Chevron 7 is locked! Gary Jones actor “Walter Harriman” joins David Read to reminisce about his incredible Stargate journey and take fan questions LIVE.

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Timecodes
0:00 – Opening Credits
0:27 – Welcome and Episode Outline
02:28 – Guest introduction
02:45 – Gary Jones the Painter
12:22 – Showing off Paintings
20:19 – Water Harriman / Norman Davis
22:48 – Does Stargate’s lasting popularity surprise you?
25:20 – “The Wire”
29:02 – Stargate’s Relevence Today
32:58 – Gary’s Origins
37:30 – Childhood and Schooling
40:13 – Improv
42:33 – Expo 86
47:16 – What to do next?
55:45 – Mickey Rooney’s Lesson
1:00:15 – Season Ten and Techno Babble
1:02:39 – Making Up Lines for “Zero Hour”
1:07:28 – Impressions of the Original Feature Film
1:08:33 – Getting the SG-1 Role
1:11:36 – Was Walter ever boring?
1:16:15 – Reading Vanity Fair during a take
1:20:04 – That “Heroes” Scene
1:24:15 – Sliders Pilot episode
1:26:08 – Do you speak Welsh?
1:27:12 – Coming Back for SG4
1:28:55 – Guest Thanks
1:32:13 – Post-Interview Housekeeping
1:34:52 – End Credits

***

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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read
Welcome to episode 9 of Dial the Gate. I think one of these days I’ll get the name of my show right. Dial the Gate. My name is David Read. Welcome everyone. I see we already have over a 100 viewers live with us. If you’re joining us later on, welcome as well, thank you for stopping by. You know him as Chevron Guy. You know him as “Chevron One encoded,” all the way up to “Seven,” and sometimes “Eight,” depending on which galaxy we’re dealing with. Mr. Gary Jones. We’re going to bring him in here in just a moment. But before I do that, I would like to invite you to share the show with your friends. If you like Stargate and you want to see more content like this on YouTube, it would mean a great deal to me if you click the Like button. It makes a difference with Youtube’s algorithm and it’s going to help the show grow its audience as it shares these videos with more Stargate fans. Please also consider sharing this 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. You’ll get my notifications of any last minute guest changes. This is key if you plan on watching live, because these talents are working again and schedule changes happen all the time. And clips from this live stream will be released over the course of the next several days, if I get a chance, on both the Dial the Gate and Gateworld.net Youtube channels. I’ve not been doing that a lot lately because I threw my lower back out. So that’s been fun. Anyway, I appreciate your patience through this. Before I bring in Gary, big thanks to Linda “GateGabber” for all of her work and promoting the show. Thanks to Darren Sumner for the excellence news article that went up, I believe earlier today, on Dean Devlin. The interview that we had with him last week and talking about a Mayan sequel to Stargate and Bigfoot and the Yeti and everything else that they were planning for Stargate. Some surprising stuff. And the moderators are going to be taking your questions for Gary Jones in chat right now. So please be nice to them. Thanks to Sommer, Ian and Tracy, Keith, and Jeremy joining us this week for the first time. Without further ado, Mr. Gary Jones.

Gary Jones
Heeey!

David Read
Hello.

Gary Jones
Hey man!

David Read
How are you? It’s good to see you my friend.

Gary Jones
Awesome. Totally awesome. Because, what’s the point of being anything else?

David Read
You were just showing me some…

Gary Jones
Oh, that, all right.

David Read
Oh, my God, you were bad. I didn’t realize that you were a painter?

Gary Jones
Well, I’ve always been artistic my whole life. And it was about probably six years ago that I went away on a little New Year’s Eve holiday with some friends. One of the people that I kind of knew was this guy that I sort of knew peripherally, because his daughter went to the same school as my kids. But we never hung out and I didn’t really know him that well. Anyway, but because this cabin that we were going to didn’t have Wi Fi or anything like that, and they literally had a tape player with VHS tapes and stuff. And they said “So if we’re gonna be watching movies, this is gonna be like ancient VHS movies.” So I thought to myself “Well, maybe I’ll just take a sketch pad and see if I can do some drawing while I’m up there.” And of course, you know, I was up there for like six days, didn’t do any drawing. And then on the last day, I’m like “Oh, I should do a drawing.” So I did a couple of sketches, a couple of portraits. My friend saw it and he goes “Oh, my God, I really liked your drawing.” And, you know, we chatted about it, because turns out he was pretty artistic and creative as well. Then we went home, and then he got in touch with me and I said, “Hey, sent me a picture of some art” that he had done. And he said “Yeah, kind of inspired me to seeing you do some drawing, and I came home and did some drawing.” I said to him “Well, do you want to come over and draw some time or just come over to my place on maybe a Thursday night? We’ll just have some beers, and we’ll just kind of draw and hang out.” And I thought it’d be like a fun little thing to do. Well, every Thursday night for six years it’s happened. And about three months into it, he kept showing up and at one point I said “So do you want to keep doing this?” And he goes “Oh, yeah,” he goes, “Thursday’s art night.”

David Read
He’s already booked it out.

Gary Jones
Yeah, he’s booked it out. He goes like “I told my wife I’m unavailable Thursday nights. I’ll be at Gary’s, drawing.” Just comes over for like, you know, from 8p.m. to like, 10:30-11p.m. or whatever. And we just started off with pencil sketching and went down that road. And we just sketched, and sketched, and sketched. And then finally, one day, I said to him “Why don’t we just try painting?” because neither of us knew really how to paint. And he’s like “Yeah, let’s go for it.” Because we were in a groove now, and we both felt comfortable. And, you know, it’s one thing to do that in front of each other. And it turns out it helped because we were sort of at the same level. So when I said “Hey, I want to paint,” he was like “Yeah, let’s do it.” And then, of course, he was awesome. So we kept doing that. So basically, you know, I’ve got a few paintings that are hanging around my place now that I’ve done, and I’m just gonna keep going.

David Read
There’s a release in doing that. I used to draw when I was really little, and then I got, you know, eight or nine, and just focused on the writing side, making books and things like that. And a few years ago, Bob Ross came on to Netflix, and I’ve watched him on PBS as a kid. PBS was all I was largely allowed to watch for the formative years of my life. That and Star Trek, which says a lot about me, I think. But a few years ago, a friend of mine had a birthday, and we were loving this Bob Ross stuff. So six months before her birthday, I went and looked online, and there were authorized Bob Ross instructors in Phoenix, and all over the world, actually.

Gary Jones
Authorized Bob Ross instructors?

David Read
They are licensed to impart his technique.

Gary Jones
“Uh, we’re gonna add some clouds here. Uh, look at that.”

David Read
“And little trees. Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. Just one bit over there.”

Gary Jones
“I was in Vietnam. This is how I’m dealing with it.”

David Read
“Look at this little squirrel. We’re raising the squirrel right now. Oh, isn’t he fantastic? Absolutely.” But that was really how it was. The instructor wasn’t, but the technique was. And so for 60 bucks, we went in, and we had lunch in the middle. They primed the canvases for us, they gave us our paints, and everything that we needed, the instructor presented the completed scene in front of us, and made a new one while we replicated the technique. And it was fantastic. It was so cool to unlock this part of myself that was dormant. And the painting was crap. It’s actually a little bit better than I thought it would be. It’s hanging upstairs in the guest room. But it was so cool to access a part of yourself that, you know, you didn’t think was around anymore, you didn’t, you know, give much attention to that. And so many people are like “I can’t do that. I don’t have a creative bone in my body.” Do it, you know. Just sit down in front of Netflix with some paint and, you know, copy what he’s doing.

Gary Jones
My wife at the time was always on me about like “If I could draw like you, I’d be drawing all the time.” And I thought about that, you know, and that didn’t really spur me on, her kind of, you know, pushing me that way, poking and prodding that way. Because what I discovered was that because I’ve kind of shown up in the world with that particular talent, it didn’t feel like it was anything that I had to work at. It was just kind of there. And so because it was there, it just was kind of dormant. I didn’t do anything with it. I don’t know, that was for the longest time. That’s the only way I can kind of describe what it felt like. It wasn’t like I took art lessons and painting lessons and then got to a point and thought “Oh, you know what? I’ve done all these lessons, and here I am, and I’ve worked really hard at this.” This is something that I don’t have to particularly work hard at. I’m not saying that in a kind of bragging way. I’m just saying that’s from an observational way. The first painting I did was, I didn’t show you that one, it was of my stepdaughter on a horse, a pony that she had. And I started drawing it. And when I was sort of getting into it, I sent work in progress to a buddy of mine who lives in Hawaii, who’s an incredible artist.

