Comtrya! SG-1’s Harlan joins Dial the Gate to take us back to the early years of production and making the iconic android character.

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Timecodes
0:00 – Splash Screen
0:20 – Opening Credits
0:47 – Welcome and Episode Outline
01:33 – Call to Action
02:13 – Guest Introduction
02:34 – Comtrya!
07:03 – Creating Harlan (SG1 1×19 Tin Man)
08:29 – Discovering Acting
15:07 – Has anyone ever approached you and said Comtrya?
15:38 – Stargate’s Continuing Popularity
20:04 – Have you had roles that you struggled with or that you had to go deeper with?
28:32 – Did you expect to be called back for Harlan? (4×21 Double Jeopardy)
31:13 – Subverting Expectations
35:57 – Returning as Harlan
36:30 – Lord Protector on SGA 2×15 “The Tower”
39:39 – Working During the Pandemic
42:38 – Would you mind sharing a story of Don S. Davis?
47:19 – What was it like to work with Robert C. Cooper on “Unspeakable”?
50:12 – Did you like being in “Highlander: The series”? (Stanley Cominski)
53:39 – David thanks Jay for his appearance
54:47 – Post-Interview Housekeeping
56:40 – 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 73 of Dial the Gate. My name is David Read. Thank you so much for joining us, and welcome to another Sunday. Hope you’re having a great weekend. My first guest this weekend is one of my favorite guest stars from Stargate. I was watching the show when it first aired in syndication in 1997. And he was in Season One; Jay Brazeau played the – he was an Altairan, kind of robotic – Harlan and he also came back in Stargate Atlantis as the Lord Protector in “The Tower.” And we’re gonna have him on 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 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. 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. And this is key if you plan on watching live, and clips from this live stream will be released over the course of the next several days on the GateWorld.net YouTube channels. Without further ado, our first guest today, Jay Brezeau. Hello, sir. Welcome to Dial the Gate. Did we lose him? There he is.

Jay Brazeau:
Yeah.

David Read:
We have a little bit of a lag.

Jay Brazeau:
Oh, that’s all right.

David Read:
How are you, sir?

Jay Brazeau:
Comtrya!

David Read:
Welcome. Thank you so much for being on.

Jay Brazeau:
That’s good, actually. It took me so long to do that. [Altairan greeting hands]

David Read:
How are things? How are you doing?… Jay, can you hear me?

Jay Brazeau:
I can hear you. Your screen is frozen. Oh, there. That’s better now.

David Read:
How are you doing? How are things going?

Jay Brazeau:
Sorry, it’s frozen again.

David Read:
Uh-oh.

Jay Brazeau:
Would that be on my end or your end?

David Read:
I’ve got everything. I’m not downloading anything on my side here. Let me check this real quick here. My connection says excellent in terms of the upload. So I don’t think it’s me.

Jay Brazeau:
It must be me. The bugs… it’s a Zoom meeting on here. I’m OK on my end. Yeah, you seem to be fine now. So there we go.

David Read:
Well, let’s take advantage of the clouds parting from the sun. All right. So how are things going? You doing good?

Jay Brazeau:
Tickety-boo, tickety-boo.

David Read:
I really appreciate you joining me on the show. Your character was so iconic and special to me in Season One. When the series was really coming into its own, it was creating some of the more interesting characters, even one- or two-off characters like Harlan. This was a special character, this early on in the series.

Jay Brazeau:
Oh, yeah, it was really interesting. It’s interesting because I hadn’t watched it; I mean, I can’t believe – 1997 it was – holy smokes!

David Read:
I know!

Jay Brazeau:
You know, but it was kind of special because I think up to that point it benefited from sort of a serious kind of series to add a little comedy in it and something different? Like they used to do that in Star Trek every once in a while. And they tried that with Harlan, and it just seemed to all come together. And we got to see that other side of all the guys there, you know?

David Read:
Absolutely.

Jay Brazeau:
And Amanda [Tapping].

David Read:
The show always proved to have legs and go in whatever direction that it wanted, depending on the episode; a more serious tone, a more philosophical, and this one was like… it was one of those where we had a perspective shift where we were watching this episode and it’s like, we assume that it’s our team and it’s not. And this kind of mad scientist android has absolutely thrown them all for a loop. And he doesn’t understand that he’s completely ripped them of their identities. He’s like, “Why aren’t you loving this? I love life. Why aren’t you?”

Jay Brazeau:
I know, I know. There was basically Harlan and them the whole episode.

David Read:
I know.

Jay Brazeau:
So it was interesting, I imagine must have been, for them to actually to write it. I’m sure for Brad [Wright], and to actually… it was really… I looked at it again last night, I hadn’t looked at it since, oh my god, since it first came out, and that was amazing. You’re always amazed at, “wow, that isn’t so bad.”

David Read:
No, and you haven’t aged a day.

Jay Brazeau:
I got a little portrait in my other room.

David Read:
Every actor brings something different to the show. We talked with Saul Rubinek a few weeks ago.

Jay Brazeau:
Oh, Saul. Yes, Saul.

David Read:
He’s brilliant. And I mean, he took it in stride, and he took the compliment when I said to him, “It sounds like you’re making the dialogue up as you go along.” And he’s like, “Well, that’s what we’re supposed to do.” That wasn’t what I was trying to get at. What I was trying to get at is he adds that kind of flavor to it. With your character, I don’t know where you’re… and I’d like to discuss like where the personality for this character comes from, the bubbliness of this character, despite his conditions, despite the living environment that he had. But I mean, just every moment for him was kind of like, “Oh, Comtrya!” What was it like building this character? Who did you see Harlan as being for you?

Jay Brazeau:
I don’t know. In some ways, Harlan is like, well, I mean, how old is he? 11,000 years old?

David Read:
Eleven thousand.

