Costume Designer Valerie Halverson began working on Stargate for SG-1 Seasons Nine and Ten as well as Atlantis Seasons Four and Five, and was also Costume Designer for the complete series of Stargate Universe.

In this special episode of Dial the Gate, we sit down with her to discuss her time on the franchise, explore some of the unexpected challenges she encountered along the way, and share some of her memories of designing for actors like Jason Momoa, Morena Baccarin and Robert Carlyle. She also answers previously-submitted fan questions!

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Timecodes
00:00 – Opening Credits
00:27 – Welcome and Episode Outline
01:50 – Guest Introduction
03:18 – How did you get into this industry?
07:45 – Valerie’s Most Recent Project (Mahalia)
11:45 – Did you learn anything from [Mahalia] that you didn’t expect to?
12:25 – Tell us about your Stargate experience (The Quest)
18:12 – Costuming for a Military Show (Continuum)
21:21 – Did you ever feel confined by the mandated military clothing? (Family Ties)
23:06 – A Frenzied Schedule (200)
25:12 – Call from Jason Momoa before Game of Thrones
26:17 – Designing for the Atlantis Cast
31:31 – Weir’s Surprise Return in “Be All My Sins Remembered”
33:27 – Noise Problems with Costumes
35:44 – Has HD been a blessing, curse or both?
36:51 – Are there any trending industry design mistakes you try to avoid?
38:39 – What tools you learned on Stargate have helped you in later shows?
39:50 – What costumes were a compromise for you? (Lucian Alliance)
46:49 – What are your favorite costumes from the franchise? (Rush, Baal, Adria, Teyla)
52:32 – Actor Comfort (The Queen)
56:42 – Stargate Universe Costumes
1:04:22 – Why was the North Face brand selected for the franchise?
1:05:40 – What was in the pockets on all the military vests?
1:06:21 – Jason Momoa Went Shopping for Ronon
1:09:13 – Danny Trejo and the Bola Kai in “Missing”
1:11:43 – The Industry Has Exploded in Vancouver
1:13:50 – When SGU Died
1:14:29 – SG4 and the Future of Stargate
1:18:03 – Post-Interview Housekeeping
1:19:14 – End Credits

***

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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read
Hello everyone and welcome to Dial the Gate. My name is David Read. Thanks so much for joining me on this pre-recorded episode. Valerie Halverson, Costume Designer for Stargate SG-1, Atlantis and Universe is joining us today. She came in after Christine Mooney in seasons 9 and 10 of SG-1, followed in Christina McQuarrie footsteps in seasons 4 and 5 of Stargate Atlantis and was responsible for all of Stargate Universe, seasons 1 and 2. Valerie and I go way back and so it is just a delight for me to sit down and talk with her for a little while, so I’m really looking forward to having her on. 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 that Like button. It really makes a difference with YouTube’s algorithm will definitely help the show grow its audience, especially now that Amazon is picking it up. Please also consider sharing this video with a Stargate friend and if you want to get notified about future episodes, click that Subscribe icon. And 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 guests changes. This is key if you plan on watching live and clips from this livestream will be released over the course of the next several days on the Dial the Gate and GateWorld.net YouTube channels. Since this is a pre-recorded episode, I’ve invited the community on YouTube to submit the questions in advance. I was very thankful for everyone who did and let’s go ahead and bring in Valerie. Valerie Halverson, Costume Designer for all three television series, all of SGU and the later seasons of SG-1 and SGA. Welcome to Dial the Gate, Valerie, thank you so much for being here.

Valerie Halverson
It’s a joy and an honor to be a part of this.

David Read
Valerie and I go way back, we go back to 2009 when I was pulling all of her stuff apart in preparing for the the Prop Works auctions, and we were going through costumes, because costumes was one of my focuses at that point, and we were having to select what to take with us and I remember as having these debates about what we could take that would be sellable, and you also had the perspective of, “Well, I put, you know, of course, I put all this time into and everything else. This is what it means to me, this is what I think it would mean to fans as well.” And I just remember those conversations with was such fondness. For the week and a half that we did it, it was one of the best times of my life, Valerie, and I was so privileged to get to know you and your team on that time.

Valerie Halverson
Thank you so much. It was a great team as well and it was such an emotional time for me, not only because we were moving on from Stargate, but also because all of those costumes meant so much to me, so…

David Read
How did you get into this industry? And how old were you when you knew that this is what you wanted to do?

Valerie Halverson
Well, I probably won’t answer the end of that question correctly, but I will tell you that I sewed all my life, since I was a teenager, I sewed for people and for myself. I’m a bit of a tall girl and so I was always extending the arms of my jackets and stuff, that’s how it started. And then I realized that there might be some sort of a career in this, so I went to fashion design school and I came out of there, started working for a sportswear company in their design room while still sewing for people. And then thought I wanted to branch out on my own so I started a line of clothing that I sold to boutiques around town, had a private clientele. And I was approached by one store owner who had sort of watched my evolution and said, “I’d like you to be my sole designer in my boutique,” which I did. We had a very successful start to that but unfortunately a few months in I realized that they were keeping all the money. So I was a creative person with not a good business head, apparently. And I had to extricate myself from that. And I had a friend who was in film and she always seemed to be creative and engaged and energized and I called her for advice and she said, “Well as a matter of fact, there’s a really big show in town crewing up and because you sew you might have a chance.” And I was lucky to get on it. It was called Eaters of the Dead when we were filming it, but when it went to theaters, it was The 13th Warrior with Antonio Banderas and Omar Sharif, so that tells you a little bit of a timeline, like 1997, ’98. And I got onto that show completely naive, which I think was a blessing and the first day I’m sewing moccasins, and then a week later they’re saying, “Can you sew some fur hats for us?” And then a week later, they’re like, “Do you want to try break down?” And eventually they said to me, “Do you want to try making armor?” And maybe this is part of my segue into Stargate eventually, is I said, “Sure, yeah, of course!” And I was working with these incredible artisans, who were making metal armor.

David Read
Yeah.

Valerie Halverson
And they taught us to make chainmail suits for Antonio Banderas, and then we started making leather. And so I learned a lot of techniques, we would build them from a skin right up to a painted piece of armor, and I then got to go on to set and dress the Vikings on that show, because I knew how they all went together and everything. And eight months later, it was like an incredible first toe-dip into the industry and I fell in love with it and then I just did everything. I was a personal dresser, I was a truck person on a Western, I was set person, whatever they asked for, any job that came along I was like, “Sure!” And I actually when I’m mentoring people, and when I’m talking to my crew, I always say to them, “Do that. Try everything, because you will have a better understanding and whatever job in our department you land in — not everybody’s going to be a costume designer — you will have a better understanding and better knowledge of what entails to get there.”

David Read
I think one of the greatest things about that industry is the diversity in opportunity. And if you are willing to stick your toes in the water and try something different, you may find a path that leads you down one that you didn’t start, where you actually find your true calling. There’s so much opportunity in the industry there for people who are go-getters and who are like, “You know what? Let’s try it. I may fall flat on my face, but hopefully someone around me will try and catch me before I fall all the way.”

Valerie Halverson
And you’re always being asked to do something that appears impossible, but we don’t use the word no when talking to a director or a producer. We’re always like, “I’ll get back to you on that,” or, “Let me think on it.” And I’ve found you really can make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, or an alien outfit out of a kitchen sink drain.

