We are beyond excited to welcome Stargate SG-1’s first director, Mario Azzopardi, to our show. He is eager to take fan questions LIVE and tell stories from his career!

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Timecodes
0:00 – Splash Screen
0:25 – Opening Credits
0:55 – Welcome and Episode Outline
2:56 – Welcoming Mario Azzopardi
5:38 – Directing “Children of the Gods”
9:13 – Starting in Rough Waters
11:14 – Stargate’s European Audience
15:52 – Science Fiction’s Axioms
23:15 – Stargate’s Exploration of Extra-Terrestrials
28:06 – Directing Richard Dean Anderson
29:40 – The Pilot and the Show Bible
32:09 – Total Recall 2070
34:03 – The Casting for SG-1
35:45 – Bad Weather on Day One of Shooting
39:10 – The Family Business
42:56 – Working with Multiple Creatives
46:40 – The Importance of Music
48:25 – It’s a Collaboration
50:20 – Filming Nude Scenes
54:12 – On Matters of Sexuality
1:01:35 – Returning for Stargate Atlantis
1:04:26 – SG-1 Was A Wonderful Set
1:06:55 – Paving His Own Way
1:10:25 – Stargate “Making Of” for “Children of the Gods”
1:11:11 – Directing “38 Minutes”
1:16:14 – Everybody is Sensitive
1:20:47 – Studio Notes
1:27:17 – Changes in Children of the Gods: The Final Cut
1:31:00 – Original SG-1 Storyboards
1:33:20 – Taking from the Feature Film
1:38:06 – Have We Been Visited by Extra-Terrestrials?
1:39:43 – The Truth About the Pyramids
1:46:03 – The Suppression of Truth?
1:51:40 – Future Projects
1:53:40 – The Country of Malta
1:56:27 – Directing Future Stargate
1:58:12 – Mario’s Stargate Legacy
2:00:46 – Post-Interview Housekeeping
2:02:00 – End Credits

***

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

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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read
Hello everyone, welcome to episode 220 of Dial the Gate, the Stargate Oral History Project. My name is David Read, I really appreciate you being here and I’m really lucky to have this episode available. Mario Azzopardi, director of Children of the Gods, Stargate SG-1 and a number of Stargate episodes is joining us for this episode. This is an interview I’ve been wanting to have for a really long time. You don’t often get to talk with someone who sets up a series, in collaboration with a bunch of other people. His eye is the first that had a chance to work with these heroes; Jack and Sam and Daniel and Teal’c. So much of what he brought in set up the next 10 seasons of the show. I’m going to stop blathering. If you enjoy Stargate and you want to see more content like this on YouTube it would mean a great deal if you click that like button. It makes a difference with YouTube and will continue to help the show grow its audience. Please also consider sharing this video with a Stargate friend and if you want to be notified about future episodes, click the Subscribe icon. Giving the bell icon a click will notify you the moment a new video drops and you’ll get my notifications of any last minute guest changes. 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. This is a live stream so Mario has invited fans to submit questions to him in the YouTube chat so we will have our moderators in there. I think it’s Tracy and Anthony today. Go ahead and submit questions to Mario and then I will circle back with him in the second half of the show and and submit those questions over to him. Mario Azzopardi, director of Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis, but key to Children of the Gods. Sir, this is such a pleasure to have you join me for this episode. Thank you for being here.

Mario Azzopardi
Thank you for asking.

David Read
When you look back at a franchise that started off with a feature film but has gone on to produce 17 seasons of television from that initial episode that you directed. Did you say at the time “oh yeah, they’ll be going for decades?” Or were you like, “this is just another job. This is another assignment. I hope that they do fantastic but we’re gonna get them started off on the right track.” Can you believe that it ran as long as it did?

Mario Azzopardi
Not really. I don’t think I approached anything as “just another job.” I’m very privileged and very lucky to have the job that I have. It’s something that I enjoy and I’m very lucky to say that I love my job, I wouldn’t do anything else. I had worked with the team for quite some time. We did Outer Limits together and I did about 20 of those episodes. As you know, that series, every episode was its own film. We dealt with each and every episode as a new a new project. Of course, having spent five years together with Jonathan [Glassner] and the rest of the guys. There are so many people who contributed to this and who had so much to say in it. As you know with television, it’s not like film; a director is not as free as in a movie. A movie is only the director’s vision, in television the showrunner comes first. Once he chooses his director then the discussions that go on and on and on for months before we shoot, determine the outcome. Of course I had seen the movie a couple of times. Of course we didn’t have the budget that the movie had but definitely the passion and the sense of trying to create something different for television was always there starting with the very first shot of the series. In the original episode, the first shot from behind the gate and moving towards the table where the guys were playing cards, we stop on top of them then the camera turns and comes down and rests on one side of the table with the gate behind them. That took a whole day to create, you don’t find things like that, at the time, in television. We had to have the camera on a crane and in order for us to move we had to move a little bit of the set that got out of out of frame once the camera started to move. We had to really coordinate that move. I’m very upset actually that when they re-issued the show they cut this shot and you don’t have that first move. The original had it but once they re-issued it the shot was not there. There was a lot of this. Remember at the time, CGI was not as advanced as it is today. You had to improvise a lot and you had to depend on a lot of guys to help you get to that version not as easily as we do it today. I think my prep was about three months on that. They had been prepping much before I came on but it was three months and of course it wasn’t enough, it was definitely not enough. Television is what it is, you know? The casting went smoothly and once we started, man, it was fun, it was just fun. I don’t think I enjoyed myself, I shouldn’t say that, but it was definitely one of the projects that I enjoyed most. When we shot it we shot it as one two hour film and then it was divided into two episodes. Originally when we had the premiere in Los Angeles it was shown as a full feature film. It looked great on the big screen I must say, it really looked great. It wasn’t 4k at the time so again, imagine had we shot that show on 4k, it would have been so much more beautiful. It was what it is and then it went on, it just went on. We started in rough waters I think. We didn’t get the immediate support that we thought we were gonna get. It took it’s time but did eventually, once it caught on, my goodness. How many seasons were there?

