Tony Amendola (Master Bra’tac) played the beloved Master Bra’tac in 26 episodes of Stargate SG-1. Now he joins David to discuss that journey and his professional career! He will also be taking fan questions LIVE!

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Timecodes
0:00 – Opening Credits
0:27 – Welcome and Episode Outline
02:34 – Guest Introduction
03:25 – Do you consider yourself blessed?
05:06 – Did you expect to find yourself where you are at this point in your life?
09:53 – What Is Rep Work?
12:39 – Working Since COVID
17:00 – Remembering Carmen Argenziano
19:04 – Resemblance to F. Murray Abraham
21:12 – Stargate Productions Scheduling Accommodation
25:20 – Growing Up & College Years
31:16 – Tony’s First Play
32:15 – Thanking an Important Teacher
33:00 – Getting Cast as Bra’tac
36:56 – Costume Weight
40:55 – The Story of the Jaffa Tattoo
41:18 – Meeting Richard Dean Anderson
49:30 – Pinch-Hitting for Christopher Judge
50:43 – Our Intent with Dial the Gate
51:21 – Tony Thanks David
52:37 – Wrap-Up
52:58 – Post-Interview Housekeeping
53:57 – End Credits

***

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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read
Welcome to episode two of Dialing the Gate, Dial the Gate. Man, one of these days I will get my show name correct. Hello everyone, my name is David Read, thank you for joining us. This is going to be a more abbreviated episode of the show because Tony has only so much time to be with us. Normally the shows are going to be running around 90 minutes but in this case Tony is doing me a favor because Christopher judge had to back out for work reasons. Let me just get right to this and I appreciate your patience here. The way that this is going to go, we’re going to have a guest Q&A, Tony and I are going to be talking for about 30 to 45 minutes, around there. Submit your questions, I believe Sommer and Ian, if I’m not mistaken, are running today, the show today. I appreciate you guys. We’ve also got Keith and Tracy in there as well, they are our new moderators so thank you guys so much for coming on board. We’re going to try and keep them all organized and then I’m going to ask those questions at the end of my line of questions to Master Bra’tac himself, Tony Amendola, and we’re just going to go from there. I appreciate you hanging on while I discovered this process for myself. Okay, so with that out of the way, before we get started, if you like Stargate and you want to see more content like this on YouTube, it would mean a great deal if you click the like button. It really makes a difference with YouTube’s algorithm and it will definitely 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. Giving the bell icon a click will notify you the moment a new video drops and you’ll get my text notifications of any last minute guest changes. This is key if you plan on watching live and clips from this live stream will be released over the course of the next several days on both the Dial the Gate and GateWorld.net YouTube channels. The clips are designed for people who don’t have time to sit through the whole show unlike some of us who are sitting in cars forever and can listen to live streams and everything else. Without further ado, Mr. Tony Amendola, Master Bra’tac himself. Sir, I am not worthy. thank you for being here.

Tony Amendola
Thank you for having me David.

David Read
It’s a pleasure to have you. How are things going out in L.A? Fires! We’ve got pestilence. It’s been an interesting year.

Tony Amendola
I heard the weather report today, there’s a chance of frogs.

David Read
Oh man!

Tony Amendola
Yeah, it’s 2020 eh? 2020, oh boy.

David Read
What can it throw at us that we haven’t seen before?

Tony Amendola
Oh, don’t say that.

David Read
That’s certainly true.

Tony Amendola
I thought that in April.

David Read
Yeah. Now we’re eating our words, right?

Tony Amendola
Absolutely.

David Read
I have been watching you on television, not with the intent of following you specifically, although you are amazing talent. You just keep on popping up; Terminator, Once Upon a Time, of course Stargate, obviously. Do you consider yourself blessed?

Tony Amendola
Well, if you’re a working actor you’re blessed. We belong to a profession where in any given week over 90% of us are unemployed, more, 94%. The notion of being able to work is exactly that, it’s a blessing. I remember when I finished school, I went to school in Philadelphia. At the end, because you’re in school you’re training. It’s sort of the equivalent, although not as practical, as medical school or law school, in terms of hours, in terms of intensity, when you’re in a training program. I remember I was approaching the end of it and I wrote a little note said, “professional acting work, East Coast.” That was sort of like an affirmation because I had nothing in front of me and it sort of worked out. It ended up being mainly on the west coast but I’m okay, yeah, I’m okay. It’s been a long, busy and worrying and rewarding and every sort of mental state that you can imagine that’s sort of an actor’s life. I have been blessed?

David Read
Did you expect to find yourself where you are at this point in your life or is this, like Don Davis always said, “this is not where I wanted to be. It’s wonderful but it’s not what I had in mind.”

Tony Amendola
I probably didn’t have much in my…no, it’s a complete surprise. There’s a term, “a lifer” for an actor. They’re the people that knew at eight and they started singing and dancing; they just knew that’s what they were going to do. I didn’t get involved until college. Consequently it’s taken me all over the world, it’s allowed me to study probably the most fascinating thing in the world, which is human behavior. It’s just provided me with a wonderful carte blanche to a kind of experience that I would never have. Some people describe the primary question of an actor is the “what is it like to be you?” and from there. Actors really don’t want to be themselves. We have to use ourselves, our bodies, our voices, our emotions, all of those things. But we want to adapt, we want to change and sometimes that’s where the aspect of play comes in. To give you an example, I had done several films but the first big studio film I did was the Legend of Zorro. I just remember pinching myself walking to set in these 19th Century Spanish nobleman clothes and getting on a horse to ride into the scene where there were 500 extras.

David Read
Oh my gosh.

David Read
Yeah.

Tony Amendola
Screaming! If you watch the opening scene of The Legend of Zorro. I remember just thinking, “Oh my God.” It’s the equivalent of, this is not x-rated so I guess I can say it.

Tony Amendola
The first time you make love and you pinch yourself because the other person is so beautiful.

David Read
You’re fortunate.

Tony Amendola
Yes, you just pinch yourself, you think “Oh my God.” That was where acting took me. Now, to be fair, and we must be fair, less there be young people out there who think, “just climb that stairwell and I can have that experience.” It’s a grind. There’s an old saying, “they pay us for worrying and waiting, the acting is free.”

David Read
I can definitely attest to that, going and visiting you guys on set for years and years. I’d never crossed paths with you on set but it’s waiting, it’s a lot of waiting. You have to know your lines and be on your marks. There’s nothing to stop you from not knowing your lines but you’re going to make 150 people miserable if you don’t.

Tony Amendola
Less we be clear, that’s the good waiting. The waiting you’re describing is the waiting when you have a job; you have a job and you’re on set, you’re working. There’s craft services, or there used to be before the pandemic. There’s a million things; the long hours, but you’re employed. I’m telling you about the waiting in between jobs.

David Read
Oh I understand now, okay.

Tony Amendola
Yeah, for me, for instance, one of the things about an actor is you have to look in the mirror very hard. I was fortunate enough that when I finished school I managed to get theater work. It was a type of theater work that was seasonal work. In other words I was working from May, excuse me, from September until the end of May and then I’d do something else in the summer, which hardly exists now. It’s very, very rare. I say that because actors make sense at different ages. I was never a young leading man so the notion of me coming down to L.A. and pursuing my acting, younger, say in my 20s, I would have worked but it wouldn’t have been very rewarding. So instead of that, and this was completely by accident, it wasn’t a choice, I ended up doing 15 years of rep work. When you do that you make a living, certainly not a lot of money, but you pay your bills, you have a regular life, you have a car.

David Read
Can you explain rep work for me?

Tony Amendola
Rep work is when you’re doing a season of plays, you’re not hired for just one thing. For instance, if they were doing a play about Bra’tac, they would think, “oh, Tony is a good Bra’tac.” The very next play they’ll be doing a different kind of play and they’ll think, “well, he’s not quite right.” In rep, the whole notion is to expand the actor so you get to play the role you’re right for and the roles you have no reason to be playing but it makes for wonderful growth. How the sum becomes greater than its parts is because you’re working with the same group of people. In one season for instance, I could play Iago in Othello, I could play Clifford Odets Urban Thing, but I’ll play the gentleman caller in The Glass Menagerie. Now, for the people who know Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie, I am not your typical casting for that. But that’s where the challenge is and you get a finicky artistic director who’s interested in presenting a slate of plays to an audience, but is also interested in the growth of the company. You get opportunities like that and that’s unique, that’s really unique. Whereas in television and film it’s a different schedule. You are so busy in the theater, you can be, and if you’re lucky you’re doing big films, you’re very busy in film and television. They asked Robert Duvall what the key to survival in Los Angeles was and he looked at them and said, “hobbies, hobbies and more hobbies.” The reason for that is you’ll drive yourself crazy. Neurosis for the actor comes in not being able to work, to not be able to get what’s inside of them out. They’re in a poker game that’s all in in a kind of way. There are very few parents, if any, who would say, “oh, I want my son to grow up and become an actor” because they want to spare you that.

David Read
Yeah, they’re gonna be spending a great deal of time unhappy.

