It was arguably the best one-off appearance by a guest star in SG-1. The riveting Saul Rubinek shook things up at SGC as documentary maestro Emmett Bregman in “Heroes.” Dial the Gate is privileged to sit down and discuss the performance with him now.

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Timecodes
0:00 – Splash Screen
0:20 – Opening Credits
0:46 – Welcome and Episode Outline
1:12 – Call to Action
2:43 – Guest Introduction
5:44 – (Can we trust this guy?) Kivas Fajo in Star Trek: The Next Generation
8:12 – Saul’s Take on Emmett Bregman (SG1 7×17-18 Heroes)
13:43 – Working on the speech scene with Robert C. Cooper
16:41 – Emmett Bregman’s Impact
24:34 – How the Performance in Heroes Was Achieved
31:27 – Preference in Genres
34:39 – Was Warehouse 13 as much fun to make as it looks?
35:31 – A Wide Audience Reach
37:29 – Process for Researching Roles
41:51 – How would Artie Nielsen have reacted to Stargate Program?
43:45 – Would you be open to return to the Stargate franchise?
45:06 – Post-Interview Housekeeping
49:30 – End Credits

***

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

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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read
Welcome everyone to episode 60, my name is David Read. You’re tuning in to Dial the Gate, Saul Rubinek is joining us for this episode. He was Emmett Bregman in Stargate SG-1’s Heroes Part One and Two, arguably the best two parter that SG-1 produced and we’re going to be bringing him in in just a moment here. But 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, 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 notifications of any last minute guest changes. This is key if you plan on watching live. Clips from this live stream will be released over the course of the next several days on our companion channel, Gateworld.net, on YouTube. This episode is going to be slightly different because we’re trying something new, both with Saul and with Vaitiare, in the next couple of hours here. As always, if you have questions for our guests, you’re invited to submit them at youtube.com/dialthegate, where you’re watching this right now. In this episode, I’d like to invite you to start submitting your questions in the comments section. So instead of having the moderators go through and dig through the comments where everyone’s chatting, I’d like to try to see if we can have people start submitting in the comments to set them aside and give the moderators a chance to look there exclusively. For this episode and the next one we’ll be doing a little bit of crossover for both. Let’s give that a shot, if you have a question for Saul, submit it in the comments section on the YouTube page and we will go from there. In the meantime, I get to talk with him. Mr. Saul Rubinek, Emmett Bregman on Stargate SG-1. Sir, it is a pleasure to have you. Thank you so much for joining us.

Saul Rubinek
My pleasure.

David Read
How are you doing? I understand you just went back to work?

Saul Rubinek
Yes, for the first time in a year. I did an episode of the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel in New York. I just got back to Los Angeles and I’ve been vaccinated so that helps my comfort level.

David Read
Absolutely. What was it like finally getting back into the thick of it out there? Was it weird getting your feet wet again?

Saul Rubinek
Well, just weird getting out of the house after a year of mostly not being safe. Mask wearing wherever I went, but we didn’t go very many places. Going to an airport and getting on an airplane and going to a hotel and then going to work, all of that was a bit strange. Most people, 99% of people, are compliant and wearing masks and are careful. The set that Amazon and the people of Mrs. Maisel were running were incredibly careful and everybody was very caring and cautious and sensitive to what was going on. Especially because we were working with background actors who are also as protected as we are, the main cast, or guest cast. The protocols that are in place, I imagine, are pretty similar all over North America. I don’t know what they’re like in Europe, but I would imagine there’s a similarity everywhere about how people are handling set safety. Both for the health and safety of all members of the crew and cast but also for insurance reasons.

David Read
Most definitely.

Saul Rubinek
And other reasons like that. They had something that I didn’t know that they had which is a little device, about a third the size of an iPhone, that you carry with you with your name on it. It is an electronic contact tracer. In case somebody does end up being positive, they test you every day, in case somebody does turn up positive then I guess they can figure out who that person was in contact with. Anyway, it’s very complicated, hopefully a year from now we’ll have to be less vigilant than that.