David Read
17 of the whole franchise but 10 of SG-1.

Mario Azzopardi
That is the longest sci-fi franchise ever, right?

David Read
It’s up there with Star Trek for sure.

Mario Azzopardi
Star Trek television, do they have that many seasons?

David Read
In a single show no. Smallville beat it for the Guinness World Record in terms of the number of episodes and then I think, what’s the show with the Winchesters? Supernatural went on further but for a little while there SG-1 held the world record and they can’t take that away from them.

Mario Azzopardi
Yes. After a while I decided to move on only because of the fact that I never stay with one show to too long. I much prefer to keep on doing different stuff. The longest I stayed I think was with Outer Limits because of the fact that each and every show was very different from each other. The show became a sensation worldwide, it’s unbelievable. It’s not the film I’m premiering in France that got the most attention but my work on Stargate.

David Read
Yeah. I am always amazed at the number of European fans who find this channel and who reach out to me and want to do stuff. Especially in France, in particular, they are crazy about about this US paramilitary show. There’s just something that really rings true to them about the spirit of the show and the realism of the characters and the humor. I think that it transcends time. There’s many episodes now that are more relevant than they were when they aired.

Mario Azzopardi
Yes. It has a resonance. I don’t want to go too deep into it but there is a resonance. It’s like when you play a video game and it’s that kind of video game where you’ve got a shaded area you have to uncover. The more you move into the map, you open up. That had this, that had that sense of discovering; you’re going to see something new, you’re going to see something totally different from what we’ve seen before. That’s a promise that the show had and that’s one of the things that made it so successful. Then there are other things, there are other things that are so basic. I read in an article in France that the gate is a symbol of the human womb. Every time you go through it you come out into a new life, in a new existence. That in itself is a metaphor that resonates. Even though you don’t know it’s that, it reminds you of something. I hope your friends are not gonna think I’m a weirdo but sport depends on getting that ball into the net, most of sport is getting the ball into there. What is that? That is a kind of reincarnation of the first thing of existence where the sperm has to hit the egg in order to survive and it’s only one egg that will go. There are a lot of levels that pull you in without you knowing that you’re being pulled in. It resonates to your very existence, it resonates to you’re very being. You go to throughout every major film and you realize that the film became so popular because of the fact that it talks about the basic existence of human kind. You’re attracted to it without realizing that you know already what it is about. You don’t know yet you now. Once that hits, it’s unbelievable. That’s the secret that I think all writers try to find it. It’s not the plot, it is the the attraction, it is the latent attraction, it is the hidden attraction of the subject matter that smacks you across the face and says, “wow, my god, they’re talking about me.” That’s the lesson for today.

David Read
No, absolutely. It’s the same with the Outer Limits. Stargate attracts us on a species level, almost on like a tadpole level like where we really came from. The thing that I love about science fiction, and I started this with original Star Trek and with Next Generation, that’s all I was allowed to watch until I was eight years old. Star Trek and Mr. Rogers on PBS and all those shows. I go back and I watch them now as an adult and I can see that I was entertained as a child but I can also see that I was being imbued with these specific axioms of what is acceptable and what is not acceptable and what is morally right and morally wrong. Stargate does that week after week. You watch the pilot episode and you can see Teal’c struggling, you can see his hatred for the situation that he has been placed in and you can see his desire to find a way out. In that critical moment, where O’Neill sees it too, warrior to warrior, “I can save these people, please help me” and Teal’c turns. I totally get that as a human being. I’ve watched his journey in little moments throughout this first hour and a half or hour and fifteen minutes or whatever it is and I can relate to being in a situation where I can’t get out. There’s something beautiful about that first episode and I think Teal’c really is the star of that whole first episode. It’s a masterful show, you guys did yourselves proud with that pilot. If the pilot wasn’t as strong as it was I don’t think that the show would have lasted as long as it did. That’s a huge tribute to you and Brad and Jonathan; you guys made that thing take off.

Mario Azzopardi
Yes. The sequence in prison was a particular favorite of mine. It’s the human condition. Humans have battled against slavery of one sort or another throughout history and the fight continues. There are many different kinds of slavery and it’s what we continue to try and free ourselves from. Humankind is a constant battle for freedom, for whatever freedom means, it’s there. But then there is also one other thing and I think this is something that I have been thinking about a lot of time, especially about science fiction. Again, has been interpreted as being blasphemous by some and rejected by many others, but for me, science fiction is a sort of negation of everything that we’ve been told about religion of any sorts. If we take what we know today in all the Bibles, different Bibles of the world, we being the center of the universe. Now we’re talking about aliens so what happens to our beliefs? In the Christian faith are we the people that Christ came to save or did he save also these other people? Are these people the chosen of God or are they not? There are so many complex theological questions that as soon as you start dealing with science fiction it becomes mind boggling; it blows your mind away. This is why you find people who don’t want anything to do with science fiction. Perhaps they don’t know why. Perhaps it is because that once they are made to think that way [they realise] there are no answers. There are just no answers. Not only there are no answers, it opens up such a huge universe of questions that even thinking about it scares the shit out of you.