David Read
Wow. Before we get into Stargate and further into your career, I want to move forward real quick. You just got off a project that sounds really fascinating from a historical anthropological perspective.

Valerie Halverson
The show is called Mahalia and it’s the story of Mahalia Jackson. And Robin Roberts has been sort of commissioning these incredible stories of Black history and we were lucky enough to be on one of them. The star was Danielle Brooks, she’s an amazing singer and talented actor. And the story took place from 1925 to 1972 and it was a telling of a story that exists. So we wanted to be, in some ways, historically accurate and in other ways we wanted to tell a story that was topical, because of everything that’s happening. And so we mixed it up a little bit. Kenny Leon is a Tony Award-winning Broadway director and he was our leader and he was so creative. And it was just such an interesting… not even a challenge. It was absolutely an incredible project. To recreate Martin Luther King’s Walk on Washington and his I Have a Dream speech, and then we did Carnegie Hall. The great thing was is I was able to design a lot of custom unique never seen before outfits. Some we tried to replicate and others were fresh and new. And I had an incredible cutter working with me, Samantha McKinnon, and between us we built so many of the costumes for our lead and I’m just… I mean, there’s billboards in LA because it just aired…

David Read
Okay!

Valerie Halverson
And one of our creations is on it. And so it was just… it’s really touched my heart, this one.

David Read
So, this has to be a radically different pre-production phase to something compared to Stargate, because you are going into the past and, like you indicate, not only are you creating historically accurate specific outfits, you also have the freedom to create period-inspired costumes as well. So, something that you said just now kind of surprised me, it’s like, you weren’t always required to go to photography for the period and produce exactly everything that you saw from then, it sounds like you had creative freedom inside the period, that as long as you were using certain types of materials and designs, he was game.

Valerie Halverson
And that was a wonderful freeing thing for me, is that to have such a creative director and, of course, a lead who was game as well. I mean, we did a lot of research on the period because we wanted the background and a lot of our supporting players to represent that period so well. And there’s a whole different research involved in finding authentic period costumes, rental houses around in North America. And so we drew on a lot of those, but we also paired them with things, like I would have a great sweater from the 50’s but put on something more modern underneath that was really special to our lead. And the jewelry, finding the jewelry. I mean, I just dove into those vintage stores like crazy, every weekend I was at them and…

David Read
It was research.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah, it was research. But it was a really big show as well, so there was probably 400 costumes in it. But I have an amazing team and they were all… they jump into everything with me, it’s amazing.

David Read
Did you learn anything from this particular project that you didn’t expect to, dipping into the past?

Valerie Halverson
Definitely you learn the history, and it’s always more than you knew before. For me it is, because we dove a little deeper. But mainly what I learned about was the community of that time, and the support. And that was awe-inspiring to me, actually. And to see our actors together and how supportive they are for each other, as a community. It was really a joy to be on that set.

David Read
Were there parallels in that regard to your time on Stargate? Let’s go into Stargate. What a journey. And you were…

Valerie Halverson
That’s quite a journey, yeah.

David Read
The last costume designer of a series. I know Christina McQuarrie started with SG-1 and I’m pretty sure I’m missing some names in between, but Christina and you are the ones that I always remember, because first and last. Tell us about that arc, tell us about that period of your life. That must have been — not to put words in your mouth — but it must have been a whirlwind.

Valerie Halverson
It was a whirlwind because when I started on Stargate, I was on SG-1 and the other designer was Christine Mooney.

David Read
Christine Mooney. Thank you. I apologize, Christine.

Valerie Halverson
No, she’s an amazing designer and she took over SG-1 when Christina McQuarrie went on to take over Stargate Atlantis. So she had been on it a few years when I joined her as her assistant in season 9, and to just jump into that world was so creative, to have a huge shop of builders and break down artists and leather workers. I mean, I was in heaven, to tell you the truth, it was just so creative. And Christina was a gracious, elegant and incredibly talented designer. Unfortunately, she had to step away in season 9 from the show, and Brad and Robert gave me an opportunity. They said, “Well, let’s see what she can do.” And I think the first one was The Quest. And so Robert said, or John Lennox said to me, “Robert, would like you to do up some sketches and maybe you could meet with him tomorrow and see,” so I went home that night, I have to admit I probably didn’t sleep a lot. It’s a big deal. And I didn’t know them that well and Robert is a really nice person, but he’s a man of few words.

David Read
Correct.

Valerie Halverson
Which can be a little intimidating.

David Read
Correct.

Valerie Halverson
And so I went home that night, and luckily I had a design background from my own line of clothing, so I did up some sketches. I’m not a great illustrator, but somewhere between beautiful and a stick person I can get my point across. And one of my first designs was for Adria, and she was going to be coming as the leader of the army, the Ori. And so I had this idea that she would be kind of a little bit of a spoilt rich princess, and so she would come and look at the army and go, “Well I want one of those!” Like she’s shopping at Barneys New York or something, right? “I just want one. And I want it to look good.” So I designed this outfit for her that was similar to these beautiful, beautiful warriors that Christine Mooney had designed, but I shrunk it down and made it girly. Like, she still had the pauldrons on her shoulder, but she had a bustier on. And she had sexy boots on but she had a gun belt, and I thought, “This would just be her.” And so I took that in to show Robert and I tell you, I went to his door, knocked on it and he was like, “Come in.” It seemed like about a mile to his desk and my knees were literally knocking. I was so nervous because this was a huge opportunity.

David Read
I mean, you’re dressing Morena Baccarin, for crying out loud.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah, Morena Baccarin, who was just such a joy, we did some some great work together, I think, and she embraced everything. And so I showed him the sketches and he said, “Well, I didn’t expect you to do this much. I think we can go forward with this.” So I was able to do that and it was a flurry of activity to prove myself. And a Ba’al was in that, the fabulous Cliff Simon, who we lost this year.

David Read
May he rest in peace.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah, he was a…

David Read
His outfit. You want to talk about someone who could wear clothes. Man, could that man wear clothes.

Valerie Halverson
He really could, and not only because he was an athlete, but he took such pride in his character as well. We have a thing in the… a saying in the business, “Does he wear the clothes or do the clothes wear him?” And so some people put on something and it schlumpy, right? And they don’t do justice to your costume. But the majority of people consider costume to be a representation of their character that they’ve worked on with the director and the producers and the story writers and themselves, and then we’re the final layer that they put on that helps the viewer understand. So, Cliff Simon, to me, was one of the great ones. He just really embraced that.

David Read
The materials that were used for him were just extraordinary. Did you design his outfit in The Quest?

Valerie Halverson
Yes.

David Read
It’s interesting that we’re starting with The Quest, because I think that that would have to be my favorite. That material that… I don’t know what you want to call it, but it was almost like this… I didn’t want to think it would be like a leather, this black with the belt, and everything was just perfect, and the collars. Man, that man looked good.

Valerie Halverson
But we were so lucky to have a model shop that built buckles for us and built so much stuff for us that we could add to costumes. But yeah, his was just like perfection. He was always elegant, even though he was… the bad guy’s got to look good, right?

David Read
Bad guy’s got to look good, absolutely. I wanted to segue into what is going to be a pretty core part of this, which is, it’s a military show, and there are going to be… there is Air Force inputs for the Air Force characters and everything else. Chris DeLaGarza said, “I don’t have a question, but just please tell this wonderful lady, as an Army veteran I look for all the mistakes on the military uniforms, and I never found one and that makes me so happy and proud.”

