She was Catherine Langford in “1969”, Ambassador Noor in “Homecoming,” and Maryann Wallace in Stargate Universe. But however you know her, Glynis Davies is a Stargate staple. We are privileged to have her on LIVE to discuss her life and career, and take your questions!

Share This Video ► https://youtube.com/live/Bg5lCxgMnNw

HFA YouTube Channel ► https://www.youtube.com/@HemophiliaFederationofAmerica
Unspeakable Part ► https://www.hemophiliafed.org/events/unspeakable-part-3-lets-talk-about-it/

Visit DialtheGate ► http://www.dialthegate.com
on Facebook ► https://www.facebook.com/dialthegate
on Instagram ► https://instagram.com/dialthegateshow
on Twitter ► https://twitter.com/dial_the_gate
Visit Wormhole X-Tremists ► https://www.youtube.com/WormholeXTremists

SUBSCRIBE!
https://youtube.com/dialthegate/

Timecodes
0:00 – Splash Screen
00:19 – Opening Credits
00:45 – Welcome and Episode Outline
02:13 – Glynis’s Passion for Acting
06:29 – Challenging Roles
08:19 – Catherine in 1969
10:38 – Travelers
13:10 – Ambassador Noor in Homecoming
14:45 – Maryann Wallace, Eli’s Mom, in Stargate Universe
17:39 – Working with David Blue
19:03 – Eli and His Mom – Important Scenes
26:15 – Current Projects
28:11 – Fan Questions – Production differences between SG1 and SGU
30:10 – Researching for Eli’s Mom
32:40 – Wrapping up with Glynis
34:25 – Post-Interview Housekeeping
38:42 – End Credits

***

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

#Stargate
#DialtheGate
#TurtleTimeline

 

TRANSCRIPT
Find an error? Submit it here.

David Read
Hello everyone, welcome to Dial the Gate, the Stargate Oral History project. This is episode 177. My name is David Read. Thank you so much for for joining me, it’s a privilege to have you. We have Glynis Davies this episode. You will know her as Catherine in 1969, Ambassador Noor in Homecoming, Season Seven, and, my personal favorite, Eli’s Mom, Maryann Wallace in Stargate Universe. Before we bring Glynis in, if you enjoy Stargate, and you want to see more content like this appear on YouTube, please click that Like button that makes a difference with the show, and will continue to help us grow our audience. Please also consider sharing this video with a Stargate friend, and if you want to get notified about future episodes, click the subscribe icon, and giving the bell icon a click will notify you the moment a new video drops and you’ll get my notifications of any last minute guests changes, as sometimes with these live shows, sometimes we have to reschedule. Clips from this live stream will be released over the course of the next few weeks on both the Dial the Gate and GateWorld.net YouTube channels. As this is a live episode, we have Glynis joining us live, so if you are in the YouTube chat right now, you can submit questions over to my moderating team, and they will be happy to get those over to me, and we will then ask them of Glynis. Tracy and Antony are available in there now, but while we let the moderators get to your questions, I have some questions of my own with Glynis Davies. One of the few actors to be in all three Stargate television adaptations. How are you Glynis?

Glynis Davies
I’m very well, thank you. I’m excited to be here.

David Read
I appreciate you coming in, you have a long history with this show. You’ve played two particular iconic characters, particularly Catherine Langford, who was carried over from the feature, and of course, Eli’s Mom. Thank you so much for being here. How did you know that this was what you wanted to do with your life? Be an actor? When did that really become your passion? When did you know that that’s what you wanted?

Glynis Davies
Right. I was 16, and it was doing plays in high school. I guess the first one I did was a Bernard Shaw play, Passion, Poison, and Petrifaction

David Read
Ok!

Glynis Davies
Yeah, I think I just did it and I got accolades, and my dad seemed to truly approve of what I was doing, so I thought “OK”, and then I just kept it up. Honestly, I fell into it and it just felt right for me, so I did a little One-Woman show in high school.

