Dial the Gate is privileged to welcome STARGATE SG-1’s first-EVER bad guy, and arguably its greatest villain, to our show. “Apophis”-actor Peter Williams joins us LIVE on stage at Gatecon!

As this is an in-person event, the DTG moderators will not be taking questions for Peter.

Thanks to GATECON for making this episode possible!

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Timecodes
00:00 – Opening Credits
00:26 – Welcoming Peter Williams
02:30 – Acting Origins
07:37 – A Memorable Role
11:14 – Getting the Role of Apophis
18:06 – Death in Serpent’s Song
23:30 – Contacts
26:10 – Working with Christopher Judge
29:19 – Shooting Schedule and Make-Up
31:43 – Playing the Villain and Life Behind the Scenes
37:01 – Did you know you’d return after you died?
40:03 – The Ultimate Prank
42:02 – Darren and the GateWorld Origin Story
44:43 – Remembering Cliff Simon
46:47 – Wrapping up with Peter
54:55 – End Credits

***

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TRANSCRIPT
Find an error? Submit it here.

David Read
Hang on just a second Alan. Oh, backup, backup, backup for me. Okay for the world now, hello GateCon! And look at this! Mr. Peter Williams!

Peter Williams
Hello! So much has changed over the years, this god carries a purse now.

David Read
How are you my friend? Good to see ya. Ah, so, welcome Peter Williams once more!

Peter Williams
You guys know the status, if my eyes go off inadvertently, I wear the sunglasses just so nobody gets injured and sues the place. But for you, I’ll take them off and replace them with something that helps me see. There we go.

David Read
How are you, good sir, how have you been?

Peter Williams
[inaudible]

David Read
Anything for a god.

Peter Williams
Something tells me I should have known how to do that.

David Read
I have been looking forward to having you on the show for a while now. And it was just a matter of making it work. And I think that it’s a treat here that I get to be with my family, celebrating the work that you and so many amazing people did for so many seasons of great television. So thank you.

Peter Williams
Oh, my pleasure and it’s absolutely appropriate that it’s this venue, because GateCon is family to all of us, you know, and in fact, I think I know everybody here, at some level, you know?

David Read
When did you know this was what you wanted to do for the rest of your life? When did you know “I want to be on TV,” or “I want to take on parts that put me out of my comfort zone?” What was the spark?

Peter Williams
Actually, it’s more like I want to be addressed as ‘God’ for the rest of my days.

David Read
Okay, I can do that.

Peter Williams
Who can turn that down? It happens, it happens on Twitter, it happens on Facebook, it happens in the subway, it happens in random streets of various international cities. I make it sound so grand. It happens on other planets from time to time. I’m well traveled. When did I know? I think, boy, you know, I was hooked. The very first convention I ever did was in Sydney, Australia, which is on the other side of this globe for those of you that don’t know. They had Christopher Judge down to appear and he got busy and couldn’t do it, and had the presence of mind to say “I know someone even better.” And he sold me to them in Sydney and I was instantly sold, had a ball and never looked back. That was I think 1999, the previous century. Earth years.

David Read
I mean more specifically you as an actor. When did you know you wanted to act? How old were you?

Peter Williams
That would be telling, David.

David Read
Sarcophagus years.

Peter Williams
There are people out here who are pretty adept at mathematics. This is science fiction. Anyway, it’s no secret that I’m really, you know, a couple of millennia old. When did I know? I’ll tell you the truth, when I got out of university… a few years later than I should have… but that’s a long story. I wound up in Ottawa, Canada, and for a Jamaican that’s quite a leap. But while I was there, my brother dared me to audition for a play. Some of you have heard this story before but it gets better over the years. I auditioned for this play, it was Whose Life Is It Anyway? You may remember it from a movie that Richard Dreyfus was in about a quadriplegic, facing the struggles of being a quadriplegic. I played a hospital orderly, and every time I opened my mouth, I got applause because I had the light — I was the light relief in a heavy themed screenplay. Actually, it was a stage play. And that month, Margaret Trudeau, the wife of our then Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, had an article in a woman’s magazine, Chatelaine Magazine, saying that Whose Life Is It Anyway? was her favorite stage play. And we played to packed houses as a result, and so every time I appeared I got the applause and I said, “This is for me. This is for me.” I really enjoyed it so much that by now I was what 23… 22, 23 years old…

David Read
In sarcophagus years…

Peter Williams
In sarcophagus years, yeah, multiply by seven. That’s dog years! Oh, I get confused, I get confused. Some people address me as dog, you know, it’s God spelled backwards. I told you it gets better over the years. And, I got the bug, I got the acting bug basically, is what I’m trying to say — the stage bug — and I immediately then decided that the civil service town of Ottawa, Canada wasn’t for me and I moved to Toronto to become an actor. So basically translated, that means I became a waiter, because it doesn’t happen that easily. So after working in Greek restaurants, and Italian restaurants, and Jamaican restaurants and general cafes, I got lucky and got my first speaking part in something, incidentally, which I played… I had seven lines or eight lines, I think it was, in a two part mini-series called Hoover vs. The Kennedys: The Second Civil War. I played a young Harry Belafonte, which was just the perfect introduction to this business for me. Everybody told me at that point that I looked like Shari Belafonte, his daughter. She was cute, so I didn’t mind so much. But it was a perfect entree into this business.