David Read
Just for feedback?

Gary Jones
Yeah! I just said “Hey, look what I’m doing. I’m working on a painting.” It was my first painting I ever did. And he liked it but he goes “Why are you drawing a horse? Why aren’t you painting an onion?” Because most people don’t, you know, go at something like a horse.

David Read
It’s a complicated animal. That’s true.

Gary Jones
And when he said that, that was the first time that I thought “Yeah, but that thought never crossed my mind. I just looked at the painting.” And because I looked at the picture, and because I liked the picture, I went “Oh, well, I’ll draw that. I’ll paint this.” It was more like “That’s a kind of no brainer.” All I need to do is choose the picture that I want to paint, and I’ll be able to paint it. So for him, his thing was like “Well, why don’t you start with something really simple instead of something super complex?” And I was like “Yeah, but I can do this, you know what I mean?” So that’s kind of what I mean about how it sort of lived in me, as in it was just kind of there. It wasn’t me going “Oh, my God. Oh, should I do this?” I was like “No, I’ll do this.”

David Read
Well, you already knew what your target was, you know. You knew where you wanted to begin.

Gary Jones
Yeah, I knew it. But I also inherently knew that I could do it. That’s the thing. Hey, do you want to see it? I’ll go get it. This is my first painting.

David Read
And the feet please. I love the color in the feet.

Gary Jones
Oh, okay. Hang on. Just a sec.

David Read
So as we take this brief break, Gary was showing me around his place earlier and was showing some of his art, of his family. That’s one of the reasons that, you know, started this conversation. I think he’s gonna go in. Here he comes.

Gary Jones
So this I’m quite proud of.

David Read
Woooow. That’s insanely cool, man. Had you ever drawn a horse before?

Gary Jones
No. First horse.

David Read
I’m impressed. That is legit. And her expression and everything else you captured, that emotion.

Gary Jones
And the legs you’re talking about is here.

David Read
Yes, I love the legs. Wow. I love his pattern work, his use of colour. They say digits, you know, hands and feet, are not easy to do. They say, you know, hands and feet are not easy things to copy.

Gary Jones
No. Yeah, I know. Oh, and then this other one was the picture that I took an old guy in Florence, on some streets sitting outside his store. So that’s that one.

David Read
Wow. I love your color. Look at that expression. Man, oh man, that is great.

Gary Jones
And you know why? Do you see this right here?

David Read
Yeah. Is it weathering?

Gary Jones
Are you okay?

David Read
Yeah, I can hear you fine.

Gary Jones
So the walls in Florence, they’re all plaster, right? There’s no, you know, infrastructure like “Bro, we’ve got money to fix all the buildings.” So if the plaster gets destroyed, somebody just comes by and just replasteres it and that’s it.

Gary Jones
They move on, right? But a lot of the plaster, even down here, you can see that, by the guy, it just gets really scuffed and just kind of like beat up and there’s all these colours underneath it of like the undercoating. So when I was painting that part, I actually didn’t use a paintbrush. I actually thought “Oh, it’d be kind of cool if I troweled it on,” you know. So I got my little mixing trowel, and I would scoop the paint, not mix it with water, and then it was literally like I was putting plaster on a wall, and then the effect was that. So it was pretty cool.

David Read
And then they move on.

David Read
It’s the same thing. What always blew me away with Bob Ross is that you’re seeing a mountain but it’s just pigment that’s applied with a certain tool in a certain pattern to generate an image. It’s deception. But at the end of the day, it’s amazing. Thank you for sharing that with us. That’s fantastic.

Gary Jones
And so just to kind of wrap up the whole painting thing, I’ll now show you a painting that my son did. And my son is 20. The picture I showed you, he’s 2. He’s now 20. He just started painting. And I had no idea that my son could paint. I really had no idea. Get a load of this. And I told him when he came here and painted. And when he finished I said “Well, that’s not leaving this apartment.” I basically hung it up in my place. Hang on, just check out this painting.

David Read
Okay. I like his kitchenette.

David Read
Wow. Holy cow. Is this drawn from a picture? Is this done from a picture?

Gary Jones
Yeah.

David Read
Look at that. What an impressive young man. I wouldn’t have let it go either.

Gary Jones
That’s pretty exciting.

David Read
I would have kept it to.

Gary Jones
That’s pretty exciting for me as a dad to go “What the hell?” And, you know, it’s interesting, because people knew that I drew and painted, a lot of my friends know me as an artist too. So he starts painting and drawing, and that’s his fourth painting. And that’s the fourth painting he’s ever done, and he’s already gotten a commission. He’s got a commission to paint something for somebody at this part time job that I have. The office manager saw that and said “Oh, do you think he could paint something for me, like a little beach scene with some shells?” And I was like “Yeah, he could.” So he’s young, he’s starting out, but he’s already gonna get 200 bucks for a painting. I haven’t even done that. Nobody’s commissioned me to do a painting. And already my son is like earning money from his painting. It just blows my mind.

David Read
I don’t know, Gary, you may get one or two after this. Or one of you might. We’ll see. I wouldn’t be surprised. I’ll let you know if anyone emails me [email protected].

Gary Jones
I am completely available to do paintings. And, you know, I think it would be really cool to do a commission piece on something that is not of my choosing, you know, that somebody else wants. Anyway, so be that as it may. What was interesting was that every time people saw his work, they would go “Oh, you know, well, he’s his Father’s son. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” and all that stuff. And I realized, the more I heard that, the more it came across like “Well, you know, he’s got it from you.” And I had to kind of put an end to that.

David Read
Really?

Gary Jones
Yeah, because I started saying “Yeah, I can draw but he is who he is.” I don’t want people to keep thinking “Oh, you know, he’s only got this artistic talent because you got it,” you know.

David Read
He has his own eye.

Gary Jones
He has his own eye, he has his own technique, how he paints. He paints in a hilarious way. My buddy Dana, who comes over on the Thursday night, was here one night when we were working on this swan painting. And most artists would squeeze some paint onto a pallete and mix it up. My son sits there, he’s got the tube in his hand, and he’s got like a little flat bristle brush, and he just kind of scrapes some paint off.

David Read
Off the top of the tube?

Gary Jones
Off the top of the tube. He just squeezes it a little bit, and it’s almost like he kind of slices some paint off. And then he paints like he’s holding a pencil.

David Read
That’s his approach.

Gary Jones
That’s his technique. So I’m just watching that going “Oh, that’s kind of cool.” It’s not anything I could do, or it doesn’t feel right for me to do that. But that’s his way of doing it. So I’m already trying to pull back from being so connected to his particular skill set or talent. You know, I live a creative life, I’m an actor, writer, painter, photographer, all that kind of stuff. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s going to choose that life, or that I would think that he would choose that live. So the fact that he’s kind of coming out of the gate like “Oh my God,” he’s not just doodling, he’s going at stuff. And I’m into me. It’s like “I’m hanging this up in my place because it’s fantastic,” you know. So anyway, that’s the other side of Walter. I guess that’s what Walter would do if he wasn’t sitting in his chair in the SGC.

David Read
I figured he wouldn’t be at home on, you know, chat boards, looking up conspiracy stuff, or, you know, reviewing technical documents or so. I mean, he was definitely a gearhead, but I suspect he had a creative side as well.

Gary Jones
Yeah, he was a gearhead but, you know, the thing that used to, in retrospect, make me laugh, and of course, it made sense in the show, was that, you know, I’d be working away doing something like “Oh, I can’t get the blah, blah, blah,” you know, “I can’t make contact with a M.A.L.P.” or whatever. And Amanda would always come in and kind of like slide me out of frame. You know, it’d be like “woosh”, and she’d be on camera, and then she’d go “There you go,” and I would slide back in. And, you know, that happened so many times that I thought “It’s such a device,” you know, like a storytelling device and a character device, to show that Amanda’s character was just, you know, kind of computer whiz kid, you know. Pretty smart, right?

David Read
She could have been anything that she wanted to do, which is a wonderful message to impart to people.

Gary Jones
Yeah. But it always made me laugh because people would, you know, for the most part, saw me as the guy who ran the gate, and fixed the gate, and, you know, dealt with all the problems or whatever. But if there were certain technical things that in the script I couldn’t do, for whatever reason, she would just boot me out. You can see that over many episodes.

David Read
Absolutely. I’m poking my head in the chat here: “Looking at that swan painting makes me think that your son could paint a convincing one of me emerging from the gate.”

Gary Jones
Oh, because of the puddle. The water, is that right?

David Read
That’s exactly right. That’s exactly what that is.