Tony Amendola
Yeah, yeah, you can be. Getting back to your original question, do I consider myself blessed? Without a question I consider myself blessed and that was from the get go. With the exception of Los Angeles, I never faced prolonged employment. In Los Angeles I had months, months and months but previous to that it was pretty unique.

David Read
Have you worked since COVID has started? Have you had a chance to get on set or are you are you still doing everything over zoom? You were talking before, during the Gatecon interview, that you were you were prepping for a play through Zoom.

Tony Amendola
Right, everything’s through Zoom. The only thing I’ve done is I’ve done, in studio, some VO. I’ve done voiceover work, I have not shot anything yet. All the auditions around…they just started actually opening up the whole notion “well, you can film.” Just six weeks ago maybe and it takes a while to grind up. Auditions are coming back now. It is weird though to audition on Zoom, it’s not quite the same.

David Read
We’re not out of the woods yet. Everyone’s kind of figuring this thing out as we go forward.

Tony Amendola
Absolutely, no one knows. Everything is changing. What happens if all the movie theaters go away or if a significant number of them go away as we know is a possibility right now? No one knows. Broadway, just yesterday, pushed their opening date to the end of May, beginning of June, 2021. That’s the earliest anything will be on Broadway. Oddly, David, I’ve been very busy. Sometimes I wonder, “how can I be busy? There’s nothing going on.” There are projects, people have desires and pet projects that I want to work on. I’m working on three or four different Zoom things. One is sort of an examination of some scenes in King Lear. Another one is The Caretaker, Pinter’s The Caretaker. It’s just sort of all those types of things. They’re all labors of love with the exception of the VO work. That’s been, you know, thank God.

David Read
You gotta pay the bills somehow.

Tony Amendola
You have to, you have to. As you say, we’re not out of the woods, no one quite knows. You probably have read this, some great work has been written or created during pandemics. Some of Shakespeare’s greatest plays; Lear, Timon of Athens, Coriolanus, all written. I think Antony and Cleopatra, written during time of plague.

David Read
There’s no doubt that there’s definitely been some horrible things to happen through this. This year, and perhaps, please God no, the years that follow it, will be studied for the rest of our lives. There’s going to be some good as well; look at the stories of 9/11.

Tony Amendola
Absolutely. For instance, I keep thinking we’re going into flu season which is always a big worry. What are they calling it? The twin pandemic now, twin-demics. It’s a real worry. Get your flu shot, I’m getting mine Monday. But supposedly the flu numbers in the southern hemisphere, which is winter, have been very low this year from what I understand. Because, guess what? The same precautions we take for COVID are identical to the precautions you take for flu. I’m hoping that we won’t get a double whammy. It sort of affords you a time to really stop because we are at such a pace, there’s such a pace with social media and the bombardment of information. To all of a sudden have a lull without of course, ideally, without the deaths and the pain and the suffering. To have that is a real eye opener and sort of, what does it mean? Who are we at this point? There’s some big, big things coming up? What do they say? “You live in interesting times.”

David Read
The Chinese proverb for sure. I want to switch gears with you here. The last time I saw you in person we were with Carmen Argenziano. A word about Carmen.

Tony Amendola
It’s funny, we all worked together on Stargate and we all know each other. When you’re in Vancouver and you’re working very long hours and you have a family, as the other cast members did, there’s not really a lot of time to socialize which is why we enjoy going to conventions because there’s nothing but time to socialize.

David Read
You see each other as well as the fans.

Tony Amendola
If you’re out of town, because of course I live in Los Angeles as Carmen did, and you’re working in Vancouver. Now, who do you go eat dinner with? Carmen and I had wonderful times together; great laughs. He was a very sort of humble guy, almost to the point where you’re thinking “come on, you’ve been doing this 50 years, will you stop, will you stop. Give me something.” He was just unique. We would always laugh because there were a couple of incidents at conventions where people would come up and say to Carmen, “you’re my favorite character in Stargate and I love your relationship with Amanda and I just can’t tell you how great it is.” Then they’d put my picture in front of him.

David Read
Oh my god! Really? No way!

Tony Amendola
I kid you not.

David Read
Maybe they left their glasses back in their hotel rooms?

Tony Amendola
Obviously I didn’t have my cap on, it was one of those other pictures. There were several where, for instance, the fire scene in the alternate reality when Teal’c is a fireman and rescues me and I’m in the hospital.

David Read
Changeling. That’s true.

David Read
F. Murray Abraham? Well, yeah, I can see that but Carmen?

Tony Amendola
Yeah, Changling, I don’t have my thing. They do the same to me. Not only would they do that, I’ll tell you, it’s so funny. I can’t tell you the number, not tons, but several times people have come up to me and again, they love my work, they love my work and then they tell me “and please, I have something here I want you to sign from Amadeus.” Because in a certain light…

Tony Amendola
Absolutely. Before I used to disappoint them and say, “thank you so much but I’m not…” Now, I just listen and I sign.

Tony Amendola
I don’t sign F Murray’s name. I sign my name and I give it to them and they’ll catch up.

David Read
You sign it?

David Read
Right. The IMDb people will eventually say, “look it up.”

Tony Amendola
One other thing David, it’s so funny, for the longest time people always would say…You know you look like someone when they always would say “you should play Amadeus Salieri, you should be in Amadeus and play Salieri.” I hear that, I heard that for 30 years and finally, just maybe 18 months ago, I got a chance to do it.

David Read
Really?

Tony Amendola
Oh yeah, it was wonderful. It was a wonderful experience, down in San Diego I did it. I figure it’s now or never, you know? It’s played by a younger guy, generally. Here’s where it’s so cool, the guy, the director, he had seen some other work I’d done. He said “I really want you to do it now. You’re a little older. Generally, young actors do it because they think…he’s an old man, it’s a flashback.” He sees old actors playing and he says, “you, we don’t have the wig (my hair was longer) and you’re of an age, you age up a little bit, ten years, five years, and we’ll put the dark wig on you.” Guess what? I can still move, I’m fine, I can give the illusion of youth. That was on my bucket list and I got a chance to do it and I was really grateful for that.

David Read
Speaking of bucket lists, Man of La Mancha, Don Quixote.

Tony Amendola
Oh yeah, I loved that.

David Read
Brad, and I’m hoping that you can pick up the story, Brad Wright and I were talking and there was a scheduling conflict. This is just the goodness of that production and how they were flexible with the actors. Can you take it from there?

Tony Amendola
I will, except I’m going to correct you. It wasn’t Man of La Mancha, it was Cyrano.

David Read
Cyrano?

Tony Amendola
Cyrano de Bergerac, another bucket list one. I was doing it and before I took the job I called and said, “hey, I got this job coming up I really really want to do. I’m just checking to see if you’re clear. Am I clear for a couple of months, eight weeks?” They say, “oh yeah, absolutely clear.” This is a month before and I’m literally driving to the first day of rehearsal and I get a phone call saying, “oh, they have an episode of Stargate for you.” I said, “what?” Before I said no, because I was committed now to Cyrano and you have to honor your word, I called Brad and said, “hey, is there any chance…?” Luckily, as you say, the production was such and when I told him what it was too. You know, every character guy has got a Cyrano in him. It’s not the young, handsome Brad Pitt’s walking around. I mean, Cyrano is the character man’s Hamlet, is the character man’s adventure, you know? He said, “okay, let me get back to you” and sure enough they changed everything and worked it around so I did both. I flew up, I think I did three days and then flew back and finished the week of the Cyrano and then flew up. The other thing, I’ll never forget, I had to be up really early on the Monday morning and of course we performed Sunday night. The only flight I could get in was into Seattle and how do I get from Seattle? They sent a driver because they knew I had to get up at five and they send a driver. I have nothing but admiration and appreciation for Brad. Brad was very, very kind to me. He also said something to me that really sort of touched me. In Threshold, the episode Threshold which he wrote, I did it and it was our backstory. It’s a very important story for Chris and myself; it’s sort of my favorite episode because of that reason, our connection. Then I was up doing another episode later on in that season and now they had edited and we’re just doing the final thing. He came up to me and says, “I want you to know, I did not cut a single thing of yours in Threshold.”

David Read
In editing?

Tony Amendola
In editing. He said, “I kept every single moment” and I thought, “wow, thank you.” Being hired is in essence saying “job well done”. Actors, you can’t expect in the craziness of our schedule, people to be overly appreciative all the time. But the occasional word like that always…it made me feel a part of the show, really a deep part of the show. It’s very kind of him.

David Read
I’m trying to think. When was the last time that you filmed as Bra’tac? 13, 14 years at this point and we’re still talking and there’s still things to talk about. Something worked.

Tony Amendola
Not only that, there’s still some things to do.

David Read
Ain’t that the truth, I completely agree. Christopher with the Jaffa story, absolutely. I want to take a step back, I want to go back a little bit and kind of get the foundation of you as a human being. Where were you raised? What did your family do?