David Read
But aren’t the questions more important at the end of the day? The pursuit of the questions?

Mario Azzopardi
You see, the thing is this though, our culture, especially in the West, depends on answers. The key is ask questions, but there has to be an answer. If there is no answer then there’s a problem. When there is a problem that’s where the myths start to appear, that’s where new religions foster, that’s where new theories come in. All the theories are basically wishful thinking, wishful thinking and the hope for an answer. I don’t think that we have accepted the reality of you know what? Perhaps there is the answer.

David Read
Perhaps there is none.

Mario Azzopardi
Our journey into the gate to find answers is, again, one of those elements that hits squarely between our eyes. We know there are none for everything that we’ve known before because what we’re seeing beyond the gate is more terrifying than the stories that we’ve been told when we were young. It’s really very hard to live with the notion that perhaps our theological past can’t resonate with science fiction. Now, today, when we realize the vastness of space and the probability that there can be life, there must be life somewhere out there. Actually, one of the scripts that I wrote, never done because I could never find the money that I needed to do it. Basically it is this and that is we talk about conspiracy theories about the government not telling us about finding aliens. If one were to stop and think about it, if they were to have the proof, can you imagine the chaos? The chaos that would be caused worldwide if any proof of extraterrestrial beings is proved, it will throw all our cultures off. Stargate did it without this controversy. Stargate did that with nuance, with panache, with grace and with joy. With joy of telling a story. Behind it all is all this thinking, I don’t know whether I’m being boring.

David Read
You’re not being boring. I think that you’re tapping into something that is universal about about science fiction. At the end of the day, if we are just stardust and we return to stardust at the end, apathy is not going to get us anywhere. It’s the struggle to figure out what we’re made of and to be better people to ourselves and to each other that is the most important. Going out through that gate and trying to help other civilizations, sometimes failing, sometimes failing miserably. Trying to expand our knowledge of the cosmos and help others and then come home and come home as a different person as a result once you come back and you complete this journey.

Mario Azzopardi
And also open up Pandora’s box and open up yourself to possible emulation.

David Read
Yeah, very much so.

Mario Azzopardi
Science fiction is the apple on Adam and Eve’s tree; you bite it at your own peril. We go through that gate at our own peril. Does that mean we should you not ask questions? No. I am going back to what I said before, always ask questions. Don’t pretend you’re always gonna have the answer. That is what I like most about science fiction. That’s what I’ve done. I’ve done Robocop, I’ve done…my goodness. So bad I can’t even remember. Both in Toronto and Vancouver we did a lot of shows, many American shows were done in Canada because of the fact of the tax rebate. I did a lot, I did the pilot for….my goodness.

David Read
You’ve done so much work Mario, I don’t know how y’all keep it in your head. Time Cop, Poltergeist: the Legacy, you got Highlander in there. There’s so much.

Mario Azzopardi
I am trying to find the show, the pilot was sensational. We only did one one season I’m afraid. It was a big movie about about robots who become very sentient. What was it called?

David Read
I’m trying.

Mario Azzopardi
I’m going to go to IMDb here.

David Read
Robots that become sentient.

Mario Azzopardi
I’m getting old, my goodness.

David Read
It’s not Captain power is it?

Mario Azzopardi
No, no, no, no.

David Read
You did that first one there. It’ll come to us. Can you tell me about directing Richard Dean Anderson.

Mario Azzopardi
Joy, absolute joy, absolute joy. He was a team player and I never had one single problem with him. He was there, he collaborated, he enjoyed his work, at least at the time that we started doing this. I never had any problem at all, whatsoever, it was wonderful. I remember him one day, cell phones had started to be very common at the time. I had to have my cell phone on because there was an emergency at home so I had to have it. I asked the producer to please let me carry it and my phone goes off. I remember him looking at me, giving me a look that I’ll never forget for the rest of my life. I went red and I apologized and then we went on. Everybody was so enthusiastic, everybody wanted to work, everybody wanted to give their everything. That’s how it always starts, it’s always starts like that. Then sixth, seventh season comes through and one thing that happens, everybody becomes a director. I wasn’t there at the time, by that time I had already left. Everybody decides that they can direct and write. Of course we move on and they take over and they move on. If the base is there already that definitely helps a lot with directing because the questions have already been answered. Of course, it’s a different thing starting from scratch, deciding the Bible of the show. It’s there but in the first few episodes and especially in the pilot, you’re testing the Bible. Sometimes you find yourself in a situation where you have to make a decision of chucking a part of that Bible and creating it there on the spot. That’s where Jonathan and Brad came in, they were brilliant, they were brilliant. They knew this show inside out and my goodness. There are always problems and god there are always problems, problems is what pushes you forward. But with this one, once the technical was decided upon then it was clear sailing. And of course, the fact that the film was there helped us a lot too, especially with the transport donuts [rings]. Thank goodness it was there because thinking that up must have been quite something.

David Read
Absolutely. I think the show you were trying to think of was Total Recall 2070.

Mario Azzopardi
Total Recall, that’s right.

David Read
Thank you for the chat. Thank you Tracy.