Gary Jones
Yeah, he could paint a puddle.

David Read
Aberax, thank you for that comment.

Gary Jones
That’s what it is. The swans coming back from PX3-792.

David Read
“Hammond, we’re good. Bring the team, we ran out of M.A.L.P.s, we’re sending swans.”

Gary Jones
Like “Where is Teal’c?” “I don’t know, but check out this swan on the ramp.”

David Read
Oh, God, that’s funny. Gary, does Stargate’s lasting popularity surprise you?

Gary Jones
Well, I guess years ago, I would have said “yes.” But not anymore. It just goes on and on and on. How many conventions have I’ve been at where people watched the shows, went to the conventions, and are now back with their kids? And they watch them as families. So what that says is that there’s something about the ethos of that show that is so family oriented, and so kind of positive and uplifting, right? It’s got enough action, got enough science, got enough comedy, chemistry between the leads. I’m in it, you know.

David Read
You are. Cherry on top.

Gary Jones
And I think that if you remove the idea of Stargate as a show, and you just talk about those qualities, those are the qualities that last. Do you get what I mean? The show is a kind of a manifestation of those good qualities. So it makes perfect sense. If you take those qualities, and then you create a show around those qualities, if those qualities never diminish, and draw most people to them, then of course they’re gonna watch that show ad infinitum. Because that’s what the show is representing.

David Read
Especially if it lifts them out of whatever place that they’re in and teleports them to somewhere else that makes them feel good. Stargate’s chicken soup, I’ve always said it. It’s chicken soup for your soul.

Gary Jones
Totally chicken soup. And that’s the other thing. I’ve had so many fans come up to me and tell me that, you know, they either had health issues or, you know, they were going through really tough times in their lives. And so they just plunked themselves down and watched like the 10 season boxset of SG-1, and it got them through. And at first I have to be honest, I just didn’t get it. I did not get it. Because I’ve never done that. No, I shouldn’t say that. I watched Breaking Bad, five seasons, three times. Because there’s just so much in it, right?

Gary Jones
Yeah. It’s a single story. And it’s a good one.

Gary Jones
And you can go back and you go “Oh,” you knew what’s coming, but then you could watch for the setups, like how they set stuff up that you know is about to pay off, right? So it was less of an anthology, like Stargate was, that was just a five season story arc. But I also binge watched The Wire, which was, I think, three seasons.

Yeah, it’s a little bit more than that. And I love it. It’s wonderful. Everything that that I’ve read, it says that I’d like it.

Gary Jones
Have you seen it?

David Read
I’ve not seen it yet. No. I have it. My buddy who actually bought it for me said “Watch this.” And I haven’t had a chance to watch it.

Gary Jones
And you haven’t watched it?

David Read
My list is long Gary.

Gary Jones
Interesting thing they did that was really so well thought out about The Wire that I love, is that it takes place in the city of Baltimore, in the 80’s, I guess. Yeah, I’m gonna say the 80’s, I think.

David Read
Five seasons.

Gary Jones
Okay. So then they took all these different areas of the city like politics, media, you know, the newspapers, education, so stuff that happened in the schools. And then they focused on each one of those, which in and of itself is like “Oh, my God, what a massive undertaking.” But they also have the same theme tune every season, played by different people. So Tom Waits does one. I forget who else. But you can literally, if you wanted to, and if you’re on Spotify, go and download the five separate versions of the opening theme to The Wire, and they’re all fantastic. But anyway, what was tough about watching The Wire at first, was the black kids talk in a way like it was another language, and I couldn’t understand it. And I could see where people would kind of give up on it. I don’t get this, you know, but I stuck with it, and I eventually gained an ear for it like I go “Oh, okay now.” I mean, that’s one of the things that you do as an actor. You have to tune your ear, if you have to do an accent or, you know, you have to be able to listen to the subtleties and nuances. So they wrote it like you’re right there. And it’s real. But it was very hard to decipher at first, and in the first maybe three episodes, I would say “Oh, what am I in for?” But people kept saying to me “If you like Breaking Bad, you’ve got to watch The Wire.”

David Read
Yep. That’s the same I got. I’m looking forward to it.

Gary Jones
Then I was absolutely hooked. It was great. And Idris Elba is fantastic.

David Read
Yes, he is. He’s the reason I asked my buddy about it, because we had just seen a film with him and Kate Winslet. It is funny, you know, these shows like The Wire, Breaking Bad, Stargate. I mean, Stargate, I think went more places, pardon the pun, you know, story wise, but in many respects, the content is more relevant now than it was, especially with our advances in technology, you know.

Gary Jones
Are you talking about Stargate?

David Read
I went back to Stargate now. It’s almost as if, you know, we do have offworld teams bringing back stuff with the velocity and the inertia which our society is transforming with these little devices.

Gary Jones
I think, to be honest, I agree with you there. But I also think even more to the point, in terms of relevance, is that in kind of the way Star Trek was, it’s about acceptance. And if you’re talking about another race that you go see or the race that comes through the portal into Earth, it’s about diversity. It’s about inclusion. And that message couldn’t be more relevant right now with what is going on, you know, not just in the States, but you know, with nationalism and whatever around the world. And so Stargate is the antithesis of, you know, close borders. I think the Stargate is like a fluid border, right? And the fact that they could go and help people and come back and maybe, you know, if there were warring factions that come back, they have to fight them and defeat them or whatever. But that’s part of the world too, but still, the idea that people can travel to other places where your first impulse is to not pull out a gun. Your first impulse is to try to connect, and find a commonality between, you know, humans, and whatever race they meet on a different planet.

David Read
I’m thinking of Learning Curve. I’m thinking of the one where the little girl comes to the SGC to get knowledge, and Jack finds out that she’s going to go back and essentially get her brain sucked out, and that she’s going to be a vegetable afterwards, you know. And that’s normal for this culture. But that’s how this society has evolved to obtain knowledge, and they kind of sacrifice their kids as a result. And because of Jack’s interaction, originally, he doesn’t want anything to do with this culture at all, he steals the kid off the base for crying out loud, and takes her to a school to show her how to paint, and how to play. And because of him taking the time to do that, and not giving up on the kid, he comes back to the planet later on and finds out that not only did they assimilate the knowledge that she was supposed to get when she went to the planet, but they also assimilated Jack’s time with the kid, and have now decided that after the kids have done their part for society, they will be taught, like Earth children are taught. And that is one of my favourite episodes of the show because it says that, you know, there are some practices out there that we look at and we go “This is nuts.” That doesn’t mean that we can’t learn from one another, and maybe come to a higher level of understanding all the same.

Gary Jones
Right. I mean, look, that’s what Star Trek was doing back in the 60s, you know. They would go where no man has gone before, beam down on a planet and go “Okay, what’s going on here? Who are these people?” You know, as opposed to going “Okay, we’re humans, we’re superior. Let’s get down there. Let’s kill whoever we need to take what we can from them,” you know?

David Read
Kind of parasitical.

Gary Jones
Yeah.

David Read
I’d like to go back into your origins as an actor, if I may. So Dial the Gate is designed to be an oral repository of Stargate, so the people who made it, and created it, and turned it into what it is. And you are one of those key players. And I’d like to go back and discover or discuss your origins as an actor. I’d like you to talk a little bit about where you’re from, and who you were as a young person, and what made you into the person that you are today.

Gary Jones
Well, there’s a lot of questions in there. So I’ll just go back.

David Read
I apologize.

Gary Jones
First of all, I’ll say that I had zero aspirations to perform. None. I was reminded the other day. I remembered this one time, when I must have been in about grade 7, living in Montreal. It was the year before we moved back to Wales. We came out from Wales, and I was in Montreal for like grade 6 and 7, then we moved back for another two years. But while I was in Montreal, we were putting on some kind of, I guess, Christmas variety show or something. And one of the teachers said we needed like a comedy routine “We need a comedy sketch. Who wants to do that?” And I couldn’t believe that I put my hand up and nobody else did.

David Read
Was that out of character for you to put your hand up? Or were you participatory?

Gary Jones
It was sort of participatory. I almost surprised myself by doing that, you know? And she goes “Okay, well, anybody else?” and nobody wanted to because they, you know, were too scared of it. But I just thought “Oh, I’ll do something.” And I came up with with the age-old funny piano routine. So what I did was, I went home, and I found an old piece of classical piano music that my parents had on a record. And I listened to a bunch of them and I thought “Okay, what one is long enough that I can do like a three minute sketch or whatever? What section can I do that I can have fun with?” And so I found this piece, and then I just kind of memorized it, and knew it inside out. Then I would practice, like, I’d come out and I’d bow, and then I’d go to sit down, and I’d almost fall off the stool. I was in grade seven, but the parents were killing themselves laughing. And then it was like, you know, the hands up here like the Bugs Bunny. Remember the Bugs Bunny?