Tony Amendola
I was raised in New Haven, Connecticut, very blue collar. Both my mom and dad worked. My mom worked in a sewing factory, essentially a sweatshop really. My dad was a construction worker but pre-union. Unions, this would have been in the 50s. Then he was lucky enough to get a job in the post office, late, he was probably in his 40s when he got that. That sort of changed everything. I had two older brothers and we all worked. We all worked, we all had after school jobs. This is sort of a template for a time passed. This would not work today but it’s what it was. We all worked, me and my brothers, and we contributed that money to the household. It wasn’t like, “oh, well we’re working so we can be taught responsibility.”

David Read
The family pulled together.

Tony Amendola
Yeah. Oddly, I didn’t realize until much later because when I say I was working I’m telling you I was selling newspapers at 7 and 8. Again, a different time. That was daycare because my brothers had roots too so they can keep an eye on me. Because my dad worked nights and my mom worked during the day there was no one at home to keep an eye on us. So we did that and that’s sort of what it was. Some of the big things, I almost went to a tech school, high school, but then I decided I didn’t. Very late in my high school, I thought, there’s any of a number of trades that I could go into and it was only late that I had a teacher who said, “you know, maybe you should just do a year or two of college, just for yourself.” I had tons of teachers who were very nice. I was a cut up, I was not a good student, I was not a bad student. My high school, I was working four to twelve, you know? She insisted on having my opinion on things and boy did she regret that because then I never shut up. Because of that I went to college and it was in college that I literally, it’s the old stumbled into an audition for a play. That’s where it sort of began but initially it was social. It was a place to be, your 19, 18, 20. What do you do with your passions once you get past the mask of what you’re presenting to society? It was social, it was meeting people, meeting women. I was lucky because of growing up in New Haven there were two of the most respected regional theaters in New Haven and they were literally less than a 15 minute walk from where I grew up and I would walk there. When I was in college on a Saturday night I’d go and put down my student ID and pay $10 for whatever they was showing and it took me to a different world. That world was sometimes Irish, sometimes it was American, sometimes it was Russian. I got to see exquisite actors. For instance, I saw Meryl Streep, Sigourney Weaver, when they were students. They were students. John Cazale, John Lithgow, Al Pacino, this is who was performing there. Christopher Walken, I saw him do a number of things before he was Christopher Walken. I feel blessed for that because I didn’t have to get rid of tons of bad habits that can sometimes happen when you start too early. My exposure was always, oddly, really some of the top talent in the country. Only after that did I realize “oh, I need to train more” so I ended up going school in Philadelphia. That’s where I got my training and now what do you do? I taught. When I came out of school I moved to New York but had no money so I taught briefly, academically, acting, directing, those types of things. I was offered a job, a full time job, to go into academia but I didn’t feel it was good for the students. I didn’t have any professional experience, how can I go from being student one year to being an instructor? I wasn’t tried and tested, what I knew. I said no and I was lucky. Because of that I moved to New York and then I started working. I got hired out of town, I got hired in Oregon for people that know the Shakespeare Festival there. I spent a couple of seasons and directed and then did my stint of theater for the first 14 or so years. That was a long answer David.

David Read
No, absolutely. Do you recall the play in high school that first got you out?

Tony Amendola
It was in college.

David Read
Oh, in college, excuse me.

Tony Amendola
Yeah, it was not in high school. In high school I was working full time. I played basketball for a while. I did play basketball and that was oddly, I think that was my movement. That’s where I learned how to move. When you think about basketball it’s a very sort of jazz like, dance like, modern dancey sort of thing. That served me very well as an actor. The first play I ever stepped foot on stage was The Tempest, Shakespeare’s The Tempest. You want to know my first line I ever said on stage?

David Read
Please.

Tony Amendola
“All is lost to prayers, to prayers all is lost.” I think of that line all the time.

David Read
I bet you know the DNA of what that line means too? Did you ever get a chance to tell this individual in your high school, thank you.

Tony Amendola
College.

David Read
It was a college advisor that suggested the…?

Tony Amendola
Oh, I’m sorry, you’re talking about…No, it was an English teacher.

David Read
Did you ever get a chance to say thank you?

Tony Amendola
I never did because guess what? She eloped with another English teacher. Two of them left their spouses.

David Read
You’re kidding?

Tony Amendola
No, I kid you not. They left their spouses so I don’t know where she ended. One time I Googled her but I could not find her, I was having one of those nostalgic moments. She may have changed her name.

David Read
Yeah, those kind of things happen all the time. Bloodlines, so you had just done The Mask of Zorro at this point, this is 1997. You had indicated before that you had always wanted to go to Vancouver. Tell us about being cast as Master Bra’tac.

Tony Amendola
Yeah, I always wanted to go to Vancouver because my wife and I had gone through. We took our first vacation together in 1983 and went to Banff, Jasper, Canadian Rockies, flew into Vancouver, took the train across. We fell in love with Vancouver because it was summer. It was summer and it’s as glorious a place that you can imagine. I was always jealous, my french, we’re working in Vancouver and never got the opportunity. I did Mask of Zorro, I was only home a week or so, agent called, audition, Stargate. I had seen the movie and enjoyed the movie. “This 133 year old blank blank blank shoots up in Vancouver and it was the Fourth of July weekend. What are you doing Fourth of July weekend?” I mean, after you celebrate, I had time so I really worked on the script and I was really prepared for the audition and I really wanted to go to Vancouver. Sure enough, it happened and one of the things I think made it happen…there’s a special time for an actor after they finish a big film where they’re sort of hot because the film hasn’t come out and hasn’t been a success or a flop yet but there’s a possibility that you could get this guy and he’s just gonna [explode]. Those little things make a difference, having just come off the film. I also did an audition I was very pleased with. That’s sort of how it all came together. You probably want to hear the story about when I arrived and then realized I’m worried about the makeup.

David Read
Jan Newman, right?

Tony Amendola
Jan Newman. Probably some of the people have heard this story, I’m sorry.

David Read
No, please.

Tony Amendola
Yeah, so I arrive. My wife, if I’m working in Oklahoma or if I’m working in some other places that are not as desirable to visit, she will not come. But boy, Vancouver, New Orleans, Mexico, she’ll come. She was so excited to come back but now I realize, “oh my god, she’s going to be here. We want to enjoy the town as well as do this work and I’m playing a 133 year old guy. It’s going to be a makeup chair 4:30 in the morning, I’m going to be fried.” I get there, I do my wardrobe fitting which is great. I’m going to leave and the second AD says makeup key, Jan, wants to see you. I’m thinking here it comes, “can we shave your head? Can we…something.” I go in and she just looks at me, “Oh, you’re perfect as you are.” All of a sudden I’m like “133, I’m perfect as I am?”

David Read
Now you’re insulted.

Tony Amendola
Now I’m insulted but guess what? I have never, with Bra’tac at least, I have never met a fan who says “oh, you’ve gotten old.” See, you can’t say that about Bra’tac. You start at 133, I mean, the guy’s always gonna look good. He’s always gonna be, you know.

David Read
Someone in chat, I was peeking in, someone said “there’s no way he’s 69.” They’re like, “no, that’s not possible. He looks younger than that.” So there you go.

Tony Amendola
I feel younger than that. When you get to be 69 you realize you’re naughty as 15, always. It’s always there, you may not act on it.

David Read
You spent a lot of time on location for that episode and you really got to experience the outdoors. Tell me about the weight of that initial costume. First season, they had not really tweaked the costumes yet as they did as the story went on.

Tony Amendola
No, it was very heavy. First, let me say, working outdoors. I got such a welcome from people when I went back from the crew and everything, they just could not have been nicer. Then I always realized the other shoe would fall because they realized if Bra’tac was back we were going to a gravel pit.

David Read
There were a few pits in Vancouver that did just that.

Tony Amendola
I had spent so much time there. As an actor what I hate is if you have very uncomfortable things that add nothing to the depiction of the character. They’re someone else’s idea of something, you have no connection to them, you just have to wear a funny hat. It has to go to the left, has nothing to do with the character, it’s because the other one is going to the right. You’re trying to juggle it. I never resented the clothes for Bra’tac which were very heavy. There was chainmail, there were plastic pieces, there were robes, there were capes. I mean it was probably, I’d say 50, 60 pounds.

David Read
And this guy right here next to me. [Serpent Guard]

Tony Amendola
Oh my god and then you’re talking about that guy.

David Read
With the helmet.

Tony Amendola
Pneumatic head. But it looks so good. One thing about carrying a lot of weight all day is that when you take it off at the end of the day you feel like, for the people that have played basketball or wore ankle weights, it’s that light feeling you feel. I always enjoyed it, enjoy is not the right word, I was always very tolerant of it. Although sometimes, this is Jan, with the heat in that first episode, it was hot. They’d lift my little cap and literally water would pour out.

David Read
Yeah, because it all goes out of the top of your head.

Tony Amendola
Oh yes, 30% of your heat, right? Believe me, I know. Jan, still to this day, she’d have a little thing with ice. She’d have facecloths it with Seabreeze and she’d put them on the back of your neck and on your wrists and everything. There was a funny thing that happened once that I’ll never forget. They put your makeup on and they have to put sunscreen on. Again, you’re out in the sun. I have my little my…

David Read
Tattoo.