David Read
Tell me about a role that surprised you in a way that you didn’t expect when you’re reading the material or when you’re executing the material, that you carry with you to this day is something that was pivotal for you as a human being. Besides our dear god.

Peter Williams
Yes, besides that. Fortunately, I have been in the business long enough to have a resume, I can pick and choose and tell you stories from various, but I’m gonna pick Neon Rider. Many of you don’t know this series, but it was my first series in Canada. And I went for the audition, which was scripted for — and forgive the loose use of this descriptive — but it was scripted ‘Chicano’, in the rubric, the character description. Back in those days, these were euphemisms for ‘any minority will do’. And I went in, and there were a couple of Latino guys auditioning for the part, but for some reason, they looked at me and they go, “What’s that accent?” and I go “Jamaican” and they go “Make it stronger”, and I did, and I got the job. They changed everything — where everywhere it said ‘Chicano’, they changed it to ‘Jamaican’, and encouraged me to use my accent, which in those days, again, was unheard of. I was extremely grateful though. And it turned into a gravy train for me. I have since done a ton of Jamaican parts, which I love doing. And, you know, I’m an educated middle class boy who was taught to speak the Queen’s English. So any chance I get to use the language, the pseudo-language or the neo-language that I grew up with is just a blessing for me. And it’s interchangeable with this very cultured speak that I have here, you know?

David Read
It sounds like the going message is, “Wherever possible, be yourself.”

Peter Williams
Exactly. Yes, yes. In fact, I took that lesson, I took that lesson from it. And I didn’t prejudge — I don’t prejudge auditions now. Nowadays, almost every part goes “submit all ethnicities.” Something which works for me because nobody can really place me or stereotype me or pigeonhole me, because I’m not stereotypically anything. African Americans don’t consider me African American. And Jamaicans — I’m always not Jamaican enough, you know, clearly not white. You know, it’s like, I get if the word if the word quirky appears in the character description, call for Peter. And I win some and I lose some. 30 years in this business has taught me that it all evens out in the end, you know, if you’re fortunate enough to be in it for 30 years.

David Read
And if you’re good people like you, they want to have you back.

Peter Williams
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I’ll take that. I’ll take that because I believe that’s half the battle. I believe if they like you as a person, they’ll try and shoehorn you in anywhere.

David Read
I have one more question for Peter and then we’re going to start taking questions from the audience. I would like to know how you got Apophis? I know you’ve answered this question on stage before but I have yet to hear it and I’d love to hear it.

Peter Williams
And like I say, it gets better every time. It was the winter of… and this is where the audience chimes in, because I don’t really remember. 98?

David Read
96, 97 I believe.

Peter Williams
When the pilot of… let me tell you… it goes back further than that! It goes back further than that. And it’s a perfect segue because it goes back to Neon Rider. Neon Rider opened a lot of doors for a lot of people here in Vancouver in the movie industry. It was right after 21 Jump Street. It was right after that Steve Martin movie that was shot here that everybody knows someone who worked on — I can’t remember the name of the movie — but it was… Roxanne. It was set in Seattle and Vancouver passed for Seattle back then. It was the early days of the film industry boom in Vancouver. Well, these local guys, Winston Rekert, bless his dear departed soul, an actor here — most people know him as the Canadian Michael Landon — he looked a lot like, handsome like Michael Landon, just instantly recognizable to Canadians. He had been on several series, he had been acting for years. And his best friend, boyhood friend, Danny Virtue, father of two, one of whom now dearly departed as well, but two stuntmen that you may or may not have come across in your Stargate fandom. The two of them got together, and they put together this television show called Neon Rider. Well, we broke a lot of ground and hired a lot of new people into the industry, one of whom was an apprentice story editor by the name of Brad Wright. Brad and I got close on Neon Rider. He would share his things with me, I would share my things with him. He was, after all, only an apprentice then. One could approach him and speak very freely. He told me about Stargate early on — I’m not sure he even remembers this — but being familiar with the movie, I kind of looked at him and I went, “Yeah, right, dude, yeah, right.” But he somehow acquired the rights to this damn thing and it became what we know today. So that was my first brush with it. I got a call to audition for Stargate, for a character with a real funny name. It had an apostrophe in it. It started with a T and it ended with a C. So I go there to audition for this Teal’c part. And I thought I did a pretty good audition, but I didn’t hear anything. Then one day I got a call back. But it wasn’t for the Teal’c part, it was for another strangely named character by the name of Apophis. Even the movie had no Apophis in it, so I didn’t really know what I was coming to. At that stage I had long hair, I had dreadlocks which I had grown on Neon Rider over five years. It takes a long time to properly grow dreadlocks. Nowadays, you can buy ’em and get ’em 30 minutes in a hair salon.