David Read
Absolutely. With the gloves?

Gary Jones
With the gloves. So it was kind of like that. And I had my back to the audience, they never saw me. And it was a little bit like Bugs Bunny needs Victor Borge, you know, and then just playing, and if there was a break in the piano, I’d just be waiting and, you know, all that kind of thing. I remember that my mother, particularly, was shocked. She had no idea. She didn’t even really know that I was practicing it. They weren’t that involved, you know. I’d be like “Oh, yeah, I’m doing this thing at the school,” and she’s like “Okay.” And they knew they were going to come and watch the show. And so when they saw me do it, that was the first time they’d seen me do it. I didn’t say to them “Hey, can I just rehearse in front of you?” I just did it on my own thinking “Whatever I think is funny will probably be funny.” And I’ve grown up like that, too. That thought, in terms of writing comedy, has always stood me in good stead. I’ve written plays. I’ve written comedy scripts. And really the only thing that I have to go by is, does it make me laugh? Or does it make me and my co-writer laugh? Because what else do you have to go by?

David Read
Your own instincts.

Gary Jones
Now, that’s a friend. “I have a vague idea. Let’s do it. What could go wrong?”

Gary Jones
And my own instincts. So I learned that at an early age, I would say, to kind of trust in my own instincts. But then that’s all I did. I didn’t do anything else after that. I was a kind of a shy kid, little fearful kid. But again, I was always creative. I barely made it through high school because I was like the worst student. Really terrible student. I was in summer school. I failed math every year I was in summer school. So it’s really hard getting summer jobs, because it was like “Yeah, I’m gonna be doing calculus all morning so I’m not available for that.” And then I went to college and got an advertising diploma. So I graduated with an advertising diploma, and I got a job working at little ad agencies. And around about the age of 26-27, or whatever, I was living near Toronto, and one day I came across this little ad in the newspaper. It was like a little classified ad. And it said, “Improv classes for a month in Toronto”. Improvisational comedy classes. And it was one of those moments. I know it sounds all kind of artsy fartsy but it was like a voice spoke to me “You have to do this. You have to do it.” And I didn’t even really know what it was. But the voice said “You’ve got to do it.” So because I didn’t really know what it was, I phoned up a buddy of mine who was also a very funny, good storyteller. Great buddy of mine, Kevin Frank. And I said “Kevin,” I said “do you know what improv comedy is?”, and he’s like “Not really,” but I go “Well, you have to take these classes with me,” and he goes “Okay, let’s do it.”

Gary Jones
What could possibly go wrong. And that’s improv, too, which is very “Yes, and,” you know, always agreeing and moving on, and building and adding. And so we took these classes for a month, and we were like “Oh my God, this is fantastic.” We just loved it. It was like a little taster course. If you were any good at it, you could go to other places and study it. So they told us all about Toronto Theatersports and Second City, because Second City was in Toronto too. So we just got obsessed, and we started performing at Theatersports. And then we took classes at Second City and unbeknownst to us, when you signed up for Second City classes, it was basically like paid auditions. You were paying them to be in their workshop, but they were keeping an eye on you as in, you know, “We could use this person down the road.” And both Kevin and I got plucked out of the workshop system and hired by Second City. First of all, Kevin got into the national touring company. And then I was kind of working with other improv groups in Toronto. And then he got moved up to the Main Stage which is the same stage where, like John Candy, Martin Short, Dave Thomas, or Dan Ackroyd, Gilda Radner, all those Toronto people got their start on that stage at the Old Fire Hall in Toronto. So Kevin got moved up there. And that meant that there was this spot open in the touring company, so they just called me and said “Do you wanna be in a touring company?” I was like “Yeah, for sure.” So I signed up, and of course, instantly, was hardly making any money. You know, it’s theater. But I also had my other job. I had a day job in advertising, and then I would go do these night gigs. Well, what happened was, ultimately, they booked a tour from Toronto out to Winnipeg, and back. And we were just performing all the way along, as far as Winnipeg. And when I came back from that tour, I just went into the office, and I said “I have to quit.” So I literally am one of those people, you know. When they’re always saying “Oh, don’t quit your day.” Well, I quit my day job. I walked in, I said “I can’t do.” I kind of found my tribe.

David Read
You knew what you wanted to do.

Gary Jones
I knew what I wanted to do.

David Read
Come hell or high water.

Gary Jones
This world has been opened to me. This is where I have to be. I found my peeps. This is what I’m gonna do. As much as I loved advertising, because it was kind of like business plus creativity. It just not felt like I didn’t like it or was dissatisfied. It’s just that I was like “Oh, this is the world I have to go into, and I’m committed to this now.” so I quit. My bosses were like “Okay, well, that’s a drag, but see you later.” Then I just started doing it kind of full time and focusing on performing. And then after about two years in the touring company, they offered me a job in Vancouver at Expo 86. Because they were sending a troupe out to perform for the duration of the fair. And I’d never been to Vancouver before. And I just thought, in the spirit of improv, they said “You wanna go?” and I said “Yep. I’ll go for sure.” So that’s what happened. That’s how come I got to the West Coast. And Ryan Stiles from “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” was in the troupe with us, and Pat McKenna, from “The Red Green Show.” Super hilarious guys. And we just worked our way across the country, and we landed in Vancouver, and then we just performed at the Expo for six months. So it was great to be in Vancouver, you know, like a full time job. I’ve worked six days a week, eight shows a week.

David Read
And this is improv?

Gary Jones
What it was, the touring company always did a show that was like the best of Second City stage sketches. So we would do this performed, you know, scripted to act the show. And then once that show ended, we would do a half an hour of improv. So it was, you know, like a two and a half hour show that we did eight times a week. And it was great. And it really brought up my improv chops.

David Read
Well, you have to be spontaneous, you know. And not only that, you have to be pretty well read to connect a lot of these dots together, and know what’s going on in the news and everything else, to bring all that to bear.

David Read
Yeah, that’s fair.

Gary Jones
Yeah, it was fair. Anyway, just to hook this into acting, when Expo ended, I had no idea if I should go back to Toronto, or stay in Vancouver. Because I didn’t have any work. I’m like “What are we gonna do?” And so I was like “Oh, should I stay? I need a sign.” And I got the sign. In retrospect I see it was a sign, but at the time, I didn’t realize it was. I got an audition for this show being shot in Vancouver called Danger Bay. And it starred Donnelly Rhodes as this single dad with two teenage kids, and he worked at the Vancouver Aquarium. It was like a kids adventure show kind of thing. And it just kills me. It’s like “Danger Bay,” you know, I’m imagining them pitching the show going “Okay, here we go. There’s a bay. And there’s danger. Danger Bay.” And it wasn’t even gonna be huge. And it was huge! It was like one of the most popular shows,. It was huge. You can go on and find episodes of Danger Bay. And I was in it. I did this one episode. But anyway, I go to audition for this show, my agent says to me “You’re auditioning for the actor category part.” I go there, I learned my lines, and I’m like “I gotta get this part because I need the work.” And I was so determined to get the part that when I go into read with the casting director, the producer and the director are sitting right there. And she gives me my cue line, and I can’t find my cue line on the page. And I’m like “Oh, sorry, where are you? Where is that?” and she goes “It’s on the top of the page,” and I go “Oh, okay,” and I still couldn’t quite find it. I said “Can we just start again?” She goes “Yeah.” And so this doesn’t look good on her, bringing an actor who can’t find his place on the page, right? So we try it again. I cannot find this cue line. I’m frantically scanning, and I got “I’m sorry, I don’t know where this is on the page.”

