We are delighted to welcome one of the most important actors from the first season of Stargate SG-1 to our show. Harley Jane Kozak carried Sara O’Neill into the small screen and helped set the proper tone for the O’Neill characters into the burgeoning SG-1 canon. She joins us to discuss her career, filming “Cold Lazarus” and answer your questions LIVE!

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Timecodes
00:00 – Splash Scene
00:15 – Opening Credits
00:41 – Welcome and Episode Outline
02:06 – Welcoming Harley and discussing her role as “Sara O’Neill”
07:36 – Becoming a Retro Fan
09:45 – Cold Lazarus
17:58 – The Prime Directive
22:16 – What Would Have Become of Sara
25:21 – Grieving
28:26 – Harley’s Career
35:51 – Harley’s Writing
39:01 – Writing Style
45:20 – A Richard Dean Anderson Story
49:05 – What’s Next
57:16 – The Stargate Cast
1:00:04 – Harley’s Mug and Fiction
1:01:30 – Resemblance to Amanda Tapping
1:03:55 – Working with Beau Bridges
1:07:51 – Photos of Sara and Letters
1:09:15 – Audiobook Work
1:15:42 – Wrapping up with Harley
1:16:33 – Post-Interview Housekeeping
1:17:44 – End Credits

***

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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read
Welcome everyone to Episode 163 of Dial the Gate. My name is David Read. I am really excited about this guest today, Harley Jane Kozak goes back to the beginning of SG-1 in Cold Lazarus. One of the most important episodes of the show, it established so much of what came in the next 340 some odd episodes of the series. But before we get her on to discuss her career and her life, I want you to consider clicking that Like button, it makes a difference with the show’s algorithm and will definitely help YouTube grow our audience. Please also consider sharing this video with a Stargate friend. And if you want to get notified about future episodes, click on the Subscribe icon giving the Bell icon to click will notify you the moment new videos drops. And you’ll get my notifications of any last minute guests changes and clips from this live stream will be released over the course of the next few weeks on the Dial the Gate and GateWorld.net YouTube channels. As this is a live show Harley is with us right now. And so if you are in the YouTube chat, you can submit questions to her and my moderating team will go ahead and add those to a document that we’re watching and we’ll get those over to her in the second half of the show. But without further ado, Harley Jane Kozak, Sara O’Neill in Stargate SG-1 and award winning author and also audio producer as of book content as well. Narrator, where’s the word? I’ve got the word up here somewhere. How are you?

Harley Jane Kozak
I’m great, David. Thank you for having me. Here. I am so excited.

David Read
I’m so excited to have you. I have been a fan of yours for years now. And you know, it was just when you said, “Yes,” I was like, “Oh, man, this one’s gonna be great”. Do you know how important your role is in this one episode of the show to so much that that came later?

Harley Jane Kozak
You know, I think I’m more aware of it now that I have written books myself. And also, that I’ve had children myself, because we’re talking an episode that goes back, is it 25 years?

David Read
Yes, exactly.

Harley Jane Kozak
My math is not my strong suit. But that’s a long time ago. And also, I have to admit, and I’m sorry if this offends anybody, but I wasn’t really aware of Stargate for I was hired. And I don’t remember many of the circumstances that led up to it. I think I had worked maybe for Jonathan Glasner on something. And I think that’s how I got the job. I don’t remember auditioning. I think maybe they just called my agent. I just don’t remember. But I remember that suddenly I was in Vancouver, which is a great city and I’ve worked there, you know, several times. And I remember meeting Richard Dean Anderson, which was thrilling, even though I wasn’t like a fan. But he was delightful of course, he was famous enough that even if you didn’t know his work, you knew him. Right? And everybody was extremely nice. And I’m not sure but I think I might have filmed all of that in one day.

David Read
Really? Wow.

Harley Jane Kozak
Not sure about that.

David Read
It’s been it was pretty it was quick.

Harley Jane Kozak
It was compressed. Maybe I’m wrong about that maybe it was like two days so you know as you know, you film things according to the location typically so I remember filming the outside our house, you know Sara and Jack’s house and then and then the hospital might have been a different but anyway, it was very compressed was very short. I had a lovely time. And then I went home. And I think when the episode aired on TV for the first time I was working on a sitcom that was just driving everybody crazy. It was a lot of CGI and a lot of special effects. And we were just working around the clock. And I don’t think I saw it on real TV. Plus, I was about to get married. So I had a lot going on. And so I don’t know at what point I saw the episode, which is crazy. And then I remember, here’s what I do remember. It was so sad. Reading that script I was crying. I was crying so much and then, of course, when you’re filming, you’re hoping to be able to cry when you’re supposed to cry. And I remember thinking, “Oh, I didn’t cry enough.” But now here’s the funny thing. So I was watching it last night, right? And I was crying so much. My daughter said, “What is up with you?” I said, “I’m watching this episode.” Anyway. Um, I think in retrospect, I think Sara cried enough. You know, I think the shock of seeing her little nine year old boy was so intense that there’s times that the tears are your first response. I think it was perfectly fine. And it was the most moving episode. And just, you know, Richard Dean Anderson working with himself, as both aspects of himself was so beautiful. And then of course, I had to go back and watch the first episode, I guess the pilot, which I think was maybe a two hour pilot, it was a long two. Anyway, I was up really late watching Stargate never having, and I thought, how could I not be a fan of this show? I’m crazy about Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Wars. Like I love sci fi. How did I not see this show? What I love most about sci fi and, well, a lot of other genres as well, is that team atmosphere. Like I love a story about a team. And that was so beautiful, beautiful, the origin story of how the team came together. And honestly, I think I’m going to be a retroactive fan of the series. I think I’m going to watch the whole thing.

David Read
I think, I’ve been going through your website here and we’ll pull it up, HarleyJaneKozak.com. You have your interests posted about two thirds of the way down. And I was honestly going, “Why isn’t Stargate on here?” And it was I think, because, I mean, I’m looking at Obi Wan Kenobi, I’m looking Buffy, you know, and it’s like, “I can’t wait to talk to her about this show because I think she’ll love it.” You know, and I really I have friends who are just watching it now, having watched me do this, and they’re like, oh, yeah, I get it. You know, it’s like, I just didn’t, I just didn’t know about it before, you know, and you’re in the thick of it. You’re working on this stuff. You know, you don’t have time to sit down and watch it. So I get it.

Harley Jane Kozak
But I discovered Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you know, years after the fact. But I remember when I was doing a sitcom that was in 1997 when Stargate I guess premiered, right? And my daughter on the show who was this little, I don’t know, 13-year-old let’s say. She was saying, “Do you watch Buffy?” And I said, What is Buffy?” This kid said, “You got to watch Buffy.” And then as I went through my life and the ensuing, you know, next 10 or 15 years so many people that I really respected as artists were closet Buffy fans because they had kids that got them watching Buffy. And I finally thought, “Okay, I gotta see what this is about.” Well, now I feel that way and I watched all seven seasons, all the way through. I have three kids who think, they’re not sci fi fans. They, you know, I have to go to Marvel movies by myself. I try. I really I did my best but I raised them wrong because none of them are fans of this. And they roll their eyes and, “Oh, there she is watching Buffy again and crying.” So now I can see that that’s going to happen now with Stargate.