Jay Brazeau:
But it’s like a single parent, like… parents who have one kid, right? And you grow up playing a alone? And he struck me as that kind of character too: that kind of alone kind of character. What he did was so intelligent with all this stuff and everything. And that seemed to be the key to it, to me anyway, you know? And it just… they played along with it and it was a lot of fun. I never knew before you had seen where he was going to go or what he was going to see, how he was going to react. Little things like this [Altairan greeting hands], like, I never figured it out. Thank God for “Comtrya.” That’s what I’d say.

David Read:
There’s always some place to go back to. Right.

Jay Brazeau:
And then, you know, “What should I do?… Comtrya!”

David Read:
I want us to take a step back. You have one of the longest lists of acting credits I’ve ever seen.

Jay Brazeau:
Oh, I owe a lot of money.

David Read:
Well, I mean, it sure looks like you’re doing everything you can to act it off. So, what was your original impetus for entering into this craft? How young were you? Where did the desire come from? Can you tell us that story?

Jay Brazeau:
Well, to start off, I remember saying to my mother one day… and I came from a little sort of poor part of town in Winnipeg. Winnipeg – Winneepeg – Manitoba, way up in Canada. And I remember one time my dad… I was sort of a single kid for the longest time until my other sister came along. And my dad… it was kind of a strange relationship in the beginning because my mother was 21 when she married my dad, who was 58 years old.

David Read:
Wow.

Jay Brazeau:
So right away, it’s going to be a kind of crazy life.

David Read:
Yeah.

Jay Brazeau:
And my dad was more like a grandfather to me. So we were not playing hockey every day, but he would take me to the movies, right? And I sort of grew up with that. And I remember one day I just going to my mother and saying, “I want to be an actor.” And she said, “You can’t be an actor.” And I said, “Why not?” “You don’t look like Paul Newman.”

David Read:
Come on. Uh-oh, we lost him. Oh, are you still there? Hang on just a second. Jay, can you hear me? I can’t hear you yet. I think we lost the audio feed. I can see you.

Jay Brazeau:
How now?

David Read:
Perfect. How now? Perfect. So you don’t look like Paul Newman, so you can’t act?

Jay Brazeau:
No. I think at that time, I didn’t even know who the hell Paul Newman was.

David Read:
We better go find out.

Jay Brazeau:
There was no internet to look it up back then. But anyway, thank God I don’t look like Paul… [feed cuts] …the bug by watching the films. It depends who you grew up [with]. You grew up in, like I said, a rough part of town and everything. The kind of part of town where you weren’t supposed to think things like that: you could ever be an actor, you could ever be the hockey player, you could ever do that. It’s all about keeping you in that one place, keeping you poor in the same thing. Don’t ever think that you can get beyond this kind of thing. I was always just sort of a strange, wacky kind of kid. And somehow… it started by playing guitar. I took up the guitar one time because there was a lot of girls hanging around. So I sort of picked up the guitar, and that went to joining a band. And just from a band to somebody needed somebody on stage. And I didn’t really act before and they said, well, I don’t know if I should or not. I was you know like into being a “musician,” you know, and they said, “Look, we’ll give you a line.” And I said, “What’s the line?” And I think he said – I won’t use the four-letter word, “[mouthed] the police!”

David Read:
OK.

Jay Brazeau:
And I thought, “Oh! Hey! I’ll do it!”

David Read:
All right.

Jay Brazeau:
And it was like the seventies and that’s how I sort of started that, you know? Some crazy play, like, “Wacky and His Fuddlejig,” or something it was called. So I sort of started there and it just sort of [connection drop]… it took me a long time to find myself.

David Read:
OK.

Jay Brazeau:
And when I came across other actors… I think one time I walked into a kind of place, it was called the Manitoba Theater Workshop. I knew nothing about that. And I mean, the first time I saw a play, I thought I was going into a movie theater. And I was too embarrassed to leave. People were coming on stage. But I thought there was something really interesting about that. And I went in and I said to this place, “I’m Jay Brazeau, and I want to be an actor.” And they said, “OK, take this hammer and nails. Go over there and build that set.”

David Read:
There you go. Do your part.

Jay Brazeau:
That’s [it] exactly. So I started taking some workshops there and just started doing that, which was sort of the beginning of my life in the theater, and my life. And of course, the natural thing is from the theater is, “can I be in movies?” you know? I always thought I couldn’t. And then I realized… I would always see character actors, all those guys – you never knew their names but they’d always turn up and I realized that somewhere in every movie there’s a fat guy who’s balding, and a chance to do a character is great because… like Harlan – people don’t know who you are, or you’re walking down the street, “Harlan!” or something. If you’re a character actor they don’t go through your garbage all the time. It’s the lead guys. And the lead roles, sometimes they’re pretty boring. So you get to just go in for a few days, work with some people, do your little bit and then take off. So I’ve sort of been a character act for about 40, 45 years now and I really enjoy it.

David Read:
It’s like you’re not too high to get chopped off by the lawnmower and annoyed by paparazzi and everything else, but you’re also doing well enough to be steadily working and employed. So there’s kind of like a sweet spot there.

Jay Brazeau:
Oh, you see people on the street all the time and say, “Hey, I know you. I know you from something. Aren’t you…” “Well, I’m an actor.” “No, no, not that. Somewhere else.”

David Read:
“No, trust me.” I love it when people do that. “No, that’s not it.” “Yeah, it is.”

Jay Brazeau:
And people are pretty friendly. I mean, in Canada, it’s still a quiet kind of place. And they sort of leave you alone up here. So it’s nice, but always nice to walk on the street and somebody recognizes your work and likes it. And it’s nice.

David Read:
Has anyone ever approached you and said, “Comtrya’?

Jay Brazeau:
All the time.

David Read:
Really?