David Read
It just shows, we’re gonna get through this one way or the other. A lot of people are like, “I don’t know, man.” We have to let good old human ingenuity take over. Pretty much everyone that I talk to, all the Canadian cast, a lot of them have been back to work and several of them carry proximity devices. If you’re too close together then it starts going off and everything else. Give humans a chance to figure it out and we will do so. I’ve been going over some of the people talking in chat right now and a couple of them are like “I don’t know if we should trust this guy, he kidnapped Data.”

Saul Rubinek
You shouldn’t trust me, yeah.

David Read
I have to say, because that was the first time I’d ever seen you. It was a tragedy that brought you on, but at the same time it presented one of the more interesting aliens that Next Generation had ever introduced and that was a terrific performance, sir.

Saul Rubinek
Thank you, I was very lucky. I happened to be in Los Angeles at the time and the director of the episode, Tim Bond, was somebody that I’ve known since I was a kid actually, in Canada. Also, because Brent Spiner and I had done theater together in New York, so when their original guest star got ill and couldn’t do it, I was brought in in a moment’s notice, I just happened to be in LA. It wouldn’t have been something I could have done if I were in Toronto, which is where I was living at the time. I think I was living at the time in both New York and Toronto and I happened to be visiting Los Angeles. I had asked Tim if I could visit the set because Brent was an old friend and I liked the show. I think it was only a second season that they were shooting. He said, “yeah, just give me a couple of days.” Then I got a call in the middle of the night saying “how badly do you want to visit the set?”

David Read
Really visit the set! I have to ask, there was a line about the Andorians wanting to make a bid on the shipment of Talarian spices and you said “they have four days to decide!” Is that an ad lib?

Saul Rubinek
I have no idea.

David Read
That’s fair.

Saul Rubinek
I have no idea, this is 30 years ago. More than 30, probably 32 years ago. All I remember was having a lot of fun because it was mostly a two hander between me and Brent and an old friend director. I had a real great time doing it, it was really a fun character.

David Read
Saul, it was fantastic that they picked you for the role of Emmett Bregman. Rob Cooper had been wanting to do this kind of a show for a little while now. He was a huge fan of M.A.S.H. and the two parter where they had the documentary folks come in to the M.A.S.H camp and just lay it all out. I really want to know your take on this character and what it was…You were born in Germany in a very tumultuous time as a result of some of humanity doing the worst to each other. Then you get this roll that has, in my opinion, the best speeches in SG-1. A couple of the best speeches are this character.

Saul Rubinek
Well, partly because of Robert Cooper’s generosity of spirit. I had experiences before doing sci-fi that was even closer to my background, starting with an episode of The Outer Limits where I time traveled back to a concentration camp.

David Read
Oh wow.

Saul Rubinek
In a really extraordinary episode of The Outer Limits that I had shot, probably not far from that time, when I did SG-1. Also later on in Warehouse 13 the writers used my background, being a child of Holocaust survivors, as part of the storyline for Artie Nielsen, the character in Warehouse 13, which is a kind of science fiction fantasy show. This episode was supposed to be one episode. I don’t know how I was picked, I was grateful, I liked the show. I hadn’t seen all six seasons of it at that point. I’d seen it intermittently, I knew friends who had been on it and I knew it was a really great group of regular actors who were really wonderful actors and good directors. Writing was really top notch and it was an interesting character. The original idea was that a documentary filmmaker is treated with tremendous suspicion, as a kind of left wing liberal. He would somehow denigrate the armed services, which I played into a little bit, knowing that ultimately I was going to not be denigrating them and I’d be talking about their heroism, but I didn’t know how deeply I would get into it. I wasn’t really aware of it was going to be the death of one of the regular characters, for good. I wasn’t really aware of that till we got into it. We did have a lot of discussions about it. Sometimes you get on to a show, and I have this discussion usually early before I accept, if the dialogue is such, sometimes I feel I might be a bit miscast. Even though I’m grateful for having been cast, especially if I haven’t auditioned for it and this is an offer, I’m wondering whether or not I can make the dialogue fit a little bit better if I wasn’t really changing content. They were very open about that and I had a lot of ideas. They were open to improvisation which I gather was not unusual on the show, which is very fortunate. When you have a showrunner, I think Robert was also the showrunner and also the writer of the episode, am I right?