Harley Jane Kozak
Right? He says things that are odd. But then, but I don’t stop to pursue him because just the emotional reality of him there, after all this time, and all the stuff that’s gone on sort of overwhelms everything else. Except for those moments of “Wait, what?”

David Read
It’s a great, go back to the movie first, I would. Your story begins in the film, your story, Sara’s story, because the opening shot of the O’Neill’s in their house as she’s standing by the window and the Air Force is coming in to reactivate him to send him on his first mission. And the kid’s death is fresh, and he’s literally in the kid’s bedroom holding the gun in his hand, contemplating killing himself. And that’s what you guys picked up from in the movie. We’re obviously a year later, you know, she’s dealt, I’m sure dealt with the a huge bulk of this grief and is beginning to move on. Her dad’s there with her fixing, the fixing the vehicle, you know? And then Jack just shows up, you know, out of the blue and asks about his son, and your reaction is perfect. It’s like, “What do you mean? Where do you expect Charlie to be?” having no idea that he’s an alien.

David Read
Right, exactly what the heck is happening here? I’m delighted that you love it.

Harley Jane Kozak
I can’t believe it. And I only knew, I guess I only remembered my part of it. Well, because I didn’t, I wasn’t watching the show. Of course, the show hadn’t been, hadn’t premiered yet. So all I really got was episode six. Like that was the script I had when I was acting in it. And whatever I knew about what happened earlier. It’s like reading a summary of things, something. It’s not the same. So you read and you go, “Okay, and spaceship and whatever and aliens, whatever, whatever.” All I really cared about was my emotional reality as this woman who lost her little boy, and whose husband then couldn’t deal with it, you know, like taciturn Irish guy takes off.

David Read
Actually she divorced him.

Harley Jane Kozak
Okay.

Harley Jane Kozak
Oh, but you know, but still and then also…

David Read
Yeah. But still.

David Read
And they divorced each other. But she left. Yeah.

Harley Jane Kozak
Okay, but it says they’re separated, like, somebody says but they’re separated. Also, I should have gone back. Was she wearing her wedding ring still?

David Read
I don’t I didn’t look for that detail.

Harley Jane Kozak
There is a shot somewhere.

David Read
But it wouldn’t surprise me.

Harley Jane Kozak
I saw a flash of something and I thought that’s an interesting choice. Why would I still have a wedding ring on and then I thought, well, maybe we’re just separated, not divorced. But oh, sorry, was…

David Read
No, you’re fine.

Harley Jane Kozak
Noise. Okay. All right.

David Read
Welcome to my, welcome to my world. There’s noises.

Harley Jane Kozak
Okay, so um, but okay, thank you. This makes sense. Now I’m, because as I was watching last night, and I was so taken up with everybody else’s stuff in the episode, not just you know, my story, which is a very actor-like response. Where’s my line? Where’s my scene? But I was so taken in by the other characters and what they were doing and then trying to think, “Well wait, what is, what’s up with this guy?” And I’m sure when I was on the set, I was, things were explained to me in great depth. Like, okay, here’s the story. This is your husband, you haven’t seen him in a year, but he’s an alien. But then later in the episode, it’s the real guy. And you’re not really coming to grips with the fact that he’s an alien but he’s saying if you, you know, they must have filled me in a lot, right?

David Read
I don’t know, maybe it would have been better to leave you clueless. I mean, because she doesn’t have access to this information.

Harley Jane Kozak
That’s right. But they would have said, “Where’s Charlie?” That’s weird.

David Read
Yeah, that’s true.

Harley Jane Kozak
And he says this, that’s weird. So because, you know, you could see it in in Sarah’s reactions, like, just those little moments of, okay, I don’t know what that’s about. But let’s…

David Read
Right.

Harley Jane Kozak
Get back to the, you know, stay on point here. There was so much that they wrote into that. It was really compelling, and very moving. And then it got me so curious, like well, what is up with these people and what’s the story? And how is it that there’s a doppelganger or a double of himself an avatar?

Harley Jane Kozak
And then how does my son just metamorphose out of, like, what’s up with that? The only thing that I found if I were to do it now, I would have raised my hand and said, “Okay, somebody explain this to me, because this doesn’t make sense.” If a mother or loses a nine-year-old child. And the child miraculously appears in front of her, like a 3D. Like she can actually touch his hand. I don’t care how much she loves her husband, and how compelling that relationship is. I don’t think she would take her eyes off that child until they take him away, even knowing that he’s not real. Even knowing that I think the, the grief and the longing for someone who’s dead is, to me that overpowers every other response. And so in the, like you know, I take my, like, I have a really, you know, a moment with him. But then I turn my focus back to Jack. And it’s all about the two of us. That was the only thing that I thought, I’m not sure but I think I would have stared at that child until he disappeared.

David Read
Exactly right.

David Read
Yeah. And what mothers would have let him disappear. Yeah, you know, at the same time, it’s like, some people. I mean, you so you say he’s not real. Okay. Let’s, you’re asking me to take this on faith. He’s right here in front of me. You know, he’s been gone for a year. He sounds and smells and looks like him. I’m not leaving.

Harley Jane Kozak
And why can’t I hug him?

David Read
Why can’t I hug him? Yeah. Yeah, that’s Oh, gosh.

Harley Jane Kozak
I would not, I would not be holding my child’s hand. You know how you are your kids been gone for, you know, to summer camp for a few weeks.

David Read
Were you a parent at that point?

Harley Jane Kozak
No. No.

David Read
So so having since been? Yeah. Likely informed like, your eyeline and like everything. Wow.

Harley Jane Kozak
Yeah. So I’m curious as to whether I made that choice or whether that was a directorial choice. And it could, I mean, let’s be real. Richard’s the star of the show. So, you know, as a writer, and as you know, you focus everything toward the, like, he’s the one that the audience needs to follow. Not the little boy, who’s an alien. And not me, who’s never going to show up again. It’s Richard, so everything needs to be, you know,

David Read
Centered on him for sure.

Harley Jane Kozak
I understand that as a, you know, being in the TV world, but just as an emotional reality, I would take, I would second guessed that choice. On my part, yeah.

David Read
Such a big component of this show is the duality of the world in which these these paramilitary officers and enlisted live, and they have to balance their life on base with the knowledge that there is a portal to other worlds and an active alien threat, knocking on our door, against people who are going about their daily lives, in their daily loops. You know, getting up getting coffee, going to work, coming home, seeing their kids and going to bed and…

Harley Jane Kozak
And fixing their car.

