts. They’re actually made of wood but they look like those subway platform struts. I said, “if I can have four of those and I’ll pay you whatever you need.” He said, “give me 20 minutes” and he comes back. He says “you can use them, we have others stored in another building, you can grab those. You don’t need to pay us, just bring them back in the condition that you found them.” Who does that? Those productions are big, big, big pieces of machinery and they don’t have time for the stupidity. Matter of fact, when we were taking them down at the end, some family members and friends were sitting in the audience watching us tear the set down and we started leaning those over and they were like, “Uuuhh, we thought those were holding up the ceiling.” The Stargate people were ultra cool. Let me stay on Gamekeeper, I didn’t really have time to read the whole script. I didn’t quite know what we were doing but…

David Read
You’re in one section of a larger story.

Rob Murray Duncan
Yes. It was great, it was a rush.

David Read
That was one of my favorite episodes back in the day. Dwight Schultz is in that episode as well, brilliant actor. We also have Kowalski back in one of the other shards of that whole presentation. With this one, we actually got to see how Daniel lost his folks and that was really out of left field. The fact that we experienced it again and again, it’s like “this sucks.” The first time I’m watching this the Gamekeeper is testing him, he’s like, “you know, if you keep on tweaking this, what would happen if you managed to get them out of it?” Daniel, at one point, tries and realizes at this point, one way or another, he can’t change the past. What’s happened has happened and he just starts letting it happen again and again. What was that like rewatching that episode? You told me you had watched it again.

Rob Murray Duncan
Yeah, thank you for making that suggestion. I really loved it. When you first watch an episode that you’re in all you watch is yourself. What makes Stargate so great is the storytelling; the layers of storytelling. There’s so much to say about that, letting go the past, reliving the past, not letting it go, having it go through your mind, go through your mind, go through your mind. There’s a greater level of what they’re talking about there. There’s always a human story under all of these sci-fi levels and that’s what makes the show great. It’s mythology, mythology is taken from ancient times and they did a great job with that. I watched one of your writers just the other day, Jonathan. He was brilliant and he obviously has a great resource in terms of mythology and storytelling,

David Read
There’s a lot of depth there. I always go back to this episode in terms of a great character piece for Daniel and for Jack because we see parts of their lives that really could have been. It establishes Daniel’s parents as archaeologists and we later find out his mother’s father was into that field as well. It really lends credence to what he did in his career, he really wasn’t interested in doing anything else. Despite the fact that as tragic as it was, this is something that really ended his parents careers and their lives and chance to be raised by them, this is still what he wanted to do.

Rob Murray Duncan
Yes. As an actor Daniel got to stretch because he was working on that. It’s not an easy emotion of your parents passing away.

David Read
Exactly. Then Seth, the next year. This was quite a switch for you going from parent of an SG team member to a goa’uld. Bill Corcoran directed this one and I believe, who wrote this episode? This was Jonathan Glassner’s episode, one of the creators of the series. Tell us about Seth. Hail Dorothy!

Rob Murray Duncan
Yeah, that was a trip. I didn’t know I was cast for quite a while, they were taking a long time. Finally, what happens is, you get a call from the wardrobe department before your agent even knows. It happens a lot because wardrobe is right on top of it. Once they get the flag they call you and then I call my agent and say, “hey, by the way…” She goes, “argh, those wardrobe people.” They were super cool, they noticed I had a pierced ear so they gave me an earring. That was nice, it was probably the last time I wore one. That leather jacket was made of, I don’t know if they do it the same way nowadays, but was made of a number of different leathers. Getting on the set, it was it was a location shoot, location shoots can be a little more tense. The crew has a lot more physical work to do. They have to get up earlier to get there with their equipment and unload the equipment. What I learned to do on sets is I’m pretty quiet until I’m spoken to. I’m just there because there’s a lot of hubbub going on and you never know what’s happening and they need to communicate with each other. It was just the most professional, smart production and everybody was super friendly. I had my little bevy of mostly females down at my feet, right. One of them said to me, it was during the resetting the camera or something, I’m sitting there and she goes, “do you know what she does?” I’m like, “no.” She goes, “she’s a Mountie.” I’m like, “Oh.” She goes “yeah, she looks like she’s 12 right?” I’m like, “well, that’s cool.” I didn’t bother going into my experience but everybody was just really chill. During a break I went outside and I thought it was sunny because we had the lights blasting into the windows. It was drizzling and stuff but I just wanted to get some air. The DP, Director of Photography, was out there and he said, “wow, you play a great bad guy.” I said “yeah”. I started apologizing, “I know, I do so many he goes.” He goes “don’t say that. Donald Sutherland did a lot and then he tried to stay away from it and he didn’t work for a number of years. He then went back to that which led him into some of the more realistic roles that he wanted to do.” You go with what you got so it’s all cool. On that set it moved pretty quickly, everybody knew what they were doing and we just rock and rolled and went along. I was on that shoot for five days and the first shoot, Gamekeeper was one day so the five day run was very, very cool. Mr. Anderson was very friendly. I talked more with Michael and Amanda just because we had a break and we went to this break room for a while. We reflected back about his play and Amanda was very friendly. Mr. Anderson has a lot to do, he’s also executive producer so he’s running around making decisions and stuff. That’s an incredible workload and then he keeps that wonderful, smarmy acting going on the side. I ran into him once when I was jogging around Stanley Park which is a six mile run. It was a drizzly Sunday morning and I’m coming along “who is that?” As we pass each other, we’re like, “you look familiar” but we just kept going. I know for him that has to happen all the time and I’m sure he’s just enjoying a break for a change so I didn’t want to bug him.