David Read
But these were the real deal.

Peter Williams
These are the real things and it took five years to grow ’em and I was fortunate enough to grow them on TV, so I can prove it! So anyway, I go in for this audition and here I am, you know, this is brown-skinned guy, aquiline nose, long hair. It did not occur to me that they were trying to recast Ra from the movie, or recreate the Ra caracter, it not occur to me. Even though I was a fan of the movie. I loved the movie Stargate, except for the last 15 minutes, when I thought it fell apart. But it touched something inside me and I’ll never forget it. But it didn’t occur to me that that’s what they were trying to do. In the audition, Michael Greenburg, he just stopped the thing cold and I thought, “Oh God, I’ve really screwed up here”. And I think he actually literally hit his head and went (points finger) and pointed at me and nodded. I took it as a good sign but it was an odd thing to happen in an audition. I went away, this was happening over the course of a Christmas and a New Years. Well, I waited into the new year, I waited and waited and waited and waited, until finally maybe three weeks later I got the call, I got this part. Apophis. Yay, whoop-de-do. I had no idea what it was going to be. Until the script arrived.

David Read
Scene one

Peter Williams
Damn! What an entrance! Okay! I’m in for this. I’m down for the…

David Read
Staring down Don S. Davis.

Peter Williams
Wait a second. No, no, no, no staring down Vaitiare Bandera. There’s stuff happening… and it’s happening for my benefit. Wait a second… Show time! Hang on… I’m in! I thought, you know, it just snowballed from there. Wardrobe calls were were epic because they had to build that damn thing on me. But they told me I needed to cut my hair. So it came with a price, but once I saw the price, I said, “Okay, fair enough, hair grows back”. And the rest is history. That’s how I got the part of Apophis

David Read
Thank you for sharing that. All right!

Peter Williams
Of course. You know, if I got Teal’c I’d be richer. But Apophis was the next best thing.

David Read
I think the most, just one of the most iconic of… I will argue, the most iconic of all the Stargate villains, is you. You just got to play it over the top!

Peter Williams
God love him, but I’ve arm-wrestled Cliff Simon over that one a couple of times. You know, and, yeah, but I agree. You never forget your first, is my line.

David Read
And that’s what Amanda Tapping said too — you never forget your first bad guy. Do we have questions?

Peter Williams
[Points] That hand went up first. Unless there was someone in the shadows. But it’s up to Dave. It’s his show.

David Read
No, no, absolutely, you’re right. Hey, I can’t.. We can’t… the microphone is. Yeah.

Audience Member 1
Thank you for being here.

Peter Williams
Pleasure, man.

Audience Member 1
Hello, working now. So we just talked about the birth of Apophis and in the last panel, the death of Apophis was mentioned and Teryl was talking about what an emotional scene it was, you know, with your death. And how you you shouldn’t feel that way because it’s…

Peter Williams
I’m sorry, I must stop you, I must stop you there.

Audience Member 1
Sure.

Peter Williams
Which death?

David Read
Death number? Yes.

Audience Member 1
Touche.

David Read
Serpent Song? Serpents Song, death number one.

Audience Member 1
Yes. And you know, it was, we just rewatched it recently and just thinking how kind of almost disturbing it was because you’re going through all these mixed emotions as a viewer and what if all of history’s villains had their death broadcasts an entire planet of people. It’s kind of weird, right? I was wondering what in particular you drew upon to evoke such emotion from the audience?

David Read
What a good episode, right?