Jay Brazeau:
People going by going like this [Altairan greeting hands], especially after when it came out. After Stargate came out, that was such a popular thing. And that particular episode. And I must say, I just had a ball doing it. It was… working with… those guys were just great. You know, it’s just fantastic. And, it’s one of those things.

David Read:
Yeah. What do you think that it is about… I apologize for the delay. I appreciate you bearing with me.

Jay Brazeau:
Oh no. That’s OK.

David Read:
What do you think it is about the legs of that show? I mean, 17 seasons, 350 episodes. I mean, and we’re talking about it here now, 20 years on. Something is going right.

Jay Brazeau:
You know what? I’ll tell you what it was to me. Whenever I turned on Stargate, it was like I was watching a movie, a major science fiction movie. I was utterly amazed. The time they had they could actually push out this thing. The special effects were great and everything. It was really wonderful. It’s like when you could find a series that you really… like “Breaking Bad,” like all those things, you’re just drawn to it and it becomes like a friend. It’s a thing to do. And watching Stargate and all that, it was like that to people. And I never knew that until I did one of those kind of little things where you go in and meet the fans and stuff like that.

David Read:
Conventions.

Jay Brazeau:
Yeah, the conventions. That’s what they’re called, conventions. And got to talk to the people. And I was always thinking, “Oh, they’re going to be a bunch of just really young kids and everything.” But they were from all ages, from all over the world and everything. And they knew so much about it. I felt so bad. They just loved it. And it was nice to be able to go out there and meet the fans. And it’s a good feeling for me. It’s like when you do something really good. In theater, that happens sometimes. You’re there, you’re on the stage, you do a great performance. You do this fantastic thing you do for three weeks, and it was fantastic, but it’s gone. It’s still there. It’s up here [head], and it’s up here [heart].

David Read:
Yeah, it’s temporal.

Jay Brazeau:
But it’s not anywhere in a place.

David Read:
Yeah, it exists in the past now in people’s hearts.

Jay Brazeau:
Oh, yes, and I’ve done a lot of bad movies. That’s the other side of it. They’re still out there. I come home at night. I have a few drinks, at 2 o’clock in the morning I put it on the TV, and I start watching something. I go, “This is so familiar. Oh, God, I’m in it! Oh, my God, I’m horrible! Oh, why did I do that?” Luckily, it’s only on at two in the morning. But still, when you do something really good, that you’re really proud of, and something like this, it stays on forever. It’s there. You’re still young, it’s still new. Those people are still watching these things. It still looks good. And it’s still there.

David Read:
Yeah, it’s the thing about shooting on film, especially with it being remastered now. Well, it’s not really remastered, but upscaled in high definition. It’s kind of not exactly the direction that we wanted, but it looks better than it did.

Jay Brazeau:
Yes. Well, that’s the great thing about film. It just… it stays there and it always is. I mean, that’s why we’re able to watch things from 1935. And that’s why we have Humphrey Bogart and Marilyn Monroe. They’re long gone, but they’re still there.

David Read:
Yeah. We watch a lot of Christmas movies. My family comes together at Christmas, like most families do, and we’ll put on my mother’s favorite movie, which is “It’s a Wonderful Life.” And she’s still blown away by the high definition cut of that movie on my 80 inch screen. She’ll sit there and she’ll be like, “This is not…” Every time it’s like she sees things new that she never physically saw in the frame before that gives her new context. And she’s like, “Wow, this is a completely different experience when we see it the way that it was shot.” It’s just extraordinary how far the technology has come. I mean, at some point, we’re going to have holographic “It’s A Wonderful Life” and all these other things. Can you imagine what’s going to come next?

Jay Brazeau:
You’ll have our real character… Marilyn Monroe, be performing again.

David Read:
Right in front of you.

Jay Brazeau:
Yes, exactly.

David Read:
Jeez.

Jay Brazeau:
It’s a Wonderful Life is a fantastic film and it still holds up. I mean, which is interesting because when it first came out, it wasn’t successful at all.

David Read:
No, it wasn’t. It became a cult favorite. Not every project is captured in the time, by its audience, in the time in which it was made. Some of those just have to sit around for a while and find their audience, which is just, I guess, how things go. Jay, I wanted to ask you about a character that you struggled with or had to go deeper with than you expected to, and found something more out of yourself as a result, when you were digesting the material and presenting the material.

Jay Brazeau:
Oh, well, that’s interesting. That’s a good question. Everything is sort of scary for me once you get older, but I’m always up for a kind of challenge. The problem being an a character actor kind of guy, sometimes you get sort of into that little… OK, but the doctors; I play a lot of white collar crime doctors, lawyers and stuff – the guy who comes on in a scene and talks for four pages.

David Read:
Exposition.

Jay Brazeau:
Mr. Exposition, that’s it!

David Read:
Yeah. You’re moving the plot.

Jay Brazeau:
When you’re doing this stuff like a doctor; you have to memorize all these things and then you have to un-memorize them so they sound real, right? And then you have to come on do all this stuff and have these; explain, explain, explain, explain. And another character you’re working with going, “What? I don’t understand. Tell me again, Doctor. Give it to me straight.” And then I have to come out and say, “Six months, seven months at the best. I’m sorry.” And then they say, “Turn around. Oh, we don’t have time. OK, it’s all right. We don’t need it.” So you’re lucky if you’re still in the picture. You know who you are – you’re just a guy who comes on and does the work of the writer who works for God or somebody else. And you have to fill in all the stuff. And that can be fun. It can be fun because you’re working. But sometimes the older you get, it gets a bit harder because it’s… well, it just like an older computer, right? You have to stuff in all that stuff in there? So I don’t try not to do as much of that kind of thing anymore because I feel that I am that person who comes on and explains everything, and I’m just nobody really. I’m just, well, if you have a character like Harlan who has two lines, you can have… it can be something more than what it is, right? And when you find those particular things… there’s certain things you are afraid of. I mean, I did about two or three improvised films where there was no script whatsoever. So you had to go in… I was lucky enough to be in a film called “The Best in Show,” working with Christopher Guest and all this crew of people on there and everything. It really taught me a lot about improvisation, about trying to be funny. And we always think; improv is about going on and just talking a lot, adding more stuff, trying to be fun, trying to be that. No. But the comedy comes out of what you’re doing. I mean, I was lucky to work with a lot… do a lot of improv with Colin Mochrie. Do you know from “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” Those guys?