David Read
And fixing their car. You know, this is important. And our experience was Sara was one of the first times that we saw outside of the base is very early on in the show. And to be frank, it only gets better. When we’re dealing with you know, I have to be off world at, you know, 0900 but my father has cancer. And I have to get back and see it. Those are elements that come into play later on in the series. And they work so well together. Because what if you just stumble across a piece of alien technology, or something that can cure that parent of that cancer? Like, what do we do with this? Do my own personal interests come into play here? You know, what am I willing to sacrifice? For my own personal, I mean, that’s not exactly what happens there. But yeah, you’re dealing with those questions as we watch the show, while they’re trying to have some semblance of a normal life and deal with extraordinary situations. It’s one of the best aspects of the show for taking place in the here and now because it’s completely relatable. Can you…

Harley Jane Kozak
Is there, can I ask? And pardon me for asking Stargate questions, but is there kind of a Prime Directive like there is with Star Trek?

Harley Jane Kozak
Well, that’s also a key difference between Star Trek, for instance, and Stargate because Stargate took place in contemporary times, where as Star Trek was in the future.

David Read
That’s a great question because when we’re going through the Gate, we are visiting advance, a couple of advanced, there’s a story reason why there aren’t a lot of advanced races. But we are basically going through and monkeying with with other cultures in terms of what they believe. We are as far away from Prime Directive pretty much as you can go. Because we are going out there to interfere to free people from false gods. So yeah, that’s a very good, that’s a very valid question. And it creates its own problems as a result, there are planets that are nuked as a result of us visiting them, you know? There’s one later on in the show where two warring nations find out that there are aliens and one of them controls the Stargate. Can you imagine how the others feel not having access to that technology, and they go to war? You know, that’s what’s so brilliant about the show.

David Read
An idealized humanity. We get to see how we deal with these things.

Harley Jane Kozak
Yes. So Stargate was more like contemporary, what we understand about the military, including soldiers have to be deployed somewhere and they can’t go home necessarily, just because their father’s dying of cancer.

David Read
Right, exactly right. And guess what, I mean, you can imagine what happens when other nations find out that we have access to this technology, and they don’t. So the geopolitical machinations are, are ridiculous. And we have to lean on our extraterrestrial allies a little bit to, you know, help reinforce the point that the show, that the Gate is where it probably should be. It’s crazy. I mean, there’s, start with SG-1 and I will reach out to you and see how you…

Harley Jane Kozak
Yeah. No, I’ve got to go back to the movie.

David Read
Yes, yeah. Because you will get it. I’m interested in hearing your perspective on this episode, after you see the film and those two shots in the house where the parents are still dealing with this trauma. And he’s got to go off on this suicide mission.

Harley Jane Kozak
Who plays Sarah in the movie?

David Read
Let’s find out.

Harley Jane Kozak
Does she have scenes or is it mostly…

David Read
It’s one shot? She’s long, it’s longer blonde hair? She’s a smoker. Both of them quit smoking, I assume, Jack definitely did. Stargate the movie, yeah, she’s in one scene and she was played by Cecil Hoffman. Are you aware of her?

Harley Jane Kozak
A Hoffman?

David Read
What else has she done Strong Medicine, Providence, ER, Picket Fences, LA Law. So, she hasn’t been anything since 2001.

Harley Jane Kozak
I did know a Cecil Hoffman and she was a contemporary of mine. I can see her face in my mind’s eye. Yeah. Yeah.

David Read
Yeah, it was she’s in it for a blink. And yeah, that’s it, but it’s enough to establish the characters on their journey. And everything, it’s one of my regrets about the shows that we never saw Sara, again, I would have loved to have come back to that character to have at least seen her happy, you know, to have her cut, not I mean, saying move on. That’s that’s such a horrible thing that you don’t move on from the death of a child. But, you know, at least you’re happy. And we have to imagine that she did that. That you know, there was…

Harley Jane Kozak
Yeah. But to your point, I think that’s a really important thing that theater can do for us that, you know, storytelling can do for us is to reassure people who are going through the death of a child that no, of course, you’re never going to forget the child. No, of course, you’re never going to stop dreaming about them and having moments of what if, what if, what if, but you will be happy again, you will be as happy as you were before the death of your child. It’ll be different, but you are capable of the same, you know, heights of happiness.

David Read
You deserve to experience joy.

Harley Jane Kozak
Yes. You don’t have to bury yourself along with your child.

David Read
Yeah. Yeah, that’s a tough thing for a lot of people. You know, I imagine this for anyone who has suffered, the loss of a child has to be the tough thing for anyone to watch. Or because we can all say, “Well, you know, no, you don’t have to do X, Y or Z.” Like for instance, that’s great, don’t bury yourself along with your child. But for, I mean, it’s one thing to say it…

Harley Jane Kozak
Except you will for a time. You will and who knows how long that will be? It’ll be different for everybody, but there will come a day when the grief will ease and you will be able to remember your child without that stabbing pain in your heart or that big hole in your stomach.

David Read
Especially if your child was happy. You know, and and developing happily. Have you seen The Deep End of the Ocean?

Harley Jane Kozak
No, but…

David Read
Michelle Pfeiffer, Treat Williams?

Harley Jane Kozak
No, I think I read the book.

David Read
It’s a good movie, too. The parallels are very similar in terms of the the arc of the grief.

Harley Jane Kozak
You know it’s hard for me to watch or read, and when my children were little I could not watch anything that was a thriller that involved a lost, kidnapped, stolen or murdered child. And that, and I thought, man, like, that’s a lot of literature that I can’t read anymore. But when my kids got older, I was, then it started to come back. And in fact, I narrated an audio book that was about a death of a little girl, like a pretty brutal murder. Wow. And so I regained that ability to watch that. But, um, you know, as I was watching last night, I realized, wait a minute, I’ve done at least three or four, I have played that mother who’s grieving. And like, I remember really well, the, the effects of that. And I think that I think that bled into my real life, because I used to have real, well I guess every parent does, it is every parent’s nightmare. But it would really, really distress me to think of anything happening to my children. And yeah, and then I realized, wait a minute, I’ve played that role several times on screen or on stage. So. Yikes.

David Read
It’s intense stuff. Yeah. And I think it’s one of the reasons why Cold Lazarus hits so hard because as a part of the canon of the show it enables Jack to move forward with his story. Because Rick wasn’t going to play Kurt Russell from the movie, you know, he’s off the wall, he has to have humor. So he had to find a way to adapt that. This episode dealt with one of the reasons why he’s so off the wall. Because as fans, we know that he’s now going to have to suppress a lot of that self loathing and move on from it in his own way. So, and it’s a great coda to the film. And it launches him into a new headspace for the show, because now he has a group of three people who love him more than life itself. And will go through that Gate to whatever come — come what may. So, what a treat. You’re in for a real treat. Tell us about how you came to, I want to get to your writing particularly. Tell us about how you came to acting. Who are your heroes? Who opened these doors for you?