David Read
Correct.

Saul Rubinek
When you have a showrunner on the show, and I wasn’t used to it yet, it wasn’t until I was doing a regular role in Warehouse 13 and Jack Kenny, our showrunner and head writer, was on the set most of the time that you realize the benefit of that. When a showrunner and a head writer is 3000 miles away from where you’re shooting, there’s not only the time difference, but the directors are given the edict that they really have to stick to the script. For good reason, because they can get into all kinds of story problems. But when the showrunner is there, then improvisation is more of a possibility. Andy, who directed the episode I think, certainly wasn’t his first turn at the bat on the show. He had done a lot of these and was an extraordinarily talented, very talented, director with actors and knew the show really well. There was a looseness about the way we approached it. All the scenes with all the actors, I remember, were really fun because of that looseness. Because Robert was so open and Andy was open, the whole shooting style of doing the documentary, they were doing something different. They all appreciated the difference, the kind of shooting and being able to look right at the camera. The whole shooting style, the handheld feeling of it, my little crew and our stuff that was going on. The biggest thing that happened, for me, was a long discussion where I said, “look, I think that you’re missing an opportunity.” Robert jumped on it and said “absolutely, what can we do?” We collaborated together on a speech that is one of my favorite moments in all my career, which is talking about the importance, especially after Trump era, talking about the importance of news and about true reporting and about how important it is to democratic society. I remember that speech and I remember we worked on it together, he was very open to my contribution. I mean, it’s all Robert Cooper, but I did have, I felt, a significant contribution which a lot of showrunner’s egos won’t allow. It wasn’t any of that problem and I felt appreciated and I felt welcomed by not only Robert and Andy, but the cast. It was treated as a very high quality thing and it was very wonderful when, from what I understand happened, is that when they did their first cut of the show and it was long. Rather than doing a long episode or a special long episode, they decided “why don’t we add additional scenes and create a two parter?” That allowed for the depth of the show to come out and it allowed scenes that normally would have been cut down significantly, or excised completely, to be in the show. That’s all a combination of Robert Cooper and the network agreeing to do it. That’s why I think it’s a fan favorite, is because of that. Also, because it was significant to lose a regular cast member in those circumstances, very significant, wonderful actresses, all of that made it high drama. Plus, I do remember how emotional Don Davis was. I think he was also, at one time, in the military.

David Read
Yes he was, he was a Captain.

Saul Rubinek
And a show about the military, he was very emotional, incredibly supportive, really wonderful actor to work with. I just remember it was just really a highlight in my life working on episodic television, which can sometimes be a grind. Sometimes you’re plugged in and they’re trying to get in and out really quick. The showrunners are 3000 miles away, it’s a good roll, it might be a fun episode, but this was a special experience.

David Read
Rob was saying that he had some spirited discussions with you about getting that dialogue exactly right. The type of people that Bregman do is so key to a democratic society. I’ll never forget that speech for as long as I live, “you force the press into the cold and all you will get is lies and innuendo. Nothing is more dangerous to a free society than a media that is in service to the state.” It’s a powerful, powerful message and I think you’re absolutely right. Even though we lose one of the universally loved characters, it is an important message that continues to be well received by fandom. Many of them weren’t even born when the episode aired! This thing just continues to succeed.