David Read:
Yes. Yes.

Jay Brazeau:
It’s wonderful because you don’t know where you’re going. It’s alright to be scared, right? But you trust your partner, right? That’s what true improv is. You know, it’s not about trying to be funny or anything. It’s about… this teacher once said, “Listen, the improvisation, Susie starts about two hours after you start improvising. And then you get some really good stuff because you’re not thinking about it.” You’re not trying to think of the right answer, the funny answer, the so-and-so. And it’s about not saying no to anything, right? If we’re talking about, like… ask me a question. Ask me a question now. Ask me a question.

David Read:
What’s the weather like there today?

Jay Brazeau:
What’s the weather like?

David Read:
Yes.

Jay Brazeau:
Oh, it’s, well, what do you think the weather’s like? You know, see, I’m not getting around? And if you ask me the same question.

David Read:
What’s the weather like today?

Jay Brazeau:
It’s fantastic, and the UFOs are fighting. You just take it to another place. And it’s good. Did you bring the rabbits? Right in here. And then you’ve got a scene about rabbits fighting the UFOs, right? But you just have to go with it and say yes to everything. Somebody gives you a gift, you take it and you give it back. And I think that’s what really acting is about: it’s not really acting – it’s listening.

David Read:
That’s true.

Jay Brazeau:
It’s the hardest thing in the world: to listen, you know. I know, I’m married.

David Read:
Well it’s something you practice every day. If you want to make it work… and it’s so much of it is; it’s not just about you, though, as well. It’s about the people that you’re involved with. And you’re either lucky for it to click, and find a compatible slot to fit in with the other person. Or sometimes it doesn’t. And you just kind of have to like, well, we’re going to make up this what we can. And, hopefully whatever comes out the other end of this machine is going to be comedy.

Jay Brazeau:
Oh, yeah, I know. So it’s just… you just have to sit back and don’t worry about… sometimes being an actor, there’s a difference if you want to be an actor or do you want to be a star. That’s two separate things all together. And I never wanted to be a star. I just wanted to be up on the screen and work with really good people and just have fun and just share an experience. The greatest things for me, sometimes, is not even acting on the scene. It’s hanging around those actors, other famous actors or famous character actors. shooting the poop with them you know.

David Read:
Absolutely.

Jay Brazeau:
And having these gorgeous times and hearing stories, you know. They were fantastic. I remember I met this fellow… Nehemiah Persoff is about 101 years now old and he’s a wonderful, wonderful actor. You know him. He’s a character actor.

David Read:
Wow.

Jay Brazeau:
Telling me about the first time he did that… you know the scene with Brando and Rod Steiger: “I could have been somebody” In the famous… what is the famous movie? It could have been a… and anyway.

David Read:
I know what you’re talking about, yeah.

Jay Brazeau:
Yeah what I’m talking about.

David Read:
Yeah.

Jay Brazeau:
It’s going to bug me.

David Read:
It’ll come to you two hours from now.

Jay Brazeau:
“On the Waterfront,” On the Waterfront.

David Read:
OK, yeah!

Jay Brazeau:
They’re in the cab, they’re going… Well, Nehemiah, Nick, was the cab driver. So he was there the whole time, saw the whole scene, had this guy,saw the stuff. So, I mean, he saw history, right?

David Read:
Wow.

Jay Brazeau:
And it’s sometimes your work… for me to be on the same stage as… on the same film script as all the other people who were in “Best in Show,” and to be able to keep up with them, and to come out with something funny – not funny, something interesting – that was the big thing about that film. They had a lot of stand-up comedians and stuff that were auditioning for that part, and I just went the other way. Sometimes you’ve got to go the other way. I remember auditioning for a part, [in] the script; ‘he yells,’ ‘he yells louder.’ And there was about 10 guys there. They’re all yelling and screaming, and everything, but you know.

David Read:
They’re trying to outdo one another.

Jay Brazeau:
Exactly. Or trying to read the script. So I went in, and I did the opposite thing; I was really quiet, and different, right? And I’m sure I got the job because they were sick of hearing everybody yelling. Sometimes… it’s like, there’s different ways to play the same part. That’s the great thing about acting. It doesn’t matter if you’re going to Phoenix, right? All that matters is that you get to Phoenix. You can go through Brazil if you want. As long as you end up in Phoenix, you’re OK.

David Read:
Well, isn’t it more about the journey than it is the destination?

Jay Brazeau:
[connection drop] You know?

David Read:
Yeah.

Jay Brazeau:
I start singing by the time I get to Phoenix on the way. Get a little sip of my drink there, yeah?

David Read:
Oh, please. The second appearance… first of all, did you expect to be called back a few years later for the same role?

Jay Brazeau:
Oh, no. And I just, I think, finished doing a movie called “Double Jeopardy,” so close.

David Read:
Oh, that’s right.

Jay Brazeau:
It was strange. It was strange, but it’s like putting on those old boots, putting on that old little pair of jeans. They still fit.

David Read:
Yeah, absolutely.

Jay Brazeau:
I’ve got to give you a secret: I had never seen the show until you, you know, said do some little research. Maybe you should take a look at this stuff. And the first time I saw “Double Jeopardy” was two nights ago.

David Read:
You had not seen it before?

Jay Brazeau:
Two nights ago, I saw it.

David Read:
What did you think?