David Read
Oh, wow

Glynis Davies
Yeah, and that won me awards in a competition and then I was accepted at theater school, and then I ended up not going because I got a job at what was then the St. Lawrence Center in Toronto, now the Bluma Appel it’s called. So I was there as an apprentice and worked with some fantastic people for a couple of years, and I went to the Banff School of Fine Arts and then I studied for a long time, many years, with a group at the time, and it was called CaST, the Centre for Actors’ Study in Toronto, headed by Kurt Reece, and a lot of us went through that workshop, that program, and I certainly did for years and there met some great actors, and we all remember each other. Very rarely do we have a conversation these days where we don’t bring up Kurt’s teachings. I was 16, and I never looked back.

David Read
There are important people in our lives that change us in ways that we don’t often expect, and teachers play such a huge part in that, especially ones that get us and what it was that we’re trying to achieve, and those who want to cultivate what they see in us and make us better people than when we first show up, and cultivate a talent. Was he that for you?

Glynis Davies
He was most definitely that for me, Kurt Reece, he’s no longer with us. But he was he was difficult, but he was very influential. And, literally, my high school theater teacher, Jenny Lariche, she was like that for me. I mean, I’ve had some great teachers: Carol Rosenfeld, Cameron Thor, (inaudible).

David Read
Can you tell me of a specific role that you’ve had over the years that pushed you, that stretched you, that shaped you in ways that you didn’t anticipate, or ways that forced you to be pushed out of a comfort zone?

Glynis Davies
I want to say “All of them!”

David Read
I need you to narrow it down a little. Tom McBeath once told me I don’t accept a role if it doesn’t scare me.

Glynis Davies
Who said that?

David Read
Tom McBeath.

Glynis Davies
Oh, OK, good for Tom. I guess there’s sometimes little quirky things that I end up doing. I did this crazy, old woman, junkie lady in the Joel Kinnaman… what was it called? The big sci-fi series?

David Read
Was that Altered Carbon?

Glynis Davies
Altered Carbon, yeah. That was pretty out there, but that was just sort of a brief little (thing). I don’t know, I love this little kid series that I did, Spooksville. One of the episodes, I had to do this fabulous fight scene – that was definitely out of my comfort zone, but it turned out really well.

David Read
Principal Blackwater. Interesting.

Glynis Davies
Oh, that’s right, yeah.

David Read
There are… Go ahead.

Glynis Davies
No, you go.

David Read
Can you tell me about first getting involved in Stargate? Your first episode, season 2, 1969. You’re taking on a role that has already been played by three different performers – you’re number four. The first two were in the movie, and then Elizabeth Hoffman was in two episodes of season 1, and then you were brought in to play Catherine Langford in season 2 in the year 1969.

Glynis Davies
Yeah, that’s right. Was that the first one that I did, or was the Ambassador Noor?

David Read
Ambassador Noor came in season 7, five years later.

Glynis Davies
So that was one of the first shows that I did in Vancouver. I just remember Amanda being so great, and she just brings you back down to earth. I was just pretty fascinated by the whole process, but I didn’t really know much about it, because I hadn’t seen much of Stargate. We’d been auditioning for the show and it was always very tricky dialogue and a lot of it very technical, but Catherine was great. I really loved that you sent me 1969. And, boy, that was a great little show.

David Read
It’s a great hour of television

Glynis Davies
I loved it.

David Read
It exemplifies in one episode what the show is all about, which is not just a group of people going on adventures together, but a group of heroes that we just love to watch, who just click well together.

Glynis Davies
Oh, absolutely. It didn’t feel dated, really. We watch a lot of time travel and we’re so acclimatized to all of that now, but it just really took me there. I really thought, “Wow, what would it be like to…” – I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it.

David Read
Speaking of time travel, Travelers, Brad’s other show. Do you recall Jacqueline Peele in that in that series?