Saul Rubinek
I’ve seen that speech used, or quoted on Twitter, talking about all kinds of different subject matters. Especially over the last four years, people would reference that speech when people were talking about fake news or about how the media is complicit in conspiracy bullshit and stuff like that. I was gratified to see it used. It was very important. I’ll just never forget how open Robert was to doing it because it wasn’t in the original script and it was a special moment. I remember saying, really, really well, saying, “look, I have this idea. It’s not going to take any time because you have to cover me anyway; they’re bringing a body in and we don’t know who it is and we don’t know what’s going on. You have to cover me and all it’s going to be is an extra five minutes which you can take out. You can cut the speech if you need to and just say ‘hey, I need access’ and ‘cut.’ But why don’t you just leave the camera running?” “What will you say?” I said “This. I will say a version of ‘this’.” I remember at lunch being with Andy and being with Robert, saying “look, I’ve written this first draft of this” and they worked on it, made it significantly better and that’s what happened. I remember that.

David Read
Wow. It’s one of the more powerful scenes because Amanda Tapping’s character of Carter, usually under control and on top of things, you push her over the edge in that scene. She yells at you and tells you to shut the camera off and we’ve never seen Carter. We find out later she’s lost one of her dearest friends. You, and the character, pull out some of the best performances in that entire cast, particularly with Teryl as well. Before we lose her, there is a romantic tension underneath there; she is drawn to Emmett’s charm. It’s one of my favorite scenes in the mess hall, she’s like, “what’s with the ring?” He’s like, “oh, sentimental. My wife died.” We’re beginning to connect with this character even though he has an adversarial relationship with our heroes and with our friends, through the television.

Saul Rubinek
You can understand it, you can understand them being adversarial. They think they’re going to be cut up in a documentary for a particular point of view that is not going to be flattering. You don’t know what my intentions are really, until the very end. Also, it’s a discovery for my character, to find out how heroic these people really are. As they would be in any real life situation, in a terrible in a war like situation, where politics, people die, not necessarily for noble reasons. Although she does die, for noble reasons, but not all soldiers do. Very often they’re dying for a lot of old white men sitting in an armchair somewhere. My character, he knows he’s there to document something that might eventually go public. He’s been given an order to do it, he doesn’t know what it will be, he’s trying to get some kind of truth. He’s got integrity and you don’t know where that integrity lies until there’s high pressure.

David Read
Exactly right, and he keeps going.

Saul Rubinek
The important thing that I’m going to emphasize is that if it hadn’t been a two parter, I think that speech might have hit the cutting room floor and many moments would have hit the cutting room floor. It was a very brave decision on their part and their creative instincts were right on the money to look at it and go, “you know, we have something special here.” For Andy, it was the episode that would never end shooting. It kept going, shooting all kinds of stuff and having to fill it out but it’s really worth it. I’m asked about it all the time when I go to conventions.

David Read
Oh. you are?

Saul Rubinek
All the time. People come who are Stargate fans and talk about those episodes specifically. I don’t think I was really aware of the episode’s popularity. For some reason I wasn’t aware of the awards that it was nominated for, at the time even, or the critical response. Because working actor, transport my family, I’m just moving on to the next project. I don’t really usually pay attention to reviews and I don’t pay attention to the award stuff, really. I wasn’t aware of it until many years later. That was 2003 and probably not until 2009 or so, six years later, when I was at my very first convention because of Warehouse 13. We were at Comic Con six years later, we were just in the middle of shooting our first season of Warehouse 13, where people came up to me about Stargate [parts] one and two. They had pictures of my character whose name I didn’t even remember and saying “do you know about these awards and do you know that it’s a fan favorite?” I really didn’t know. I wasn’t aware. It’s the kind of thing that happens to actors occasionally, especially actors like me who aren’t stars, we’re just working actors. For example, somebody said, I think somewhere around 1990, in the middle 90s, somebody said, or in late 90s, “are you aware that Kivas Fajo…” which is the name of the character that I played in the Star Trek The Next Generation episode, “…is a game on the internet and there’s playing cards and your character is a key card?” I had no idea, none. So, things to discover about sci-fi.