Mario Azzopardi
Total Recall, that’s right. That was another one, that was a big one. Even there, the first shot of that show, the very first shot, which started with going up into the city. Designing the shot so as the camera moves in CGI and moves up, again, remember, we’re talking here, what, about 30 years ago? 25, 20 years ago, something like that.

David Read
It would have been a big shot.

Mario Azzopardi
The technology was but we had to start on CGI and the camera moves up with CGI into the set, goes along the street of the set, move up, go round, go into an office and turn round so that the actors are now with their back to the window that we’ve just come through. Again, one whole day to get that one shot. I love that, I love that, I simply love it. Again, to think about 35, 38 years ago when the steadicam was not there. I remember shooting a show called Night Heat in which one shot moved between five sets and then back again to exactly where we started from. The Steadicam at the time consisted of a camera on a stick with a weight below underneath. That’s how we moved it.

David Read
You sat in on the casting for SG-1. Can you tell us about that process?

Mario Azzopardi
Oh my goodness. There has been so many.

David Read
I know, you’ve done a lot there. Amanda Tapping, Michael Shanks, Christopher Judge, these people who are so well known now. Amanda’s a huge director, Christopher has gone on to…

Mario Azzopardi
Yes, she’s come a long way, my goodness and she deserves it. A wonderful lady, very talented, very talented, very driven, knows exactly where she’s gonna go, what she wants. She became a very important cog in the whole wheel of the show eventually, later on. By the time I came on I think the leads had already been decided by the studio. It was all the other small parts that I took care of. The contracts which always take a very long time to go through MGM had already established. This was months before we started so once I came on the four leads were there.

David Read
Got it, understood. The first day of shooting, you guys got some bad weather?

Mario Azzopardi
Yeah. Oh my goodness. Where do you get to all this info from?

David Read
A lot of interviews. I understand part of the set fell over, you had a crack down some of the footage. Tell us about that first day.

Mario Azzopardi
Yes. We were rained out of Vancouver. I don’t know what we started with but I remember once we finished the first day, we were about one week behind schedule. Something like that. Why yes, that’s right. You’re bringing back memories here that I’ve totally forgotten.

David Read
I can’t imagine the weight of something like that. You must think the gods are just frowning down upon you. It’s like “seriously?” though. This is the first day of this huge production, it’s already been at this stage, I think given two years, if not four at this point, to go. You get back and you find out there’s a friggin tear down the middle of your footage. What do you do? I guess you deal with it.

Mario Azzopardi
Again, we are all professionals, these things happen. You go into your Winnebago, you close the door, you close the windows, you swear a lot and then you put on a nice face, nice smile and you come down and you ask for a coffee. They bring it to you and you say okay, “what’s next?” Actually, the standing joke is that when I got on set every day, I always welcome my AD with “okay, so what’s the problem for today?” Like that, whatever comes in, it’s not a surprise. I go in there knowing that there’s gonna be a problem.

David Read
You’re trying to head it off at the pass.

Mario Azzopardi
Being Mediterranean bred and born sometimes it’s not always easy to be the stiff upper lip and keep calm. Sometimes you have to let the gods know what you think of them.

David Read
Yeah, “I’m not messing around today.”

Mario Azzopardi
You do, you do, absolutely you do. But then, at the end of the day you say “for today people, we will see you at the hotel, let’s go have a drink.” That’s what we do; you have a drink and you go into your room and you prepare for the next day. That’s what happens. Of course, there’s a lot of prep before but every day, getting on set, there’s always that…I want to try to find a better word for fear. I remember my father who was a scriptwriter always used to tell me “the day you stop being afraid is the day you have to stop doing this business.” Fear is a huge motivator, knowing how to deal with it and knowing how to take control of it. You must never let fear take control of you, but accept it and deal with it and move forward. This is something that I tell my kids. My daughter Lara is a producer/writer in Los Angeles these days. She’s going to be the showrunner for Cruel Summer once the damm strike ends. My son is assistant director on Chucky. My third daughter is the sanest of them all, she has nothing to do with this business. She does finance.

David Read
She figured it out.

Mario Azzopardi
She figured it out. Regrets, I have a few, of course. I’ve lived my life running around from one set to the other, from one side of the globe to the other. My wife, whom I’ve been married to now for, what 46, 47 years…

David Read
Congratulations.

Mario Azzopardi
Thank you. She’s the one who raised my kids. I was absent a lot of the time, but hey, listen, I’m providing for my family. It’s not the first time but from Vancouver, especially during prep week, I used to take the three o’clock flights from Vancouver on Friday night and then go and spend two days in Toronto in order to take the the seven o’clock flight back on Sunday nights to Vancouver. Doing that for for six, eight months is tough. Of course I had lots of points, travel points.

David Read
I suspect you did. “Where do you want to go this year kids? Belize?”

Mario Azzopardi
I missed the fact that I missed a lot of my kids life, something that I’ll never get back.

David Read
Do they appreciate and understand the sacrifice that you made?

Mario Azzopardi
I think today they do. Lara has three kids of her own now. I think today they do. At the time it was difficult. Dad why weren’t you here for my graduation? For god sake, you know. I just can’t leave the set. What what do you do? What do you do? It’s not a choice. That’s life, that’s the life there. If we were shooting in Toronto, that would have been different. But when you’re shooting in Vancouver, my family’s in Toronto or when I’m in Los Angeles or in Paris or Mexico or Tokyo, what are you going to do? How is it possible? It was the cause of much rancor at the time. Today, I think they realize what daddy had to go to.