Gary Jones
It’s interesting that you say that because, just to jump ahead a number of years. After Second City ended, and I moved into working with Vancouver Theatersports, which is now a globally respected improv company. I was with them for about 15 years. And when it came time for me to kind of like “Okay, I’m kind of done,” you know “this has run its course.” Because when we started, nobody had laptops, nobody had personal computers, nobody had smartphones, none of that. So, you know, every week, there was like four new movies out. And a lot of the suggestions that the audience yelled would be, you know, “Give us the name of the movie!” and it would be like the latest movie that had come out with whoever, right? If it was like “Die Hard,” you know, it was like “Die hard!” It was so easy to just go and watch “Die Hard,” understand it and go “Okay, they’re gonna yell this out so we gotta be prepared.” So there were certain cultural things that we had to be on top off. And movies were a big part of that, because they were the form of entertainment. But if there was a blockbuster novel, for instance, it was not this, but like, say, “The Da Vinci Code,” and it came out and it was massive, then we’d have to kind of know it.We’d have to be abreast with it, and do the Coles Notes, or read it and kind of get a sense of it. Because ultimately, you inevitably knew that suggestion was going to get yelled out, so you couldn’t get up and go “I don’t know what that is,” or “I haven’t read it” because everybody else have. So there was a point at which you could keep up with all the cultural references and what was going on. And then, when smartphones came in, and when computers and the internet hit, it was like an avalanche of information. And I just went “Okay,” you know, I was at an age where I was like “I can’t. I don’t have the energy to keep up with this anymore” and “I just don’t want to do this anymore.” So there was a wave of us that kind of really killed it for many years on stage, and we all sort of left. And we were replaced by a much younger, kind of like tech savvy, more culturally savvy group. And it was like “The stage is yours. Enjoy.” Because you know what? Let’s go for it. Because we’ve had our time, you know.

David Read
They gave me the wrong document?

Gary Jones
She comes over to me and she’s now kind of slightly pissed off. Because it’s like I’m embarrassing her. And she looks at it and she goes “Oh, you got the wrong sides. You picked up the wrong sides.” And I just kind of laughed it off. I was kind of like I didn’t care. I was like “I’ve done enough improv that you couldn’t really embarrass me,” or whatever, I just laughed. And I think the director, Al Simmonds, saw me laugh and not get flustered, and he goes “Let him read it anyway.” So I read this part, I get the part and it was the guest star. So I auditioned for a part that had like three lines, and I fluked into the guest starring role.

David Read
You were impervious to that type of an encounter, you know, you weren’t gonna let it bother you, because you’ve been practicing this kind of thing.

Gary Jones
And I didn’t know what I didn’t know. So it was like “Yeah, okay.” And I get the part and I’m on there for like four days. This is back in like 1987. I think I made like $2,000 for the week. And I was like “Oh, my God.” And that was my sign. That was enough that we could stay in Vancouver, you know, my bank account was padded somewhat. And then I could just work like a demon at the Theatersports and, you know, trying to book gigs and do shows, and kind of stay ahead of the curve. And, you know, I thought at the time “Well, that was easy. I just went in and read for the wrong part, got the guest star. Oh, this is gonna be a cakewalk.” Then I didn’t work for like, two years, you know. Because ultimately, I didn’t know what I was doing. It was a total fluke, but I was so kind of caught up in my own “I’m pretty good. I’m pretty good.” No work. I was like “How can I not?” I couldn’t figure out how I couldn’t get work. And it was only when I landed a part on a show called Wiseguy, and they said “Oh, yeah, you’ve landed the part of like a politician’s aide,” you know, like a state attorney or something like that, and the politician was Chazz Palminteri, the actor. So all I got to do was hang out with Chazz Palminteri for like four days on this episode of Wiseguy. And I had no lines. I didn’t have to talk. And I just had to carry his jacket, because it was, like, that was my job. I was an aide. “Here, hold my jacket kid.” So I got to kind of watch him. And the bad guy in Wiseguy, the villain, was Robert Davi. And he always plays that kind of bad guy. There was this scene where we’re on the docks, and they’re having a confrontation. Chazz Palminteri, the politician, is having a confrontation with the Robert Davi, the villainous mafia businessman. And imagine now, it’s outdoor ambience, there’s like tankers, you know, moored, there’s a crowd of people, like dockworkers.

David Read
Sound of the water?

Gary Jones
Sound of the water, seagulls, birds, it’s all this ambience. And I’m standing right next to Chazz Palminteri while he’s having this little sort of tête-à-tête with Robert Davi, kind of like threatening, you know what I mean? So instead of going off and yelling and whatever, Robert Davi is smoking a cigarette, and he’s just kind of like “Now well, you know, it’s either gonna go that way, or it’s not gonna go that way, blah, blah, blah.”

David Read
On camera?

Gary Jones
Yeah. And of course he’s miked. But I’m standing there and I’m going “I cannot hear Robert Davi. I have no idea what he’s saying.” And I’m watching him. They do a few takes. And he does the same thing over and over. Nobody says anything to him, like “Robert, you don’t wanna, you know, pick it up a bit?” So he does it over and over the same way. And at some point, I go to myself “Oh, my God. What’s this guy doing? He’s not even doing anything. He’s doing nothing,” and then I go “Wait a sec. He’s doing nothing. Oh my God. That’s it.” And that was my acting lesson. That was my acting lesson where I transformed from theater acting to TV acting, because it’s a whole different deal. And I saw that in order to act on TV, you have to do nothing, you know, you obviously act the part.

David Read
But you’re not emoting, you don’t have to reach the back of an audience, you know.

Gary Jones
And that’s what I had been trying to do every audition since Danger Bay. I was like “Whoaaaaa,” you know, like the Cowardly Lion. And then I see Robert Davi, this thing clicks, and I could not wait to get to my next audition. And I started essentially imitating Robert Davi. Not his character, but doing what he did.

David Read
His method.

David Read
I started getting callbacks. The people sitting behind the table would kind of lean in, because they couldn’t quite hear what I was saying. And all I did was, David, I swear to God, I did this, I imagined my head inside a television set. And I thought “Okay, as soon as I’m gonna start acting, this is what they would see. I’m going to pretend that all they can see is a close up of me, not my body, but just my head.”And so I started acting like that. And they all started with like “What’s he saying? Oh, he must be really good, because we can’t hear him. He must be really good. He’s not doing anything. Is that Robert Davi?” So I started getting callbacks and booking gigs. And I was like “Okay. Okay. fair enough.”

David Read
Something’s working.

Gary Jones
Something’s working. Can I just tell you my other favourite story? I’ve told this story numerous times. I won’t go into the whole story, but I will tell you from an acting perspective, I didn’t realize at the time that I was getting the ultimate acting lesson from Mickey Rooney. I was on the show called The Black Stallion. I was just a guest star. I was the horse’s vet. And Mickey Rooney shows up ,and he’s just a ball of energy. He comes on set, and he’s like “Okay, where are we? What are we doing?” You know, he just never prepped. And of course I’ve got all my lines memorized, Mickey’s cue lines memorized. You know, I’m gonna just act like the vet. So Mickey goes “Somebody’s got a script?” And I’m like “What?” And they hand him a script, and he literally goes like this “Aaah, okay. All right. Let’s go.” Like that.

David Read
And he was in?

Gary Jones
No. And I realized before we shot, that was Mickey learning his lines.

David Read
That’s all it took from him? Or that’s all that he bothered to do?

Gary Jones
That’s all that he bothered to do, David. He just looked and sort of got the gist of it. So you can imagine, I got all my lines memorized. Mickey, Mr. Gisty, over here. They yell “Action!” and Mickey starts just going at me like “Doctor, doctor, there’s something wrong with the Black. I don’t know what’s happening. You gotta take a look at him.” None of his lines. It was basically him calling the vet in to say “Something’s up with the Black. We don’t know what it is. You gottatake a look at the horse and tell us what it is” which, essentially, is what the scene was when you call a vet in. It’s like “What’s going on?” “I don’t know. Something’s up with the Black. Can you take a look at her?” you know, whatever. But he just threw all these lines at me, and of course, I’m standing there looking at him like he’s nuts. And I’m waiting for my cue line, and there’s no cue line. And then Mickey stops talking. He just stops and then he just looks at me. Like this. And I’m looking at him. I’m so transfixed by Mickey Rooney, just like eyeballing me, and the director just goes “Cut. Problem, Gary?” Because I didn’t say my line, right?

David Read
He didn’t deliver your cue.

Gary Jones
And you think I’m gonna say that about Mickey Rooney? “Yeah, Mickey. There was no cue line from Mickey Rooney.” So I go “Sorry brain fart. Can we go again?” They’re like “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” And Mickey notices this, and he pulls me aside and he goes “Hey kid, come here. Okay, this is how it’s gonna go. They’re gonna yell ‘Action!’ I’m gonna start talking. When I stop talking, you talk.” I go “Okay, Mickey, I got it.” So in a way, it didn’t matter what Mickey said. He just said “Wait until I stop.” And I thought “Isn’t that how people communicate? Generally?” I mean, you know, unless you’re watching a presidential debate, people don’t talk on top of one another. But generally, somebody says something, there’s a pause, and the other person talks. And Mickey was like “Yeah, just do that.” And, again, it’s like the simplest of things that you learn. Because, you know, you feel like you’re on the spot. There’s a big production happening. There’s a lot of money being spent.