Tony Amendola
Tattoo, my little golden guy. Sometimes, time went by and when they took it off I sort of had a tan.

David Read
You’re kidding?

Tony Amendola
Very very faint. She said “oh, well, yeah, I guess we’ll be more careful with the skirt and sunscreen tomrorow.” I said “hey, we know what the positioning is now.”

David Read
You can line it right back up, forget the Polaroids.

Tony Amendola
There’s always the joke, people are fascinated when you go to a con, they say “how did they attach that?” Particularly if it’s a young boy or girl, I look at them very serious and say “oh my tattoo? They use the nail gun” and I can always see them, their eyes go like that.

David Read
You’re bad Tony.

Tony Amendola
I am. I love that. Every so often, because we’ve been around so long, the parent will say “yeah, he told me that joke too.”

David Read
Do you know the in-cannon story of how it’s done?

Tony Amendola
No. What’s that?

David Read
A certain Jaffa or Goa’uld knife is used to cut the flesh and then pure molten gold is poured in.

Tony Amendola
Pure molten gold.

David Read
It’s pretty chunky.

Tony Amendola
If you’re lucky it’s gold. If you’re a peon, it’s not.

David Read
Right, it’s some kind of silver or something. You told this story on Dialing Home. I’d like to hear the story again on Dial the Gate. Your first encounter with Rick on set, you didn’t exactly know who he was studying to be working with Chris.

Tony Amendola
I knew he was the star of the show and I certainly knew MacGyver and those things. One of the things about spending 15 years in the theater and some of it pre-VCR, let alone DVR, but pre-VCR, is that the 80s are a blank to me in terms of television unless they were on Monday nights. If they were on Monday nights, Cagney and Lacey, those types of things, because that was our night off. My wife and I, we love Cagney and Lacey by the way. Rick, I knew he was a star but I had a job to do. My job when I read, after I was hired, and I was going to the paradise that is Vancouver, my job was “okay Tony, get to work, get to work. Okay, what is the story again? Oh, okay, story again, this Teal’c, that’s who I am.” I’m literally, when they find him, I’m at his house. I know he’s coming back because his home has been destroyed, I’m literally holding vigil there. So I know, so obviously this is important, at my own jeopardy.

David Read
Your student.

Tony Amendola
Yeah, my student. I know it’s all based on him and Michael Shanks and Amanda Tapping are in it. They’re all nice people, I’m certain, but the only one I care about is this guy Christopher Judge. After I meet Jan and do it the very next day I see a picture of Chris when I’m in the fitting and the makeup. I say “oh my god, it’s an interesting guy, boy he’s a big strong guy.” But now I gotta meet him, I got to look him in the eye. They let me out, I’ve just arrived, they’re in between takes, Mario Azzopardi directed that episode. Michael Greenburg is over there too at the time and I walk and they’re having a conflab about something. I walk in and I’ll never forget. I get out of a van, Richard is here and then Chris, Amanda and Michael are behind him. I’m just walking, it’s a break, the AD comes to me and I’m walking, I’m looking for Chris. Richard ready to receive me, now Richard is not gonna remember any of this. Richard’s ready to receive me, to receive my thanks for being on the show, which I did give him eventually, obviously. I walked sort of right behind…his hand almost extended, and I just went right by him. I went up to Chris and said “hi Chris, I’m Tony, I guess we’re a team.” I remember, I don’t know what Rick did behind me, but I remember the other guys sort of like, you know…I wasn’t trying to be rude or anything like that, it was just like a simple focus. You generally don’t walk by the number one.

David Read
No, no, you pay respect.

Tony Amendola
You pay respect. Sometimes people think actors have long discussions and sometimes we do about certain things but the most important thing is to be able to look a person in the eye and think “yeah, I could…” It’s almost like you have a scale. You look a person in the eye and you think of what your notion of who that person should be, that character. You realize, “oh my god, he or she is a three of my idea. I’m gonna have to act seven of that. Seven of that scale of 10.” When I looked at Chris, I thought, “well, we’re at a 10.” As a matter of fact, probably the less acting I do the better because I just felt a good connection. Then I went over and said hi to Michael and Richard. He was Rick which is what made the show so successful; his irreverence, the reluctant hero, if you will. I remember, we had some intense things that first day. Just brief, but flipping and everything like that. Rick will do it and it’s like, “yeah, he’s cranky” and everything like that. I remember, my first day, I just want to do it right. The thing you gotta realize, Rick has been on set for 25 years. He’s had an amazing career, an extraordinary career. So consequently, his passion is his job and you always have to negotiate that. There are special times and you can almost see it sometimes, it’s generally when they give them a new weapon, just to fire it. He’s like a kid again, you can see the kid. A couple of times I thought, “man, he’s a little cranky. Can’t we just have a better time?” I realized, “oh, thank god I didn’t make a crack.” Even when I did the second episode, Serpent’s Lair I think was the second episode…

David Read
Yeah, you came in 201.

Tony Amendola
That was my second episode. Only when I did that, that I realized, “oh, no, this is gold.”

David Read
What they picked up on in Bloodlines; the little threads of chatter between you and Rick, went full bore in that second episode. They were playing that up.

Tony Amendola
Oh completely and it was great. Again, Rick is the reluctant hero. I’ve always said this about Rick, the thing I admire is that he’s not the kind of guy who’s gonna go out and act for you. He’s not an actor with a capital A, he’s sort of the reluctant one, he likes to be the clown, he likes to be this, he’s offhand. I would watch him. We’d have a lot of Jaffa speak and I’d watch him try to figure out exactly what the best way to bust that balloon was, what the remark needed to be. It was written in the script but often he would create a better line and they would let him do that. What I would love with Rick was when they’d corner him and force him to have an emotional scene. You know the episodes so well, I mean his stuff with Amanda, some of it was exquisite. There’s the episode where he’s trapped, he’s skewered on a…You know what I’m talking about?

David Read
Yeah, I do. It’s season two, it’s like a crucifixion. Message in a Bottle.

Tony Amendola
He’s terrific. It’s almost like you have to corner him and he’ll look “ah shit. Is there any way out? Is there a joke? Can I be off hat? Oh, you really want me to go right through?”

David Read
And then he delivers a remarkable performance.

Tony Amendola
Then all of a sudden the focus. That 25 years of knowing it’s different. It’s not 25 years of just acting because he’s been acting much longer than that. It’s 25 years of knowing how to deal with this. You know what it is? it’s like a matador in a kind of way, playing with the bull initially or the clown. I’m not a big fan of bullfighting in that kind of way, but he’s playing. He’s like the rodeo clown or bull fighting clown and then the matador steps in and all of a sudden it can get quite serious.

David Read
That’s awesome. I want to pull up some questions from fans before I let you go. I really wanted to thank you for this initial first step. This was fantastic and it means a great deal to me that you came in, pinch hitting for Christopher, there’s a certain symmetry to that so thank you for being here.

Tony Amendola
I felt the same thing. I thought it was very appropriate for me to come in for Chris.

David Read
Absolutely, Bra’tac would do that. If the Stargate were revealed to the world and Teal’c couldn’t be there, “I will go on national television on your Earth stations.” Sommer, I’m not seeing the questions so I’m going to have to figure out, let me reopen it here. I’m not seeing them. For those who have come in to ask questions for Tony…will you be back with us in a few months?

Tony Amendola
Absolutely.

David Read
I will ask these questions then. I’m gonna go ahead and make sure that those are copied. This is my issue, this is not theirs. I will ask their questions, I’ve copied them and I will ask the questions of the fans the next time that we have you on. This sir was a treat, absolutely. The intent of this show is to go through and explore, bit by bit, the important people who created a piece of work that has provided us so much joy over the years and will continue to provide generations who have yet to encounter the show a great deal of entertainment. It’s not just entertainment, you’re changing people’s hearts and minds with this content. It’s like Shakespeare, it’s like Star Trek, it means something to people and thank you for being a part of that.

Tony Amendola
Well let me let to you that you’ve done an enormous amount to keep this alive. I’ve been very aware of that and we’ve met and done things several times. I want to thank you for creating this repository of memories and ideas about a show that meant a lot to all of us. Thank you and I can tell just by looking at what’s behind you…

David Read
That I’m a bit of a fan?

Tony Amendola
You are equipped for the next invasion.

David Read
I am indeed. Kree Jaffa. Absolutely. Tony, this has been fantastic. There’s much to discuss and I look forward to having you back on early 2021.

Tony Amendola
Thank you all and to all of you out there, keep watching. I hope we get to meet once the dust clears from our current crisis. Okay, be safe.