Glynis Davies
Yeah, that was great, I was so lucky to get that. The first episode I did, it was Helen Shaver, and Helen was great. Again, I just had read the one episode, so I really didn’t know where it was going, I didn’t know where Jacqueline was going. But I just felt right at home. Sometimes, you just have to trust where you’re being placed, and I really feel that. I’ve done a fair bit of sci-fi and I’m not really a sci-fi (inaudible). I don’t watch a lot of it. But I seem to end up there.

David Read
I think it’s a part of proximity. You know, it’s what is frequently done in Vancouver, and a lot of the people who are involved in it are a lot of the same folks. And much of it is you enjoy working with someone, you want to work with them again.

Glynis Davies
I know, and that’s great, and that is just the best feeling. I’m actually working on… I suppose I can’t talk about it, I’m not allowed to, but again, it’s like, some of the same people and that just go “Oh, wow, how great is that?”

David Read
Another sci-fi project?

Glynis Davies
No, it’s not, this one’s not.

David Read
But the same people come back around in your life sooner or later again, a number of them again and again. That’s, that’s one of the great things that I love about this industry is sooner or later you’re gonna connect with someone who’s like, “Oh, yeah, I made….”. They’re little signposts in your in your past. And Stargate does that, especially for a franchise that lasted for 17 seasons. Something was working, something was right.

Glynis Davies
For sure, yeah.

David Read
So you came back in SG-1 as Ambassador Noor in season 7 of the series. This was a character from a planet who had a nuclear bomb had been dropped on them. And she was coming in as a delegate from one of the nations that this technology had been used against her. Do you remember anything about that shoot that stands out?

Glynis Davies
I remember working with the wonderful Gillian Barber. I remember slapping the guy. I don’t really, I’m sorry.

David Read
You hit the guy hard in the face!

Glynis Davies
I know! I don’t think he’s ever forgiven me for that.

David Read
Did you actually hit him?

Glynis Davies
I think I did, yeah. Who was that? Jan? Jan Bros I think his name was?

David Read
Let me see here, I can find out pretty quickly. So, Ambassador Noor was in Homecoming, and you were alongside… I think it was… Gillian Barber as Dreylock, and then you hit Jan – Is it Bose or Bos?

Glynis Davies
I’m not sure, I think it might be Bos

David Read
Right across the face! Political machinations, you know?

Glynis Davies
Yeah.

David Read
What a trip. Tell us about getting Eli’s Mom.

Glynis Davies
That was the old days when we went into the little trailer to audition in person.

David Read
Right. The ‘before times’

Glynis Davies
The ‘before times’, yeah. I just went up there. I think it was Carol Kelsay, I believe, cast the first two and then this one I believe it was Clark and Page. They’re fabulous. I just went in and read a tiny scene. I think it might have been the little scene – it’s a dream sequence that Eli has, where I’m waking him up in the morning and telling him to get on with it. And I think it was just that little scene right there.

David Read
Yeah, he was remembering. Once he’s aboard the ship he’s remembering living at home under his mom’s roof and not being motivated to reach his full potential. And he’s got his mother, who has been infected with HIV, and she’s basically still being mom to this grown adult who just refuses to get on with his life. A lot of people can relate to that.

Glynis Davies
That was just a perfect situation, I love that little scene too. But I think that was the one that I got the part for and I think I went back for a callback as well. And then I do believe that that was Andy Mikita.

David Read
That’s correct.

Glynis Davies
Right. I think that was the first scene I did in the series. And then I went back and did the scene in the kitchen. Or, I did on the phone, and then I went back and did the scene in the kitchen. I just remember sitting sort of outside of the house and Robert Carlyle came up to me and welcomed me and I thought, “Oh, this is nice”. Again, they just make you feel at home.

David Read
Absolutely. You worked mostly opposite David Blue who played your son, Eli. Any memories of working with David?

Glynis Davies
Oh, god, yeah. He was just great, he was just Eli, he was just David, he really was. Just fumbling about and, then just nailing it or, or not and trying. He was just great, very friendly and lovely. And yeah, I really liked him.