Valerie Halverson
That means so much to us, because it was such a big part of the SG-1 story and we were so lucky to be allowed to use authentic Air Force uniforms. But we did have a lot of eyes on us as well and as you know, a few of the Joint Chief staff’s Generals came onto the show. They brought their own uniforms, which was great, but we had people — IMS was our rental company — and they had people that would literally do the historical research on where that person was based on their age, what campaigns they were on, how many medals they should have garnered, and they would do that. We didn’t touch that because we were costume people. We went to military experts. And of course we always had… in my day on SG-1 we had a fella named Doug Farr. He was our film liaison and he was actually at the Pentagon. I wanted to tell a funny story, because one day we were on set and we had the Joint Chief of Staff meeting and so they’re in this huge boardroom, and William Devane was there as the President and everybody is just looking so impressive from every arm of the military…

David Read
This is Continuum we’re talking about.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah. And they called me and said, “Val, it’s 100 degrees in here.” I was in my office, not on set, and they said, “Can we take their jackets off?” And I said, “I’ve never asked that question.” So I picked up the phone and called Doug Farr at the Pentagon, and I was like, “I’m calling…” You know, I mean, I was a little bit flabbergasted by the power of Stargate. And Doug picked up and I said, “Can they ever take their jackets off?” And he said, “Only if they ask the President, and he gives permission.” And I said, “Okay,” so then tell Brad and Robert and Paul and Joe and Carl, and they write a line.

David Read
Because William Devane, as the President, is there.

Valerie Halverson
Yes. And he gave them permission. And then it was up to us to situate them on the chair so we could still see all the ribbon boards and still make it look so impressive, right? And I was like, “Who gets to call the Pentagon during their work day?” I was in awe of the show I was on.

David Read
Those are the things that make the show absolutely authentic. ‘Cause the Commander in Chief is the only one who can give them permission to take their jackets off. That is perfect. Absolutely. Did you ever feel confined by the military aspect of it — to be frank — that your heroes were wearing costumes that had to be a certain way, that you couldn’t do…? These are your leads. You want to gussy them up, the guys and the girls.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah, I mean, sometimes you wish for a more creative venture, but we tried to get them on on Earth every once in a while to put them into civilian clothes. And there was always interesting aliens and offworld civilizations to take up our energy. But I agree, I mean, sometimes it was just, “Well, let’s make sure it’s right.” And we don’t want to get lackadaisical about it, because you’ve seen it, right? So that actually kept us on our toes.

David Read
And then the writing team would come up with with creative solutions to that, because these people did have lives. I remember the opening to Family Ties — the episode which which featured Fred Willard — has Sam and Vala returning from Victoria’s Secret and a day of pedicures and massages.

Valerie Halverson
Oh, I remember that!

David Read
And they’ve got their civvies on and they look like dynamite.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah, yeah. Well, all girls when they’re shopping are happy, right? That was really, really a fun show to do. And Fred Willard, what an amazing comedy actor. He was fun to do as well, because we did him sort of Tommy Bahama-ish, like he had an Airstream, little bit.

David Read
Crazy character.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah.

David Read
How did you keep your head above water for the 200th episode? Tell us about 200. What a crazy experience. I’ve talked with so many people about this. Christopher Judge was the one who said that they produced so much so fast. You guys knew that it was coming, so you had a little bit of warning.

Valerie Halverson
Little bit.

David Read
There was, according to Chris’s experience, from what he saw, no one complained. Everyone knew that what they were doing was only because the fans demanded that the show be on as long as it was.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah. I think that that we all felt like it was an honor. I mean, nobody ever wants it to end when it’s such a great family. But I think we had a little bit of warning, not too much. And I think that everybody just put their head down and said, “We’re not going to let up now.” And I have an incredible team on that show, of 20 sewers, and five people doing breakdown, and I mean, it was just all hands on deck, full throttle.

David Read
Did you expect to be doing Wizard of Oz and all these other kinds of crazy things?

Valerie Halverson
I mean, isn’t that amazing that you can… like, that is the fantasy world and sci-fi… the beauty of sci-fi to me is there’s no limit to your imagination. And that includes our writers, from a costume aspect of course, but definitely the writers just let it fly.

David Read
What is it like…? Have you seen some of these episodes since? Have you looked back on them?

Valerie Halverson
Some of them. Some of them, I have to say I’m… sometimes I’ll see an actor in something and I’ll think, “Oh, I remember designing for them,” and so maybe you’ll go back and look at something. I have a lot of photos as well. I have like 5000 photos. So, sometimes I look at fitting photos and the progression of the costume. I mean, I have to tell you, this is a little bit off of the SG-1, so you might want to…

David Read
No, it’s fine.

Valerie Halverson
But probably one of my greatest moments in my career was, Jason Momoa called me. So I’m working on Stargate Universe, and said, “Val, can I take some of my stuff because I’m going on Game of Thrones, and I want to show them what I like and how to do it.” And I, of course, couldn’t give him anything. I did ask, and they were like, “No.” But I just felt like we had done a good job when the actor says, “I want to show them what we’ve done.”

David Read
Wow. And he wanted to use Ronon as his templates for Khal Drogo.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah.

David Read
And he did a haka for that. I mean, I have to wonder how much of Drogo had Ronon Dex inside of him. There was some there.

Valerie Halverson
I mean, Jason was very collaborative. He was very involved in the costumes. He loves costume so much. So I imagine he had some input, and he took some from his history.

David Read
What was it like designing for Ronon Dex? I mean, these coats that he had, these leather… I mean, this guy was, well — to put it specifically on the run — and it was completely utilitarian costume.

Valerie Halverson
He was… I had so much fun with Jason designing for him, because he’s a big man, he’s six foot five. He’s not a tall, skinny guy, he can handle anything. As a matter of fact, it takes a little adjusting to get used to the fact that everything has to be a little larger than life for him, right? Because things will be lost on him. And when I first was asked to go on to Stargate Atlantis, I went into that meeting, and it was obviously, Brad and Robert, but it was also Joe and Paul and Carl Binder, and they were in this sort of creative meeting, like, “We want you to come on, but what are you going to bring?” kind of thing. And so I came with two ideas. The first thing was, I thought that all of our lead cast should have an offworld outfit. Because as you said about SG-1, when they were always in the military uniform, we wanted to create some levels of interest.

David Read
And this is seasons 4 and 5, again, to clarify.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah, seasons 4 and 5 on Stargate Atlantis. And so I had come in with some ideas for each of them, including Rodney McKay. He needed to be sexy, and he needed to have some attitude and of course, Sheppard, John Sheppard, and all that, I wanted him to look really, seriously badass and stuff. But the challenge with him was he was always wearing a flak vest. So you couldn’t put a lot of detail that wasn’t going to be seen, you had to work with all the departments on that. But of course, Teyla, Rachel Luttrell, I mean, she was a queen, and I just felt like this creative juice is welling up in me wanting to do stuff for her. And then, of course, so Ronon Dex, and they were like, “Well, what would you do with him?” And I was like, “Well, he gathers things,” because he is a warrior and he’s on the run. And so we built this coat that we call the cow, because I’ve got… well, for one it was so heavy, it weighed about 25 pounds, but he just would throw it on and walk around in it all day. But we built it with findings, like pieces of metal and pelts and different leathers. But I tell you, it was about six feet long, that coat. It was a labor of love, for sure. Labor of love with our team constructing and then he would come in and try it on because he was getting so excited.