David Read
Thank you Tony, appreciate your time. All right folks, Mr. Tony Amendola, Master Bra’tac himself. Thank you so much for joining this episode. This was an abbreviated show so we’re going to go ahead and get ready for Joseph Mallozzi here who is going to be joining us in just a minute. Okay, so I’m gonna go ahead and wrap this up here. Before we go, if you like what you’ve seen in this episode I would appreciate if you click the like button. It really makes a difference with YouTube’s algorithm and will definitely help grow the show’s 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. If you plan to watch live, I recommend giving the bell icon a click so you’ll be the first to know of any schedule changes, which will probably happen all the time. Clips of this live stream will be released over the course of the next several days on both the Dial the Gate and GateWorld.net YouTube channels. The clips are designed for people who don’t have time to sit through the whole show. I appreciate everyone who is tuning in and everyone who is going to see the show after it’s live. Thank you so much for watching and you know what, Joseph Mallozzi is going to be coming on in just a moment here so we’re going to bring him in and I’ll see you on the other side.
David Read
Welcome to episode two of Dialing the Gate, Dial the Gate. Man, one of these days I will get my show name correct. Hello everyone, my name is David Read, thank you for joining us. This is going to be a more abbreviated episode of the show because Tony has only so much time to be with us. Normally the shows are going to be running around 90 minutes but in this case Tony is doing me a favor because Christopher judge had to back out for work reasons. Let me just get right to this and I appreciate your patience here. The way that this is going to go, we’re going to have a guest Q&A, Tony and I are going to be talking for about 30 to 45 minutes, around there. Submit your questions, I believe Sommer and Ian, if I’m not mistaken, are running today, the show today. I appreciate you guys. We’ve also got Keith and Tracy in there as well, they are our new moderators so thank you guys so much for coming on board. We’re going to try and keep them all organized and then I’m going to ask those questions at the end of my line of questions to Master Bra’tac himself, Tony Amendola, and we’re just going to go from there. I appreciate you hanging on while I discovered this process for myself. Okay, so with that out of the way, before we get started, if you like Stargate and you want to see more content like this on YouTube, it would mean a great deal if you click the like button. It really makes a difference with YouTube’s algorithm and it will definitely 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. Giving the bell icon a click will notify you the moment a new video drops and you’ll get my text notifications of any last minute guest changes. This is key if you plan on watching live and clips from this live stream will be released over the course of the next several days on both the Dial the Gate and GateWorld.net YouTube channels. The clips are designed for people who don’t have time to sit through the whole show unlike some of us who are sitting in cars forever and can listen to live streams and everything else. Without further ado, Mr. Tony Amendola, Master Bra’tac himself. Sir, I am not worthy. thank you for being here.

Tony Amendola
Thank you for having me David.

David Read
It’s a pleasure to have you. How are things going out in L.A? Fires! We’ve got pestilence. It’s been an interesting year.

Tony Amendola
I heard the weather report today, there’s a chance of frogs.

David Read
Oh man!

Tony Amendola
Yeah, it’s 2020 eh? 2020, oh boy.

David Read
What can it throw at us that we haven’t seen before?

Tony Amendola
Oh, don’t say that.

David Read
That’s certainly true.

Tony Amendola
I thought that in April.

David Read
Yeah. Now we’re eating our words, right?

Tony Amendola
Absolutely.

David Read
I have been watching you on television, not with the intent of following you specifically, although you are amazing talent. You just keep on popping up; Terminator, Once Upon a Time, of course Stargate, obviously. Do you consider yourself blessed?

Tony Amendola
Well, if you’re a working actor you’re blessed. We belong to a profession where in any given week over 90% of us are unemployed, more, 94%. The notion of being able to work is exactly that, it’s a blessing. I remember when I finished school, I went to school in Philadelphia. At the end, because you’re in school you’re training. It’s sort of the equivalent, although not as practical, as medical school or law school, in terms of hours, in terms of intensity, when you’re in a training program. I remember I was approaching the end of it and I wrote a little note said, “professional acting work, East Coast.” That was sort of like an affirmation because I had nothing in front of me and it sort of worked out. It ended up being mainly on the west coast but I’m okay, yeah, I’m okay. It’s been a long, busy and worrying and rewarding and every sort of mental state that you can imagine that’s sort of an actor’s life. I have been blessed?

David Read
Did you expect to find yourself where you are at this point in your life or is this, like Don Davis always said, “this is not where I wanted to be. It’s wonderful but it’s not what I had in mind.”

Tony Amendola
I probably didn’t have much in my…no, it’s a complete surprise. There’s a term, “a lifer” for an actor. They’re the people that knew at eight and they started singing and dancing; they just knew that’s what they were going to do. I didn’t get involved until college. Consequently it’s taken me all over the world, it’s allowed me to study probably the most fascinating thing in the world, which is human behavior. It’s just provided me with a wonderful carte blanche to a kind of experience that I would never have. Some people describe the primary question of an actor is the “what is it like to be you?” and from there. Actors really don’t want to be themselves. We have to use ourselves, our bodies, our voices, our emotions, all of those things. But we want to adapt, we want to change and sometimes that’s where the aspect of play comes in. To give you an example, I had done several films but the first big studio film I did was the Legend of Zorro. I just remember pinching myself walking to set in these 19th Century Spanish nobleman clothes and getting on a horse to ride into the scene where there were 500 extras.

David Read
Oh my gosh.

David Read
Yeah.

Tony Amendola
Screaming! If you watch the opening scene of The Legend of Zorro. I remember just thinking, “Oh my God.” It’s the equivalent of, this is not x-rated so I guess I can say it.

Tony Amendola
The first time you make love and you pinch yourself because the other person is so beautiful.

David Read
You’re fortunate.

Tony Amendola
Yes, you just pinch yourself, you think “Oh my God.” That was where acting took me. Now, to be fair, and we must be fair, less there be young people out there who think, “just climb that stairwell and I can have that experience.” It’s a grind. There’s an old saying, “they pay us for worrying and waiting, the acting is free.”

David Read
I can definitely attest to that, going and visiting you guys on set for years and years. I’d never crossed paths with you on set but it’s waiting, it’s a lot of waiting. You have to know your lines and be on your marks. There’s nothing to stop you from not knowing your lines but you’re going to make 150 people miserable if you don’t.

Tony Amendola
Less we be clear, that’s the good waiting. The waiting you’re describing is the waiting when you have a job; you have a job and you’re on set, you’re working. There’s craft services, or there used to be before the pandemic. There’s a million things; the long hours, but you’re employed. I’m telling you about the waiting in between jobs.

David Read
Oh I understand now, okay.

Tony Amendola
Yeah, for me, for instance, one of the things about an actor is you have to look in the mirror very hard. I was fortunate enough that when I finished school I managed to get theater work. It was a type of theater work that was seasonal work. In other words I was working from May, excuse me, from September until the end of May and then I’d do something else in the summer, which hardly exists now. It’s very, very rare. I say that because actors make sense at different ages. I was never a young leading man so the notion of me coming down to L.A. and pursuing my acting, younger, say in my 20s, I would have worked but it wouldn’t have been very rewarding. So instead of that, and this was completely by accident, it wasn’t a choice, I ended up doing 15 years of rep work. When you do that you make a living, certainly not a lot of money, but you pay your bills, you have a regular life, you have a car.

David Read
Can you explain rep work for me?

Tony Amendola
Rep work is when you’re doing a season of plays, you’re not hired for just one thing. For instance, if they were doing a play about Bra’tac, they would think, “oh, Tony is a good Bra’tac.” The very next play they’ll be doing a different kind of play and they’ll think, “well, he’s not quite right.” In rep, the whole notion is to expand the actor so you get to play the role you’re right for and the roles you have no reason to be playing but it makes for wonderful growth. How the sum becomes greater than its parts is because you’re working with the same group of people. In one season for instance, I could play Iago in Othello, I could play Clifford Odets Urban Thing, but I’ll play the gentleman caller in The Glass Menagerie. Now, for the people who know Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie, I am not your typical casting for that. But that’s where the challenge is and you get a finicky artistic director who’s interested in presenting a slate of plays to an audience, but is also interested in the growth of the company. You get opportunities like that and that’s unique, that’s really unique. Whereas in television and film it’s a different schedule. You are so busy in the theater, you can be, and if you’re lucky you’re doing big films, you’re very busy in film and television. They asked Robert Duvall what the key to survival in Los Angeles was and he looked at them and said, “hobbies, hobbies and more hobbies.” The reason for that is you’ll drive yourself crazy. Neurosis for the actor comes in not being able to work, to not be able to get what’s inside of them out. They’re in a poker game that’s all in in a kind of way. There are very few parents, if any, who would say, “oh, I want my son to grow up and become an actor” because they want to spare you that.

David Read
Yeah, they’re gonna be spending a great deal of time unhappy.

Tony Amendola
Yeah, yeah, you can be. Getting back to your original question, do I consider myself blessed? Without a question I consider myself blessed and that was from the get go. With the exception of Los Angeles, I never faced prolonged employment. In Los Angeles I had months, months and months but previous to that it was pretty unique.

David Read
Have you worked since COVID has started? Have you had a chance to get on set or are you are you still doing everything over zoom? You were talking before, during the Gatecon interview, that you were you were prepping for a play through Zoom.