David Read
Vancouver used to be such a small town, especially in the earlier days of Stargate SG-1. Now it’s just absolutely exploded, it’s just become an industry town. Stargate is one of those pillars that really brought it up with the professionalism that they had, with the money that they had into production going into 17 seasons of this thing. It had to just been a wild ride to just be a part of it, just to sit back and watch it take place and then to do your thing.

Rob Murray Duncan
You realize it more later. At the time it’s “I have got a job. This is great.” As it goes, you go “wow, this thing…” What was I, season two, three?

David Read
Both two and three, that’s right. We’re here talking about it 22 years later, you haven’t aged a day, I think you’ve got a sarcophagus somewhere.

Rob Murray Duncan
Well, there’s the other story I didn’t tell you yet. When I went for that coffee, I saw the Stargate.

David Read
Yeah.

Rob Murray Duncan
I just got back dude.

David Read
That’s funny.

Rob Murray Duncan
I also love the story in the Seth one about the family, conflict between families. T’ealc’s asking, “do you not unconditionally love your children?” It was very moving. That was a very moving episode with the coming togethers and the understandings. It makes me well up right now thinking about it, brilliant on the part of the writers, really great.

David Read
This is a real thing. I think one of the things about this episode that really hits me hard is that cults harness hearts and minds and separate families and take loved ones from each other. You can see all kinds of examples of it where the parents will go to the police and the police can’t do anything. “What do you want us to do? We have no reason to infringe on this group of people’s rights and pull someone out who doesn’t want to be found.” In fifth grade I had a teacher who lost a child to one of these groups, she didn’t see her for years. I don’t even know what happened but it’s a real thing.

Rob Murray Duncan
Yeah. I think a person needs a lot of money and you hire a special team of people to go in and kidnap them, that’s the only way it can happen. I think that same scenario can happen within a couple. When somebody works somebody over and they kind of aren’t themselves anymore then you’re like, “where did my sister go?” I know that’s a different thing but in the psychological realm it still exists, I think, in many ways.

David Read
I have some fan questions here for you if you don’t mind getting into some of these. General Maximus – how did the experience on Stargate compare to some of the other projects of the same scale that you’ve done?

Rob Murray Duncan
All of them are professional. I worked on another sci-fi show, I had 12 episodes of reoccurring. It was a heavy prosthetic job and all this kind of stuff and I’d worked three other roles on it before.

David Read
First Wave, yes?

Rob Murray Duncan
Yes. I decided at the end of that one I was going to leave town just to try something new. I asked the AD, the first assistant director, I said, “I noticed directors work differently.” He said, “there’s three ways. There’s a director who knows exactly what they want to shoot and they do that. The day goes pretty well, it can go a little bit over. Then there’s a director who doesn’t know what they’re really doing, they don’t understand editing or framing. Those days go over time, people get hurt because as characters are running through the woods, trip on something, they’re tired, the crews are tired, exhausted. Then there’s the director who knows exactly what they’re doing and they’ve made a shot list, sometimes a storyboard. That way, the shot list, the makeup people can be ready for what’s coming next, the wardrobe people, if there’s armament that person’s ready and everything’s bam, bam. That’s the way it should be. It’s odd because a lot of TV directors come out of nowhere and I’m like, “wow, how do these people get this job?” Anyway, Stargate has that down. Most of the episodes on First Wave had that down because it’s time and money and the unions are very strong and they help us too. I think Stargate will always remain the top of my personal experience with the people that were on it, the professionalism of the crew, how quickly the camera people worked. I don’t know if you saw my bio, I was living in New York during 9/11 and I went back to film school. There was a lull in the industry so I took a three month full intensive filmmaking program which actually helped me really understand what every single department does. I can walk on a set and know there should be a trash can over there. I’m really appreciative of the professionalism of all of those companies there.