Jay Brazeau:
Well, for one thing, I’m a little verklempt because, like, Don [S. Davis] was a very good friend and to see him up on the screen again is just, you know, it was really nice. And in that particular show, I think it was [Michael] Shanks was directing it, right?

David Read:
Correct, that was his first outing as director.

Jay Brazeau:
I thought he did a fantastic job because that show was like a major, it was like the Ten Commandments of Stargate. There were just so much stuff going on, so many people in scenes and that… it really was quite an exciting show for me to watch for the first time. That was part of the reason why people watched Stargate all the time – they were always given more. It wasn’t the kind of… it wasn’t like “Lost in Space” and the little things you were hoping everything would stick together, glued to the robot or whatever. It was like getting a fantastic meal all the time. And they always tried to push it and go further. And “Double Jeopardy” was like that. And I just love it too: at the end of scenes, you almost feel like it’s not over, right? It’s just… there’s talking about something… and having all those scenes with them playing dramatic scenes with each other. It was a bit… as funny as we did with Tin Man, but it really worked really well. And it was really [a] challenge for them, I’m sure. And the challenge for us watching it. And it was… it was fantastic. I mean, all those death scenes. I mean, it was like you saw all your lead people…

David Read:
Yeah, we knock all of them off.

Jay Brazeau:
Knocked all of them off. You know, and it was very moving. Very sad.

David Read:
There is a, in so many of these episodes, there is…

Jay Brazeau:
They did a wonderful job with that particular one. They always did a wonderful job, and it was a great thing. Everybody you talked to wanted to work on it. It was fantastic.

David Read:
Absolutely. I apologize for the delay. There is something to be said about these episodes, like “Double Jeopardy,” and like “Tin Man” that deliberately go into subverting your expectations in terms of what the… in terms of what it is you’re watching. And in both instances for the majority of the setup of those episodes – and for “Tin Man” more than “Double Jeopardy” – we think we’re watching our team and we’re not, you know? And I love when Stargate doesn’t pull cheap shots, like a lot of material does out there, gimmicky shots, but actually makes you go, “Wow! I didn’t expect that coming.” And that’s one of the things that I think the show did so well, and was one of the things that keeps us engaged as audiences, is that it almost cues us to expect the unexpected. And I think that’s a lot of what good sci-fi and good drama does.

Jay Brazeau:
Oh, well, because every week you were going to a new place, someplace different. You never knew what the heck was going on. As, in a sense, it was back… it was… to me, it was like “Star Trek” in a sense. We would start to do it with him looking through … and we never know where it was going to go. We never knew if it’s going to be funny or [inaudible]. It was quite exciting. It’s what TV should be. It was very intelligent, very intelligent. Those guys were very smart. The writing was great. And the producers were really, it was so tight that. The same kind of thing happened with “Supernatural.” You get these people… it was one of these things… sometimes what happens is you start doing these particular shows and they start taking money away from them and it gets cheaper and cheaper and cheaper, and it dies out. It dies out occasionally. But to me, Stargate was just as strong on the last show as it always was. That’s what the sheer beauty of being able to do something like that.

David Read:
Absolutely. I always liked…

Jay Brazeau:
But then that started with MacGyver, right? Didn’t a lot of people come from [MacGyver]? Look at MacGyver. I mean, my God. Richard [Dean Anderson], you know?

David Read:
I know. He made a meal out of that one.

Jay Brazeau:
He would just stay at home and count the money every weekend.

David Read:
Well, and that’s a guy who… I mean, he was never, like, a really, you know, acting… like… “You want me to give you acting tips?” You know, like Joe Flanagan from Atlantis, he was like, “Can you tell me… give me some feedback?” – and that’s not what Ric was in it for. Ric was in it to have a good time with the material and with the people that he was with on set, and then to go home at the end of the day and be with his kid, and that’s and that’s what he was in it for. And, you know, you just have to applaud that mindset because it was a very grounded mindset – it wasn’t highfalutin hoity-toity at all.

Jay Brazeau:
And on set he was like a kid, “Where’s Richard?”

David Read:
Very much so.

Jay Brazeau:
He’d be upstairs climbing way up on the rafters. “Get down! The insurance people are going to kill us! Get… Richard!” OK. Yeah. Be right down. Yeah

David Read:
Well, especially that factory – I can only imagine. Was that shot off… that had to have been on location somewhere. That factory.

Jay Brazeau:
Oh, that. It was an old, old factory. And they’d just opened it up for… I think we were worried because there might’ve been some asbestos, but it was… that was the other thing about that particular thing that really worked really well: you’re playing comedy but it was really dark. The set itself was dark and filled with all this stuff, you know? For example; you have all this stuff and everything, and then you have a little thing where Harlan opens up a bit and he tells a story of the people who were gone and things like that. It was really quite moving in a way. It showed something about him. He was like a little kid. It was like; if you take me… Harlan could have been a 10-year-old, right? And you could have done it that way too. It could have been a 10-year-old person who was left behind for 11,000 years, but still knew all this stuff.

David Read:
It was all he knew was to keep the rest of his world going.

Jay Brazeau:
Exactly.

David Read:
Even though he was the last one, he was going to man that lighthouse until he couldn’t man it anymore. Or until the place absolutely fell out from under him, which was probably what was going to happen. I was wondering what happened to him, you know? I imagine he’s still just out there repairing things and… but I love his innocence in “Double Jeopardy” where he’s like, “You’ve got to get these people back. I’ve grown accustomed to them. I can’t go on without them.”

Jay Brazeau:
Exactly.

David Read:
He fell in love with that team.

Jay Brazeau:
It was wonderful. “Oh, I’ll come.” “No, you stay here, Harlan.” “OK.” “We only got an hour here, Harlan.”

David Read:
Exactly.