David Read
People are waiting on you to deliver at one point in time.

Gary Jones
Yeah. So you can’t mess it up. What I discovered was that somebody like Mickey Rooney just says whatever he feels like it. As long as he sort of gets the general idea across, he could do that. And my lines had to be correct. But just getting a reminder from Mickey Rooney, like “When I stop talking, you talk,” that’s like you don’t need to take acting acting lessons, you know, like from acting coaches. You just need to know that.

David Read
I remember being an on set during season ten of production of SG-1, obviously. The other two didn’t get that far. And I’m not gonna name the actor.

Gary Jones
It was Paul McGillion?

David Read
No. There was heavy, heavy technical dialogue. And one of the things that you just had to do from time to time, as the gearheads, and this particular actor, we were being facilitated by the publicist. And it was late in the evening. And someone had brought in soup, you know, they were really good about that, having like a hot meal. It was cold in Vancouver, and raining. And we were like “What’s going on?” Because there hadn’t been a shoot in little bit. And the publicist came over and said to us “So and so is having trouble with their lines. There’s a lot of technobabble and they’re having difficulty.” And it’s like “Oh my gosh.” Like a 100-150 people are waiting on you to spit this out, you know, this gobbledygook technobabble. And if it is not in the correct sequence, you can’t Mickey Rooney it, you know. Then they can’t move forward. What a nightmare that must be.

Gary Jones
Well, you don’t realize until you start messing up your lines, and you have to start at the beginning, and doing “Oh, can we take that again? Oh, sorry. Ah.” Once that happens a couple of times, the pressure is instantaneous. And a lot of it is self generated by the actor because they feel they’re suddenly carrying the weight of the production on their shoulder because they can’t deliver.

David Read
They’re burning cash waiting on you to get it together.

Gary Jones
And sometimes, if the leads, say, fall into like a laughing fit, you know, the production will kind of put up with that. But if you’re like me, you know, it’d be like “Gary, can you get it together?” It can happen at a certain level but below that, no. But there were times when it was so much technobabble. Oh, and the real killer one would be if there was a tracking shot, where the cameras following you talking through and then the scene ended on your line at the end of that tracking shot. If you messed up your line at the end of the tracking shot, then it’s like back to the beginning. And you have to say everything again, because they’re like “This is how we’re shooting this shot. We’re dollying through, and we’re following you, and we’re tracking you.”

David Read
Like in “Continuum,” you know, when they go around that loop, in “Continuum.”

Gary Jones
Yep. And they’re like “Well, we’re not chopping this up. We’re not fixing this in post. This is it,” and you have to get it. That happened lots. And, you know, with Stargate, it’s essentially time travel and interdimensional travel. So it’s like scientific. And I found that sometimes I was given some stuff, occasionally, like blocks of dialogue, and I would just shit my pants. I’d be like “Oh my god. I gotta say this?” One time, I had to do walk and talk with Richard Dean Anderson, and I had looked at the script, and I had missed this part. I would always flip through the script like “Okay, bla bla bla, Walter, Walter Walter, okay,” and then I’d go through.

David Read
It’s gotta be “Zero hour.”

Gary Jones
I missed this one little scene where O’Neill gets off the elevator. And I meet him, and I walk with him down the thing, and I’m basically bringing him up to speed on the other SG teams, and what planet they’re on. I look at this thing before we shoot it, and I go “What scene is this?” And they go “Oh. Well, it’s this scene.” And I go “Oh, I didn’t realize that I was in that scene. I hadn’t read it. I hadn’t read it.” And they give it to me, and I go “Oh my God,” and it was like a block of dialogue that I was just talking. It was just totally expositional, and it had about six planets in there. Like PX9-742.

David Read
The planets would have to be a bear to get them all straight.

Gary Jones
David. So I see it. So we have to rehearse it a bunch of times. Because it was a walk and talk, they wanted to know where we were going to end up. So they said “Let’s just rehearse it a bunch of times.” So instead of using that time to memorize all the planets, I just think to myself “Well, I’m just giving them the update on whatever,” so I just made them up. I just made up the planets. And I go like “PX3-742, they’re back,” you know, “SG-2 is back from that. And then SG-3 is heading out to PX9-712,” and I was just pulling numbers out of my ass.

David Read
I never noticed!

Gary Jones
Yeah, but hang on. Just before we shoot, and I’m not kidding you, this is not a word of a lie, the script supervisor comes up to me and he goes “Gary, are you aware that you’ve been saying different planets every time?” And I go “Yeah. Yeah. I am. I know.” And she goes “No, you have to say the planets. You have to say it as written.” And I go “Yeah, but I’m just talking about the planets. Why do I have to memorize them?” And she goes “Because we go there.” And I look at her and I go “Oh, my God.” And I have to look at my sides again, and I have to memorize them in about 30 seconds. And I managed to pull it off. David, don’t ask me how I did it. I did it. But I was just dying. I’d wasted all this time. I could have been like memorizing as we were talking. Because when you’re rehearsing just for blocking, I could be looking at my script like this and just you know, whatever, “Jack, Jack Jack, PX3-912,” whatever. No. I knew the words around them, but I just made up the planets.

David Read
You forced them in and they came back out. You just had to do it.

Gary Jones
I had to do it. And that’s what happens when you’re doing technical jargon like that on a show like that. Are those questions from fans?

David Read
I’m gonna get to them in just a second here. Did you see the the feature film in the theaters?

Gary Jones
You mean the original? With Kurt Russell?

David Read
Kurt Russell, James Spader.

Gary Jones
Yeah, I did.

David Read
What was your impression of it?

Gary Jones
I thought it was okay. I was like “Oh, this is kind of cool.” I remember Kurt Russell’s buzz cut, his flat top. And I really liked James Spader. I thought the show was perfectly cast. I thought it was an interesting concept. But for me back then sci-fi wasn’t really my thing. That was one of the films that everybody saw, because it was one of the films that was out. And when we were improvising, they would yell “Stargate,” and we’d sort of have to do something around that. It was one of the films that was, you know, in the cinemas.

David Read
It was in the public consciousness at the time. So you went for research as much as entertainment.

Gary Jones
Absolutely. So when my agent called me up and said “Hey, they’re making a series out of Stargate. Have you seen the film?” And I said “Oh, yeah. I’ve seen the film.” And then I think I rented it. I think at that point, I went to Blockbuster, and I literally rented it on VHS, and watched it a bunch of times.

David Read
And the gal reading all the numbers.

Gary Jones
No, there was a character in there that they were loosely basing this technician on. It was kind of like an Air Force guy, but he was sort of like a freelance, the computer guy. And he was in a Hawaiian shirt.

David Read
And a pencil in his mouth.

David Read
And you’d already known the director at this point, Mario Azzopardi.

Gary Jones
Yeah. And he wasn’t really a military guy, but he knew computers. And they said “He’s a technician, so have a look at that character,” so when I went into audition for them, I just made it a comedic read. Because I think they said something like “The Air Force needs him more than he needs the Air Force.” That was the sort of character description of this guy. And I thought “Okay, so he doesn’t really give a shit.” He’s like “Whatever. You could fire me, I don’t care. I’ll get a job somewhere else,” you know, “you have to listen to me.” So I went in with that kind of attitude “Yeah, whatever.”

Gary Jones
But I didn’t know that until I literally walked in to the room. They opened the door, and Mario’s there, and he sees me. Because, about a month prior, he had directed an episode of Outer Limits, with me as a ballistics expert. And that was all technical jargon. And I had to come in and give like a rapid fire ballistics report. So I was able to pull that off, which made his job easier, you know. So when he sees me, he goes “Oh, Chief, it’s you! Oh, my God, you’re gonna be perfect!” And I thought “Oh, great. I’m gonna have fun with this,” and I made it into a big comedy thing. And Brad Wright and Michael Greenburg were just like tears rolling down, their eyes laughing. And when I was leaving the audition, Mario walks me to the door, and I said “So, hey, that was great, that was good,” you know, trying to get some feedback or a sense of how I’d done. And he was “Chief, that was great. That was great. But, you know, not that big.” In other words “You’d been a little over the top.”

David Read
Tone it down.

Gary Jones
And then he closed the door. And I’m just standing there going “Noooooo!” I thought I’d totally blown it. And then I got a call back, and I was the only person called back. And I just had to tone it down, and I got the job. So that’s how come I got into Stargate. Super fun. Super fun ride.

David Read
I do have some fan questions here for you.

Gary Jones
Oh, please, I want to answer them.

David Read
Nathan says: “Did you ever get bored doing the same thing every episode, essentially?”