David Read
Is it a part of their contracts that they be made available, the actors be made available to you, to X, Y or Z extent, in order to get the feel of it and the look of it right, and to get them in? Because, obviously, they have to wear the wardrobe before they — in pre-production — before they go on. But where is the line there? Because it sounds like Jason was one of the ones who were more gung ho about it, and so I guess not all the actors are? It’s like, “Alright, let’s let’s try it. Okay, it fits. I’m good.”

Valerie Halverson
Yes, there was a few of those and that you’re just trying to get them in so they don’t put it on later and go, “Oh, it doesn’t fit.”

David Read
Yeah, “Shouldn’t have that burrito last night, Val, let me tell you.”

Valerie Halverson
And then they also, you’ve just made six of them, right? Because everything had to be multiples because they were stunted and they were wearing them all the time, and that was always on those shows, you have to prepare for all that. And so we did have a couple of people that were less than enthusiastic about costume fittings, but I would always read the call sheet and that, and like, “Oh, they have this scene off,” and I would go and warn them, like, “Come in then,” and we would be ready for them. So it was about accommodating their schedule to a certain degree and them accommodating ours. I’m pretty bossy.

David Read
For Atlantis, you went in a different direction. You lost the triangles, and you went with stripes and room in the back that actually made a line of dialogue and season 4, because they could now do this [stretches arms across chest].

Valerie Halverson
Well, that was one of my pitches. That was the second pitch that I had, was, “You know, I think that we can just make the uniforms a little sexier.” That’s kind of, I would say, that’s a bit of my reputation — I hope — is that things look sexy and textural. So that was my second pitch to our creators and showrunners, was that I thought that we could make those work a little bit… a little more subtle on the color coding and things, so we did re-design for the lead cast. Our uniforms, and make the pants fit the girls really well. And there’s little [inaudible] and stuff like that. So I thought that was great. I thought they turned out really well and then we still had the other uniforms represented, it was a nice blend transition.

David Read
One of my favorite costumes that you did was — and we see it for one scene, and she’s sitting — is Be All My Sins Remember’d. The surprise ending where Torri Higginson appears, and you gave her this — so it’s her but it’s not her — you gave her this kind of like, really, really burnt orange, like a dark orange leather jacket.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah.

David Read
And that was like, if a copy of Weir had been able to create her own thing. It was like… askew from Atlantis. It was one of the coolest outfits for, maybe, the single coolest surprise reveal that Atlantis gave us, the coolest.

Valerie Halverson
And just on camera that long, yeah.

David Read
Yeah.

Valerie Halverson
When doing something… because, I mean, I didn’t work with Torri, she had gone from the show when I arrived, but to have this sort of… she was iconic at the start of Atlantis so I wanted to do her proud. And to just take some of that character that she represented and then make it more civilian modern kind of thing. She’s still tough, she was a power [inaudible] leather. I’m a big fan of leather, it tells a lot of stories.

David Read
I was about to ask your favorite material. So leather’s at the top?

Valerie Halverson
I would say so because it’s malleable, it fits you and yet it fits to you. It also can be painted, it can be sanded. And all those things that we did to our costumes nothing ever came off the assembly line and went on camera. It had to go through all of these different levels of processing for it to look real. So everything we touched with a little bit of painters or sanding or something.

David Read
I have always loved leather because — for all those reasons — but additionally, there’s a sound factor to a lot of these clothes. And if the microphone is sensitive enough, it will pick certain things up. When leather moves, especially if you’re… there’s a sound to it that feels… I don’t even know how to describe it, but there’s just… there is that aesthetic as well, that dimension to it that you wouldn’t normally expect.

Valerie Halverson
It’s funny that you brought that up because I know when I did the Lucian Alliance, the sound guys were ready to commit harakiri. Because sometimes leather can make a sound. I think it sounds natural. It almost breathes, right? And I love that about leather. But when you use too much and you do velcro with it to get it on and off…

David Read
Oh no.

Valerie Halverson
So that’s my line. Now if a sound guy says, “Oh, I don’t like that cotton shirt.” I go, “Well, it could be leather with Velcro, so be happy with the cotton.” I learned that on Stargate as well.

David Read
It’s those things that you don’t really anticipate that are not remotely inside of your wheelhouse of responsibilities that I would, at least I would think, “What is this thing going to sound like to the guys who are later going to have to clean it up?” Wow.

Valerie Halverson
And I think about, it’s funny as you get more seasoned, let’s just say, the things that you learn, to just take all that with you. Even when I was on set and hearing a sound person or a camera person say, “Well, that reflects,” or a sound person say “That’s too noisy.” I tried to bring all that when I became a costume designer. And so now, the camera is really one of my most important considerations, right? And so when you’re doing leather, you’ve got to be careful that there’s no reflection, there’s no… things like that. And I’m sort of known more for texture. I like things, I like the camera to like it, I like it to have depth and color, hence layers of break down and sanding and it gives matt and shine. Things like that are always a consideration for me.

David Read
Has HD been a blessing or a curse? Has it been both?

Valerie Halverson
Both. Both, yeah. You just have to learn it. People say, “Oh, it’s the stripes.” And I think “Yeah, but that’s just one aspect of the problem, or the consideration, is patterns.” Probably more of a problem for makeup.

David Read
That’s a completely separate [inaudible].

Valerie Halverson
That was a headache. But I think it’s actually shown, when you do quality work, it’s your friend.

David Read
So if you’re going to be honest and truthful, and in the circumstances and bring all of the quality to bear, it’s going to show.

Valerie Halverson
Exactly. So it was our friend, let’s say, with the team I had. Yeah, true artisans.

David Read
George Marsac went above and beyond in creating a list of questions for you. I’m going to try to keep it pretty succinct here. Are there any — we’re just tapping at the surface on this Val — Are there any common design mistakes, that you see trending in your industry, that you try to avoid?

Valerie Halverson
I feel their design mistakes in fabrics. I’m disappointed in the quality of product that’s out there and the fact that costume designers accept that.

David Read
That they don’t push for a superior product?

Valerie Halverson
Yeah, or they don’t create one.

David Read
Can you elaborate?

Valerie Halverson
I just feel like there’s that fast fashion kind of a look is very easy to throw on people, but you’re not using… How can I say this? It doesn’t show well, it doesn’t show on camera, it has no depth, it has no interest, it’s just a piece of fabric. So, for me, I’m always trying to find something either vintage or quality.

David Read
Okay. Yeah, that’s an interesting perspective. And I know a lot of this would have to do with opinion and experience and everything else, but there has to be, when you’re when you’re watching these different programs, you’re looking for those kinds of things, because you know what those fabrics are. But also, I think even for those who are uninitiated, there’s a feeling that we get when we’re watching a program if something is truthful or not. And we may not have necessarily the vocabulary to express it. But we know, especially with historical stuff, we have family histories, and we’ve seen a lot of these clothes and something may ring true or false.

Valerie Halverson
I think that’s what it does, it just rings false and you don’t quite know why. If you don’t have the… but that will stop me from enjoying a show.

David Read
Wow, that makes a lot of sense. He also wanted to know, what tools do you commonly use and how have these tools perhaps changed over the recent years with the developments in technology? What’s become easier? What’s become less time consuming? What’s become more time consuming and been worth it?