Tony Amendola
Right, everything’s through Zoom. The only thing I’ve done is I’ve done, in studio, some VO. I’ve done voiceover work, I have not shot anything yet. All the auditions around…they just started actually opening up the whole notion “well, you can film.” Just six weeks ago maybe and it takes a while to grind up. Auditions are coming back now. It is weird though to audition on Zoom, it’s not quite the same.

David Read
We’re not out of the woods yet. Everyone’s kind of figuring this thing out as we go forward.

Tony Amendola
Absolutely, no one knows. Everything is changing. What happens if all the movie theaters go away or if a significant number of them go away as we know is a possibility right now? No one knows. Broadway, just yesterday, pushed their opening date to the end of May, beginning of June, 2021. That’s the earliest anything will be on Broadway. Oddly, David, I’ve been very busy. Sometimes I wonder, “how can I be busy? There’s nothing going on.” There are projects, people have desires and pet projects that I want to work on. I’m working on three or four different Zoom things. One is sort of an examination of some scenes in King Lear. Another one is The Caretaker, Pinter’s The Caretaker. It’s just sort of all those types of things. They’re all labors of love with the exception of the VO work. That’s been, you know, thank God.

David Read
You gotta pay the bills somehow.

Tony Amendola
You have to, you have to. As you say, we’re not out of the woods, no one quite knows. You probably have read this, some great work has been written or created during pandemics. Some of Shakespeare’s greatest plays; Lear, Timon of Athens, Coriolanus, all written. I think Antony and Cleopatra, written during time of plague.

David Read
There’s no doubt that there’s definitely been some horrible things to happen through this. This year, and perhaps, please God no, the years that follow it, will be studied for the rest of our lives. There’s going to be some good as well; look at the stories of 9/11.

Tony Amendola
Absolutely. For instance, I keep thinking we’re going into flu season which is always a big worry. What are they calling it? The twin pandemic now, twin-demics. It’s a real worry. Get your flu shot, I’m getting mine Monday. But supposedly the flu numbers in the southern hemisphere, which is winter, have been very low this year from what I understand. Because, guess what? The same precautions we take for COVID are identical to the precautions you take for flu. I’m hoping that we won’t get a double whammy. It sort of affords you a time to really stop because we are at such a pace, there’s such a pace with social media and the bombardment of information. To all of a sudden have a lull without of course, ideally, without the deaths and the pain and the suffering. To have that is a real eye opener and sort of, what does it mean? Who are we at this point? There’s some big, big things coming up? What do they say? “You live in interesting times.”

David Read
The Chinese proverb for sure. I want to switch gears with you here. The last time I saw you in person we were with Carmen Argenziano. A word about Carmen.

Tony Amendola
It’s funny, we all worked together on Stargate and we all know each other. When you’re in Vancouver and you’re working very long hours and you have a family, as the other cast members did, there’s not really a lot of time to socialize which is why we enjoy going to conventions because there’s nothing but time to socialize.

David Read
You see each other as well as the fans.

Tony Amendola
If you’re out of town, because of course I live in Los Angeles as Carmen did, and you’re working in Vancouver. Now, who do you go eat dinner with? Carmen and I had wonderful times together; great laughs. He was a very sort of humble guy, almost to the point where you’re thinking “come on, you’ve been doing this 50 years, will you stop, will you stop. Give me something.” He was just unique. We would always laugh because there were a couple of incidents at conventions where people would come up and say to Carmen, “you’re my favorite character in Stargate and I love your relationship with Amanda and I just can’t tell you how great it is.” Then they’d put my picture in front of him.

David Read
Oh my god! Really? No way!

Tony Amendola
I kid you not.

David Read
Maybe they left their glasses back in their hotel rooms?

Tony Amendola
Obviously I didn’t have my cap on, it was one of those other pictures. There were several where, for instance, the fire scene in the alternate reality when Teal’c is a fireman and rescues me and I’m in the hospital.

David Read
Changeling. That’s true.

David Read
F. Murray Abraham? Well, yeah, I can see that but Carmen?

Tony Amendola
Yeah, Changling, I don’t have my thing. They do the same to me. Not only would they do that, I’ll tell you, it’s so funny. I can’t tell you the number, not tons, but several times people have come up to me and again, they love my work, they love my work and then they tell me “and please, I have something here I want you to sign from Amadeus.” Because in a certain light…

Tony Amendola
Absolutely. Before I used to disappoint them and say, “thank you so much but I’m not…” Now, I just listen and I sign.

Tony Amendola
I don’t sign F Murray’s name. I sign my name and I give it to them and they’ll catch up.

David Read
You sign it?

David Read
Right. The IMDb people will eventually say, “look it up.”

Tony Amendola
One other thing David, it’s so funny, for the longest time people always would say…You know you look like someone when they always would say “you should play Amadeus Salieri, you should be in Amadeus and play Salieri.” I hear that, I heard that for 30 years and finally, just maybe 18 months ago, I got a chance to do it.

David Read
Really?

Tony Amendola
Oh yeah, it was wonderful. It was a wonderful experience, down in San Diego I did it. I figure it’s now or never, you know? It’s played by a younger guy, generally. Here’s where it’s so cool, the guy, the director, he had seen some other work I’d done. He said “I really want you to do it now. You’re a little older. Generally, young actors do it because they think…he’s an old man, it’s a flashback.” He sees old actors playing and he says, “you, we don’t have the wig (my hair was longer) and you’re of an age, you age up a little bit, ten years, five years, and we’ll put the dark wig on you.” Guess what? I can still move, I’m fine, I can give the illusion of youth. That was on my bucket list and I got a chance to do it and I was really grateful for that.

David Read
Speaking of bucket lists, Man of La Mancha, Don Quixote.

Tony Amendola
Oh yeah, I loved that.

David Read
Brad, and I’m hoping that you can pick up the story, Brad Wright and I were talking and there was a scheduling conflict. This is just the goodness of that production and how they were flexible with the actors. Can you take it from there?

Tony Amendola
I will, except I’m going to correct you. It wasn’t Man of La Mancha, it was Cyrano.

David Read
Cyrano?

Tony Amendola
Cyrano de Bergerac, another bucket list one. I was doing it and before I took the job I called and said, “hey, I got this job coming up I really really want to do. I’m just checking to see if you’re clear. Am I clear for a couple of months, eight weeks?” They say, “oh yeah, absolutely clear.” This is a month before and I’m literally driving to the first day of rehearsal and I get a phone call saying, “oh, they have an episode of Stargate for you.” I said, “what?” Before I said no, because I was committed now to Cyrano and you have to honor your word, I called Brad and said, “hey, is there any chance…?” Luckily, as you say, the production was such and when I told him what it was too. You know, every character guy has got a Cyrano in him. It’s not the young, handsome Brad Pitt’s walking around. I mean, Cyrano is the character man’s Hamlet, is the character man’s adventure, you know? He said, “okay, let me get back to you” and sure enough they changed everything and worked it around so I did both. I flew up, I think I did three days and then flew back and finished the week of the Cyrano and then flew up. The other thing, I’ll never forget, I had to be up really early on the Monday morning and of course we performed Sunday night. The only flight I could get in was into Seattle and how do I get from Seattle? They sent a driver because they knew I had to get up at five and they send a driver. I have nothing but admiration and appreciation for Brad. Brad was very, very kind to me. He also said something to me that really sort of touched me. In Threshold, the episode Threshold which he wrote, I did it and it was our backstory. It’s a very important story for Chris and myself; it’s sort of my favorite episode because of that reason, our connection. Then I was up doing another episode later on in that season and now they had edited and we’re just doing the final thing. He came up to me and says, “I want you to know, I did not cut a single thing of yours in Threshold.”

David Read
In editing?

Tony Amendola
In editing. He said, “I kept every single moment” and I thought, “wow, thank you.” Being hired is in essence saying “job well done”. Actors, you can’t expect in the craziness of our schedule, people to be overly appreciative all the time. But the occasional word like that always…it made me feel a part of the show, really a deep part of the show. It’s very kind of him.

David Read
I’m trying to think. When was the last time that you filmed as Bra’tac? 13, 14 years at this point and we’re still talking and there’s still things to talk about. Something worked.

Tony Amendola
Not only that, there’s still some things to do.

David Read
Ain’t that the truth, I completely agree. Christopher with the Jaffa story, absolutely. I want to take a step back, I want to go back a little bit and kind of get the foundation of you as a human being. Where were you raised? What did your family do?

Tony Amendola
I was raised in New Haven, Connecticut, very blue collar. Both my mom and dad worked. My mom worked in a sewing factory, essentially a sweatshop really. My dad was a construction worker but pre-union. Unions, this would have been in the 50s. Then he was lucky enough to get a job in the post office, late, he was probably in his 40s when he got that. That sort of changed everything. I had two older brothers and we all worked. We all worked, we all had after school jobs. This is sort of a template for a time passed. This would not work today but it’s what it was. We all worked, me and my brothers, and we contributed that money to the household. It wasn’t like, “oh, well we’re working so we can be taught responsibility.”

David Read
The family pulled together.