Gary Jones
Well, Nathan, yeah. I mean, there was a level of boredom. But that’s only because, you know, the joke in the business is “How do you get an actor to complain? Give them a job.” That’s a standard acting joke. Because every actor will find something to bitch about, you know, even when they’re on like a great show, long running and everything. So, at some point, I would be like “Oh, God, I wish I could kind of do more stuff.” But then I would just get pulled back into reality and go, you know, “I gotta be grateful for this fantastic gig that I have.” And I would sort of put those feelings of boredom more, you know, aside. Because I think boredom can lead to ingratitude, and I was definitely not ungrateful. I was very, very grateful. So that surfaced a little bit. But, you know, towards the end of the show, they had me firing machine guns, I went off world, I did all sorts of stuff, you know. But that came about because they kept me in the show, and they got to know me. And the more they knew me, the more they gave me to do. And so it was kind of like a trust thing. So when people say, like Nathan is suggesting, that I did the same stuff over and over, I take exception to that a little bit. Because yes, my job is essentially to be at the computer opening and closing the iris, but they just opened up my world for me. Certainly in season eight.

David Read
With Rick, yeah.

Gary Jones
When Rick was running the base, it was Rick that said to them “I want Walter to be my Radar.”

David Read
He needed his Radar, just like Potter and Blake did.

Gary Jones
Because the team was off doing their stuff. So he needed somebody to bounce things off. So they wrote it this way, but he and I developed a comedic chemistry. And it was great. I knew that he was the lead. He was the kingpin. But I could be as funny as I could be, without taking anything away from him. Because my background was being a comedian. So to your point, Nathan, if you look probably from Season Five onwards, about halfway through, I think I got to do a lot more things that made it more interesting for me. So that when I was eventually back in the seat, saying “Chevron One encoded” and so on, then it was okay.

David Read
It took you ten seasons to finally get a shot of you going through the Stargate, you know, in 200, but it eventually did happen.

Gary Jones
Well, what you saw was me going up the ramp. You didn’t see me going through the gate.

David Read
Oh, they didn’t draw you through.

Gary Jones
See, that’s what everybody thinks because it was like “Come on, Walter. We’re going.” I didn’t go through.

David Read
It almost feels like it was on purpose.

Gary Jones
I used to ask them, when I would get scripts that I was off world. I’d go “I’m off world. Oh my God. So I’m going through the puddle?” “No.” “What do you mean?”

David Read
It’s inferred.

Gary Jones
I go “Well, how am I on this planet?” They go “Oh, you’re just there.” And I was like “So not going through the puddle?” And they’re like “No.” And I go “Why?” And they go “Well, it’s too expensive.”

David Read
It’s $5,000 a pass.

Gary Jones
So I was not worth it. But they would put me off world, they had me driving an Al’kesh, you know, like with the steering wheel.

David Read
You flew Prometheus.

Gary Jones
I did all that stuff, but to go through the puddle? Yeah. And even when I was flying that Al’kesh, they put me in the seat, and I said to Andy Mikita “Andy, how do I even know how to fly this? Are you serious? I’m flying this? How do I know?” And he goes “Oh, you just do. Yeah, you just do.” It’s like as if there was an owner’s manual in the glove compartment, you know, that I just had to flip through.

David Read
These characters were meant to have lives of their own outside of what we saw on screen. And, you know, in one scene, he’s reading a frigging magazine. Peter DeLuise said “Well, it’s a technical manual,” you know. He was studying this stuff. And you just got to go on and play it for all its worth in the moment that it happened. As a fan, that’s how I infer that. Because obviously he was trained. We just didn’t see it.

Gary Jones
Right. But you have to understand that story about me reading that magazine. I told this story at countless conventions. It’s one of my favourites. Because I would always take a copy of Vanity Fair on set with me. And while they were rehearsing, I’d just be reading Vanity Fair. And in the scene we’re up in the upstairs big boardroom in Don’s office, and Ba’al, you know, is on screen like “I’m gonna destroy the world in five minutes.” And there’s all these marines and scientists running around, and techies. I remember saying to Peter, when Peter goes “This is what’s going to happen,” you know, “Ba’al is going to come on, he’s going to countdown to the end of the world, and you’re all going to jump into action.” And I go “Oh, this is great. I get to do something.” And I go to Peter “Okay, what am I doing?” And he goes “Oh, you’re just in your chair.” And I go “What?” I go “The world’s going to end in five minutes, and everybody else has stuff to do, and I’m just in my chair?” “Yeah, don’t worry about it. You’re just like in your chair.” I was like “Oh my god. Okay. Fine. Fine. Screw you.” So I’m sitting there, and they rehearsed it a whole bunch of times, because I had to block it, where’s everybody going. And I’m in the back of your mind is an acting (unintelligible), “Okay, cut, reset,” and that means everybody goes back to their first marks, and they rehearsed it again. Well, I just got so engrossed in this Vanity Fair magazine that I just hear “Cut! Moving on,” like, they’re going to the next scene. And I’m like “What? Did they just shoot that?” I didn’t realize they rehearsed it so many times, that I lost track of the fact that they actually shot it. And I was like “Oh my God. I’m just sitting here browsing a magazine, on camera.” And I have to go up to Peter, while all the equipment is being carted, and I go “Peter, I’m sorry. You’re gonna have to reshoot that scene,” and he’s like “Why? What do you mean?” I said “Peter. Oh, my God, I feel so bad. But I was reading a magazine while this was all happening.” And he goes “Oh, yeah, no, I know that, I saw that.” I go “What do you mean you saw it? What?” And he goes “Well, it just looked like you’re reading the technical manual.” So it kind of saved my ass a little bit, but then I went “Okay, even if I was, why would I be reading a technical manual? Ordering parts?” The world is about to blow up and it’s like “I hope Amazon shows up with those nuts and bolts within the next three minutes.” Moments like that and stories like that are my favourite moments from the show, because they were all about like “Oh my God, nooo!” and then everything turned out fine.

David Read
They’re winking at the audience.

Gary Jones
But Peter left it in. Peter did not reshoot it, and Ba’al is like “I will destroy the world,” and I’m just like this, you know, flipping pages.

David Read
Scotty says: “In Season Seven, in Heroes, you get to describe your job to Saul Rubinek, and the camera. Did that need a few takes to not laugh?” Tell us about that scene. It’s one of the best scenes in the series.

Gary Jones
I know. Actually, people ask me what’s my favorite episode, that is my favorite episode.

David Read
Heroes 1 and 2.

Gary Jones
Yeah. Because Robert Cooper wrote that scene. And it was like the ultimate piss take of my character. He was taking the piss out of me. Because everybody else got interviewed for this archival video that Saul’s character was doing. And when I read it, I was like “Thank you, God. This is so funny.” When I read it on my own, I was like “This is gonna kill,” like “I know this is gonna kill.” And I played it so sincerely and nervous. And if you go back and watch it, you see that I’m talking to Saul. I remember it as if it was like five minutes ago. Saul’s here, and the video camera’s here. And then the regular show camera is here, you know. So I would be talking to Saul, then I’d be sort of glancing into the video camera, like, checking this thing out, and just playing the nervousness of that. And Andy Mikita was standing behind Saul, and he was biting his hand and fainting over. So imagine that I’m just trying to deliver my lines, and be sincere and nervous, and Andy Makita is just losing it. And I had to stay in character. It would have been very easy for me to just start laughing, but Andy was like “Oh, my God.” Another thing, who asked that question?

David Read
That’s Scotty.

Gary Jones
Scotty. So Scotty, if you go back, and you watch that moment where I go “Yeah, you know, I say Chevron One, Chevron Two, and when I get to Chevron Seven, I say Chevron Seven locked, just to shake things up a little bit,” there’s a black woman, who’s a techie, over my shoulder. And I forget her name now, which really bothers me.

David Read
And someone else standing with her.

Gary Jones
There was two of them. One of them is leaning over. But she’s on this side of that person. So I’m like here, and she’s the next person to me. And she just goes like this. And I say that line about, like, making or shaking things up with “Chevron Seven locked,” and she just looks over and kind goes and does this look. And I didn’t know that she did that look. Of course I didn’t know that, because I’m looking at Saul. And when I see it played back, that killed me. Because it was like you suddenly saw this life with the techies.

David Read
And the size of his world, for better or for worse.

Gary Jones
Yeah. And the fact that I’m thinking “I’m pretty hot shit that I’m getting filmed here. Let me just tell you about my job.” And she’s just looking at me going “Oh, for the love of God.”