David Read
Alicia Cuoco – what character took you time to get under the skin of the character and really figure out what made it tick?

Rob Murray Duncan
I’m pretty quick. The Meisner stuff is pretty straightforward, it’s understanding what you want and how do you feel about it? Seth wanted power and I’m angry that these people are getting in my way. I can get into the story, I can get into the mythology, but as an actor in that moment it doesn’t really help me, it’s not going to make a hoot. I did a play with a guy, I was a prisoner in the Middle East and a pawn for the government. It was based on a true story of a professor, he gave me books and I said “it just doesn’t matter. I want to be home with my wife and I know these people are going to kill me. How do I feel about it? Now let’s go.” I get into things very quickly because of that. I’ll give you a quick example. If you were driving down a highway or freeway and some person in a red sports car goes bombing by you and changing lanes recklessly of course, you’re like [angry]. Then you find out when you get to where you’re going and there’s a hospital across the street and that guy is taking his wife out of the car because she’s pregnant. You suddenly go, “ah!” As an actor you look at the script and find those “ah” moments in terms of why do I feel these things? As an actor those are things you do, what is the circumstance? What do you want?

David Read
If you look at the tapestry of the goa’uld over the course of eight or nine seasons of SG-1, they were always out for, generally speaking, not all of them, but most of them were out for absolute power and control. When you look at some of these quieter goa’ulds, several of them are just more than happy to settle for a certain amount and then just be left alone. Seth was one of these who didn’t necessarily want to take over the Earth. Maybe in a few thousand years that was his game plan but he was very content to have his enclave, to have his harem, his technological advances with his weaponry and just kind of exist. I think that makes for a very different look at a goa’uld compared to one who’s interested in world domination. He could have been left alone for another 1000 years and you would never know he was there.

Rob Murray Duncan
Right, Yes, yes, yes. Oh, gosh, I was gonna say something about that and I just lost it. Nevermind. I know what it is. Most TV shows have a good guy in the lead and I think it’s time to have a good goa’uld in the lead, let’s wreak some havoc.

David Read
Did you get a chance to meet Cliff Simon before he passed?

Rob Murray Duncan
I did not. I did not. Yeah, that was tragic.

David Read
What a brilliant human being, a brilliant actor.

Rob Murray Duncan
He affected so many people. So many people miss him, loved him and respected what he did and was entertained by him. That was sad, that was very sad.

David Read
Absolutely. Lockwatcher – the hand device, tell us about wearing the hand device and your impressions of some of these props.

Rob Murray Duncan
It was nice. They have a weight to them because they’re metal, not plastic. I had to grab Amanda and flip her head side to side, actually it was one of those acting things where she was doing the work and my wrist was just going like this. That thing was designed in a way so it didn’t have any sharp edges and whatnot and she got her do with me later.

David Read
Most definitely.

Rob Murray Duncan
It was very, very cool because when I come down the stairs, was it my left hand? Yeah. When I come down the stairs and I’m gonna zap my two leads, I thought “I need something more than just…” so I threw the growl in, [growl noise] the beam came out. The special effects guys were very clear to me what they needed about certain things, like hold that, so they can place the beam in. My glowing eyes are “try to be really still because we’re gonna you know.” That was a bit ahead of its time for it’s day. That was a lot of fun, I want one of those. I can say this. I’m gonna be doing a a Stargate fan film. I’m going to shoot that in England in August where Seth will be represented. They’re getting all those doodads so I’m really curious to see how this works, I’ll certainly be posting it. A young director named Sam Cockings, who I met at the Chevron event in London, he’s very talented, he’s doing green screen with some very serious visuals of ships and whatnot, battles and stuff like that. It’ll be a lot of fun.

David Read
We featured some of his work in a recent episode with Joseph Mallozzi where he is starting to test some of these ideas out. He’s very good.

Rob Murray Duncan
What was Joseph Mallozzi doing? Writing?

David Read
I had him on to discuss season one of SGU.

Rob Murray Duncan
Joe wasn’t in Samuels piece?