Harley Jane Kozak
Well, I was, I’m the youngest of eight kids. My father died when I was a baby. So my mother raised us and she was a music teacher. And we ended up at a, her first job after my dad died was at a small college in North Dakota. And she was on the music faculty. And so the there was a college opera production called, an opera called Dido and Aeneas and my mother played the sorceress, like the bad person, and they needed some angels and I was recruited from kindergarten to be an angel. That experience of being on a brightly lit stage and the house lights were at, like I hadn’t, I think we had one rehearsal in an afternoon. My mind was blown and I got to wear red lipstick and a white angel gown. And it was so thrilling, scary, dramatic that I think it was, you know, that set me on the road to destiny from that moment. I mean, I wanted to be other things a painter, a veterinarian, but probably from age 10 or so I thought no I really want to be an actor. So I was pretty single minded about it. And I grew up mostly in Nebraska, my mother’s job following the North Dakota gig. And when I was 19, I moved to New York, I went to the School of the Arts at NYU, which is now Tisch School of the Arts. And I was, I spent about nine years in New York City, and then got a job in LA, moved to LA, and I’ve been here ever since. I came here for work. I didn’t mean to live here, but here I am.

David Read
Wow. Has it been fulfilling?

Harley Jane Kozak
Years later? So…

David Read
Has it been as fulfilling as you’d hoped?

Harley Jane Kozak
Yes, yes, it was. And, you know, one of the funny thing is, well, when I was approaching age 40, I’d always loved writing. And I always knew this was like a side by side passion of mine. But I always thought I was a writer in service to my acting career. And I started to take a class at some point, I’d written a bunch of things like a play and, you know, a novel that never, that I never finished, and a screenplay that I never finished, and a musical that I never finished. But it was just sort of a thing I did on the side. And then I took a class in it, my teacher was so encouraging. And he published two of my essays in the Santa Monica Journal, which was a quarterly through Santa Monica College. And it was so thrilling, and I loved being in a place where I was judged just on the quality of my words, I didn’t have to worry about how I looked, what I was wearing, if I was too fat, if my skin was bad, if my nails weren’t, you know, like all the Hollywood, like, man, you gotta be camera ready all the time. And nobody cared about that. And I, it was really thrilling to me. And I was approaching 40. And the roles were getting less interesting. I was playing the mom a lot, and I just sort of gradually realized, “I think I’m a writer.” And then I got married, I had three children, like in my 40s. So that was late, and boom, boom, boom. And then I was doing a series when I was pregnant with my first child. And they didn’t want the character pregnant so they replaced me. Oh, I thought, “Oh, but, but I’ve never been fired.” Anyway, it all worked out fine. I was married to a litigator so he pointed out to them that we were already into production, and it was pay or play. So they they paid me ultimately, to go home and finish my novel and have my baby. And so it all worked out fine. And I just thought it’s a sign. And so I raised my kids pretty much without acting. I mean, I did a few odd things here and there and like a, you know, waiving my salary to do this little film or an educational something or other. But mostly I was at home and I was, I had a four book deal with Double Day. And I was really happy and I didn’t know if I would ever go back to acting. And then I did, like, one day I woke up my kids were in middle school, I thought, “Oh, I could actually go to auditions and things.” So I’ve been doing that. And then a few years ago, I realized that I had spent 13 years as a volunteer at the Braille Institute, narrating books on tape back in the olden days, for free, and then I remembered, wait a minute, but then my agent called up and said, “Hey, I know you do this volunteer thing. Would you be interested in narrating a whole book?” It was, you know, Books on Tape. This is back in the 90s. And I went, “Yeah.” And I narrated one, and it won an Audie Award, which was so brand new I didn’t know what that was. And nobody did. Well, now. It’s a really big deal. So anyway, a few years ago, I thought, I wonder if I could revive that career. And of course, the entire landscape has changed in 25 years, but I sort of figured it out and I have a little recording booth in my closet upstairs.

David Read
The best space. It’s the best spot there’s, no sound can get out around your clothes.

Harley Jane Kozak
It’s great.

David Read
So what won the Audie Award, which story?

Harley Jane Kozak
It was a category that no longer exists. It was a book called Honky Tonk Kat and the author was Karen Kijewski, and I don’t think it’s available anymore. I have it, I have it on little cassette tape. It was an abridged audio book, which was its own category. So the category of abridged audio book I don’t think exists anymore. And it wasn’t my narration that won the Audie, but the book itself did, including my narration. So I claim it on my website. And, but you got to like, search back in the archives to find, yeah, but anyway.

David Read
Tell us about, is the Wollie series the four book epic from Doubleday? Tell us a little bit about that.

Harley Jane Kozak
So this was, she’s a, she’s an amateur detective, which has an illustrious tradition, along the lines of Miss Marple was probably the earliest most famous amateur detective. She’s a greeting card artist, she lives in LA and she just, you know, falls into murder scenarios, and she is not equipped for it. She doesn’t have any physical courage. She doesn’t have any particular skills in solving mysteries. She’s sort of a hapless amateur detective. So I wrote four books in that series the first one called Dating Dead Men. Oh, that’s the other thing she’s always dating in some strange. yeah, that’s what my editor loved the most about the first book. She said, “So we need her dating and the next three books.” And I said, “But she ends up with somebody at the end of book one.” And she goes, “Well, you got to figure out how to undo that because that’s what I love about this series, because she’s like the serial dater.” Back when Bridget Jones diary was kind of a big deal. So, yeah, so anyway Double Day eventually, kind of went out of business and then I wrote a paranormal book that was for a Harlequin, a division of Harlequin that deals in paranormal romance. So it was about shapeshifters and vampires.

David Read
Is that Keeper of the Moon?

Harley Jane Kozak
Yeah, yeah. And I was asked to write that and so that was really fun. And then I’ve written a bunch of short stories, and yeah, essays. And for actually, for things kind of like this, where my acting career was on somebody’s radar and they asked me to contribute to an anthology, for instance, a horror movie that I did, way back, became sort of a camp cult classic and they asked me to write about that. So you know, so there’s a lot of overlap in my acting and writing career. But anyway, so now I’m writing my sixth novel, which I’ve been writing for forever because, again, it’s on spec. So when there’s no deadline, I am just like a rambling writer, way over written and, yeah.

David Read
What can you tease it for us a little bit?

Harley Jane Kozak
It’s called My Fabulous Divorce and it’s not a murder mystery. It’s the only book I’m writing that has, I won’t say there’s no dead bodies in it, but it’s not really a murder mystery.

David Read
Okay. What is it about that genre that keeps you interested? Because it, you can be passive and reading it, but it’s not nearly as fun, you know. And it’s one of those that ideally, you can share with someone else while you’re going through it to dissect it and discuss it because the author is layering clues along the way for people who are, I mean I would gather that you are, for people who are looking for them.