David Read
He says hello, by the way.

Glynis Davies
Oh, does he? Oh, wow!

David Read
I emailed him, let him know that you were coming on. He said “Oh (inaudible)! Tell her “Hello” from me. He’s a good guy. Edgar Wright, the cast never let him forget that you are basically that character. That really is him, the gamer type, the sci-fi type. It wasn’t a lot to take him to get into it.

Glynis Davies
I never quite knew if he was the math boy that he was playing. I don’t know.

David Read
In terms of the math, I’m not entirely sure, but the sci-fi and the gamer, he streams on Twitch to this day, playing video games, so it was very appropriate that they found a guy that could really exemplify that. What was it like playing this person who is talking to the Air Force, talking to a person who is, he’s sitting in front of you, but the person that you’re talking to is, in the show, someone else we’re kind of seeing who’s under the surface, who’s soul we’re watching, almost. Did you have to be conscious of that fact going along that “Yeah, I’m talking to him, but I’m really talking to someone else, who is pretending to be someone else.”. There’s a lot of levels that play here in these kitchen scenes.

Glynis Davies
I was thinking about that when I’m watching it. I was wondering, in the hospital scene, later – which one was that, Gauntlet? No, not Gauntlet, the one before?

David Read
Let me double check here. So that was… that would have been… that’s the episode where you board the ship. And I believe that is Pathogen

Glynis Davies
Pathogen, yeah, that was the one that Robert directed. Yeah, I thought it worked really well in the kitchen, when they first meet, but I just kind of wanted her to give over a little bit in the hospital, she was just like, there’s no way was she letting this guy get to her?

David Read
She couldn’t believe that it was her son talking to her, and no matter what this guy said, he was like, “No, this is ridiculous! It’s not possible!”

Glynis Davies
They set it up really well. And I love this, prior to that first scene, when he said, when Blue, or when Eli says, he goes home for the first time and he says “She’s never gonna get this. She can’t follow an episode of Star Trek.” And I thought, “OK, good. I’m at home here.” I liked that.

David Read
That was really funny. The situation that she’s thrown in is just wild. The opening scene with her I think is very telling. She’s like, “Are you in an aeroplane, you sound like you’re in an airplane.” So she can’t, like Eli says, she can’t she can’t follow an episode of Star Trek, her mind is just not going to these places. And we can only put ourselves in her shoes to be like, “Wow, what a wild situation”, to have your child across the other end of the cosmos, not be able to talk to you using his own face. How do you communicate with someone like that? And then when you’re in the hospital bed at death’s door, and you’ve got a stranger saying that he’s your son? You just can’t process it.

Glynis Davies
I know. I know. It was a lot to process. I always felt with that phone call too, I think she was in a place with her son where she’s just wanted him to do something! Get on with it!

David Read
Oh, boy, will he!

Glynis Davies
Yeah, yeah!

David Read
I was talking with my dad. My dad is former US military, retired. And he had a frustration with the fact that, in the story, she’s only going to get the care that she needs. They can’t afford the treatments that she needs. She’s only going to get it if Eli goes off on this mission. And that always made him a little bit uncomfortable because it was like they were dangling a carrot in front of him because if you go and do this, then you know we’re going to take your… I suspect they probably would have regardless after that, but it was one of the little things that bothered him. But, he does go off on this mission, he gets trapped out there, and even though she is getting the health care that she needs, she is then in a position where she is losing her battle because she has been cut off from her son. And God knows what she thinks. He’s thinking of her being out of contact. These were two people who were really close.

Glynis Davies
The father was estranged, and you really felt for her, and I totally bought it when she shows up.

David Read
One of my favorite scenes in the show, maybe top five, in terms of a payoff for a storyline, because Ming-Na Wen’s character, Camile Wray, says “I’m not asking you guys, I’m telling you, we need this boy to have his mind in the game. Get his mom on the ship and get him past this.”. What was it like to have that payoff in the episode to finally make eye contact with him and be “Okay, now at least I know. He’s not on an airplane.”