David Read
The sci-fi fandom is one that continues to persist generation after generation. There are doctors and lawyers shows, there is a lot of procedural programming out there that is perfectly good. There is something about science fiction, and Heroes one and two specifically and an episode like The Most Toys [ST:TNG] as well, that speaks to the human condition and allows us to recognize the darker aspects of ourselves and face situations like overwhelming greed or hostility for alien races; a number of different things. It forces us to think about our place in that situation, puts us in the center of that and go, “how would I deal with that situation? I don’t necessarily like that guy, but I understand why he’s doing what he’s doing. If I were placed there, I may decide something similar.” That’s one of the things that it does so well.

Saul Rubinek
I agree.

David Read
One of the things that I’ve always wanted to know, you make a meal out of your scripts. I want to know if it’s just an acting choice or if it’s something that you just instinctually do if you’re allowed to on the set at a given time. You speak the dialogue as if you’re just making it up as you go. How do you do that? Little asides in the dialogue and everything else, you’re going in and out and weaving around it, how do you achieve that?

Saul Rubinek
Well you’re just talking about the craft of acting. Spencer Tracy used to say “the secret of acting is just don’t ever let them catch you at it and don’t bump into the furniture.” When looking at Heroes Part One and Two, when I watched it recently knowing I was going to do this, I was also caught by a feeling of…it’s partly because it was a little bit improvised and that was allowed. There was a feeling of spontaneity that comes with it and I think it’s something that I tried to bring. All good actors really are working very hard to make it look as if it’s happening on the spot, to be in the present moment. Sometimes the circumstances work in your favor and the atmosphere on the set works in your favor and the character, the dialogue, the way it’s written, works in your favor. Sometimes it’s not in your favor. Sometimes actors have to turn, not in this case, it was really well written. But sometimes actors have to take sow’s ears and turn them into silk purses, as we say. Sometimes you’ve got stuff that has been so worked on and made homogenous by committee and executives and notes. Sometimes writers don’t have the power to fight. What happens in the development of stories is that you end up with episodes that are forgettable. I’m sure it happens on procedurals all the time, where character is neglected and you really are trying to make your day becomes the most important thing. You end up with stuff that vaguely resembles humanity, but isn’t really. So yes, I do really hope that whenever I approach a project, unless somebody tries to stop me, from the very beginning, if I’m working on an episodic television shows a guest star, I treat it as if it’s an Academy Award winning movie. I’m treating it the way I would any project. I’m trying to set the bar really high and unless somebody stops me, unless circumstances stop me, then I have to work around it. I find that’s true with most artists in all situations, in all situations. Dancers, writers, actors, musicians, are always at their best, trying to break through a boundary. If they’re prevented by circumstance, finances, politics, ego, hopefully we all try to work around it. We combat it as best we can and move on to the next job. It is the craft of trying to make sure something appears human. That’s why I love playing bad guys. You play a bad guy the same way as you would a good guy. It’s not what they look like or the way they smile, it’s what they do that makes them bad. You don’t know somebody’s a bad guy quite often until they’re in the middle of doing something horrible. It’s really not that relevant but I do remember seeing a documentary, I don’t remember what it’s called, The Thin Red Line or The Thin Blue Line, interviewing a psychopath, a real psychopath. I remember watching it and going “if an actor was playing this role in this interview, he might be tempted to show you some kind of crack in this facade.” But there isn’t one and the only time you see a crack in this man’s facade was while he was strangling you; you wouldn’t see it until it was happening. I remember being “that was interesting acting lesson.” But I take your compliment, I’m very appreciative of what you said. I do hope that it doesn’t look written when I’m acting. You’re talking about the craft of acting and sometimes I’m better at it than others. I do my best.

David Read
Not every script is going to be a home run. You gotta take what you’re given and sometimes a job is a job and there’s nothing wrong with that. I have some fans who have submitted some questions here.

Saul Rubinek
Sure. Go ahead.

David Read
Teresa wanted to know – in what genre do you prefer to act? Or are they all more or less the same for you? Drama, comedy, something else? What do you love sinking your teeth into?