Tony Amendola
Yeah. Oddly, I didn’t realize until much later because when I say I was working I’m telling you I was selling newspapers at 7 and 8. Again, a different time. That was daycare because my brothers had roots too so they can keep an eye on me. Because my dad worked nights and my mom worked during the day there was no one at home to keep an eye on us. So we did that and that’s sort of what it was. Some of the big things, I almost went to a tech school, high school, but then I decided I didn’t. Very late in my high school, I thought, there’s any of a number of trades that I could go into and it was only late that I had a teacher who said, “you know, maybe you should just do a year or two of college, just for yourself.” I had tons of teachers who were very nice. I was a cut up, I was not a good student, I was not a bad student. My high school, I was working four to twelve, you know? She insisted on having my opinion on things and boy did she regret that because then I never shut up. Because of that I went to college and it was in college that I literally, it’s the old stumbled into an audition for a play. That’s where it sort of began but initially it was social. It was a place to be, your 19, 18, 20. What do you do with your passions once you get past the mask of what you’re presenting to society? It was social, it was meeting people, meeting women. I was lucky because of growing up in New Haven there were two of the most respected regional theaters in New Haven and they were literally less than a 15 minute walk from where I grew up and I would walk there. When I was in college on a Saturday night I’d go and put down my student ID and pay $10 for whatever they was showing and it took me to a different world. That world was sometimes Irish, sometimes it was American, sometimes it was Russian. I got to see exquisite actors. For instance, I saw Meryl Streep, Sigourney Weaver, when they were students. They were students. John Cazale, John Lithgow, Al Pacino, this is who was performing there. Christopher Walken, I saw him do a number of things before he was Christopher Walken. I feel blessed for that because I didn’t have to get rid of tons of bad habits that can sometimes happen when you start too early. My exposure was always, oddly, really some of the top talent in the country. Only after that did I realize “oh, I need to train more” so I ended up going school in Philadelphia. That’s where I got my training and now what do you do? I taught. When I came out of school I moved to New York but had no money so I taught briefly, academically, acting, directing, those types of things. I was offered a job, a full time job, to go into academia but I didn’t feel it was good for the students. I didn’t have any professional experience, how can I go from being student one year to being an instructor? I wasn’t tried and tested, what I knew. I said no and I was lucky. Because of that I moved to New York and then I started working. I got hired out of town, I got hired in Oregon for people that know the Shakespeare Festival there. I spent a couple of seasons and directed and then did my stint of theater for the first 14 or so years. That was a long answer David.

David Read
No, absolutely. Do you recall the play in high school that first got you out?

Tony Amendola
It was in college.

David Read
Oh, in college, excuse me.

Tony Amendola
Yeah, it was not in high school. In high school I was working full time. I played basketball for a while. I did play basketball and that was oddly, I think that was my movement. That’s where I learned how to move. When you think about basketball it’s a very sort of jazz like, dance like, modern dancey sort of thing. That served me very well as an actor. The first play I ever stepped foot on stage was The Tempest, Shakespeare’s The Tempest. You want to know my first line I ever said on stage?

David Read
Please.

Tony Amendola
“All is lost to prayers, to prayers all is lost.” I think of that line all the time.

David Read
I bet you know the DNA of what that line means too? Did you ever get a chance to tell this individual in your high school, thank you.

Tony Amendola
College.

David Read
It was a college advisor that suggested the…?

Tony Amendola
Oh, I’m sorry, you’re talking about…No, it was an English teacher.

David Read
Did you ever get a chance to say thank you?

Tony Amendola
I never did because guess what? She eloped with another English teacher. Two of them left their spouses.

David Read
You’re kidding?

Tony Amendola
No, I kid you not. They left their spouses so I don’t know where she ended. One time I Googled her but I could not find her, I was having one of those nostalgic moments. She may have changed her name.

David Read
Yeah, those kind of things happen all the time. Bloodlines, so you had just done The Mask of Zorro at this point, this is 1997. You had indicated before that you had always wanted to go to Vancouver. Tell us about being cast as Master Bra’tac.

Tony Amendola
Yeah, I always wanted to go to Vancouver because my wife and I had gone through. We took our first vacation together in 1983 and went to Banff, Jasper, Canadian Rockies, flew into Vancouver, took the train across. We fell in love with Vancouver because it was summer. It was summer and it’s as glorious a place that you can imagine. I was always jealous, my french, we’re working in Vancouver and never got the opportunity. I did Mask of Zorro, I was only home a week or so, agent called, audition, Stargate. I had seen the movie and enjoyed the movie. “This 133 year old blank blank blank shoots up in Vancouver and it was the Fourth of July weekend. What are you doing Fourth of July weekend?” I mean, after you celebrate, I had time so I really worked on the script and I was really prepared for the audition and I really wanted to go to Vancouver. Sure enough, it happened and one of the things I think made it happen…there’s a special time for an actor after they finish a big film where they’re sort of hot because the film hasn’t come out and hasn’t been a success or a flop yet but there’s a possibility that you could get this guy and he’s just gonna [explode]. Those little things make a difference, having just come off the film. I also did an audition I was very pleased with. That’s sort of how it all came together. You probably want to hear the story about when I arrived and then realized I’m worried about the makeup.

David Read
Jan Newman, right?

Tony Amendola
Jan Newman. Probably some of the people have heard this story, I’m sorry.

David Read
No, please.

Tony Amendola
Yeah, so I arrive. My wife, if I’m working in Oklahoma or if I’m working in some other places that are not as desirable to visit, she will not come. But boy, Vancouver, New Orleans, Mexico, she’ll come. She was so excited to come back but now I realize, “oh my god, she’s going to be here. We want to enjoy the town as well as do this work and I’m playing a 133 year old guy. It’s going to be a makeup chair 4:30 in the morning, I’m going to be fried.” I get there, I do my wardrobe fitting which is great. I’m going to leave and the second AD says makeup key, Jan, wants to see you. I’m thinking here it comes, “can we shave your head? Can we…something.” I go in and she just looks at me, “Oh, you’re perfect as you are.” All of a sudden I’m like “133, I’m perfect as I am?”

David Read
Now you’re insulted.

Tony Amendola
Now I’m insulted but guess what? I have never, with Bra’tac at least, I have never met a fan who says “oh, you’ve gotten old.” See, you can’t say that about Bra’tac. You start at 133, I mean, the guy’s always gonna look good. He’s always gonna be, you know.

David Read
Someone in chat, I was peeking in, someone said “there’s no way he’s 69.” They’re like, “no, that’s not possible. He looks younger than that.” So there you go.

Tony Amendola
I feel younger than that. When you get to be 69 you realize you’re naughty as 15, always. It’s always there, you may not act on it.

David Read
You spent a lot of time on location for that episode and you really got to experience the outdoors. Tell me about the weight of that initial costume. First season, they had not really tweaked the costumes yet as they did as the story went on.

Tony Amendola
No, it was very heavy. First, let me say, working outdoors. I got such a welcome from people when I went back from the crew and everything, they just could not have been nicer. Then I always realized the other shoe would fall because they realized if Bra’tac was back we were going to a gravel pit.

David Read
There were a few pits in Vancouver that did just that.

Tony Amendola
I had spent so much time there. As an actor what I hate is if you have very uncomfortable things that add nothing to the depiction of the character. They’re someone else’s idea of something, you have no connection to them, you just have to wear a funny hat. It has to go to the left, has nothing to do with the character, it’s because the other one is going to the right. You’re trying to juggle it. I never resented the clothes for Bra’tac which were very heavy. There was chainmail, there were plastic pieces, there were robes, there were capes. I mean it was probably, I’d say 50, 60 pounds.

David Read
And this guy right here next to me. [Serpent Guard]

Tony Amendola
Oh my god and then you’re talking about that guy.

David Read
With the helmet.

Tony Amendola
Pneumatic head. But it looks so good. One thing about carrying a lot of weight all day is that when you take it off at the end of the day you feel like, for the people that have played basketball or wore ankle weights, it’s that light feeling you feel. I always enjoyed it, enjoy is not the right word, I was always very tolerant of it. Although sometimes, this is Jan, with the heat in that first episode, it was hot. They’d lift my little cap and literally water would pour out.

David Read
Yeah, because it all goes out of the top of your head.

Tony Amendola
Oh yes, 30% of your heat, right? Believe me, I know. Jan, still to this day, she’d have a little thing with ice. She’d have facecloths it with Seabreeze and she’d put them on the back of your neck and on your wrists and everything. There was a funny thing that happened once that I’ll never forget. They put your makeup on and they have to put sunscreen on. Again, you’re out in the sun. I have my little my…

David Read
Tattoo.

Tony Amendola
Tattoo, my little golden guy. Sometimes, time went by and when they took it off I sort of had a tan.

David Read
You’re kidding?

Tony Amendola
Very very faint. She said “oh, well, yeah, I guess we’ll be more careful with the skirt and sunscreen tomrorow.” I said “hey, we know what the positioning is now.”

David Read
You can line it right back up, forget the Polaroids.

Tony Amendola
There’s always the joke, people are fascinated when you go to a con, they say “how did they attach that?” Particularly if it’s a young boy or girl, I look at them very serious and say “oh my tattoo? They use the nail gun” and I can always see them, their eyes go like that.