Jay Brazeau:
But it’s great. I hope… they’re talking about Stargate here coming back in some way. I’d love the return of that character. You’re only as good as the people you’re working with, right?

David Read:
Of course.

Jay Brazeau:
And that’s a real gem.

David Read:
Yeah, Redux asked the question; would you be interested in reprising the role? I see no reason why he couldn’t come back at some point in some capacity.

Jay Brazeau:
Oh, in a minute. I’d even shave.

David Read:
Brad [Wright], he’ll shave!

Jay Brazeau:
Exactly.

David Read:
That’s funny. The Atlantis role was markedly different. And a very different kind of character, and I have to be honest; I was like… to be brutally honest, the character came on, and I was like, “Is that Jay? Is that him? He’s not funny.”

Jay Brazeau:
I know. I know.

David Read:
That was my first reaction. It was like, “Oh, this is a completely different kind of character.” And then watching through the episode, you could see this subtext of humor going through it, even though this was a guy who was absolutely committed to maintaining power and authority – “I’ve got the gene, even though I’m dying.”

Jay Brazeau:
It was very funny because, in some ways it was like science fiction, but in some ways it was like those old things, almost like Robin Hood in those old kind of things. The way they were presenting; the people, the eat – the food, everything, the dresses and stuff.

David Read:
Yeah, it was a court.

Jay Brazeau:
It was a court, exactly! Exactly. And, I spent a lot of time dying in that series.

David Read:
It’s true.

Jay Brazeau:
But that’s great, you know? But I had a good time, again, working with… the people were just great, you know? Paul, again and the stuff, you know?

David Read:
The production value of the show certainly hadn’t decreased by the time you moved on to the spinoff.

Jay Brazeau:
Again, I mean my God, that’s why Stargate ran on so long. I mean it didn’t run… if you put all… somebody should try putting all those things together, right? And sell it… I mean. how many shows would that be? Can you believe it?

David Read:
I couldn’t keep up with it.

David Read:
I would say, definitely, that would – in the history of TV – that is probably the most longest running story.

David Read:
Yeah, yeah, for sure, it’s definitely up there. I mean, Star Trek has had like 800 episodes, but I mean in terms of the pantheon of science fiction, you know, it’s definitely top five, easily. So it doesn’t get the credit that it deserves ‘because it was made in Canada,’ and a couple of these other things.

Jay Brazeau:
Oh I know. We used to get it all the time.

David Read:
It’s science fiction, you know?

Jay Brazeau:
They’re in those Canadian bushes again.

David Read:
Exactly.

Jay Brazeau:
No, but that’s OK, you know, it’s… as a Canadian, I mean, that’s the lucky thing that happened, right? Up here for us, because we never… I mean, I’ve never thought I would be in a big American-type of movie or series or something like that, but they came up for a while… I forget his name. What’s his name? Oh! Danny [DeVito], he did “Wise Guy[s],” he did all these films. He was a producer, a crazy, crazy guy. And basically, I guess he thought… I remember telling one producer, “Listen, I can be as bad as this other guy as an actor. I’ll be as bad as that and work for less money.” But, it’s like now; the same thing was happening, I was filming in Atlanta, and I said, “Well, you’re like…” making movies are expensive, right?

David Read:
Yeah.

Jay Brazeau:
And you have to go where you… have to go to Mexico sometimes. You have to go to, you know, Hungary, whatever it is, to try to get these things done.

David Read:
Yeah, you have to be flexible.

Jay Brazeau:
Exactly, exactly, yeah.

David Read:
Have you shot since the pandemic?

Jay Brazeau:
Yes, well, I thought since the pandemic, I thought, “Well, bye-bye.” That’s gone, you know? Because theater, I mean, I used to do a lot of theater, and that was closed, it still is closed. But I thought it was over, you know? Definitely, and it was. And as you get older, too, it’s hard – the roles aren’t there. Goldman’s, senior, this part – they aren’t there. But I didn’t work for about… close to when the pandemic started, and then all of a sudden I got a call, boom, because I do some Hallmark stuff, and Hallmark things and like that.

David Read:
Absolutely.

Jay Brazeau:
Yeah. While I was… in the midst of the pandemic, I auditioned for this zombie series, and and seven months later I got a call saying, “It’s on, you’re on, you’re in it,” “What?” So in the pandemic I did two Hallmark movies back to back in September, and then did the series. So I haven’t… I’ve been doing little things, doing…. it’s a different way. The wonderful thing about being in a pandemic and working in the films is… I was a bit frightened, you know, for my wife, my kids – all that stuff. But working on a set was just… it was safer working on a set with, I don’t know, 100 people than going to Costco.

David Read:
Yeah, because everything’s controlled on the set.

Jay Brazeau:
Everything is controlled. I was taking a COVID test once a week, getting a temperature. You had two doctors on the set making sure, “Get those masks up.” We would all keep the masks on until we shot the scene. And it’s really wonderful how they did that. They were able to get that together.

David Read:
It just proves that if you want the work, you’re going to make it work. And we’re, one way or another, we’re going to get through this together. We are.

Jay Brazeau:
Well, it’s art. Art will still keep going. It’ll find a way to come back in any way. Theater, that’s happening slowly because it’s a bit harder, but it will. Because we need it. People think we don’t need art. We need people to clean toilets. We need people to… no.

David Read:
We need all of it.

Jay Brazeau:
You need music. You need everything, right? You need everybody… that’s the one problem that I think the world was. I think this is a real wake-up call to all of us. We screwed up with the climates and everything. Now we all got together… if we would have all tried to attack this thing together instead of blaming people, you know – work together on it – [it] probably would have been faster, but eventually that started happening anyway. And here we are: the vaccines are here, which I thought was something we’d never get them, and they are here. We’ve got these new variants coming, right? So we’ll deal with that, as long as we can continue to be together, you know? Work out this thing together the world will be a better place.