Glynis Davies
It felt exactly like it played, it really did. There was no acting required. It was so exciting that day, it really was. Yeah, it seems like that, they just play.

David Read
Because they’re real. Given that despite their circumstances, the mother and son dynamic there comes come straight through even though she’s in someone else’s body at that point.

Glynis Davies
I know, exactly. In Jennifer Spence’s body. We’d had the scene and the work in the hospital, the scenes in the hospital, so it was just very, very real. I love the show, Stargate Universe, for the relationships. Amid all this science and all the other stuff.

David Read
Everything else that’s happening. It’s what the show is about, it’s about those characters, the situation that they’re in is what you may tune in for, but you’re gonna stay for the people that you’re watching. They’re what matter most.

Glynis Davies
I think it’s always got to be that, it does for me anyway. There’s some great television out there these days.

David Read
So you’re working on this undisclosed project, is there anything else that you can share about what’s coming on down the pike?

Glynis Davies
Well, I just have a couple of lucky things toward the end of the year, and then it’s going into the New Year, but I can’t talk about it. What else have I done? COVID has just been so rough with everybody, right? Throughout COVID I did A Million Little Things, I did a couple of scenes on that. I went and I did a great show, a Vancouver show here, Family Law, Susan Nielsen’s show which is terrific. And in 2020, I went to England and did a couple of scenes on Jurassic World.

David Read
I was so tickled to see you there. “Oh my gosh, it’s Glynis!”

Glynis Davies
So that was fun because it was right in the thick of lockdown, and I was traipsing off to England.

David Read
Was it a two week quarantine?

Glynis Davies
No, seven days. They get you there, they take you to the hotel, this fabulous place we stayed, so I was in the hotel for seven days. I was allowed to walk the grounds with a mask on. And everybody was there, so it was kind of fun.

David Read
That’s cool. I’ve got a few fan questions here for you, if you don’t mind. Lockwatcher wants to know, you were in season 2 of SG-1, season 9 of SG-1, and then Stargate Universe, I think I may have misspoken earlier about being in Atlantis because there’s there’s no…

David Read
I don’t think I was in Atlantis

David Read
Was there a difference in production from SG-1 to Universe? Did you notice, or did it really feel organically the same? When Universe came about, they were lighting it very differently, it was more dark, more realistic. Did you notice any changes?

Glynis Davies
I honestly wouldn’t have known at the time, but when I watched it I could certainly see the difference. The lighting in Universe was fantastic. With 1969, I wouldn’t have been aware of it, I really didn’t know how to read the room as far as the lighting, but I certainly noticed a huge difference between SG-1 and Universe, definitely.

David Read
Universe, they pulled out all the stops for that, not just in the lighting, but the simple little camera tricks with the mirrors between you and Jennifer Spence, and the miming, because it’s all just done in camera. Just the angle of the mirror – Jennifer’s standing over your shoulder, and you’re… I love little tricks like that.

Glynis Davies
It was really technical. I don’t know what they used to shoot it, but that show looks better than most shows that were on these days.

David Read
They were really ahead of the curve. Anthony wanted to know, did you do any research into HIV/AIDS when you found out about Eli’s mom’s situation? Did you look into that at all?

Glynis Davies
You always do, right? I sort of played just around, it was just prior to doing that, the apartment building that I was living in, I lived next door to a guy who had AIDS. And I watched him decline, and so really saw that. But, no, I was just sort of mystified by how it happened to her, because a junkie that she was trying to protect from shooting up, and just to answer the question, Anthony, just on a personal level from people that I knew.

David Read
It was a shock, because, like you said, she was a nurse, and she was trying to protect this person, and it turned their world upside down. Her husband left, her husband couldn’t handle it. That’s the thing that I loved about Stargate, is it gave us the fantastical, but it also gave us things that we could relate to in our ordinary everyday lives, that the two that were juxtaposed with one another. You might not think that those things could work, but they did.