David Read
When you look at a show the size of Stargate with all its complicated wheels and gears, all the machinery that goes into it the massive, massive sets. The Stargate itself, I can’t believe that they that they managed to create this thing and it worked every time in 10 seasons, it never missed a glyph. When you look at it from a macro perspective, what are some of the things that you can’t believe that you achieved and what were some of the hardest elements to pull off? I imagine the visual effects were a huge deal.

Mario Azzopardi
Yeah, they were. Visual effects, again, remember, I don’t want to talk against myself here. This is not the work of one person, this is the work of hundreds of people. Each and every department, every department has its head, every department has its sub-head and then the people who design and who create but everything starts around the table. I, as the director, I would like to achieve this. That’s what the script is asking for but I have my suggestions. Listen, story wise, this is not going to work because of this and this and that. Then also you get two pages of dialogue, again, I’m generalizing here and I’m exaggerating for effect. We can get the same effect of fear just by having the camera slowly move into the eyes of your character being helped with music. That’s going to tell so much that you don’t need certain dialogue, we we can let the camera tell the story. That was always a contention, a good healthy contention, between the person who sweat his blood to write those lines are here comes this upstart director who speaks English in a funny accent and says, “why do we need these words? Remove or cut these words” It’s not easy to suggest that but then you see that certain things need not be said if they’re being shown.

David Read
Yeah, show, don’t tell. Yeah, if you can show it, it’s a visual medium, you know. This isn’t an audio book that we’re talking about here.

Mario Azzopardi
Exactly. You mentioned that instance between Teal’c and…

David Read
Apophis.

Mario Azzopardi
Where they realize that they can help each other here. We explained that without words and then one line, one line, “I can save these people.” That’s where the whole fireworks then start. The music helped it a lot. I always take the example of that movie…with fire…the runners film… names I get…

David Read
Are you talking about Chariots of Fire?

Mario Azzopardi
Chariots of Fire.

David Read
Absolutely. Great piece of news.

Mario Azzopardi
Right. Take away that fantastic music and all you get is 50 men in their underwear running along the beach. But that music by Vangelis, my god, makes it. The slow motion is, you’d never forget it, you just never forget it. The amalgamation of picture and sound defies any words.

David Read
Joel Goldsmith was a master, he was brilliant.

Mario Azzopardi
No, this was Vangelis.

David Read
I’m talking about Joel Goldsmith in Stargate. We lost such a huge talent when he passed.

Mario Azzopardi
We are talking about one of the greatest of them all, my goodness, of course. But even those beats of his, its resonates with the wheel going around. Brilliant! Brilliant! This is why for me, I cannot take full credit for any one thing because that credit is always…This is why I get very upset when certain artists, not to mention what kind of artists, think that they are the [be all and] end all of everything because they’re not. They’re there because of what shoulders they are on, because of the shoulders there are on.

David Read
It’s a collaborative industry.

Mario Azzopardi
Huge. Of course, there’s got to be a captain. There’s got to be a person who say “no, this is how it’s got to be.” In television, it’s something that the showrunner takes care of. Usually, once the show starts to go on it’s the showrunner, really, that’s the head. This is why I didn’t like too much staying with one show.At that point, I found that my job became just a traffic cop. I didn’t want to do that so I preferred to stop my relationship with the show in order to go to something new. Especially a pilot or a movie or something that I wrote rather than come in and do episode number 55.

David Read
Well, if it no longer scares you, it’s time to move on.

Mario Azzopardi
Yes, yes, exactly.

David Read
I get that. You have a creative drip that you can’t shut off. You have to say “okay, where else and how else can I grow?”

Mario Azzopardi
Exactly, exactly.

David Read
Exactly right. I have a question about sensitivity on sets. The pilot is the only episode with a nude scene. This was mandated by Showtime because Showtime is cable and it’s things that you can’t see on regular television. Vaitiare had never done a nude scene before, Vaitiare Bandera. Can you tell us about the process, not necessarily of this particular scene, but you have shot these kinds of scenes before. What is the process that goes into that? How do you make the cast comfortable? Was it closed set? How does that work? It’s a very sensitive situation.

Mario Azzopardi
Today it’s done very differently. The process today is totally mandated and very bureaucratic. I am from Europe, I find that nudity in movies and in show business is not so prurient as it is in the States. In the States it was, at the time, it was too much of a big deal. It was a big deal. My introduction, when I discuss with the actress, I always start, first of all it has to come in the casting time. “We are offering you this part. This part involves this, this part involves that. Are you okay with it?” I tell them “if you feel uncomfortable, please don’t do the part. Even if I’ve offered it to you and you don’t feel comfortable, don’t just say ‘go ahead,’ don’t do it because you live with regret for the rest of your life. Unless there’s something natural for you, something that you can live with, don’t get involved.” Then you find situations where “no, no, no, listen, you want me to jump out of a plane? Of course, I’m an actor, I can do whatever you like. A horse? I can ride a horse.” You give them a horse and they say “which end do I get on? Where should I look?” Again, talking very generally and from experience, where actors will say yes they can do things which they know that they can’t do and then they get into trouble. But let me tell you one thing, nudity is very boring on set. It’s something to look at for the first five seconds, after six seconds, seven seconds, [sigh, sigh], let’s get the job done. You have your people to cover up when the shot is over but, again, it’s a human body. Once the surprise is gone, it’s gone. Unless one is a weirdo that is.

David Read
Where’s my pause button Mario?