Saul Rubinek
I don’t think that I’ve ever done a show, I don’t think I’ve ever done a performance. where there isn’t some humor. I don’t really like stuff that has absolutely no humor, no matter what the drama show is. Intense, violent movies, they’re at their best when there’s also some humor in it. I think that I try to find a way to do that. But no, the genre isn’t important to me. I don’t usually find actors talk about genre as much as they talk about the community that they’re working in. You’re really looking for an atmosphere that allows you to fall on your face, where you’re not shamed, where you can actually make mistakes. When producers and directors and writers create an atmosphere where people can fail without shame, that’s when you get people doing their best work. So actors that I have known all my entire career, very rare… I mean, you do have actors who really much prefer theater to working on film. That depends also on who you’re working with and what you’re doing. What’s the script like? What’s the community like? Actors look for a community that they can work well in and that they can work collaboratively in.

David Read
I think the comedy, so much of the comedy, in Emmett Bregman is watching him deal with his frustration of filming a documentary that may never be shown. There’s a certain humor in that. He’s sitting there in the editing bay and they’re like, “where’s the shots of Neil Armstrong hitting the golf on the moon? I don’t have it. There’s unbelievably boring. It’s talking heads, it’s yak yak yak.”

Saul Rubinek
Yeah, I remember it was funny. We wanted to have that frustration to be funny,

David Read
He openly says “I don’t care what you guys think of me.” He openly goes to General Hammonds office, Don S. Davis, and asks to use his phone to call the President. That guy had balls.

Saul Rubinek
Yeah, that was all Rob Cooper, it’s great writing. All you have to do is carry through. When you have great writing it’s really easy, really easy.

David Read
Matthew wants to know – was Warehouse 13 as much fun to make as it looks? He says he’s a huge fan of the show.

Saul Rubinek
More, more fun, more fun to make than it looks. We all loved each other. We were incredibly fortunate because Jack Kenny as our showrunner and David Simkins who started us off. These were wonderful people and Jack Kennedy, who took over most of it as our showrunner and head writer and is still a very good friend of mine, is very collaborative. We had a lot of fun. Because he was there on the set we could improvise, we could fool around and we could contribute and it was tremendous fun. One of the most fun things I’ve ever done in my career was doing Warehouse 13, it was a great character, a great premise.

David Read
It’s a show that shows that sci-fi doesn’t always have to be absolutely taken seriously to give meaning.

Saul Rubinek
The show should never have left the air. It’s all these financial and political decisions. This is how rare that show was, you could watch it if you’re 8 or 80. What do families watch together today? Game shows? Singing contest shows? How many shows are there on the air that the parents are going “okay, this is for the kids. They are bored out of their minds but it’s for the kids, this show works.” Warehouse 13 worked on an 8 year old level, a 15 year old level, a 25 year old level, an old person level. There were jokes only meant for older people there, there was a sense of adventure, the violence was kept at a minimum, it was still a lot of fun. Also, every single artifact had historical accuracy so teachers loved the show because they could talk about it with their students in science and in math and history and in English literature. All the artifacts that were represented had some relation to a real historical object, so that was really fun. The answer is it was even more fun than you can imagine. It was really a fun show to do and never should have gone off the air. It should be brought back!

David Read
Wouldn’t be surprised with as much stuff that’s coming back these days. It’s the best art that leaves the viewer to go “hmm, let me Wikipedia that.” It opens up doors of new knowledge. I’m sure there’s a curator or two out there that is “you know what? I fell in love with my job by watching Warehouse 13.”

Saul Rubinek
Yeah, it’s great.

David Read
Elizabeth Lee – do you have any specific rituals for when you prepare for roles, research or tools that you use, rehearsal for centerstage? What’s your process? I think it kind of circles back to the discussion about how you try to find spontaneity in the dialogue, depending on how free you are to do so.