David Read
No, he wasn’t. He was doing an episode with me and I plugged Sam’s bit for that, it’s very cool. I heard that you were doing this and I’m glad to hear that this is moving forward. This is great.

Rob Murray Duncan
Cool. You know everything.

David Read
I don’t, but I have my ear to the ground. Theresa Mc – did archaeology or Egyptology ever appeal to you growing up?

Rob Murray Duncan
I was always a bit of a, I use this in a positive way, I was always a bit of a science geek. I was taking things apart. My dad had a three horsepower motor boat motor and I it didn’t work so I took it apart. I tried to put it back together and there’s some pieces left over so that didn’t work so well, but I was always doing that. I’ll just tell you this short story. We would get on our bikes and go to this place called the Museum of Science and Technology in Ottawa. They had the Gemini capsule, the real one touring the country and then they landed on the moon. My mom got me a lunar landing module model which I put together with the Orbiter. I had a chocolate bar with gold wrappers so I put gold around the feet and gold around it. My sister was getting married so I took this four and a half foot long box and I flipped it on its side, throughout the lid, covered it with black Crepe paper, put tin foil on the bottom, put my models in there, I hung the orbiter up and it by threads and then I stuck blue Christmas lights in it. I’d invite my friends over after sunset and I’d plug it in and they were like, “ooh, this is cool.” I then joined the rocket club in high school, I launched a rocket and that’s kind of been a lot of my interest in terms of sci-fi. When I was a kid they had a place in Ottawa called Max Gimming’s farm which is a science farm and you could go there and learn how to count how much lumber is in a square 1000 feet or look at the guppies and all that. I think I would have gone towards being some sort of nature person, studying of nature, which would have certainly come in handy now. That intrigued me, I love being out in the country and I love being with nature and studying all of that.

David Read
PacManD3 – What did you think of the Jaffa joke involving the Setesh guard? The one Jaffa joke that’s ever been told in all of…

Rob Murray Duncan
Does anybody get it?

David Read
I think they’re just looked as beneath the other guards. Maybe they’re always sick or something?

Rob Murray Duncan
I thought it was perfect because it was so stupid. And how he enjoyed it himself was great.

David Read
Right.

Rob Murray Duncan
I enjoyed it for that. It’s like the joke on the joke. That was very cool. It’s better that it didn’t have any heavy factual reality in it. Clever writing, clever writing.

David Read
Sommer wanted to know – have you remained a fan of the franchise? Would you be interested in returning if they did a new show?

Rob Murray Duncan
Oh, heck yeah, of course. Everybody’s aware of the Amazon/MGM thing. Of course everybody would love to be working on it again. I think they’ll bring back certain people for little guests and things like that but who knows how Amazon will handle that. It would be an honor just to be part of that history, which I think is a legacy.

David Read
Other than the the fan film that’s being developed by Samuel, what else can we expect you in down the road here? What should we keep an eye open for?

Rob Murray Duncan
I might be doing some theater in New York City, so that’ll be hard to get to. This goes back to my geekiness, I tend to go into different areas from time to time. Years ago I created an animated pilot that taught children the written Chinese characters. It took years to do and took me all over the world, I went to China four times, I went through Korea, Hong Kong, Italy. One other thing more recently was that I was editing and directing a documentary about post traumatic stress based on combat combat trauma. I’ve pretty much done that. A friend of mine was a lifetime member of the Actor’s Studio and a veteran of the war in Vietnam. He was told by the studio that he should try to write something about this. He wrote what was at the beginning a one man show and there was a second character in there, a female, that represents life and death and all this stuff. I directed him in that play in L.A. and he took that play back to Vietnam to do it in front of the former enemy. I’ve pretty much done the documentary, I just need to get the financing to do the cleanup of audio and stuff, which is the smaller part..so I go off in these different directions. Right now, my younger brother is a fairly prominent, very talented animator who’s had his own company now for 11, going on 12 years. We’re putting together the business aspect of doing a film, a feature animated film, which will be his first. His last gig, he was in London, his company did the animation for the Mary Poppins Returns film. I’m like [head exploding] but the point is I really want to get back to New York and do acting, but also TV and film stuff from there, because there’s also Toronto available. That’s kind of my goal once I get this other stuff out of the way.

David Read
Going back to your roots and what you’re passionate about, I completely get that. I will keep my ear to the ground. I may just have to come and see you because it’s been a while since I’ve been in New York and I want to go back.

Rob Murray Duncan
Yeah, cool. I’ll let you know.