Mario Azzopardi
I always thought, when I went to North America, I always thought “my goodness, I’m going to North America.” I had left my country, Malta, 1978, because of play. I’m a theatre man so I’ve produced dozens of plays in the theater, in the National Theatre in Malta. That’s what I’m doing now, I enjoy it. I do shows now for local television for absolutely no money whatsoever but I am so free. I can do whatever I like, whatever subject I want, with no executive breating taking down my neck. Freedom of expression, freedom of creativity, at the loss of the money that I made in North America. I remember when I was writing, my idea of America was “freedom, freedom, freedom from everything” and then I got there and I realized really how backwards it was in matters of sexuality for example. We’re talking 1978 where things are…

David Read
Free love and the cultural revolution.

Mario Azzopardi
But even so, once went into the media…I have stories. I was shooting a cop show, Night Heat, and the scene was these two cops rush into this house, they go into the bathroom and they see the person taking a shower behind the curtain and they take out their guns. They scream and they shout but this guy never moves so they slowly open the [shower curtain] and they find the mannequin there. The mannequin had a nice pair of tits on. I got this huge screaming match from CBS “what the hell are you doing? You’ve got to reshoot that, you’ve got to remove that.” So we had to reshoot it with the mannequin without any head, without arms and turned round. A similar thing was when, again, same show. This robber comes into this house, he’s got a nice piece of meat and there’s a dog in the house. He opens the bathroom, throws the meat in the bathroom the dog goes in it, he closes the door and then proceeds to ransack the house. The the owner comes in, there’s a huge fight, the owner opens the door, the dog comes out, leaps at the robber, the robber takes his gun out, shoots the dog and gets off. He goes “bang bang” on the dog, then kills the man, “bang bang bang” and he leaves. The next day I had a screaming telephone call “how dare you shoot that? How dare you shoot the dog?” It’s okay to shoot the man but it’s not okay to shoot the dog. Of course you never saw anything, it’s just everything off-camera. You hear “ow ow” and that’s it. So the hypocrisy of the rules and regulations in media was something of a shock to me. In Europe we see much worse. Is that the right way to put it? It was different, it was a shock for me, I didn’t realize that. So in preparing for it, that’s what I did with her. She knew exactly what she had to do, she had women around her covering her up. She comes on set, she’s totally covered. Everybody that’s not necessary in the shot leaves the leaves the studio. When she is ready, we start the camera rolling, everything is fine, the clapperboard guy comes in and “whenever you’re ready, ma’am” and somebody takes the thing off. We do the shot, cut, she’s covered immediately. There is a lot of grace. I think, in my opinion, I could never understand why all this concern. I may get into trouble for saying that but if people are so upset with these kinds of scenes, the first step should be they should refuse to do it. They should refuse to do it, they should not accept the part. If they’re being given an option “do you want this part? It has some nude scenes in it. This is how we’re going to shoot it.” I had to explain everything to her, how it was going to be shot. I showed her storyboards, I think we had storyboards already. It was totally her choice to accept or refuse. Nobody forced her, nobody made her, nobody insisted that she does something that she didn’t want to do. That’s how it should be. Today, there is a lot more concern given and a lot more hullabaloo insisted upon, which, I guess people are comfortable with. If that’s the way they want to do it today, all power to them. I have absolutely no problem and no contention against it. It’s, for me, it’s still very, very strange. Why this mysticism about nudity? Anyway, that’s the old Mediterranean European…

David Read
Well, I appreciate you sharing your thoughts on that. Do we have a little bit more time?

Mario Azzopardi
Sure. I have all night.

David Read
You’re a night owl like I am. I have some fan questions for you.

Mario Azzopardi
Yes. What do I do? Do I say them or do I type them?

David Read
I am going to ask them to you and you just respond to me. Lockwatcher wanted to know – you directed SG-1 in 97 then you returned to Atlantis in ’04. How had the production of the show changed, if it had changed at all, and how was it working with a new cast along with a few you had worked with previously?

Mario Azzopardi
The old characters, it was always a pleasure to come back and to see them again. With the new generation, there were, I’ve got to find the right words.

David Read
Different expectations?

Mario Azzopardi
There were expectations of grandeur that are always the downfall of many. This is a job guys! All the hullabaloo, all the publicity, all that is for you, the fans. It’s not for us, the workers. By creating this interest and by the fans adulating and loving the story and wanting to be the characters. It’s all created, right? It’s all made up. It’s not real. Once you start to believe that you deserve this because you are doing…once you forget humility…Now I can speak because I’m an old man. There were times when I was guilty of this too. Something happens on set, especially in the moment of success, that one trips. Unfortunately many do trip, look what’s happening with Snow White at the moment in Los Angeles. All that is such such a pity, such a pity, because that kind of behavior destroys careers. The concept was different, it was a change. I don’t think I was as happy as I was in the original because of the things that had changed. I know things were very different, I can’t remember exactly.

David Read
Atlantis was a different cast and a different animal.

Mario Azzopardi
It was time for me to move on. I only did a couple of shows I think and no more.

David Read
I’ve heard stories, sometimes a director and a cast are not going to gel. I’ve heard that SG-1 really was the exception rather than the rule. Brad and Jonathan and Richard and Michael Greenburg were very much “life’s too short, no grandstanding on this set. We are all equals here.”