Peter Williams
You know… Yes, if I do say so myself, excellent episode. Almost as good as that question. And you know, you’ll learn this about me, ask me “How’s it going, Peter?” and you get a three hour conversation. So here comes my answer. Apart from the fact that I was in every damn scene in that thing, and I got to work with all the stars in that show — which of course motivated me immensely — I drew upon the fact that after hair and makeup, the aged look approximated almost precisely what my father looked like when he died. And I was able to key in on that emotion. I nursed my father down to the end, as many of us probably have had the experience. It’s not something you forget, regardless of your relationship with your parent. I was close to my dad, but in latter years, I saw him very little. And to see him, you know, go down, you know, deteriorate physically, and mentally, but physically, primarily, because he was a slip of a thing when he passed away, was quite emotional. Once I saw myself in the mirror looking like that I’m going “Damn, they nailed it!” because that’s what he looked like. I was able to just go there instantly. Not a problem. That’s the short answer. The longer answer was, I had something to do with mostly with the language that Michael Shanks and I were speaking.

Peter Williams
Yeah, the Ancient Egyptian to communicate, because there apparently is an Ancient Egyptian course that you can take here at the University of British Columbia, and there was a professor whose specialty it was, who was consulted on that language. The problem is, in the movie industry, you’re always getting rewrites. So, what happened is, in the white pages and the blue pages, the full script came down with the correct Ancient Egyptian, but by the time you have to do the rewrites on the fly and throw in the different colored pages to mix with the script, I think the story department was winging it. So basically, Shanks was speaking the real thing and I was talking gibberish. But we still managed to communicate. Thank you, man, good question.

David Read
Ancient Egyptian?

David Read
Just a moment. I love the scene in the briefing room, where you have JR Bourne as Martouf saying, “Surely you welcome this guy’s death?” and all the heroes are like, “Not really.” That’s what defines a hero; someone who looks at your worst enemy and still sees sympathy. Or you still have sympathy, even for your worst…

David Read
Well it was really technically sympathy for the host, rather than the actual Goa’uld.

David Read
Yes, yes. Absolutely. Playing the host, you got to play the host in this episode.

Peter Williams
Yes, yes. That was a treat. You know, I have this sort of… I could be Egyptian. I get people from Eritrea — I don’t know if you know where Eritrea is — Eritrea is in the Horn of Africa, it’s just north of Ethiopia. I get Ethiopians stopping me on the street in Toronto and “Yak yak yak”, thinking I’m a Eritrean. So I definitely look like the people from that part of the world.

David Read
Who else? Someone over here? Okay, number one.

Audience Member 2
I want to start cosplaying, so I want to ask this. Can you see with the glassy eyed contacts? And can we have you say “Shol’va” in your best Apophis voice you can muster at this current moment?

Peter Williams
I’m going to give you a little secret here. I have never, ever, not even once in my life worn contacts. So I did not wear contacts. The effect on my eyes was done in post, in a lab, in LA, after we shot it here. But just to run back to my audition for a second. One of the things, I think, that prompted Michael Greenburg to hit his head and go [points] was the fact that I was able to do this… and I should have learned by now not to do this on stage, especially something that’s going to show up on YouTube. But I can roll my eyes into the top of my head so you can just see the whites of my eyes. It’s a skill you learn in adolescence and some people can do it into adulthood. I managed to be able to, and I did that in my audition. And I think Greenburg thought “Oh yeah, this will save us some money.” You know? So, basically really what they wanted was no blinking and clear view of your eyes in order to do the special effects. So that’s the eye thing. The ‘Shol’va’ thing? Yes, I can, I can do it. I can, I can do it. But that was also done in post, it was a process called flanging and it altered my voice, which has been the bane of my existence ever since actually, because I can’t just take a clip from Stargate and put it on my actor’s reel because it makes me sound like, you know, like a digital creation, rather than an actor trying to get another job in real life. So it’s been a bit of a problem, that — flanging — but yes, I can do “Shol’va!” It’s a bit of a party trick, so I’m good at it.

David Read
Tell us about Christopher Judge and working with him.

Peter Williams
[fart sound] What?

David Read
Besides the flatulence which, I know, it comes up every time. I have never met a person with a larger heart.

Peter Williams
Ditto. Gotta support that for sure. I, however, had to win him over again. All roads with me tend somehow to lead back to Neon Rider. Christopher Judge, apparently — and he was at pains to remind me the first time I came across him on the set of Stargate — he goes… are there any kids in here? Are there any kids in here? Because the language is about to get colorful. He goes… first of all, I stick my hand out. “Yeah. Hi, nice to meet you, man.” He looks at me and he goes, “You don’t remember me, motherfucker?” And I go… [blank look]. I was shocked because I didn’t. I didn’t. And you don’t forget a guy that looks like that. You don’t! So I questioned my own sanity. And I go “Remind me, man, remind me.” And he said, “I came and did an episode of Neon Rider.” Yeah. And I went “What?” I couldn’t… I just didn’t remember and I still for the life of me cannot figure out why I don’t remember that. Maybe we didn’t work together, but still he was certain that we had met before and I couldn’t remember it, so I think he has never forgiven me for that. However… and I really, I can’t forgive myself because that don’t make no sense. You know, you don’t forget a guy that looks like Christopher Judge.