David Read
And how sincere he is, you know, “It really feels good to know that there’s someone,” you know, “keeping the light on for them,” like Motel 6, you know, “there’s someone on the other side just waiting for them.” And he’s just so sincere about it, you know, because that would be his world. He’s taking care of them. He’s making sure that they get in, and don’t get splattered on the frigging iris.

Gary Jones
And not having any clue that he looks kind of lame, by just her looking over my shoulder. And after that scene was over, she and I just killed ourselves laughing, but I didn’t know that. It was only when I saw the footage that I saw her look. And I was like “That’s just brilliant.” She actually included herself in the scene. And I love that.

David Read
Couple more to throw at you before I let you go. Brainchatter: “Was it fun being Jerry O’Connell’s jerk boss in the pilot episode of Sliders?”

Gary Jones
Oh, yeah, it was great. Anytime you get to play a jerk, it’s fantastic. Because, you know, you have to find your inner jerk. That was a fun show to work on. And I was just so disappointed. That was a show that I also got a recurring role on. And because they were traveling, you know, going to different dimensions, like Stargate, very similar, there were plans that I was going to be showing up in all these episodes as, you know, me but as different people. An alternate version of me. And they decided they wanted to shoot in L.A., you know. They just wanted to move the production. They came back for Season Two. This is interesting. They come back for Season Two. How many seasons was it on? Was it two?

Gary Jones
Sliders? I’ve never watched it. I watched it a little in syndication.

Gary Jones
All I know is that it was the first show that I was a recurring character on that I had to re-audition for. I’m serious. They got new producers. And the new producers were like “Who’s this guy? This guy was hired by the previous load of producers.” And I thought I was a shoo-in, and they’re like “Well, no. You need to audition again.” I was like “What?” So I auditioned again, and I was still on the show. But then shortly after that, the entire production moved to L.A. because they wanted just to be in a warmer climate. But it was fun. Jerry O’Connell is a lovely guy.

David Read
Deadpool asks: “Do you speak Welsh?”

Gary Jones
I don’t, but I can say this. I can say the longest word in Welsh. Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.

David Read
That’s one word?

Gary Jones
That’s one word.

David Read
And what is that word?

Gary Jones
Well, it’s one in Welsh, but it’s the name of a place. It’s like a train station. And it’s 44 characters long. And if you go to that train station, it’s like this humongous long train station name. And it means something like, you know, “St. Mary’s Church,” whatever. It’s descriptive of where it is. And my mother taught me that She would say that. And the last part of it, where it goes “ogogoch,” my brother and I used to kill ourselves laughing, just at the sound of it. And we’d always say to my mom “Speak Welsh. Speak Welsh again. Say that word.” So we just learned it from her. I’ve always been able to say that word, but I can’t actually speak the language.

David Read
Last question from fans. Raj says: “When they ask you to return to Stargate, for the new series that hopefully Brad will come out with, will you say yes? And please say yes.”

Gary Jones
Yes, I’ll say yes. But I need to keep the beard. Because I like the beard.

David Read
It looks good.

Gary Jones
And I think it would sort of give this idea of, you know, some time has passed kind of thing.

David Read
It has. And I think that’s his plan as well.

Gary Jones
And also, I mean, if he asked me, if Brad called me up and said “Hey, we’re doing it again. Do you want to be Walt? Do you want to come back as Walter?” it would be a dream to have that happen. To reprise that role. When did the show end? 2007?

David Read
SG-1, yeah. But Universe ended 2010-11. It’s been a long time.

Gary Jones
It’s been a long time. And obviously I’m more connected to SG-1, even though there were crossovers. Little scenes here and there.

David Read
He was at the Pentagon when we last saw him is my point. With Rick, of course.

Gary Jones
In new camo outfits.

David Read
And I need to clarify. I said Brad’s intent is to have it, you know, be now. I don’t know that for a fact. I don’t at all, but it makes sense.

Gary Jones
I mean, if it meant that I got reprise, that Walter came back and, you know, came out of retirement or whatever. It would be a dream come true. I would do it in a heartbeat. Of course.

David Read
Awesome. This has been a pleasure, sir. And thank you for showing off your art. Before we let you go, I wanted to let everyone know that I called Gary a few weeks ago. And we, along with Jenny Stiven, had been hoping to do some kind of a fan project where we took fans aside and asked them about the show, and what it meant to them, and the impact that it’s had on them, and what they liked and didn’t like about it. And it never fully materialized. Well, I called Gary and I said “Would you like to do something like that for this show?” It’s kind of like a sub series of episodes, especially with the capabilities that we have now with Zoom, and being able to reach people around the world that way. And you said “Yes.”

Gary Jones
Yeah, absolutely. Again, in a heartbeat.

David Read
Thank you. I put out a request on social media to fans, who have had Stargate impact their lives in some way, to reach out to us. And Gary’s going to interview them, and tell their stories. So we’ve got six or seven now. If you think that you have a unique Stargate story, if it’s brought you some comfort in your life, or you became an egyptologist, or a scientist, or a mathematician, because of Stargate.

Gary Jones
Or join the Air Force.

David Read
Join the Air Force, yes. We don’t have any of those yet.

That was a big one. I met people at conventions who joined the Air Force, because they just loved how Stargate presents it.

Gary Jones
I just want to say to that, we’ve done something like this, like we tried a little iteration of this earlier at one point, just to see how that would look. And I loved it. It was a way for me to get really in depth with fans. Because, you know, when I’m at conventions, and fans come and talk to me at my table, you know, I try to give them as much time as I can, but there’s only so much time I can talk to them to find out about their lives. But to be actually able to interview and talk to people about their lives, I love that. Because I just love finding out about the Stargate fans. So this is going to be a complete, absolute treat for me to be able to do this and work with the majestic David Read. So there you go. I’m into it. I look forward to seeing everybody.

Gary Jones
Exactly. We haven’t decided on a time, where we’re all gonna get together with Gary to shoot a few of these. There’ll be pre-recorded. But if you want to be included in that, email me right away at [email protected]. And the link will be later. Gary.

David Read
I can’t wait. And I’d like to shoot in the next few weeks here and start rolling out some episodes. Definitely by late November, early December. So I’ll be in touch with you about that, buddy. My friend, this has been a treat for me as well.

Gary Jones
I can tell, because you put a tie on.

David Read
Thank you guys for taking the time.

Gary Jones
That’s not a clip on, is it? Oh David, thank you. All right.

David Read
Joseph Mallozzi said the same thing “Is that a clip on? Show it.” Jonesy, thank you, my friend.

Gary Jones
You’re welcome, David.

David Read
I’ll be in touch with you really soon.

Gary Jones
All right. Bye, everybody. Thanks for having me.

David Read
Mr. Gary Jones, everyone. Thank you, sir. Mr. Gary Jones. I can’t say enough good things about that guy. He has been a treat. He has always been there for me, on various Stargate projects that I’ve been involved in over the years, you know, coming out and saying “Hey, do you wanna do this? Do you wanna do that?” “Tell me where and when.” He’s always been that way. And he continues to be a good guy, a good friend. So I’m delighted that he’s with us for the first few rounds of these Dial the Gate interviews, and that he’s going to be launching the fan show with you. So it’s time for you guys to get on the show, and be a part of this next phase. Before I let you guys go, if I can get my act together here. There it is. If you like what you’ve seen in this episode, I would appreciate if you click the Like icon. It makes a great difference with YouTube’s algorithm and 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. If you plan to watch live, I recommend giving the bell icon a click so you’ll be the first to know if any schedule changes, which will probably happen all the time. And bear in mind, clips from this live stream will hopefully be released over the course of the next several days on both the Dial the Gate and Gateworld.net YouTube channels. I was planning on pumping out a couple of these, you know, every weekday. I just haven’t had the time. That’s been really frustrating. But Darren at Gateworld has been really good about taking a lot of the bigger pieces and sharing them with his audience, which has then turned around and gotten more people back. I apologize for not being able to get to everyone’s questions. We’ll have Gary back in another interview at some point in the future. But in the meantime, he’s going to sit down with a bunch of you. And if you think you have an interesting story to tell, I’m particularly looking for people who, you know, got into careers because of Stargate. We’ve got a few already in mind that we want in terms of people who have had like injuries and illnesses and personal life stories of that respect, but I haven’t seen really anyone come across my desk yet who entered the Air Force or the military. So if you’re out there and would like to tell that story in relation to how Stargate changed your life, please email me [at] [email protected]. Mr. Tom Macbeth will be joining us in about 25 minutes, right here on Dial the Gate, and stick around for that, because it’s Harry Maybourne, and Tom is a treat. I’m David Read. See you on the other side.