Mario Azzopardi
I am glad you mentioned Michael, Michael was a brother. We drank together, we spent time together, I enjoyed it. Michael was always gracious and always asked you to weigh your choices. That was great because now you have a little bit of a live testing ground, what you call the testing spoon. He made things clear. Sometimes we disagree because he’s seeing things [differently]. So what? That’s part and parcel of the whole thing. Nowadays, unfortunately, disagreement is something to be shied, to be avoided.

David Read
It’s so public, it’s just so public now.

Mario Azzopardi
Why? Why are you afraid to disagree? If you’re afraid to disagree because you want to defend your job, it’s one thing. But if you are giving yourself to the show, if you are giving yourself to the story, then you better tell your story. If you’re telling somebody else’s story, why the hell are you there? You’re there because you’re going to tell your story. I always made its mine. Something that as I went along in my I found that this was getting eroded, eroded, until in many shows you were expected to go in there, call action and get the hell out of town as soon as you say “the last cut.” That’s not fun. That’s not fun. I mean. You make the money. I started by saying how lucky I am doing this job and unless I was going to continue doing that, then I was not happy to continue. At that point I got off television, episodic, and I started creating my own episodes like ZOS, [Zone of Separation] a miniseries which I directed, the whole eight episodes. Small movies and movies for television where the director hearkened back to the old meaning of what a director is. As I said, you’re asking me to direct your movie because you think I can bring something original to the show. If I were to know that you’re asking me because I’m available and you can ask anybody then what the hell? I don’t know.

David Read
What fun is it to be just the foreman of an assembly line?

Mario Azzopardi
99% of jobs in the world are not jobs that people enjoy doing. You go to your job because you have to eat, you have to feed your family. This is why I said I am extremely lucky, extremely lucky, to have the job that I have had for all my life. I’ve never worked anywhere outside the entertainment business, ever, so I’m very lucky. If I’m on set, I’m being insulted by asking to obey, why the hell do you want me there? Why don’t you just do it? Thanks very much.

David Read
There has to be a creative component in there somewhere.

Mario Azzopardi
If there is no creative component and you’re on set, you’re in the wrong place. You’re in the wrong place.

David Read
Don’t just get the shot out, make it interesting. Yes, you’re gonna get the shot out, this is a degree in assembly line, but still.

Mario Azzopardi
I’m not talking about the great directors that we have working on television today because there are some fantastic, some fantastic, directors. But then you find people who are there who know how to cover very well. They know how to cover a scene instead as opposed to interpreting a scene. Can you see the difference? Okay, I have the scene, I have to have the wide angle, the tight shot, the moving shot and the running two shots. It’s covered well, very efficiently, it says everything and it’s there. That is something that A, B, C and D can do. Now, if you’re on and you and only you can direct the show in your special way, in the choice of the angle in how to tell the story and you tell it your way. That is what makes the director, that is what makes the interpretation of the story instead of covering the story.

David Read
Absolutely. IBREC wanted to know – was there ever a consideration in having a team do a “making of” during the Stargate pilot or was there just never time?

Mario Azzopardi
There is! There is, I’m sure there is. Oh my goodness of course there is. Yes. I remember doing interviews on it.

David Read
I’ve not seen anything that was based specifically…I’ve not seen any B-roll from the pilot. But it may be out there somewhere, Showtime may have done something.

Mario Azzopardi
Yes. Yes. Yes. You should look into it because I’m sure there are. I’m sure there are.

David Read
I’ll poke around. Pamela Tarajcak – when you were directing 38 Minutes on Atlantis, what choices did you have to make to accommodate shooting in such close quarters? You’ve got this little closet of a puddle jumper, how do you handle a space like that? Is it more freeing in some ways because you don’t have distractions of a larger space? Does it force you to be more creative?

Mario Azzopardi
Okay, so we created the pod, right? But this pod was divided in four. So you have this half, this half, that half and this half. So basically, depending on the shot that we have, we would remove a huge part of that pod and we have the whole studio there and we’re working in a much larger space than you think you are. It was impossible to work [inaudible] so no, we were not confined by space at all because you always remove the part of the set that you’re not using. Of course, the problem comes when you get this upstart director from Malta who comes in and says “look, I want to shoot one way…” [2 minute loss of audio]

David Read
It’s your thank you to them. You have to have moments of levity in there every once in a while because it’s such a grind, 12, 13, 14 hour days. You’ve got to get the shot, especially with the pilot. [loss of audio]

Mario Azzopardi
You have to trust that other people are doing their jobs correctly. When misunderstandings happen and things don’t work well and tempers start to flare, that’s where we have to take the reins in your hands and pull in. Like in a military situation, you give orders. You’re ready to give the orders and to have them executed, there’s no democracy in that situation, somebody has to decide. If the studio decides, like in that situation, “look, we want you to reshoot that scene with the mannequin” or a famous note I got once from the producers of Outer Limits. These guys were shooting at robots and the robots were exploding and this blue goo comes out and the note from the studio was “Robots don’t have blue blood!” You stop, you try not to laugh and you ask very respectfully “what color is robots blood?” “Why it’s red of course!”

David Read
Oh, that’s even better.

Mario Azzopardi
“Do you want us to reshoot because all the robots are blown up? It will cost you another million and a half so what shall we do?” They would send it to CGI in order to paint that.

David Read
Oh my god.

Mario Azzopardi
Madness, absolute madness. This happened on an episode of Outer Limits I remember. But that’s the joy of it, that’s the business you’re with. So no my dear friend, definitely we had lots of space to shoot that sequence in just by removing the wall that was in the way at the time.