Harley Jane Kozak
Oh, well, for me, the way that I write, there’s typically two kinds of novelists. There’s the ones who plot everything first and then write according the plot that they, like, you know that they figured out. And then there’s the other kind who are the non-plotters we call them colloquially, “pantsers.” Short for by the seat of your pants where you just get an idea you start writing and that’s me. I get an idea and I think, “Oh, as soon as I can write chapter one, and I start writing, I’m happy.” The problem is that I go on a lot of tangents and a lot of, and so typically I have to write a very long first draft. Then I have to go back, figure out by the end of it, who did it, and then go back and make sure that I’m giving the audience a fighting chance to figure out themselves who did it. So at the end, I might say, you know, “Oh, the butler did it.” And then I have to make sure that the audience was introduced to the butler pretty early on, there’s a lot of, you know, it’s a formula. So there’s a lot of tropes, there’s a lot of, you know, traditions and playing fair with the audience. You got to give them all the clues that they need, if they’re smart, and yet, not too many, because you don’t want people saying, and this is where other writers become really useful. And I have a lot of writer friends, and we do this for each other. So we’ll read and we’ll go, “I knew by chapter three who it was.” Or say, “Wait a minute, I got to the end, you told me who done it. Who is this person? I don’t even remember meeting them in the story.” And a writer loses that perspective pretty fast. So that’s why other readers are really, really necessary.

David Read
Absolutely. This pantsers, that’s terrific. There’s a Stargate writer, novelist by the name of Sabine Bauer and she writes exactly the same way, these complex stories when you’re looking at them on the face. And I’m surprised when I asked her I was like, “You didn’t know where this was going?” She’s like, “No.” I would be terrified of painting myself into a corner and be forcing to scrap it and start over. Terrified if I didn’t plot. When I write I always plot. But what an adventure the other way is.

Harley Jane Kozak
I tried, I tried to turn myself into a plotter. And sometimes you’re forced to because you might have an editor or publisher who says, “I need an outline.” So then you got to come up with an outline. Now, typically, they won’t try to match your finished manuscript, eight months later with the outline. But you still have to force a story into like, three double-spaced pages or whatever. Right? So.

David Read
Yeah, they want to be sure that you’re not gonna get stuck and not deliver them. Well, I guess that’s a part of the product, but they also want to see what the products gonna look like too, like an idea of it. So, man that’s tricky.

Harley Jane Kozak
It’s so tricky. But the other thing is, I really, every time, there’s so many moments, I’m sure you see this too, right? In your work, where you go, “How the heck am I going to get like, I know where I start from, it’s not how do I get from A to Z. But how do I get from Q to Z or even W to Z?” It’s those moments of “Oh, no, no, how do I…” And then you’re in the shower, or out for a run and suddenly, it’s like the skies are opening in the Hallelujah Chorus because you figured out the solution to some really tricky thing.

David Read
Stephen King talks about going through the same thing with The Stand, where he realized that he was in a rut with the characters once they made it to Colorado, and his solution was to blow up half of his characters. You know? And it’s just like, you have to sometimes you have to kill your darlings.

Harley Jane Kozak
Well, I have discovered in every murder mystery that I’ve written, which is only five.

David Read
Oh, only five folks. Only. Oh, come on.

Harley Jane Kozak
That’s, as you know, well, like compared to Stephen King was right, you know, whatever — 300. But I’ve discovered that somewhere around page 200 I’m at that point where it’s the long slog, and the only way to inject some energy is to kill somebody that I didn’t expect to kill. Every single book it happens. The problem with what I’m writing now is it’s not a murder mystery. So it’s a genre with fewer rules. And how do you, what do you do if you can’t just kill somebody? It’s a, yeah, it’s a literary problem, which is why it’s taken me all this time,

David Read
Is there a plot twist generator out there online? You can just flip it and it says antagonists declares their love for some or some, you know, whatever. And it’s hilarious. But yeah, you have to work your way through it. And that’s yeah, writer’s block and everything else goes all goes along with that. It’s like, “Okay, do we have to? I know where we’re going. But at this point, we have to shake this up.” Yeah.

Harley Jane Kozak
I have a Richard Dean Anderson story for you.

David Read
Please.

Harley Jane Kozak
Okay. So I’m sure I just set it up badly. But, so the year would have been, let’s say, 2006. Okay. And I’m married. I have three little kids and I’m living in Topanga Canyon in California. And my daughter goes to a school called Viewpoint and they have these assemblies every week. And I’m new because she’s just a kindergartener, right. So I don’t know the culture, I don’t know. But I go to the first assembly. And I’m sitting there trying to, you know, I’m squinting trying to see her. So it’s this little girl, this was the picture when she was a kindergartener. So anyway. So I’m sitting there and there’s this guy next to me, he’s got this full on, now, this is just before everybody and their dog has a camera on their iPhone, right? So he’s got the full on big camera and the lenses and he’s like, just really taken up his space, to take an exact picture of whatever he’s, you know, whatever kid he is. So anyway, he sits down, and I turned to him and I say, ‘Which one is your daughter? This is my first assembly.” And he looks and he goes, “Oh, which one’s your kid?” He goes, “Mine’s that one.” And she’s, I guess she was in first or second grade or something. And I said, “Mine’s a kindergartener. And she’s like, you know, the third from the…” Yeah. And I said, I stuck out my hand. I said, “My name is Harley.” And he said, “Harley I know, I was married to you.” “Oh, my God.” I said, “Richard, how are you doing?” He said, “Great. How are you doing?” We hugged each other and we filled each other in. We hadn’t seen each other since that day in Vancouver back in 1997.

David Read
What a small world. Did he did he see you in the riser? Did he deliberately sit next to you? Or was that an accident?

Harley Jane Kozak
We were completely like, you know, like, kid like, parallel play, like completely oblivious. He was just the guy next to me. I was like, “Who is this guy? He’s got this big camera set up like, wow.”

David Read
And your daughter and Wylie went to the same school? Isn’t that something?

Harley Jane Kozak
But Wylie would have been a year or two or three older. Yeah.

David Read
That’s great.

Harley Jane Kozak
My daughter was born in 2000. So anyway, so he said, you know, we like “What are you doing these days?” He said, “I don’t act much anymore. I just, I do this.” And I went, “I don’t act much anymore either. I’ve got two, I’ve got twins, who are in preschool and then Audrey, who’s there. And I sit and I write novels now.” It was so interesting, like, wow, we both kind of got out.

David Read
Right? You don’t have to be in one fixed thing throughout your life. You know, you can dabble here and there. And that’s okay.

Harley Jane Kozak
It was a revelation to me. I seriously never thought until I was about in my late 30s that I would ever do something other than be an actor and like live and die on stage. And, yeah.

David Read
What’s next? What do you think is next? I mean, I assume grandchildren, you know, at some point here.

Harley Jane Kozak
Well, Audrey, that little girl just graduated from UCLA. All right, my twins are just 20. So…

David Read
Maybe a little while.