David Read
Please do. Absolutely. Sir, this has been such a pleasure having you on. Where can we follow you? Are there any special social medias or anything in particular that you want us to…?

Rob Murray Duncan
I’m a little old school with the Facebook. Facebook or if you want to check stuff go to imdb.com. I do have an Instagram, I use it so seldom I don’t know what it is right now. I’ll send that to you and if you want to forward it that would be great.

David Read
I will add it to the description of the episode for sure.

Rob Murray Duncan
My email address is in the IMDB thing if you want to do that. I welcome any questions people have and anything you want to know.

David Read
I appreciate you Rob for coming on, this means a great deal. I’m looking forward to catching up with you in person in Gatecon up in Vancouver in September.

Rob Murray Duncan
David, you have the coolest show. I’ve learned so much more and you know your stuff.

David Read
I appreciate you. You take care of yourself and we will be in touch, I look forward to working with you some more.

Rob Murray Duncan
Goodbye everybody.

David Read
Be well sir.

Rob Murray Duncan
Bye bye.

David Read
Rob Murray Duncan, Seth from Stargate SG-1 and of course, Daniel Jackson’s father as well. Before we go, if you like what you’ve seen in this episode, please consider clicking that Like button, helping us to spread the word about the series. It means a great deal to me to have you out there. Dial the Gate is brought to you every week for free and we do appreciate you watching. If you want to support the show further buy yourself some of our themed swag. We offer t-shirts, tank tops, sweatshirts and hoodies for all ages as well as cups and other accessories in a variety of sizes and colors at dialthegate.com/merch and thank you so much for your support. Next week we have State of the Gate with Jenny Stiven returning. I don’t know about Darren yet, we’re going to see if we can get him in this episode. I’d like to have him but scheduling as it is, beginning to get closer to the summer with families and everything else is going to be a little bit more interesting. Jenny is definitely joining us for State of the Gate, the next episode. This is going to be the 28th of May, we’re looking at 12 noon pacific time right now, if that changes I will let everyone know. She is going bring us to speed on what’s going on with the Amazon acquisition of MGM. A lot has been happening behind the scenes but it’s a question of just how much we’re able to talk about so we’ll see how that’s going down. I also want to discuss the antitrust situation as well when you’ve got these larger entities like Disney absorbing Fox and Lucasfilm. I want to raise the question, at what point is too much too much? I want to have that conversation with her as well, being involved in the industry over the past few decades here I think she would have an interesting perspective on that. We will be inviting you to submit questions to Jenny to ask about the merger next week. Whoever asks the most interesting question in my mind, I will be asking for the email address of this individual so that they can get this cute little custom Stargate SG-1 Pop Daniel Jackson figurine. The top of the box is signed by Michael shanks and this will be yours if you submit a question to Jenny next week regarding the merger of Amazon and MGM if we think that your question is the question that deserves this little guy here. I hope you can tune in and submit questions. We also have another fan artist as well who will be following that episode next week as well. I’ll have more details about that as this comes out, I’m still organizing some information here as we move forward. Thanks so much again to Robert Murray Duncan for joining us in this episode, it was terrific to have him. General Maximus had a question for me – when SG-4 comes around, will you stay independent as you are now or would you like to be an official member of the crew and be involved in the media side of things? That’s an MGM question. I am at their beck and call so if they need something from me I will be happy to provide support. During production of Stargate SG-1, Atlantis and Universe when I was over at GateWorld, we had open lines of communication with MGM and with the production studio. I imagine it would be something similar going on here because regardless of however SG-4 is going to be configured, whether it’s going to be a Brad production or whether it’s going to be something brand new, I do wish to be involved. They will definitely be aware of me in terms of reaching out to cast and crew for interviews as the project goes forward. MGM is aware of me so there will be, at the very least, open lines of communication so we’ll see what happens. Would I like to be involved in SG-4? Perhaps. It would depend in which capacity. Damien Robbie – thank you Mr. David Read and GateWorld for bringing us these amazing interviews. You are very welcome. Thank you so much for tuning in. My tremendous thanks to my behind the scenes team, my Producer Linda “GateGabber” Furey as well as my moderators, Sommer, Tracy, Keith, Jeremy, Rhys and Antony. Big thanks to Frederick Marcoux at ConceptsWeb, the web developer side of Dial the Gate and to Jeremy Heiner, our webmaster, who keeps things up to date as well. My name is David Read for Dial the Gate, I appreciate you tuning in and we will see you on the other side.