Saul Rubinek
Prep is different, it depends on the role. Sometimes it really is a question that I know that the less work, the less prep I do, the better. For example, I just did a role in this series called Hunters for Amazon that was with Al Pacino, based on these people who are hunting Nazis in the late 70s in New York. My character is a Holocaust survivor who has an accent much like the accent of my own dad’s accent, so it was very easy for me to do. Really, I didn’t have to prepare or do any research; I was born to play it in many ways. Sometimes, there’s intense research. I remember really, really thinking and reading a lot about the writers that worked in Westerns before I did Unforgiven. I have played scientists where I really wanted to know a little bit more about it. Playing a character like Kivas Fajo, Kivas Fajo with no notice whatsoever, having to step in to another actors shows because he couldn’t do it. All that brought me back to playing an alien was children’s theater and the kind of fun I had doing children’s theater. The answer is because I’m an untrained actor, except when I was a little boy because I was a child actor on stage only, not in film or television. I did children’s theater, some adult plays, playing Tom Sawyer or Jim Hawkins, and I was taught when I was a child. But otherwise, I learned on the As a result, I don’t have a method as such. The method that I have is, if there’s a character I know very little about, I really try to invent a backstory that I understand, that I have secrets that I don’t need to tell anybody about. Some understanding of a backstory that gives me what I need in order to be as natural as possible playing a role. Sometimes there’s specific research depending on the job the character has and things that I should know about that I wouldn’t otherwise know. But then everything changes. No matter what you have, whatever you prepared for, then you’re faced with your co-stars. You’re faced with the how long you’ve got to shoot it and you’re faced with the politics of the set and you’re faced with all of the problems that come with a group of people trying to create something together. That’s true in theater and it’s true in all collaborative work. The reality of the group of people affects what you’re doing more than anything else, especially when you’re not a superstar. There are very, very few people who are in a position where they control, they’re producing, the thing is greenlit because of them, they control it all. That presents its own problems of having, I’m sure, of having people agree with you too often because they’re worried about their jobs. You really need to have people around you that you can trust if you’re in a position like that. I’ve almost never been in a position like that, I’ve seen it with other people. But for most of us who are working either as regular characters or guest stars or recurring characters, on television shows or in movies, people keep their methods private, for the most part. For me, the answer to your question is, there is no specific ritual that I have. It all changes depending on the circumstances that I’m in.

David Read
Understood, thank you. Scotty0709 – how do you think Artie, from Warehouse 13, how do you think Artie would have reacted to the Stargate program?

Saul Rubinek
Oh, that’s an interesting question. That’s a really interesting question. How would Artie have reacted to this program? He wouldn’t have liked the oversight. I think that there would be way too much politics involved for Artie to find a home there. He would have been fired very quickly. It’s too military, Artie is real rebel. I think that he might have honored the idea of going to different worlds, but you got to remember, there are no aliens in Artie’s universe. There’s not an alien culture, he would have been out of his depth trying to deal with it. His job was really to try to figure out, “is an object actually going to do harm? If there is harm being done, is it because of an artifact? How do we get that artifact?” That’s it, that’s all you need to do and then he has to control them all in this warehouse that he’s given his life to. So anything that would have required the kind of rules and organization, a military atmosphere put on him, he would have been gone in three days. He would have been kicked out.

David Read
“That’s it, that’s enough. Yeah, I’m done.”

Saul Rubinek
He would have been dishonorably discharged.

David Read
Some people can only go so far. Last question for you, Patrick wanted to know – was there ever any talk of bringing Emmett back? He was mentioned a couple of times later, at least once. Or, were Stargate to return in the fourth series that Brad is trying to get off the ground, would you be open to a return? Particularly if the Stargate program ever went public?

Saul Rubinek
Well, I didn’t even know that they were trying to bring Stargate back.

David Read
He has been trying.

Saul Rubinek
Oh that’s really cool. Of course, it’s a great character, I don’t know how it would fit in that universe. The character, no I was never asked about bringing him back. It depends on the circumstances that he would be brought back in but of course, I like the show so much and I like the character so much, that would be a really interesting thing to try.