Glynis Davies
I remember, I didn’t know that she had AIDS, when I was first cast. I had done that one scene with Andy, I remember that day, and then when I went back to do the, I guess it was the phone call scene, Robert came up to me, Robert Cooper, and he explained to me who this character was and what was going on, on the day that we were shooting it, so he just said “This is who she is, and this is what’s happened.”

David Read
There’s rumor, there’s talk of a fourth Stargate series that Amazon is bringing to life with with MGM. We’ve been hearing all kinds of things for, at this point, years now. If it is something that that ends up being done in Vancouver, would you be down to either reprise a role or return?

Glynis Davies
Oh, no, I’m way too busy! I’ve got far better things to do. I really liked her, in watching her, I sure would.

David Read
Maryann?

Glynis Davies
Maryann, yeah.

David Read
There’s only so much that ties us back to Earth in that show, and I loved your performance, and it meant so much to have that connection with Earth, to help tell the stories of the principal characters, and you were great! I’m, so thankful that you took time to talk with us today.

Glynis Davies
Oh, well, it was great, I loved it. It was lovely to meet you. Say “Hi” to Blue for me.

David Read
I will indeed. I’m going to wrap up the show on this end here. But you take care of yourself, all right.

Glynis Davies
Thank you, you too.

David Read
Thank you, Glynis, be well.

Glynis Davies
Bye, David.

David Read
Glynis Davies, Eli’s mother, Maryann Wallace on Stargate Universe, she was Ambassador Noor in season 7’s Homecoming and, of course, in 1969 she was Catherine Langford. We have coming up, tomorrow, Wormhole X-Tremists, we’re going to be exploring the next two episodes of season 2, which were, I believe, Prisoners and The Gamekeeper. While we’re on the discussion of the HIV epidemic, I have been invited by Robert C. Cooper… let me double check so that I can get the name right here… Jeanette Jones. She is Education Manager, blood sisterhood Hemophilia Federation of America. I don’t know if you are aware, you may be aware that Robert C. Cooper recreated a mini series called Unspeakable which was about the tainted blood crisis in Canada. They have been having an ongoing conversation about it on YouTube. Part three of Unspeakable is going to be airing, I believe, three days from now. What is that day specifically here? OK, February the 28th at 7pm to 8:30pm on their website. I’m shooting completely off the cuff of this, I apologize. Their web portal is the Hemophilia Federation of America over on YouTube, and I’m going to place a link to this in the description below. But that episode is going to be available for streaming and several people who were involved in the production, including Aaron Douglas and Brian Markinson, both of whom were on Stargate SG-1 will be joining director and executive producer Robert C. Cooper and director Andy Mikita. For that discussion on February the 28th on their YouTube channel, so please follow the link and prepare to watch that. I don’t know if it’s a live show or if it’s pre-recorded, but that is going to be available on their YouTube channel on February the 28th at 7pm. I believe that’s specific times, so look at the link for the description below and follow up with them. My thanks to Glynis Davies for joining me in this episode and I really appreciate you tuning in. Next week we have on the books, Patrick Currie, who played Fifth, Chaka and Eamon in Stargate SG-1. Saturday March 4th we have him at 4pm Pacific time. He’s going to come on and join us to discuss those characters. Fifth is one of my favorites in all of Stargate SG-1, the betrayal of that character in Unnatural Selection is one of the cornerstones of that show in many ways for me, because those moral episodes, those are the ones that really show us what the characters are made of. So it’s gonna be great to talk with Patrick Currie. My thanks to my production team Linda “GateGabber” Furey for helping to make the show possible, my moderating team, Tracy, Jeremy, Rees, Antony and Sommer, thank you all for for making this show possible. Big thanks to Frederick Marcoux over at ConceptsWeb, he keeps our website up to date. And my thanks again to Glynis Davies for joining us in this episode she was a treat to have. My name is David Read for Dial the Gate. I appreciate you tuning in. We’ll see you next week on the other side.