David Read
You’re bad Tony.

Tony Amendola
I am. I love that. Every so often, because we’ve been around so long, the parent will say “yeah, he told me that joke too.”

David Read
Do you know the in-cannon story of how it’s done?

Tony Amendola
No. What’s that?

David Read
A certain Jaffa or Goa’uld knife is used to cut the flesh and then pure molten gold is poured in.

Tony Amendola
Pure molten gold.

David Read
It’s pretty chunky.

Tony Amendola
If you’re lucky it’s gold. If you’re a peon, it’s not.

David Read
Right, it’s some kind of silver or something. You told this story on Dialing Home. I’d like to hear the story again on Dial the Gate. Your first encounter with Rick on set, you didn’t exactly know who he was studying to be working with Chris.

Tony Amendola
I knew he was the star of the show and I certainly knew MacGyver and those things. One of the things about spending 15 years in the theater and some of it pre-VCR, let alone DVR, but pre-VCR, is that the 80s are a blank to me in terms of television unless they were on Monday nights. If they were on Monday nights, Cagney and Lacey, those types of things, because that was our night off. My wife and I, we love Cagney and Lacey by the way. Rick, I knew he was a star but I had a job to do. My job when I read, after I was hired, and I was going to the paradise that is Vancouver, my job was “okay Tony, get to work, get to work. Okay, what is the story again? Oh, okay, story again, this Teal’c, that’s who I am.” I’m literally, when they find him, I’m at his house. I know he’s coming back because his home has been destroyed, I’m literally holding vigil there. So I know, so obviously this is important, at my own jeopardy.

David Read
Your student.

Tony Amendola
Yeah, my student. I know it’s all based on him and Michael Shanks and Amanda Tapping are in it. They’re all nice people, I’m certain, but the only one I care about is this guy Christopher Judge. After I meet Jan and do it the very next day I see a picture of Chris when I’m in the fitting and the makeup. I say “oh my god, it’s an interesting guy, boy he’s a big strong guy.” But now I gotta meet him, I got to look him in the eye. They let me out, I’ve just arrived, they’re in between takes, Mario Azzopardi directed that episode. Michael Greenburg is over there too at the time and I walk and they’re having a conflab about something. I walk in and I’ll never forget. I get out of a van, Richard is here and then Chris, Amanda and Michael are behind him. I’m just walking, it’s a break, the AD comes to me and I’m walking, I’m looking for Chris. Richard ready to receive me, now Richard is not gonna remember any of this. Richard’s ready to receive me, to receive my thanks for being on the show, which I did give him eventually, obviously. I walked sort of right behind…his hand almost extended, and I just went right by him. I went up to Chris and said “hi Chris, I’m Tony, I guess we’re a team.” I remember, I don’t know what Rick did behind me, but I remember the other guys sort of like, you know…I wasn’t trying to be rude or anything like that, it was just like a simple focus. You generally don’t walk by the number one.

David Read
No, no, you pay respect.

Tony Amendola
You pay respect. Sometimes people think actors have long discussions and sometimes we do about certain things but the most important thing is to be able to look a person in the eye and think “yeah, I could…” It’s almost like you have a scale. You look a person in the eye and you think of what your notion of who that person should be, that character. You realize, “oh my god, he or she is a three of my idea. I’m gonna have to act seven of that. Seven of that scale of 10.” When I looked at Chris, I thought, “well, we’re at a 10.” As a matter of fact, probably the less acting I do the better because I just felt a good connection. Then I went over and said hi to Michael and Richard. He was Rick which is what made the show so successful; his irreverence, the reluctant hero, if you will. I remember, we had some intense things that first day. Just brief, but flipping and everything like that. Rick will do it and it’s like, “yeah, he’s cranky” and everything like that. I remember, my first day, I just want to do it right. The thing you gotta realize, Rick has been on set for 25 years. He’s had an amazing career, an extraordinary career. So consequently, his passion is his job and you always have to negotiate that. There are special times and you can almost see it sometimes, it’s generally when they give them a new weapon, just to fire it. He’s like a kid again, you can see the kid. A couple of times I thought, “man, he’s a little cranky. Can’t we just have a better time?” I realized, “oh, thank god I didn’t make a crack.” Even when I did the second episode, Serpent’s Lair I think was the second episode…

David Read
Yeah, you came in 201.

Tony Amendola
That was my second episode. Only when I did that, that I realized, “oh, no, this is gold.”

David Read
What they picked up on in Bloodlines; the little threads of chatter between you and Rick, went full bore in that second episode. They were playing that up.

Tony Amendola
Oh completely and it was great. Again, Rick is the reluctant hero. I’ve always said this about Rick, the thing I admire is that he’s not the kind of guy who’s gonna go out and act for you. He’s not an actor with a capital A, he’s sort of the reluctant one, he likes to be the clown, he likes to be this, he’s offhand. I would watch him. We’d have a lot of Jaffa speak and I’d watch him try to figure out exactly what the best way to bust that balloon was, what the remark needed to be. It was written in the script but often he would create a better line and they would let him do that. What I would love with Rick was when they’d corner him and force him to have an emotional scene. You know the episodes so well, I mean his stuff with Amanda, some of it was exquisite. There’s the episode where he’s trapped, he’s skewered on a…You know what I’m talking about?

David Read
Yeah, I do. It’s season two, it’s like a crucifixion. Message in a Bottle.

Tony Amendola
He’s terrific. It’s almost like you have to corner him and he’ll look “ah shit. Is there any way out? Is there a joke? Can I be off hat? Oh, you really want me to go right through?”

David Read
And then he delivers a remarkable performance.

Tony Amendola
Then all of a sudden the focus. That 25 years of knowing it’s different. It’s not 25 years of just acting because he’s been acting much longer than that. It’s 25 years of knowing how to deal with this. You know what it is? it’s like a matador in a kind of way, playing with the bull initially or the clown. I’m not a big fan of bullfighting in that kind of way, but he’s playing. He’s like the rodeo clown or bull fighting clown and then the matador steps in and all of a sudden it can get quite serious.

David Read
That’s awesome. I want to pull up some questions from fans before I let you go. I really wanted to thank you for this initial first step. This was fantastic and it means a great deal to me that you came in, pinch hitting for Christopher, there’s a certain symmetry to that so thank you for being here.

Tony Amendola
I felt the same thing. I thought it was very appropriate for me to come in for Chris.

David Read
Absolutely, Bra’tac would do that. If the Stargate were revealed to the world and Teal’c couldn’t be there, “I will go on national television on your Earth stations.” Sommer, I’m not seeing the questions so I’m going to have to figure out, let me reopen it here. I’m not seeing them. For those who have come in to ask questions for Tony…will you be back with us in a few months?

Tony Amendola
Absolutely.

David Read
I will ask these questions then. I’m gonna go ahead and make sure that those are copied. This is my issue, this is not theirs. I will ask their questions, I’ve copied them and I will ask the questions of the fans the next time that we have you on. This sir was a treat, absolutely. The intent of this show is to go through and explore, bit by bit, the important people who created a piece of work that has provided us so much joy over the years and will continue to provide generations who have yet to encounter the show a great deal of entertainment. It’s not just entertainment, you’re changing people’s hearts and minds with this content. It’s like Shakespeare, it’s like Star Trek, it means something to people and thank you for being a part of that.

Tony Amendola
Well let me let to you that you’ve done an enormous amount to keep this alive. I’ve been very aware of that and we’ve met and done things several times. I want to thank you for creating this repository of memories and ideas about a show that meant a lot to all of us. Thank you and I can tell just by looking at what’s behind you…

David Read
That I’m a bit of a fan?

Tony Amendola
You are equipped for the next invasion.

David Read
I am indeed. Kree Jaffa. Absolutely. Tony, this has been fantastic. There’s much to discuss and I look forward to having you back on early 2021.

Tony Amendola
Thank you all and to all of you out there, keep watching. I hope we get to meet once the dust clears from our current crisis. Okay, be safe.

David Read
Thank you Tony, appreciate your time. All right folks, Mr. Tony Amendola, Master Bra’tac himself. Thank you so much for joining this episode. This was an abbreviated show so we’re going to go ahead and get ready for Joseph Mallozzi here who is going to be joining us in just a minute. Okay, so I’m gonna go ahead and wrap this up here. Before we go, if you like what you’ve seen in this episode I would appreciate if you click the like button. It really makes a difference with YouTube’s algorithm and will definitely help grow the show’s 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. If you plan to watch live, I recommend giving the bell icon a click so you’ll be the first to know of any schedule changes, which will probably happen all the time. Clips of this live stream will be released over the course of the next several days on both the Dial the Gate and GateWorld.net YouTube channels. The clips are designed for people who don’t have time to sit through the whole show. I appreciate everyone who is tuning in and everyone who is going to see the show after it’s live. Thank you so much for watching and you know what, Joseph Mallozzi is going to be coming on in just a moment here so we’re going to bring him in and I’ll see you on the other side.