David Read
Actress Kendall Cross was in season six as a reporter, as a news reporter, and then when there was some exposure in season eight of the program they brought her back in because she was owed a favor. I think Emmett Bregman would be owed a favor or two for all he put up with over the years.

Saul Rubinek
I think so too.

David Read
Saul, this has been a delight. Thank you so much for coming on, sir.

Saul Rubinek
My pleasure.

David Read
I really appreciate your time and all the best to you, sir. You take care of yourself okay.

Saul Rubinek
I will. Thank you very much.

David Read
Be well, I’ll wrap up the show on this end, take care of yourself sir. Saul Rubinek everyone, Emmett Bregman on Stargate SG-1. Thank you so much for joining us and big thanks to Saul again for making this possible. He is one of the reasons why I created this program; was to hope to sit down and have this discussion and he did not disappoint. Dial the Gate is partnered with 3dtech.pro for the month of December to give you a chance to get your very own Atlantis Puddle Jumper and BC-303. To enter to win these items you need to use a desktop or laptop computer and go to dialthegate.com, scroll down to submit trivia questions. Your trivia may be used in a future episode of Dial the Gate, either for our monthly trivia night or for our special guests to ask me in a round of trivia. We keep talking about this, I need to start doing this again with some of the guests. There are three slots for trivia; one easy, one medium and one hard. Only one needs to be filled in but you’re more than welcome to submit up to three. Please note the submission form does not currently work for mobile devices. Your trivia must be received before April 1st. If you’re the lucky winner, I’ll be notifying you via your email to get your address. Please be sure to check out our partners website for more Stargate related merchandise at 3dtech.pro. We have a winner for the Stargate DHD segment that was blown up in Phantoms from Empire Movie Props. That is going to be going out to Goran Andonovski, so he is our winner. According to GateGabber he sent us five great sets of questions, so congratulations to Goran. I’ll be reaching out to you over email in the next couple of days or you can email me to speed up the process if you want to at [email protected]. We are now offering T-shirts. Dial the Gate is brought to you every week for free and we do appreciate you watching but if you want to support the show further, buy yourself some of our themed swag. We’re now offering T-shirts, tank tops, sweatshirts and hoodies for all ages in a variety of sizes and colors at Red Bubble. We currently offer four themed designs and hope to add more in the future. The word cloud designs have both a solid background or transparent background options, you have some flexibility between choosing a light or dark color. Do keep that in mind when you’re making your selection. Checkout is fast and easy and you can use your Amazon or PayPal account as well. Kust visit DialtheGate.redbubble.com and thank you for your support. If you really enjoyed this episode I would appreciate it if you do click that Like button because it’s going to make a difference with YouTube’s algorithm and allow the show to grow. Please also consider sharing this video with a Stargate friend and if you want to get notified about future episodes, click that Subscribe icon. If you plan on watching live I recommend giving the bell icon a click so you’ll be the first to know of any schedule changes, which do happen all the time. Bear in mind clips from this live stream will be released over the course of the next several days and weeks on the gateworld.net YouTube channel. At some point here Dial the Gate will also be serving up clips as well but that’s a bit of a process. I appreciate you joining us. Thanks so much to my production assistants, Jennifer Kirby and Linda “GateGabber” Furey. Sommer, Tracy, Keith, Jeremy, Rhys and Antony; you guys make the Dial the Gate world go round and it would not be possible without you. Thanks again to Saul Rubinek, fantastic discussion about Heroes. This is a two parter that just comes up in pretty much every conversation about SG-1 and it’s clear to see why it was such a success. The people who were brought in for it and the people who did the show were at their peak performance in this episode. I’m so thankful that Rob went to Syfy Channel and asked them to give him permission to push it into two hours because it’s just splendid. Vaitiare Hirshon is going to be joining us momentarily, in about a little over an hour from now. She played Sha’re and Amaunet in Stargate SG-1. I’m David Read for Dial the Gate, see you on the other side.