Harley Jane Kozak
Yeah, I mean, I’m kind of hoping it’s a little while. I was glad they all got through high school without making me a grandmother. And, yeah no, they’re just three really interesting and wonderful kids but I don’t see any of them about to get married and have kids yet, so. But, I really do believe I’m a writer. I’m a novelist at heart and acting figures into most of my novels. And I feel like, if I never act again, that’ll be okay. But if I never wrote again, that would not be okay with me. So. So my big plan is to, yeah, is to finish this novel because I already have figured out like, enough to start the next one, number seven. But I gotta finish this one first because otherwise it’s just like the big unfinished. It’s just taking up so much psychic weight in my headspace. Yeah, yeah, yes, yes.

David Read
There is something extraordinary. It hasn’t happened to me in a long time. About you form an idea for a scene in your head. And I don’t know if this is with you, but it is with me. I’ve got to drop everything and get my laptop out and vomit it into Microsoft Word. And I’ll sit there for two or three hours and then it’s there. It’s like this realized thing that could not stay in here anymore. And I’ve got to get it out, you know, because it’s all there. “Oh, shoot, I’ve got to get this thing out, right?.” It’s all in, I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep it in this shape for long, you know, because it’s not, it’s a flexible material in your mind. And then when it’s on paper, or in the computer, it’s concrete. And you want it to be exactly right.

Harley Jane Kozak
Yes, yeah. Don’t you think, David that sometimes you are channeling?

David Read
Yeah. Yeah, this isn’t entirely me.

Harley Jane Kozak
Yeah. Some people claim to literally be channeling from other spirits. Yeah. Well, it’s not that I don’t believe in other spirits and channeled writing. But don’t you think that we all do it to some degree? I mean, no, we don’t always do it. Obviously, if you have an assignment, you got to write…

David Read
Yeah, it’s you got to split that out. I wake up in the middle of the night, and my subconscious has been dancing with something. And I pull it out, that piece of it, because I recall that and I’m like, “Why have my, why has my brain been there? Why?” You know it’s connecting, it’s interfacing with something else, plugging into something else. And I think that that’s where a lot of, of our creativity comes from, because when we’re turned off, we’re just free, you know, and then we come back and it’s like, “Okay, I gotta go get some coffee and start my task and get in my life loops, you know, so that i can bring home the bacon.” But when you plug in an do it…

David Read
It’s a perfect [inaudible] for Stargate.

David Read
Yeah! Yeah. But when you plug in and you do a story, and you’re chewing on that scene, and those characters, you’re not making the characters talk, those characters are talking. They are their own self contained entities. And you can’t stand in their way. Or they’ll push you out of their way.

Harley Jane Kozak
Oh, yeah. And there’s, yeah, and it is terrifying to think, “Oh, my God, I’m gonna lose this.”

David Read
Right, because you can lose it. You can come to a grinding halt and it’s like, I don’t, I can’t remember where my end is, or my endpoint in this line of thought is and it’s not, I can’t manifest it as good as it was in here. That’s, it’s crazy to experience. But what a high, I completely understand where you’re coming from.

Harley Jane Kozak
So I was asked to contribute to an anthology of short stories that were Sherlockian. So inspired by the works of Arthur Conan Doyle who wrote Sherlock Holmes, right? And so I realized, “Okay, I gotta start writing. I gotta start writing.” But I don’t know what my entry point, what’s my gimmick. who’s my, like, it was too broad. It wasn’t specific. And I thought, I’ve gotta start because I’m a really slow writer. And one day I woke up, and a voice my head said, “This is the first line of the short story, write it down.” And so I wrote it down, went back to sleep, woke up, looked at it and went — what?

David Read
Where did this come from?

Harley Jane Kozak
And the sentence was, “It’s not every day that you come home to find your cat has turned into a dog.”

David Read
What did you do?

Harley Jane Kozak
“What? What?” Well, I thought, “Who am I to argue with that voice that wakes you out of a dead sleep and says write this down.” So I thought, all right, well, that’s my starting point. It’s not every day you come home to discover your cat has turned into a dog. So I wrote that down and I just thought it’s like a game. It’s like a writing prompt. It’s like an exercise in a creative writing class. Like here’s the prompt,

David Read
Figure yourself out of it. Yeah.

Harley Jane Kozak
So I thought all right, well, this is inspired by Sherlock Holmes. So it’s coming home. I’m in London. And it’s not an apartment, it’s a flat. And what’s my character doing there? Is she British? No, she’s an American visiting London but why? And how did the dog turned into a cat? And you know what? Or how did the cat turn into a dog? And a story started to evolve from that. Now, I will say it’s the closest I’ve ever come to emailing my editor and saying, “I gotta give the advance back. I’m not happy with this story.” But you know what? A friend of mine a writer friend said, “No, no, it’s fine, it’s fine. Send it in.” And it ended up not just being in the anthology, but being added to something called Best American Mystery Stories of 2019. So that was very exciting.

David Read
What’s the title? I want to read it?

Harley Jane Kozak
Oh, it’s called the Walk-in.

David Read
The Walk-in. I was going to ask you, was there an actual like, transformation or was there like a switch out of the pets? And it’s like, no, I’m going to read this and find out for myself. So this is great. The Walk-in Harley…

Harley Jane Kozak
That became the central mystery was how the heck Is a cat going to turn into a dog?

David Read
Right? Is it an actual like transmutation or has someone switched your pets or? Yeah.

Harley Jane Kozak
Is it the world as we know it? Or is it something paranormal or extraterrestrial? So anyway, I’ll let you.

David Read
Yeah, that’s great. Because the sentence is inert enough by itself that you can take it, she could just be like trivial saying, “Well, my pets, my pets changed, like, what’s really going on?” That’s cool. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. For the Sake of the Game.

Harley Jane Kozak
That was the original anthology For the Sake of the Game. And then also Best American Mystery Stories or Best American. There’s a series where they, every year they look at various genres of stories, and…

David Read
All right, yeah. All right. That’s great. I have some fan questions for you. More time? This is this has been so cool. I love chatting with a fellow writer. Lockwatcher wanted to know, “You were on only one episode of the show. How were you received?” You talked a little bit about this, how were you received on the show by the other actors that you had a chance to interact with you were with the whole group, and that one scene at the hospital.

Harley Jane Kozak
Super nice people. Super nice. And even though I mean, as you know, even if you’re just in a small scene, you tend to still you meet each other at maybe the table read, in hair and makeup, at your costume, anyway, they could not have been nicer. And it’s not easy to walk into somebody else’s show. So I’ve been a guest star on many shows. And I’ve also been a series regular on shows where we have guest stars, and it’s very exciting to have new guest stars come in every week when you’re a series regular because it just it makes things more fun. It’s like going to school and you have oh, a substitute teacher. So anyway, oh, a new guest star. So I’ve been on both sides of that. And some shows are just more welcoming than others. That one was extremely welcoming. And it probably helped that they were just five episodes in and they were all like super enthusiastic, happy to be there. You know, if you’re on, like, season 12 of something, a little tired. No,

David Read
Which SG-1 almost had. So they were guaranteed four seasons out of the date, out of the gate, when they were with you. They knew that they had guaranteed four years. That’s gotta be huge for an artist.