David Read
Right, so distinctive.

Peter Williams
Yeah. So I must have been smoking some powerful weed that day. Or something. And I will use that as my excuse, because it gets… it’s legal now and it gets me off the hook! But Christopher Judge, I have to say, Christopher is the actor on Stargate who was the nicest to me the entire time. I would hang out in his trailer because he had all the good stuff on his TV — you’ve probably heard those stories too — and he watched a lot of golf and it was just, it was open house in his trailer. He was the most hospitable of everyone. I wouldn’t say, you know, this is not to cast aspersions on anyone else’s character, it’s just… and also there’s a brotherhood thing. Yeah, it was a brotherhood thing that we had and I’m very grateful to him for that.

Peter Williams
He was my Shol’va! Yeah, he was! Yeah, you roll the two syllables together like there’s no apostrophe.

David Read
He was your Shol’va.

David Read
Shol’va!

Peter Williams
Yes! You’ve got to honor the apostrophe if you’re going to be part of the Stargate family.

David Read
Where’s…

Audience Member 3
Over here?

David Read
Over there? Oh, there it is. Number two.

Audience Member 3
I just was curious what was the typical shooting day schedule call times, how much makeup that you had to endure every day you’re on set?

Peter Williams
You know that question is better addressed to Amanda Tapping and Michael Shanks because they were in every day, getting paid. I was in every few episodes for one day, getting paid. So I can’t really say that it became a routine for me. I grew to anticipate getting scripts with my character in it because I wasn’t in it all the time. It became like Christmas every few months. And I was in for a day… I got treated royally when I came in, mind you.

David Read
As you should.

Peter Williams
Yeah, exactly. But I can’t say it ever became a routine day, however, typically those days start… actually, it usually starts beforehand, because with Apophis having so many different costumes, I would always get two or three wardrobe calls, for which you get paid, and… did I mention I got paid for the wardrobe calls? Yeah. It was a blessing in disguise because all those things added up. But wardrobe, hair and makeup, prosthetics, fittings, those kinds of things, turned my involvement into Stargate into more of an intermittent thing. On set, always an early call, always I had to be dressed and sitting around in that damn fishnet stuff for far too long, but the trailers were really swanky. Stargate had money. That’s part of the reason it was so successful, it started off with a four season pre-sale, which was excellent, which is unheard of, and I’ve never been on a show since — before or since — that had that largesse. So, not so much of a routine, man, but a pleasure none the less. Does that answer your question? Yeah. And I’m sorry, in this age of gender equality, when I say “man” it’s just a Jamaican thing.

Audience Member 4
It’s been emphasized in a lot of ways that Stargate was like a family. What have you drawn to — but you’re their enemy — and obviously, you can’t be chumming around with them. What did you draw on to bring that out? And how did that affect things off set, off camera?

Peter Williams
I must confess, I did feel a little bit like the enemy, but I was a big enemy and I was all powerful. I got a lot of respect from top to bottom. I shared a passion for dogs with Richard Dean, and his dog was always around and I’m a dog whisperer and he could tell, you know, it takes one to know one. And so we were able to bond on that. Oh! There was always a read through, too, right? So, the read throughs… I enjoyed the read throughs, because that’s where I got to know everybody’s personalities, because there’s always banter flying around. And that’s where I developed my real respect. Actually, no, jeez, I’m kind of contradicting myself. I had worked with Richard Dean Anderson before, on MacGyver, once, and so I did know him before. And it was a good part I had there too, so I got to know him over the course of a few days. Fast forward a few years now, to these read throughs for Stargate and you really see the innate nascent wit that guy has. It is natural. That’s not no put on shit. That’s serious. This guy, it just flows. So much so, the guys from the script department who were in there watching the read throughs will immediately cross out what was written and insert the witticisms that Richard Dean would, you know… Of course, that made them look good, because he is the boss. And it made us, gave the show its little flavor. So… what was the question? I’m just…

David Read
Did you feel like an enemy sometimes?

Peter Williams
Feel like an enemy? Well, yeah, sometimes, because those guys were able to share what happened yesterday or the last week and I couldn’t, I wasn’t there, I didn’t know, so, yeah, I felt like an outcast, not an enemy, an outcast. But I knew a lot of the cast before, you mentioned JR Bourne, we had worked together on a movie many years earlier in Toronto, at the beginning of our careers, and it was a show called… there’s always trivia nuts in — and I mean nuts in the nicest possible sense — in a Stargate crowd, it’s a show called Jungleground. It starred a wrestler by the name of Rowdy Roddy Piper and JR and I had a couple of supporting roles in that. Actually, Lexa Doig was also in that, so was Anne Marie DeLuise, she was. So I met a whole bunch of Stargate people before then.