David Read:
Can you… would you mind sharing a story of Don [S. Davis]? Because you were lucky enough to work with him on a few different occasions.

Jay Brazeau:
Don was… well, first time I met Don, he was a stand-in for… what’s his name?

David Read:
Dana Elcar?

Jay Brazeau:
Dana. He was like his stand-in.

David Read:
MacGyver.

Jay Brazeau:
Back then, he would complain about, [impression] “Jay, my wife is killing me. She made me buy her a new car.” That was Don. We’d see Don at every [audition]. We’d be up for the same roles. [impression] “Jay Brazzo, you’re going to get this, Jay. I can’t act myself out of a paper bag.” Finally, we got to do a movie together. It was just great. It was fantastic seeing him. He was the most gentlest, kindest man in the world. And what an actor.

David Read:
Yeah.

Jay Brazeau:
What a real great student of [the] world. He was a beautiful guy. It was hard. It was really hard for him when he left Stargate, but he still kept on doing stuff. And I saw him about… I think about four days… I’d seen him. He told me, he said, [impression] “Jay, I just went to the doctor. I’m doing fine.” – because he had a heart attack a while back – “I’m doing fine. Got a clean bill of health.” And he met somebody, a new woman, [impression] “A new woman in my life.” He finally divorced. And he was so happy.

David Read:
Ruby [Fleming].

Jay Brazeau:
The happiest guy in the world – radiant. And then, before I knew, it was like three or four days later and… I feel that he had been ripped away from us, really ripped away from us. And it was really hard, you know? Because it’s the good people… when you lose them then…

David Read:
Yeah. It’s…

Jay Brazeau:
But we are so lucky because he’s still alive. We can turn on our TV anywhere.

David Read:
There he is.

Jay Brazeau:
There’s Don, you know?

David Read:
Absolutely.

Jay Brazeau:
It’s been how many years now? Twenty years? No.

David Read:
It’s been 2008. 2008. So 13 years now.

Jay Brazeau:
Thirteen years now. Thirteen years. It really is sad. And the same thing is happening to so many wonderful actors we’ve lost and people that we’ve lost in this, of all ages, lately in this pandemic.

David Read:
[It] just teaches us. I think I’ve learned, more than ever, to make every moment count with everyone that you have, because, it may be, tomorrow’s never guaranteed.

Jay Brazeau:
Oh, exactly. But you have to take this opportunity. I mean, as I get older… I think I became a better actor once I had children because it’s always a fight in the beginning: “I want to do this. I want to be famous. I want to do that. I want to do everything I can. I got to do this. I want to get it better. Oh, look who got that part! Oh, I’m going to see them in a play and say, ‘oh, they’re crappy. I can do better.’” You know, “me, me, me, me, me, me.” Right? And then you finally get your children and they don’t care. You know, I can’t. “Oh, I can’t pick them up now. I can’t change the diaper again.” Kids there, they don’t care what you are, how many awards you have. They’re hungry, and they want something to eat. They want their diaper changed. And you have to learn to become that. So you have to learn that. And for a long time, I lived to learn that. First time having children… and then taking care of them, and my wife, was more important than acting. And acting becomes a different thing. It doesn’t mean I just do it as much as I can, and the best possible job. But as the older you get in life, it’s just… like recently when I thought it was gone, I thought; “Well, it’s gone.” And you have to face those kinds of things. Like a runner who loses a leg, and that’s OK because I’ve had more… I’ve been given more than more people have in life out of my time. So if it leaves tomorrow, I’m OK. Yeah, because you change. Those little things, you know? You know, back to the 1970s, I was trying to find out what the world was all about, and you’re listening to music, you’re playing guitars, and stuff like that, and singing those protest songs and everything. You know, when you get to be older, it’s kind of the same kind of thing. What’s it all about, Alfie? You’re going through that again, and you learn to accept that where you are. If I die tomorrow, it’s OK.

David Read:
You’ve done some good work, for sure. Eva Lipenska wanted to know, what was it like to work with Rob Cooper’s “Unspeakable”? A lot of fellow Stargate actors there on “Unspeakable.” That was a powerful miniseries.

Jay Brazeau:
Oh, yes, it was. And it was interesting, too, because a lot of what we said was exactly the same things that people said. It was one of those things you can’t figure out: why did that have to happen? You know, it’s the kind of things where politics and things, you know. All this stuff I never knew. I never knew blood was a commodity on the exchange and things like that, and that was being sold as money, and things like this. And that was a thing that was done. Rob, I believe, himself was sick wasn’t he?

David Read:
Yeah. It was drawn from a personal experience, this is his story. Yeah.

Jay Brazeau:
Yes and so it was something he always wanted to do – to get the story out, and he did it, and it was a real pleasure. It was great.

David Read:
Lorraine…

Jay Brazeau:
Sometimes…

David Read:
…yeah, go ahead. No, please.

Jay Brazeau:
Sometimes you feel like you can do some good. Yeah, you can… by doing… I try to do a lot of independent films, smaller films and – for no money. And then of course, if something does well, then you get a little kind of money back and everything. But it’s not about the money. It’s about the story, and you want to pass it on, and you… you need the independent films. I mean, when I grew up, there were all these movie theaters and at every movie theater was a different movie. And now, you’ve got all those movie theaters… 200… more movie theaters, and they’re all showing the same six movies.

David Read:
Right.

Jay Brazeau:
You know? So these independent films are so important. Sometimes money can ruin a good film.

David Read:
Oh, agreed completely. You can you can throw so much money at something. It’ll look fantastic, but it has no substance.

Jay Brazeau:
I’ve seen a fun… on Netflix, a few science fiction films that were no… science fiction film, but with no money, and it had strong actors, and… it’s all about story, isn’t it? Story. Getting a good story, you know? You can throw all the money you have at a certain movie. I remember seeing this film called “Mother” a while back. Have you ever seen “Mother”? Oh! Drove me nuts! I wanted to get out of the theater because it just got worse and worse. They just threw more money and more money at it. And I was so angry because I thought; “Geez, you could have had like you know 200 films, independent films, from the budget for that.