Valerie Halverson
I would say that such a different set of tools that you use on Stargate than you use on a contemporary show, or a period show. I would say that the tools that I used translated better from Stargate to the period show that I just did because it was about resourcing, making things look authentic, attention to detail, quality. Whereas when sometimes when you’re doing a civilian show, you’re trying to get a modern suit on somebody, it’s not really the same tools that I use to define a period, or define a character. If that makes sense.

David Read
It does. No, there’s so much that goes into it and there’s only so much time that you have to create a lot of this stuff, so I’m sure it’s like, “How much time do I have to get this exactly right.” Do you ever feel like — and I’m sure this hasn’t happened because I’m sure you made sure to get the work done — but did anything ever go to print on Stargate where it was like, “You know what, I wish I really had another pass that that piece,” or just like, “For what they were asking for, this piece was just a compromise. There was no other option, for what it had to bring out in terms of utility on set and what they had to do with it, this was one that was just like a Frankenstein.”

Valerie Halverson
I would say there’s only one that I can think of, and it might be for different reasons than you’ve listed, is that when we were doing the Lucian Alliance, Brad had said to me — Brad Wright — “I want them to look really sort of utilitarian, Val, really like they’re the SWAT team in space.” And of course, I can’t help myself sometimes, I designed something, and so I built all the padding inside the outfit, so it was smooth on the outside, but I actually bought some mannequins, and we cut the front off and we covered them in leather so it was like a piece of armor. But it was… and so I wanted the whole army to have the same abs, right? No matter what you were, you put on this breastplate, and, “Ooh, you look like Cliff Simon.”

David Read
It’s a good model!

Valerie Halverson
I mean, a lot of people embrace that, let me tell you. And then we did a fitting with our first guest player — I’m sorry, I can’t remember his name — and we took him up to Brad and he just went, “No, it’s not what I want. It’s too designed.” And I was like, “Okay,” so I literally — I haven’t told many people this story, certainly not on such a large audience, but I’m confessing here — I sent my whole team home at three in the afternoon and said, “Stop everything.” Because we had an assembly line going. We were making 30 of these, 40 of these. And he had just said, “I don’t like it.” And so… and Brad is a very nice person, I’m sure that I went up, sent them home, and I went up and talked to him. I sat on his couch and said, “Okay, what are you looking for? What are we missing?” And then I stayed there that night and I remember being the only one on the lot and working on a mannequin and taking it apart and trying not to completely fall apart, really, because it was devastating to me. Brad was not happy because I… that was my goal.

David Read
Yeah.

Valerie Halverson
And then I came up with an idea and we kind of stripped it down and I went to him the next morning and I showed him, and we put it on somebody and he said, “You know, I can live with that. That makes sense to me. Now it makes sense.” So, we actually, in fact, at the start of the episode, we had them in the breastplates on the spaceship and then when they landed, they went into the other one. So we didn’t completely waste everything, because it’s all budgetary as well.

David Read
You were shooting at that point.

Valerie Halverson
We were shooting… I think this was on a Thursday, we were shooting Monday.

David Read
Oh my gosh! So, you were busting your butt?

Valerie Halverson
Yeah.

David Read
This wasn’t weeks of pre-production time that we’re talking about here?

Valerie Halverson
No, we were in the final stages, we were pretty far along, as well. We’d committed a lot of money and a lot of time and so I had to find a way to sort of use what we had and build new ones and, you know, and then go to them and pitch that. So, I would say when it went on camera, I was nervous beyond anything. And then when we saw them together, we broke them down a lot more and stuff, Brad said, “No, I’m good. I’m good.” But I had a funny feeling that was his least favorite thing I ever did and that always stuck with me.

David Read
You want your executive producer to be happy. But you were right, exactly. You want to… No, that’s certainly true. But also, I mean, there has to be a balance between what the creative wants, and you, as a creative person, need to fulfill as well. Because you can create X, Y, Z in space. That doesn’t necessarily… I mean, at a certain point, I suppose, you have to say, “Okay, this is a space creature, or X, Y or Z and it’s not on Earth and I’ve just got to trust that this is what they want. I’m not going to be able to have my way every single time.” Not that it’s your way against theirs, but sometimes it is. Like in this, you know, you had a look and it wasn’t what he wanted.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah. But then I had to fight for aspects of it and explain why I did it and then he was like, “Okay, now I understand your thinking.” And they were very collaborative. Because I once went into a meeting, with bolts of fabric and you know, “This is what I’m going to do,” and showing them sketches, they would always be like… Paul Mullie looked at me and said, “Val, do what you do.” I just thought that was the nicest compliment anybody had said to me. I’d asked my questions about, “Is he in jeopardy? Is he stunted?” And all this, gone through the whole script. He said, “You do what you do.” And that made me feel like they trusted me and that’s where you ideally want to get. And that’s what happens in a family, right? When you’re with people for years and you prove yourself to each other. That’s why it was such a great franchise to be a part of.

David Read
The Lucian Alliance uniforms and so much of that, there was a lot of leather on that Destiny, on that Ancient ship. Gunayorbay wanted to know, how different was it designing uniforms for the Lucians as opposed to the more familiar military uniforms. So I guess that basically answers that. Mike Dopud, God bless him. You had worked with him on all three shows. He had started off as just a bounty hunter in SG-1, then he was a child protector in Atlantis as Kiryk, so we went from Odai Ventrell to Kiryk and then finally to Varro. And in so many respects, it’s not that his performance is a single note, but they were clearly picking an actor who had that ‘I’m tough on the outside, but I’m really gushy and mushy on the inside.’

Valerie Halverson
Yeah.

David Read
Where you could just saddle up next to him and get to know this character for a little bit. And after a while be like, “Man, I totally get you.”

Valerie Halverson
Yeah, he’s an amazing actor, he’s really a great guy, but he, like you say, he was three different — sort of — characters. He was in three different costumes and three different names, but he really did play a lot of the same heart on the outside. He was always that missionary kind of warrior kind of feel to him. And that’s and he’s strong guy, so he was always so fun to design for.

David Read
What is, would you say — PhilippSchwarz — your single greatest costume feat, or a couple of them, from the entire Stargate franchise, when you really look back at that and say, “You know what? That was a great piece, I did good.”

Valerie Halverson
Okay. I have a couple actually, I’ve thought of that. I’m going to start with Stargate Universe and Dr. Rush, who is a professor, right?

David Read
Right.

Valerie Halverson
And Bobby was coming from Scotland, so a lot of our preliminary conversations were not in person. So we were quite far ahead on his costume when he arrived. And we made some subtle changes, but what I decided was, we didn’t want to do the predictable. He’s a great actor. He also is kind of a wiry guy, so you couldn’t dress him like you would Michael Shanks, right?

David Read
Right.

Valerie Halverson
He’s just a different…

David Read
He’s a smaller guy, too.

Valerie Halverson
He is, and he could be a little bit overwhelmed if you don’t understand that. So I did quite a bit of sort of research on that and when he arrived… So I didn’t want to have him in a tweed jacket and a blue shirt.

David Read
The stereotypical professor.