David Read
So it already was kind of…

Peter Williams
Yeah, it was a family already. I was not so much of an enemy, man, as a distant cousin.

David Read
But how many shows have weekend barbecues, where the cast and crew are invited back to the studio, and they bring in bouncy castles for the kids, you know, and I mean, as far as I’m aware, that doesn’t often happen.

Peter Williams
Well, you’ve just made me aware that it did happen. Now I feel more like a distant cousin.

David Read
I’m sorry, please, someone save my cookies.

Peter Williams
You know what, it’s alright. Because I had kids and I was able to bring them to the set and blow their minds. And you run into people on the… I ran into Richard Dean walking his dog on the sea wall in Kitsilano one day, on the Kits beach. And he was… normally Richard Dean has his moods, you know, he can be kind of distant, sometimes. And quite often he was distant with me, but that day he saw me, I was like his old, lost friend. He had his dog, he made much of my kids. We stood there talking and we had a ring crowding around us, just watching us. I felt like a superstar that day and I will always love him for it. He spent maybe 20 minutes standing there, yakking with me, and that wasn’t his norm. So, I didn’t get invited to the bouncy castle, but I got to hang with him on the beach.

David Read
There you go. I would have taken that over the bouncy castle.

Peter Williams
Yeah, definitely.

David Read
One more question from the crowd and then I have a wrap up. Number two over here.

Peter Williams
Damn, is it over so quick!

David Read
I know. We started a little late.

Audience Member 5
Hello, Peter. It is absolutely wonderful to meet you. I had a question with regard to your character dying and so as the audience, as the viewers, we of course, were surprised by Apophis’ death, and of course, it was just a wonderful scene, just wonderfully acted. So it was a very big moment, but then, of course, we find out that Apophis didn’t really die, so there is that. And I was just wondering, from your end as an actor, how much did you know? And how much were you surprised by this? Did you know that you were going to come back? Or what was it like for you as an actor?

David Read
Thank you for this question, because it tees up what I was about to do next. Darren, be ready, I’m gonna bring you up here.

David Read
Yeah. Sokar is popping in.

Peter Williams
Another excellent question, for which I could talk about, I could talk for three hours. When we were shooting… first of all, I was used to… ever since Children of the Gods, where I was in it pretty much the whole way through, but lots of little hits, I wanted to be in the show more, of course, so then I got… the rest of season one went by and I was used in the ratings week and the season closers and things like that, but never anything really, really, really meaty. Season two comes along and this script comes along. I think it was — correct me if I’m wrong –like, two thirds of the way through the season, though.

Peter Williams
Yeah, exactly. So it was, season starts off, more hits, little hits, I get to kill Sokar, that was nice. I get to kill Heru’ur, that’s nice. You know, that kind of thing. Or did I?

David Read
That was later.

Peter Williams
Yeah, that was later. Okay. Whatever.

David Read
It’s all good, you still did it.

Peter Williams
It mixes up. Yeah. But one point I’m trying to make, it was lots of little hits, then. Boom. First of all, I grew to recognize that anytime the word serpent appears in the title of the show, I’m in it. So, this one comes along — Serpent Song — I go, “Oh, great. I’m in it. Am I in it? I’m in it, I’m in it, I’m in it, I’m in it! I get to work with Janet Fraser. I get… Unbelievable! That’s amazing! I get to share screen time with Amanda Tapping.” You don’t know how valuable that has been over the years, trust me. Funnily enough, I’ll just… Yes, it surprised me, to answer your question. Basically, it surprised me. Yes, I was grateful for it. I knew I was going to die, I didn’t know I was going to come back, they never tell you you’re coming back. Although, I must confess I have this vague memory of Brad Wright going [elbow nudge] “Don’t worry.” And he was right. I’ll just finish off by saying, there’s always somebody who wants to know “Can you tell me anything funny that happened to you on set, tell me one prank.” This is where the prank comes in… the number one prank. Peter DeLuise, I believe, directed that episode, didn’t he?

David Read
Serpent Song, yes, he did.