David Read:
Right. With this budget. Geez, yeah. Not every one of these is a home run, you know?

Jay Brazeau:
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

David Read:
Lorraine Black [asks], did you like being in “Highlander”? I wanted to see Commissioner Cominski discover the world of the immortals. Loved you in so many shows.

Jay Brazeau:
Well, that’s an interesting thing because I got fired from it.

David Read:
Oh!

Jay Brazeau:
I walked… I replaced somebody, and then I went in and I did two shows, and it was great. Even on the second show, we did something like 15 pages in a half a day, and all the producers were so happy. There was one producer… because sometimes the producer wanted to be a star, and it was… I was replaced by somebody who took… a friend who took my place who he got fired, and somebody else took his place who was a friend of somebody’s. So it’s all politics sometimes, right?

David Read:
Yeah. There’s politics wherever you go.

Jay Brazeau:
The time I was there and the actors, the directors… sometimes that happens. Sometimes people don’t like you, or what. I forget what she said. She said I looked more like a rabbi than I did a cop. So, but you can’t battle that. And it’s their bat and ball, right? So you do your best, right? You have a couple of bad days, but then you realize, somebody comes to you and says, “Jay, you were about the 10th person fired from that.” The crew, everybody else, different things like that. It happens. And that woman, herself, was fired, I think, after that first season. And it had really good… after that, it went really well. Jim Byrnes, people like that. It was a great. Great show. Another great show. In fact, I still meet some people from there every once in a while. A fella from… who’s in the Navy and he comes back every once in a while to Vancouver and he does little trips for people who want to visit the sets and things like that. And I was out by and [had] a little talk to him and stuff like that. It’s nice to have that in your life. It’s nice to have Stargate. It’s nice to have that kind of thing.

David Read:
It’s chicken soup.

Jay Brazeau:
And to share that with other people. To sit down, you know?

David Read:
Yeah, absolutely.

Jay Brazeau:
It’s like Dungeons and Dragons, right?

David Read:
Have you played?

Jay Brazeau:
You can play that game for seven years. No, I never. I’m not like that. It’s like my son saying, “Well, we always want to play Scrabble. No, no, we want to play something else.” “OK.” They get these new games… because there’s so much games that they sell in Vancouver here, and it takes them about two and a half hours to set up the game.

David Read:
That’s true.

Jay Brazeau:
By that time I’m asleep, you know? I just like the old stuff, and I like yeah, yeah, it always works. But, you know, checkers, right?

David Read:
Shoots and Ladders.

Jay Brazeau:
It’s interesting, and to meet people… yeah, exactly. I mean it is really nice to be able to meet your public and to talk to them and them to say you know, “I really like the show, I really like that character.” And it gives me a chance to say thank you so much for watching, and thanks, because without them, without you guys, it wouldn’t have been nowhere where it is. It’s the fans, they make us better.

David Read:
Better. [Altairan greeting hands]

Jay Brazeau:
[Altairan greeting hands] “Better. Better. Better”

David Read:
Well, Jay, this has been such a treat. I’ve wanted to meet you for a long time and have you on the show, and this was this was terrific. So I really appreciate you taking the time. [connection drop] And we’re losing him again. Are you there?

Jay Brazeau:
Anytime. You guys are great. Yeah. Can you hear me?

David Read:
Yes, I can. Go ahead.

Jay Brazeau:
Oh, great, great, yeah. Anytime. Because, like I said, having you guys… being able to sit down and have a little talk with you guys every once in a while is great.

David Read:
Absolutely.

Jay Brazeau:
Hopefully Stargate will be back. Everything comes back.

David Read:
You know, Brad’s [Wright] working on something, so it’s entirely possible we’ll see you again.

Jay Brazeau:
Harlan returns.

David Read:
I’ll be down for it.

Jay Brazeau:
[mimes shaving]

David Read:
Exactly! Shave that beard! You take care of yourself.

Jay Brazeau:
OK. Comtrya.

David Read:
Thank you so much, Jay. Comtrya to you! Be well!

Jay Brazeau:
OK.

David Read:
Bye-bye now. Be well, sir.

Jay Brazeau:
Goodbye.

David Read:
Jay Brazeau, everyone. Harlan and the Lord Protector from Stargate. Thank you so much for tuning in. Sorry about the little bit of delay. Sometimes that happens, you know? That’s just, at least, in the circumstances like we’ve been dealing with for the past year, at least, we have a situation where we can all come together online and enjoy one another. So big thanks to Jay for taking the time. We have a giveaway for the month of April. Dial the Gate has partnered with Big J Customs to give you a chance to get your very own custom pop figure. To enter to win these items, you need to use a desktop or a laptop computer and visit dialthegate.com and 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 guest to ask me in a round of trivia. Keep in mind this submission form does not currently work for mobile devices. Your trivia must be received before May 1st, and if you’re the lucky winner, I’ll be notifying you via email to get your address. Be sure to check out our partner’s website for more Stargate-related merchandise at bigjcustomsart.com. If you really enjoy the program, please consider clicking that like button. It does make a difference with YouTube’s algorithm, and sharing it with another Stargate fan helps us grow even further. If you want to subscribe to future content and click the bell icon for notifications for upcoming episodes please, please do that. Support the show. I really appreciate it. We recently cracked 10,000 subscribers. And we’re going to see what happens next. My utmost thanks to Jay Brazeau for joining us for this episode. David Hewlett is going to be joining us in one hour. I hope to see you there not too long from now. And he will be taking your questions and hanging out with us. My name is David Read for Dial the Gate. We’ll see you on the other side.