Valerie Halverson
Exactly. And they were going to be stranded, possibly for five to 10 years with the Stargate record and history. So I thought, “We’ve got to have 30 of these or 40 of these in his closet,” right? Because he’s gonna go through levels of breakdown and jeopardy and stunting and all that. So this is a one-er. Basically it’s a one-er. These costumes had to be just perfect for the character, so I actually decided to make him a brown — it’s called Nubuck. It’s sort of a cross between suede and leather — and I found this great fabric and I had great talent on our team, and they made him a blazer. But it wasn’t cheezy, it wasn’t that kind of cheesy leather thing. So that had some depth and it would look great on camera and plus, it wasn’t black, it was brown. And then I made him a vest, and because of Robert’s stature, it was sort of a small check, right? But it was that kind of British feel to it. That was my ode to the professor. And he ended up wearing a white waffle underneath which we thought… that was his idea and it was such a great idea. Instead of a collared shirt. So I made this vest and I was like, “How can I make this different and unique and worthy of Stargate, worthy of our work that we had done?” And so I was at a fabric store one day where I spent a lot of my time, and I found this beautiful silk and I just saw a part of it. It kind of looked like a moonscape. And I thought… but then it was like a peacock, but part of it looked like a planet and I thought, “Ooh!” And so I grabbed it and I reserved a whole bunch. Then I took it back to my cutter and I said, “I want to make this into the lining of the vest, but…” Because he’s always putting a pencil and a pad, that was part of his character that they were building. So I thought, “If I can talk him into using the vest rather than the jacket, we can make this something great.” So we ended up building this by piecing together the silk into a moonscape. And then when Bobby came for the fitting, I said, “This is my thought.” And he was like, “Okay, I like it.” He came the next day for another fitting, he said, “I’ve been thinking about it. I want like a real pencil, I want a real pad, because I want to always be doing that, always be doing that, Val.”

David Read
Yeah, the actors want business. They want to be able to keep themselves busy.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah. And so that was actually one of my proudest costumes I’ve ever built.

David Read
Wow.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah, that’s one of my favorites. I have to say that definitely Ba’al was a joy to work with, because of the elegance of the person and the elegance of the character and you could use rich brocades and he always swept into a room [inaudible]. I mean, we all stole a little bit from Matrix, that kind of feeling. And Adria was just a joy because she had the fire, right? Her eyes would light up. So we did one dress for her that was all velvet, chiffon, and when when she wants the dress had like 10 layers of chiffon, but it was like, yellow, orange, red, gold and so it looked like flames when she moved in it. And so it was always trying to represent the character in a costume way and because it was sci-fi, you could go a little bit more over the top. You could… not as subtle, right? I mean, I made her a dress where when she lifted her arm it looked like a galaxy. The lace detail was [inaudible]. That was kind of a happy mistake, actually. But when we got it on, and we’re like, “Wait a minute, that looks amazing.” So, definitely Ronan, definitely. And Teyla. I mean, she… well, when she was pregnant.

David Read
Yeah, that’s a whole separate thing.

Valerie Halverson
Oh my god, I mean, I was making her… probably averaging about four costumes an episode, and sometimes in an episode, she would change size.

David Read
Right? Caden’s getting big!

Valerie Halverson
That was a… but she’s so lovely. Rachel is so lovely, she worked with us so much, and that was also another creative learning experience, like, how to make that not just a big old bump, you know? How to make her look regal and queen-like, and… That was really amazing working with her.

David Read
If I would be an actor, you guys would — for a couple of reasons — I want to look good and I want to make friends with everybody, but you guys would be some of my best friends because I want to be as comfortable as possible on those long days. And the more that we’re in each other’s heads, the more we can get… it’s not so much a selfish perspective, but it kind of is, you know? I want them to spend as much time as they can on my stuff so that it’s gonna fit right, and not to say that you wouldn’t on some of the others, but it’s like, “I want them to really pour the love into what they’re doing for what I’m going to wear, because I want to wear it as proudly as I can and as comfortably as I can.” For instance, for Rachel.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah, because I think… it is, through my learning wisdom, from working with people, working with actors, working with stunt people, it is a consideration. We’re filming this in July in a studio, should she be able to get that off when they yell cut? And should she have a tank top underneath to be comfortable, because then she welcomes putting it on again, rather than dreading it, like you’re describing.

David Read
Yeah.

Valerie Halverson
So you know, for Rachel, it was about comfort because she was really pregnant. I mean, this was like, it’s hard to get up in the morning and work a 14 hour day. What can we do to help her? So, you’re right, she was a real consideration, that was a consideration in her designs.

David Read
And then look at an episode like The Queen, where you’re putting her into a full Wraith get-up, for hours on end, she’s just had a baby, she’s doing post-baby things, that she’s having to deal with. And she’s spoken on this show about that. That’s a situation where I don’t know if comfort can factor in so much as, it’s got to look perfect for this role.

Valerie Halverson
Well, what we did with her, in that — because she was nursing — and so that was a… no. And male or female costume designer, this is something you have to deal with sometimes is somebody who’s just had a baby. And so by layering her we were able to give her access to what she needed to do, by also just getting her into a comfort layer, like, meaning that the layer that was next to her skin was really comfortable. And so once she took off the top two layers, she could go to her room and be like in normal clothes, basically. And then we layered her up with all the layers of leather and netting and all those things. And we won awards for that show. That was amazing and had to have the Wraith Queen and her, and it was it was fantastic.

David Read
Yeah, the one time that we saw a female, I believe, other than Andee Frizzell was that primary. And what a face that she had. When that costume and that makeup come together, oh, man!

Valerie Halverson
I mean, the Wraith are just… were amazing. And Christina McQuarrie did such an amazing job of the original costumes, I mean, you just couldn’t… you couldn’t improve on that, right?

David Read
And Christopher Heyerdahl. I would imagine Todd’s look was pretty established the year before you came in.

Valerie Halverson
It was actually. We did not want to touch it. He was perfect. She had done such a great job. When he was to me, really, the lead Wraith. He was… but when Michael started to change a little bit, Connor Trinneer, that’s when I took the opportunity to use some brown and change a little bit on it.

David Read
Well, I would think that you would take a look at what the script is saying and what the character’s progressions are. And in his case, he’s literally evolving into something else.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah.

David Read
So why not take an opportunity to have the costume flow with that?

Valerie Halverson
Yeah. And going brown rather than black made it easier. Like, you’re always thinking about the viewer as well, the fans. I want to help them follow this story. So that helps them see that he is becoming quite different.

David Read
In a situation like Universe where you have a very down-to-earth character like Eli. For instance, did you have anything to do with the ‘You are here’ shirt?

Valerie Halverson
Oh, Robert Cooper 100%. No, we were looking at all sorts of shirts and he came down one day and said, “I think this is the one.” And we were like, “Well, then that’s the one.” And it was perfect. He had just found it, so why would you argue with that?

David Read
Well, the only thing I would argue is, “Okay, can you get me 100 more of them?”

Valerie Halverson
I know.

David Read
Yeah.

Valerie Halverson
We bought it online! I mean, it’s not available?

David Read
Exactly, right? In those kinds of situations it’s kind of like, “Well, there’s only so much room I can design on this. Eli is Eli, and if that’s what Rob wants, then that’s what we’re going to do.” I imagine there are just certain situations like with those kinds of characters who are more or less off the street, that these are the clothes that were on their back when they came through that wormhole.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah, and that was the challenge and the great thing about Universe. Whenever I talk about Stargate, the franchise, each one of them was so uniquely different to me, and I’m sure for — obviously for everybody — but Universe was everyday people, as well as military, being stranded on a ship, with no way back in there, is the initial thought. And I thought “We need to get…” I always think of the whole group together in a scene. You don’t think about just the one character, you think about Ming-Na standing beside David Blue standing beside Lou Diamond Phillips, and how do we get that interest and show the diversity of this group stranded on this ship.