Peter Williams
Serpent’s Song. Yes. So the following day, or was it maybe that evening, I was getting on a flight to Australia. And so I had a flight to catch. Everybody knew that. And at the end of my final scene, Peter DeLuise goes, “Excellent! That’s a wrap! Print!” And then the lights went off. I was bound in a straight jacket on a gurney and everyone left the set and left me on that gurney, bound in that straight jacket. I thought “Okay, hey, titter, titter, titter, that’s funny.” Five minutes go by. Dead silence. “Guys! I’ve got a flight to catch! Hello?” Dead silence. They just left me there. Somebody eventually, maybe 8, 10 minutes, and that’s like an eternity, in dead silence. Somebody sneezed or coughed off set, so I figured it out. They’re having me on. They’re gonna send me in a limo to the airport. Everything’s going to be fine. And eventually, that broke the ice, but that was that was the practical joke they played on me.

David Read
I’m gonna take up the last couple of minutes here because you are the reason that I am here. Did you know that? Darren, will you come up and tell the story?

Peter Williams
In Shaggy’s words, it wasn’t me.

David Read
So, I joined GateWorld in 2004? 2003? And got into this career. He started GateWorld. Let me let him tell the story.

Darren Sumner
Hi. Hi, everybody, I’m Darren from GateWorld. I was, season three of SG-1, I was a sci-fi nerd, I was newly married. My wife is here in the back, she was catching up on Stargate and this little episode came on called Jolinar’s Memories. You remember this one? Apophis was gone! Apophis was dead. And the show was building up a new villain in Sokar, and then, here, at this cliffhanger moment at the end of the episode, Na’onak takes off his mask and it’s Apophis! And I was floored and that was the trigger moment that caused me to walk over to my computer and start a little fan site. And that fan site grew and it grew and this guy joined. And we’ve just had a blast for more than two decades now. Doing Stargate, covering Stargate, meeting fantastic people like Peter, face to face, it’s a real joy. But it was that moment, it was it was that episode it was that writer, that director, and it was the moment that Peter brought to life that started us on this journey. So thank you.

David Read
Thank you.

Peter Williams
So GateWorld had its genesis on the planet Netu?

David Read
Very much so.

Darren Sumner
And I probably owe you money.

Peter Williams
I might collect on that.

David Read
So thank you.

Peter Williams
Oh, pleasure. That’s a great little anecdote. I’m glad I know that now. I think maybe you had hinted at that to me one time before, because we had planned to do this, we really have been planning to do this for quite some time.

David Read
You want him back for more on Dial the Gate? [crowd cheers] I have a couple more questions for the future.

Peter Williams
And I have stories.

David Read
I’d love to have you back.

Peter Williams
It would be my pleasure.

David Read
Thank you so much, everyone. This has been wonderful. I am humbled and honored to be here on the stage and had to bring Darren up, so thank you for that. I wouldn’t be here without him, and we wouldn’t be here without you. So you are… I mean, I loved Cliff — Ba’al will always have a special place. You are the badass that that made Stargate what it is.

Peter Williams
And I know Cliff would forgive me for saying “You’re right.” Just speaking of Cliff, you know, a special memory — I refuse to be morose about Cliff, he wouldn’t have it. But I didn’t ever meet a lot of these guys on Stargate itself, I have gotten to know them most off in the afterlife, so to speak. And Cliff was one of the most special because he was a real, real adventurer. And I would show up in the most remote places and there’d be Cliff on a bike. And he would say, “Let’s go for Thai food.” and I go, “You know, I’m Jamaican, I love my Jamaican spices. The Thai spices are nice, but I just gotta have my Jamaican spices.” He goes, “Dude, you’ve not had Thai food.” And Cliff being a world traveler knew a lot about a lot of things. So you knew if you were going to share an experience with Cliff, you’d be getting the real deal. And lo and behold, Cliff introduced me to so many new things. I won’t waste your time by telling you but, God bless him.

David Read
Thank you all. Thank you again, Peter. This is a treasure and I look forward to more conversations. I think there’s still a lot to say.

Peter Williams
There’s more. There’s more in the can, as they say.

David Read
Everyone [inaudible] to enjoy GateCon. Oh, we got five more minutes? We’re in bonus territory.

Peter Williams
Encore. We need the crowd to go “Encore, encore!”

David Read
Encore! There was some over and over here who had a hand up for the question, right there. If we could get a mic? I’m sorry, Alan, I forget that you come out.

Peter Williams
And Alan runs this show.

David Read
He does.

Audience Member 6
Hi, sorry. Firstly, hail Apophis. Or Na’onak, whichever you prefer.

Peter Williams
No, no, actually, the guy who played Na’onak has going on to superstardom. He’s very good. Good actor.

Audience Member 6
I just wondered, when you were playing Apophis, you’re playing the role of a bad guy. You see a lot from Game of Thrones, the character who played Joffrey got a lot of hate through social media. Did you ever experience anything like that when you were playing Apophis? You just feel fans coming in throwing hate your way, or anything like that?