Harley Jane Kozak
Oh, so huge. So they were super, it’s, you know, when you come on to a show and go, you know, I’m a huge fan. And they’re already over it. It’s like, “Yeah, fine, thank you. I’m over it.” But these people it hadn’t premiered yet. So they didn’t have huge fans yet. So everybody had stars in their eyes. So I just remember it being a really happy, happy, happy time. And also, I knew that this show had rabid fandom because later when I started to do a book signings, like I would do book tours, and inevitably, somebody would show up with a DVD case and say, “Would you sign my Stargate?” And yeah, “So you guys are serious I was only in one episode.” So they go, “Oh, no, but it was an important one.”

David Read
That’s exactly right.

Harley Jane Kozak
It’s the origin story.

David Read
Mama Nox Erika, “I love your cup. Where did you get it?” You keep…

Harley Jane Kozak
Oh, let me see. I’m sure, I’m sorry to say, I’m sure I got it from Amazon. Because I really like my mugs. I’m a coffee addict.

David Read
I can understand. AleNATci, “Dear Harley, heartfelt greetings for your fans from Russia. We remember how nice it is to chat with you. I heard you love fantastic fiction. Did this happen after participating in SG-1 or have you always loved fiction?

Harley Jane Kozak
Oh, you mean just fiction? In general?

David Read
I believe that that’s what their meaning. Yeah.

Harley Jane Kozak
Okay. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, no. I’ve been reading since like a voracious reader. Since I was, yeah, no, I can remember a Lady and the Tramp was my first book that I ever read, you know, the Little Golden Book. And yeah, I’ve been reading ever since.

David Read
Is Lady a spaniel in the book?

Harley Jane Kozak
Yeah, Lady. Yeah. And it’s just like a little like, maybe I’ve got it here. You know what I mean, in America the Little Golden Book. Yeah, that tiny little… Yeah.

David Read
With the trim on them. Yeah. Yes, exactly. So this is an interesting observation. Tinman said, “Were you supposed, do you know if you were chosen for the part due to resembling Amanda Tapping at all because there is a sexual tension that runs throughout the show that O’Neill and Sam are attracted to one another but they can’t manifest it because they’re in the military together.”

Harley Jane Kozak
And Amanda Tapping and I had that same hair.

David Read
Exactly.

Harley Jane Kozak
I thought, “What are the chances, did everybody in 1997 have the same hair?” I couldn’t believe it when I saw it. In fact, usually several times in my career they’ve made me change my hair, either cut it or dye it, so that I don’t look too similar to somebody else in the movie, In fact, my hair used to be pretty brunette and I went blonde because I did a movie with Elizabeth McGovern. And they wanted there to be more contrast because we were best friends. And so they made me go blonde, because Elizabeth had the brunette market cornered. And I’ve been blonde ever since. But I looked at Amanda and I went, “We have this same hair.” That can’t be unintentional.

David Read
I think as well. Yeah, I think…

Harley Jane Kozak
Nobody told me, again, this comes from being pretty ignorant of what the whole gestalt was because the show hadn’t premiered yet.

David Read
That’s true. Yeah.

Harley Jane Kozak
And I don’t think I had access to the previous five scripts even to read them. So.

David Read
Got it. Yeah. One of the reasons for Sam short hairdo was Air Force regulation. And then Amanda Tapping went to, I think it was Afghanistan, for the sea tour, the tour with the actors go and visit the military, and all the actors had…

Harley Jane Kozak
The USO?

David Read
The USO tour, and all the females on the base had long hair. And so when she came back when they started shooting, more additional episodes there, I think they were on the movie at this point. They let her keep her long hair, because at that point, it’s like, well, if the Air Force is doing it then. So that’s that story. So a lot from, “Greetings from Russia.” Another one from Russia. LucyK, “Just thank you for your roles and films and TV. We love them.” So

Harley Jane Kozak
Nice. [Speaks Russian]

David Read
There you go. Do you have any memories of working with the Bridges on When Calls the Heart? Oh, is it Into the West?

Harley Jane Kozak
No Hearts of the West.

David Read
Hearts of the West. I couldn’t get them. Okay, thank you.

Harley Jane Kozak
Yeah. Beau Bridges is the he’s honestly the best husband I’ve ever had. And that’s hard to say. I mean, I’ve had some really good husbands. So not only was I married to RDA, as you say. I was married to Bill Pullman. Yes. Married to, oh, gosh, where’d my brains just go? Arachnophobia, oh my god, speaking of which, Arachnophobia, you know, Julian Sands the actor?

David Read
Yes, I know he’s disappeared. Yeah, it’s awful.

Harley Jane Kozak
It’s so, my daughter knows Mount Baldy where he’s hiking.

David Read
It just anything can happen. You know? We never know. It’s terrifying.

Harley Jane Kozak
If anybody is of a praying bent, please pray.

David Read
Absolutely. Yeah, they haven’t. I don’t think that, they still haven’t found him and at a certain point, it’s just like, man, you know? Ross Jennings, Jeff Daniels?

Harley Jane Kozak
Jeff Daniels. Yes. Yeah. Right. But Beau Bridges was something special. And that was a show that was just plagued with, unlike SG-1, that show was plagued with problems and having like, mostly production problems, and union problems, and the union that is for like, hair makeup, cinematographer, camera guy, like, that union went on strike anyway, it was a nightmare. It was a nightmare. So there’s, you know, as we say in the writing business, conflict reveals character, so you know who people are. Like in the good times everywhere it’s pretty easy to be nice, right? But when the chips are down, and things are awful, that’s when you discover people’s real character. And I have to say Beau Bridges is one of the most deeply good people I know. He’s just a great guy.

David Read
He’s a good guy.

Harley Jane Kozak
Great guy to be with in the trenches when things got really bad on that show. But we had such a great writer, such a great, yeah, the guy who created that show, so talented, so funny. It was a really, it was a great show to do.

David Read
Did you know that Beau is the Base General for the last two seasons of SG-1?

Harley Jane Kozak
No, I got to watch it now obviously. All the way to the end. So Richard leaves at some point. Yes?

David Read
He started cutting back his time in season six through seven and eight to spend more time with Wylie. Season eight he takes Don S. Davis’s place as as the General of Stargate Command, season nine Beau comes in. Yeah. It’s a long story. It’s like MASH, actually. In term of the character replacements very, like, it’s very, it’s very thoughtfully done. So yeah. Yeah, the chat also observed Sara makes an additional appearance in a photo in season seven in the finale at Jack’s house. So she’s, you’re still there. I have a set of those photos. By the way, I was going to show them that I was like, “That’s way too fanboyish, you are not going to do that.” I have envelopes with letters that she sent him. So that he has a cigar box in that episode and there’s photos of the family and letters from Sara while Jack was away. And those are a few of my [things]. I love them.