David Read
All their own different backgrounds and all their own different professions, all kind of feed into that. Ming, for instance, Ming was a politician for all intents and purposes. She must have been just a delight.

Valerie Halverson
Oh, I loved her. Yeah, she was really great and to get her in that perfect politician suit, right? But still comfortable. Not fussy. It had to be… she wears that burgundy sweater. It was like, “Why this? Why not a crisp shirt?” And so we talked a lot about it, and they’re sort of saying, “Can I wear this for five years, Val?” There’s much conversation that goes on when you’re starting a series and looking at that the longevity of it.

David Read
I imagine, especially with Universe, it was what they had on their back when they evacuated. And part of me, as a viewer, would be like, “Why are they wearing this?” And a lot of the answers would be, “Because it was Tuesday at Icarus base, and this is what they wore on Tuesdays.” And that’s when the attack happened.

Valerie Halverson
That’s right. And I loved Universe. Because it was Icarus base, we got to build those uniforms.

David Read
Yes! With the nameplate for all the body swapping. You had to keep it straight.

Valerie Halverson
I know! It was a bit of a mind bender, but just to be able to make them t-shirts, like, we used bamboo and they were just so comfortable, the girls got to have a little bit of a V neck, they didn’t look like they were wearing their brother’s outfit. The military is sort of known for being a bit… “uniform” in size — it just makes sense to me — but yeah, so we got to really build those and that was, from when we could have a never ending supply, which was a bonus and we could have different levels, the amount of jeopardy they went through, the amount of dust and rust and everything that accumulated, and then we’d do a flashback, and here would be their original one. Like, we had closets full of them. So that was a really… it was great to have that control.

David Read
I loved your designs for the Novans in late season two of SGU. The culture that is created as a result of a time travel quirk, an accident, spawns this whole civilization of people that have evolved for 2000 years in this distant galaxy of humans. And they looked great. Talk about a chance to make a hard 90 degree turn into something that could plausibly be us, but still not be.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah, that’s the sort of thing that’s such a discussion in the concept meeting and in my initial costume meetings is, “This is where I think we’re going, does this work for…” whether it’s Carl or whoever wrote the script and show running and… because that’s such a big commitment when you start down that path. And it just kept evolving. The wonderful thing about working on Stargate with that family of producers was they would give you a heads up in their concept meetings. They’d be like, and so, maybe a month ahead, you’d be like, “Okay, start thinking about this, Val.”

David Read
Yeah, they don’t want you to be hit by the bus.

Valerie Halverson
You couldn’t… it would be physically almost impossible to create some of those civilizations in a seven day turnaround that we had.

David Read
Right, especially if we’re gonna be using them over several episodes. This is not a one off, for instance, like the Novans.

Valerie Halverson
That’s right. So, that kind of stuff was really interesting and the breakdown was so important with those guys. Because the rusting of them and that, it was, to me… and also to show up against the location. That’s the other thing. “Where are we going to be? What does this planet look like? Is it clay? Is it rock? Is it the hoodoos? Is it grass? Is it whatever?” Those were always such important discussions. Stargate taught me a lot, a lot of questions to ask in a meeting.

David Read
And it makes sense where, if you’re going to a desert planet, you’re going to have desert camo with the military because, A) your tax dollar at work, and B) this makes functional sense. But if you look at Air, and the juxtaposition of where they were when they start, and where they end up in New Mexico at White Sands, you got these soldiers in black, and it’s clearly the juxtaposition of, “This is what we were expecting. This is the reality that we’ve been thrown into. So here against the white quartz sands of New Mexico, we are wearing black. And not only are we wearing black, we’re gonna be wearing black for five seasons, at least.”

Valerie Halverson
For sure. It was like, those are the things that… I don’t know, I mean, it’s a huge breakdown opportunity, meaning that to show the dust and everything and to show… that’s always so great. The black and the desert wasn’t great for heat. There’s a reason they wear light colors. It is practical. But, man, Robert Knepper as Simeon in there…

David Read
Yeah, season two.

Valerie Halverson
With that fight and…

David Read
The Bisti Badlands.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah, yeah, like all the… I loved going on those locations because they gave us such an opportunity to do something unique again.

David Read
Ivan Telanchev, why was the North Face brand used in SGA, any specific reason? Now, I know that production use North Face a great deal and there are very few product placements actually inside of the show. When Atlantis started, the North Face was one of them.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah, that would have been Christina and it would have been a decision to… and they would have gone for product placement, so it could have been budgetary, it could have been exposure. It was the perfect thing for that, for the storyline, [inaudible] really worked, I thought it was a great choice. We spend a lot of our time not using labels, so it’s always interesting to see a logo on something. But she obviously made that choice based on availability and product placement and…

David Read
Right, yeah. And I mean, production was using it constantly. Everyone wore North Face up in Vancouver. I always thought it was funny, though, that you have in the southern-most place on the earth, you have Daniel Jackson wearing a North Face outfit.

Valerie Halverson
Why isn’t there a South Face?

David Read
Right, exactly! This is Antarctica! Eli Barker — this is an anomaly — but these little things come up. What were in all the pockets on all the military vests? Fifth Avenue candy bars?

Valerie Halverson
That is so funny, they actually — I mean, that is a props question, but I do know the answer — they had little… almost like when you get a sander and you have that block you wrap it around? They’d be like, not wooden blocks, because that would have been too heavy, not Styrofoam, it was something that had a definite form, right. Because they wanted consistency all the time.

David Read
All right, Melissa Smith. We spoke about ‘the cow’ for Ronan, so could you tell ahead of time if a costume would need to be particularly heavy and how do you decide what a costume needs to be made from. She says, I know the gentleman that plays Bra’tac, Tony Amendola, mentioned they kept his as a heavy material throughout the series and Tony always thought it was quite challenging to wear.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah, I did…

David Read
Jaffas’s are something completely different.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah, they are. And I would say… I’ll answer relating to Jason. We had some costumes that… he brought me this vest. He would go vintage shopping on the weekend in LA, and he would come back all enthused to say, “Val, I want to wear this on the show,” and I’d be “Great, we just need four of them.” And it’d be somebody from World War One, so it’d be like the wrong color and the wrong… But then we would talk about how we could make it work for the show. And so on this one episode, he had to go into fighting mode, he was just like walking along the planet and he had to go into fighting mode. So I took this vintage World War One vest that he’d brought me and we replicated it on the exterior, and we made panels that came off and underneath were all of his knives. So that was a heavy, then we had a cheat one that he could wear most of the time. And then there was the action one, start one, but he loved the idea of that hidden kind of ninja thing where he just went [fwoo, fwoo] and then all of his knives were revealed, so that was quite heavy. And so that’s just reading the script and knowing his character and what he can handle, and because he’s such a warrior in his heart, he was game for all of that stuff.

David Read
So, you have to make sure that you’re in a situation where you’re not going to throw something at an actor that they’re physically not going to be prepared for. I can imagine that that would be something that would chase you in your sleep, like, what kind of nightmares does each of these department heads have? That would be one where it’s like anything that that prevents the actor from fulfilling their potential on air would be a big one.

Valerie Halverson
Big one. And I think, I mean, a series you get to know people, but when you’re doing a movie that shooting over eight weeks or something, you have to very quickly ascertain their concerns, and that involves a lot of conversations in your prep for the costume. And I try and really dissect the script pertaining to them before I make my first phone call to them and say, “You have this scene where you have to drag somebody, or it’s winter, but we’re shooting it in summer.” You have lots of conversations about their comfort level, because they have to do their job and if you’re dragging at them with something that’s uncomfortable, doesn’t fit right, too hot, too heavy, you’re not allowing them to do their job.