Peter Williams
Sorry, I’m sorry, the mask has garbled your question a little bit. If it’s possible, maybe just to…

Audience Member 6
I can drop it.

Peter Williams
Thank you.

Audience Member 6
I wondered if in the days of when social media wasn’t as prevalent, whether you received any angry fans because you were Apophis and maybe you’ve killed off someone’s favorite character or you’ve upset a fan or something like that, because I think about the actor who played Joffrey from Game of Thrones and he obviously got a lot of flack on social media and I wonder if you’ve experienced anything similar?

Peter Williams
Well, to tell you the truth. That time I mentioned, when I went to Sydney, Australia because Christopher Judge couldn’t make it, I picked up what might be loosely referred to as a bogey. I shouldn’t be cavalier about it because this was a person with compound mental illness, who decided that I was a perfect target for her. And she made my internet presence very muddy for a period of maybe five or six years, causing me to approach Interpol and the cyber crime units around the world. I wrote, on spec, to five different cyber crime specialists who are based in Brasilia, one of whom was a friend of a police person, a detective in Melbourne, Australia, which is the home of this person that was muddying my internet presence. I contacted him and he said, “Basically, I can’t do anything for you unless you are here.” As serendipity would have it, I got booked to go to Melbourne very shortly thereafter — I’m trying to make this story really quick — I get down there and I call him up. And he goes, “Yep, you need to go through this court process.” So I spent a whole day in court in Melbourne. At the end of the day, the judge looked at me and said, “How long are you here for Mr. Williams?” and I said, “Til next Tuesday” then she slammed her folder shut and said, “I can’t do anything for you unless you’re here for three weeks, because this is a three week process” after I had spent all day in court. So I went back to the policeman and I said, “This is what happened to me.” At that moment, my daughter, who was at university said, “Dad, you got to do something about this,” because this person had now discovered my family and was harassing them. She said, “I just received 100 emails from this person.” And I said, “Stop right there. I’m on the phone with the cops right now. Send me those emails.” She sent them to me. I sent them to the cop and I hear the cop on the other end of the phone. Literally, I’m standing there in this hotel in Melbourne, Australia, and the cop is going “Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Uh huh.” And I go, “Sir, so you see what I’ve been saying. I think it’s about time we lean on this person’s family.” And I kid you not, this was his response. He goes, “Well, mate, leaning is what I do.” And at that moment, I knew I was in. “Leaning is what I do.” He went round to her place and it was like a movie. My picture was all over her walls, on her laptop. I wasn’t the only one I have to say. It was myself, Brad Pitt, Britney Spears and a model in England — her name was Jordan — who had dared to walk the runway pregnant. This girl was… she’s an unfortunate. I had her removed from the internet three times, but she is part of an advocacy group for shut-ins, who got her reinstated on the internet. She’s still out there, but she has cooled off the abuse. But there was a time when you would be Googling my name, my character and you would find some of the nastiest things possible, which were clearly not me because it was clearly written by someone who had issues. It was clearly not me. But people jumped to conclusions that this is someone I had done wrong to on the road or something, you know, had a fling with. But it wasn’t, it was just compound mental illness that I have a little bit of sympathy for, but it went beyond that. I hope that answered your question a little bit. Yeah, it all ended well.

David Read
I don’t want to finish it on that note.

Peter Williams
Okay, sure. Let’s bring it up again, let’s bring it up.

David Read
One more, one more. Yeah.

Audience Member 7
There we go. I was originally going to ask you about the Ancient Egyptian on Serpent’s Song, but you got ahead of me there, unfortunately. So my question is, in regards to returning, did you know if that was in their cards when you originally died, or is that something that they kept back and wanted to return later if they thought it would be useful?

David Read
Was that Brad’s nudge?

Peter Williams
It could have been Brad’s nudge. The short answer is no, I never knew I was coming back but it became so repetitive that I sort of assumed it.

Audience Member 7
A safe bet?

Peter Williams
Yes. Even towards the end, season eight, Christopher Judge writes an episode… I’m in it, right? And then Continuum, I’m in it albeit for a second and a half.

David Read
But what great second and a half!

Peter Williams
Oh, yeah, iconic.

David Read
We were in the theater with the crew. And it was like, “Woo, man, yes”

David Read
Thank you so much, Peter, for joining us.

Peter Williams
That’s when I miss Cliff the most, because we used to re-enact that scene. It took no time, he would just chop my head off on stage and that would be it. It’d bring the house down.

Peter Williams
Thanks, guys, thank you very much.

David Read
And thank you GateCon for this wonderful introduction, reintroduction of us. My name is David Read, and I’ll see you on the other side.