Harley Jane Kozak
So yes, I saw that in episode six. The letters because I was drawn to, I thought, “That’s not my handwriting.” They should have, the props people should have given me those letters to do in my own handwriting. When you’re a guest star you don’t always get to…

David Read
Those little details I love like, like who’s responsible for that? You know, okay, we need someone with, you know, with bubbly, you know, circular. Okay, you can go ahead and do that. So it’s all the stuff that comes into a show.

Harley Jane Kozak
It’s the props people, they’re on top of it. So they don’t want to wait around till the actors on set and have, yeah, they want it to be all ready to go. And yeah.

David Read
That’s cool.

Harley Jane Kozak
I’m not dissing the props people.

David Read
But that’s my part, you know, let me sign those. That’s funny. Sommer, my moderator said, “Just wants you to know, thank you so much for your work at the Braille Institute. My grandmother was blind and she relied heavily on those books. I also volunteered when I was older, so glad that you’re continuing this work in a different way as technology evolves.”

Harley Jane Kozak
Yes. I loved it.

David Read
It’s that’s really cool. Matt Witten’s audio book. So you were, you are involved in is it the audio version for Killer Story? Is that correct?

Harley Jane Kozak
Yes. And also his novel before Killer Story, which was The Necklace.

David Read
The Necklace.

Harley Jane Kozak
Another really hardcore thriller. Oh my god, both of those books. He really knows how to ratchet up this suspense. And in both books, I had to stop narrating at the end because I was crying like, really, really very moving and exciting books.

David Read
Is it easy to get sucked in to the material?

Harley Jane Kozak
Yeah, it’s impossible not to really. I mean, actually, okay, I’ll say this. For nearly every book I have narrated, I cry at the, it’s like, well, you know, when you finish a project, there’s just this sort of, like, huge exhale of, and then often it’s followed by like a little burst of euphoria, which is then followed by a depression sometime.

David Read
Do you read the book beforehand? Or are you?

Harley Jane Kozak
Oh, yeah. Now at the Braille Institute, I never did. And the couple of jobs that I had, before my come back, I didn’t read beforehand, because I was just not used to reading beforehand. And also, there was a director like on the set and, but now I wouldn’t dream of not doing it because there’s all sorts of artistic decisions to make, like, I have to figure out how many characters there are, who’s got accents, what are the words that I either have to look up or names that I have to contact the author and see how they want that done, like some artistic choices. But also, if I give somebody a kind of annoying voice, and then it turns out, they’re in seven-eighths of the chapters, it can be overwhelming.

David Read
You have to pace, you have to vocally pace yourself with the characters.

Harley Jane Kozak
Yes. And also, I mean, I tend to go pretty low key on the differentiating between character voices. Like I don’t do a lot of lowering my voice for a guy, but I do some. So you just want to make sure that you don’t have suddenly a chapter where there’s seven people, and they all sound a alike, you need to make choices at the start. And I’ve had to go back and redo chapters. Like when things don’t quite a, well in Matt’s book that I just did, I narrated one character, and then realized when I was all done with the chapter that she came from New Zealand, it’s like, okay, how did I not know this when I first read it and also when I just narrated it, so I had to go back and give her a New Zealand accent, which I had to go research because I don’t have a New Zealand accent just…

David Read
Now that’s not necessarily easy to do. Do you have a producer assisting you when you’re going through this? Or is just you? Okay.

Harley Jane Kozak
It’s just me. So I’m producing and narrating. And the first couple books I did it took me forever, like I was, I did a friend of mine her series, and I said, “Would you mind being my guinea pig series?” Her name is Patricia Smiley. She’s a really good writer and a really good friend. She said, “Sure.” So I said, “I’ll just do it for free.” She goes, “No, yeah, I’ll pay you.” Well, I’m glad she paid me because it took me forever because there’s so much technology to figure out but after the maybe first four books I realized, finally what every narrator realizes, once they start to get a lot of work, as you’ve got to outsource things. So then I started working with a sound engineer who does the final edits for me because he’s way faster and way better than I am. And what will take me like seven hours takes him a half hour or so.

David Read
Yeah, acknowledge your limitations. Yeah, that’s so cool. I love the growth of of companies like Audible and the audio industry in general, especially now that we’ve moved past physical media. So, abridgement, I agree with Stephen King generally abridgements are the pits. So if you’re missing chunks of a story that are sometimes arbitrarily excised.

Harley Jane Kozak
Oh, I don’t even know who did the abridgement on Karen Kijewski’s book that I did 100-years-ago. But now I’m not sure I would do in an abridge, I mean, how awful for the writer.

David Read
Exactly. Yeah, we’re taking a third of this out or more.

Harley Jane Kozak
Or more, I mean, you have to do that if you turn your own novel into a screenplay, which [inaudible]. He’s very adept at that, but he started out as a, you know, TV writer and screenwriter. But that in itself is like, that is a form of abridgement. But at least it’s a different medium and what you lose in pages and dialogue you make up for in getting, you know, visual cues. Yeah, storytelling, yeah.

David Read
Exactly. As long as as long as the the the actors are intent on really replicating that content as best as possible. Sometimes they may want to take it in a different direction. So it’s like, yeah, but I need you to hit these beats. So this is cool.

Harley Jane Kozak
Actors.

David Read
Right, actors. Harley, this has really been, this has been terrific. Thank you so much for joining me. This is really cool.

Harley Jane Kozak
I had a blast. And now of course, I’m going to become a fan girl.

David Read
I think you’re in for a real treat and all of us are here with you through that. So I’d love to check in on you in the future. When you’ve seen more.

Harley Jane Kozak
I’m gonna be in Malibu stalking Richard Dean Anderson, if he still is there. I don’t even know. But.

David Read
Get your DVDs signed. Thank you so much.

Harley Jane Kozak
Thank you, David.

David Read
And everyone check out harleyjanekozak.com and we’ll definitely keep you in the loop. We’ll we’ll keep your adventures in our loop. So.

Harley Jane Kozak
Thank you. I appreciate it.

David Read
Thanks so much. I’m going to wrap up the show on this side. Harley Jane Kozak everyone, that was just a treat. Thanks so much for tuning in. We do the show for free, YouTube, we make it available for free and we do appreciate you watching. But if you want to support the show, buy a T-shirt. We offer tank tops, sweatshirts, T-shirts, hoodies, and all ages, as well as cups and accessories at dialthegate.com/merch. All you have to do is click on the Merchandise tab at the top on the dialthegate.com page and checkout is fast and easy. You can use your PayPal or credit card. And that’s what we’ve got. My thanks to my Producer, Linda “GateGabber” Furey, for helping to make this interview possible with connecting with Harley. And to my team of moderators, who I have every week making this machine work, this Sommer, Tracy, Jeremy, Rhys, and Antony — you guys are the best. And big thanks to Frederick Marcoux at ConceptsWeb. He’s keeping the website going week to week. So thank you so much for tuning in. My name is David Read for Dial the Gate and I’ll see you on the other side.