David Read
The Bola Kai. Holy cow. It’s talking about taking Ronon Dex to the extreme, where you had to dress, Danny Trejo in these outfits that were completely cobbled together and go hand in hand with their makeup and the tribes and everything else. What was the Bola Kai like to design?

Valerie Halverson
Well, Danny Trejo is an amazing person. I’ve actually worked with him four times now, and that was the first time, and so he’s almost a… he’s a beast of sorts in that he embraces things like crazy. I mean, we built his boots, we built the pelts that we use to get that feeling of him. And his cohorts were just such an adventure, I mean, that was piecing things together and adding things that they scavenged, really being cognizant of all that and having branches and making them look like moss, and adding that to costumes. That was a super, super creative adventure with him. And he was so great when he was in the tent, and it was just all…

David Read
I really wish that they hadn’t been a one off. And I really wish that we had had a chance to see that culture a little bit more, because I think that there was more going on there with that tribe than meets the eye.

Valerie Halverson
Oh, definitely layers and layers, definitely. But that was an incredible episode to do and I, like you, would have loved to have seen them more because we had so much fun doing the costumes.

David Read
Will Rab, I’ve got a rather close screen accurate SGA costume, he says, combat vest, shirt, et cetera, for cosplay that he uses for airsoft competitions? He says, I’m not sure if you played a part in designing them, but if you did, were the utility pouches purchased from a company, or were they made on set? Because I know you were referencing a military surplus store.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah, that’s actually a prop, I wouldn’t accurately know the answer to that.

David Read
Okay. That’s fair. All right. And who was your props counterpart? Kenny?

Valerie Halverson
Yeah, Kenny, yeah.

David Read
Okay. I’ve tried to get him on the show. He hasn’t returned my calls yet.

Valerie Halverson
I have not seen him in a couple of years, so he might be out.

David Read
He could indeed be. How has it been watching the industry just explode up in Vancouver. I mean, I know, it was a small club for a really long time and a lot of the people that I talked with are still working up there, and they’re like, “It’s not the same town anymore.” You guys have been really fortunate.

Valerie Halverson
And I think especially this year, we were we opened pretty early, we were open beginning of July and with many protocols in place, and it’s been such an adjustment, but it also exploded up here, because it was inconsistent in the States a bit at that time. And so we were even busier than usual, to be honest. It’s now taking a little bit of a breath, because we now have many producers that are used to being up here. It’s really a joy to work with the same producers. We have some really talented crews up here. But it has changed so much, so, so much. And I’m glad that I was there when I was there, let’s just say, and then I was in that beautiful cocoon of Stargate for so long, where only wonderful things happen to us. It was the most creative, energized, friendly, family-oriented group that you could ever… I’ve yet to encounter that again, to be honest.

David Read
Really?

Valerie Halverson
Yeah. Kudos to to Brad and Robert for creating that environment. Yeah, and also because I haven’t done a big series of that length since then, so that may be part of it, but word it is that it’s more business now than it is family.

David Read
When you are in the trenches for 17 seasons of television, if you are going to get through it with any degree of aplomb, there is no reason for it to be a pain in the ass, Val. I mean, for certain circumstances there… I mean, there’s going to be bad days, of course there’s gonna be bad days, like any family, but you get through it.

Valerie Halverson
You do and I think a lot of us, to be honest — and I’m sure the fans will agree with this — we were very saddened by Stargate Universe not going forward. And it was because that was an extension of the family of SGU and Stargate Atlantis, and we’re so fond of each other. A lot of the crew had been with that company for 10 years, 7 years, 17 years, they didn’t know where else to go, really their cars just went automatically to the Bridge Studios. So, I felt a real sadness for a long time after it was gone because it was such a joy to be there.

David Read
What do you think about Brad trying to get a fourth Stargate series off the ground? Would you be game for the fourth?

Valerie Halverson
In a second, in a second! I just know the integrity that Brad has and the creative juices that flow when he’s at the helm. So 100%

David Read
And Kappa 1611, I want to piggyback off of what I just asked. In a perfect world for you, were an SG4 to be on the table and presented to you as another project… we had a more little bit more of a lighthearted show at SG-1, little bit more dreary in SGU, adventurous in SGA. From a costuming perspective, what kind of tone would you prefer for an SG4? What do you want to design next, were you given a chance to play in that sandbox for an 18th season, overall?

Valerie Halverson
I mean, that is really… I would love to be off-world, this [inaudible] new civilization every… that would be the challenge I would want.

David Read
So no military surplus?

Valerie Halverson
You know, you gotta have some military to keep the peace. And that has been a grounding factor in every one of the franchises. I’d like to create that military, they’d be future.

David Read
Anything else that you’d like to say, Valerie? The fandom has just continued to embrace this thing 10 years after it’s been off the air. Anything that I’ve missed that that you want to bring up and incorporate before we let you go?

Valerie Halverson
I think we’ve covered a lot, I would like to say thank you to the fans, because the enthusiasm and the support of the fans throughout the whole adventure was so important to us. We used to have a lot of them visit set, when they would win a lunch with Joe Flanigan or whatever, and we always got to meet them, sometimes I got to dress them. We got to meet those people that supported us through all those years and I think that’s one of the most important things that we felt.

David Read
Well, I really appreciate you taking some time to walk down memory lane with me on this show. It’s certainly an important part of my life, I know it was such an important part of of yours. I can’t remember the name of the gal that we worked with when we were boxing all the SG-1, Atlantis costumes up for Prop Works, but I hope she is doing well as well. What was her name?

Valerie Halverson
Was that Nancy?

David Read
Was it Nancy?

Valerie Halverson
She’s amazing.

David Read
Yeah.

Valerie Halverson
I think it might have been Nancy, she’s, well, joyful. She’s now a physiotherapist.

David Read
Wow, okay!

Valerie Halverson
Has a little and has a family.

David Read
Good for her.

Valerie Halverson
It’s either Stargate or nothing.

David Read
Valerie, thank you so much for this. Thank you for sitting down with me. It’s so good to catch up with you.

Valerie Halverson
Great to see you again. Thank you.

David Read
So you’re so you’re busy on another project. Everything’s trucking along?

Valerie Halverson
Absolutely. It is busy up here and I’ve been able to… I always look for the adventures, right? I just did a musical Western and Danny Trejo is the bad guy. And that’s what we’re looking for, is I’m trying to keep one foot in that adventures bordering on sci-i world, so I’m ready for the fourth one.

David Read
Good for you. Thanks so much to Valerie Halverson for joining us in this episode, as always, it’s a pleasure communicating with her and having her share some stories. I’m hopeful that she will help us open some doors in terms of getting Christine Mooney and Christina McQuarrie on as well in the near future. 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 a little further, consider buying 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. Checkout is fast and easy and you can even use your Amazon or PayPal account, just visit DialtheGate.redbubble.com and thanks for your support. We do appreciate you tuning in. My team, they’re just terrific. Sommer, Tracy, Keith, Jeremy, Rhys, Antony, Jennifer Kirby, Linda “GateGabber” Furey. I really appreciate you guys helping me make the show happen and those of you who tuned in each and every week, I know who all of you are and thank you so much for tuning in. My name is David Read for Dial the Gate. We’ll see you on the other side.