David Read
Susan McEwen wanted to know – Mario, how much freedom do you give actors to find their own character layers within a scene once they’re in it and only step in when you felt the performance strayed from the intent? Where’s the boundary there with actors? Actors are sensitive people and you can’t really tell them how to do something. You have to like lead the horse to the water.

Mario Azzopardi
Everybody is sensitive. Everybody is sensitive, believe me, from the props master who realizes that I don’t like the prop that he’s brought in to the craftsperson that has given you a sandwich that tastes like shit and you tell him so. First of all, I always enjoy to see what an actor brings to the set. I have an idea. That idea has been passed through the studio and Brad and Jonathan, we have agreed what we’re going to do. Nothing happens by chance, or very little happens by chance. It’s a very stupid director who does not allow his actors to give him their storytelling. Just as I want to tell my own story, they are also telling a story. They are storytellers too, we are all storytellers. Actors are storytellers, writers are storytellers, directors are storytellers, set designers are storytellers. We’re telling a story, all of us are telling a story. The minute you insist on whitewashing everything in order to have only one side, one interpretation of that story, it becomes very bland. Sometimes an actor comes in and gives you something, a cry, a pause in a delivery that is magic. You leave it, you let it go, you don’t stop it, you encourage it. Then of course, when all is said and done, everything comes down to the editing room. I do my cut and then once I do my cut I give that cut to the studio and the studio does their own. There are many a time when I say “What? What? What?” But that’s the business. You fight for it, you fight for it, you have to know which hill you’re ready to die on. Unfortunately, I died on too many hills because I was a son of a bitch and I really hated people changing my work and that was not always very salutary. But you know what? I am happy with my work. I’m happy with what I’ve done, most of it, most of it, most of it. I’m happy and there were many times when relationships had to be severed because there was irreconcilable differences. You live with it and you move on, forward.

David Read
Creative people are going to have creative differences and that’s okay.

Mario Azzopardi
That’s okay as long as you know how to manage it. You manage the difference, you pick up one piece, you take the other, you drop it. When you have to drop certain things hopefully one does it with grace. I was not always able to drop it with grace. When you say “thank you, no. Thank you, no. No, no, it can’t work, thank you.” You’ve got 150 people waiting there, they can’t wait for half an hour for me to have a discussion with the actor on how we’re going to interpret certain things. So “come along, come on. Let’s move on okay.”

David Read
Mario, I’m curious. Is there ever a good studio note where it’s like, “oh, I didn’t think of it that way before. That’s really interesting.”

Mario Azzopardi
When the studio gives you a note it’s because you failed to explain yourself.

David Read
So they’re justifying their existence?

Mario Azzopardi
Well, no, no, no, no, no. If they’re doing that they’re silly, they shouldn’t have their job if they’re doing that. I would hope that they are not. They’re there because of the fact that they’ve earned it, I hope. So you take the note and the question I ask is, “okay, why are they asking me this note? Why are they giving me this note?” In the case of the blue blood of the robots, I could never understand why. But sometimes, “okay, so I see they’re asking this because I haven’t made this thing clear. If I make this other thing clear then they wouldn’t be asking you this.” You take the studio notes as an opportunity to be better. If the studio note is stupid then you have to throw the dice. You have to say, “no, I’m going to stand by this at the risk of being fired.” That’s your choice. It’s your choice. If you want to die on that on that hill it’s up to you. If you can afford it you do it easier that if you can’t afford it. Certain things that I believed in immensely…I remember the pilot, the prison scene, there was a big problem during the scene where the choice is being made. The choice of the…

David Read
Children who is going to be taken.

Mario Azzopardi
Children. Sometimes you realize things once you’re on the set. You read it on the paper and it makes perfect sense then when you’re there to actually give it life it doesn’t make any sense. It just does not work. The words don’t work, the action doesn’t sound good. You have to make a choice, you have to make a choice and you make it. If you’re going to go and you’re ready to waste an hour to call back Los Angeles, see what they want or you go to take a stand and you step into it, step into the pool, step into the puddle. You hope the puddle is not too deep but you do it. I think that the way we solved it, especially with those big soldiers there with those big masks…

David Read
Yeah, the Jaffa and their helmets.

Mario Azzopardi
How are you going to fight this? Everybody should be destroyed there so the placing of Teal’c had to be very strategic in order to stop the guys from massacring everybody and then the way that they escape. Something was different in the script. I remember we had a moment, I can’t remember exactly what, if I were to see it again I would remember. But it worked, I think that scene is tremendous, it’s very scary.

David Read
There’s a lot happening in that single moment. You’ve got visual effects, you’ve got electronics going off, you’ve got extras. It’s the climax, well the first of a couple, for that film and it’s all got to happen.

Mario Azzopardi
And you have two days to shoot it all so you better be prepared.

David Read
I would be terrified to get into the editing room and be like, reflecting on what you said earlier, “one of these beats are missing. The intent is not coming through here.” What do you do at that point? You see what other footage there is I guess and see if you can reconstruct or…

Mario Azzopardi
This is why I overshoot. Actually my percentage is high, it’s very high. I think at one point we were 33 to 1, so there were thirty three feet for every forty two you. But coverage, coverage, coverage, absolute coverage, because sometimes you’re going to use a shot for just two seconds. Those two seconds take as long to set up as a whole one minute shot. You still have to light it, you still have to put the cameras, you still have to rehearse it. The two second shot doesn’t mean it was shot in two seconds. That’s part and parcel of the whole. So yes, I covered myself. I always “okay, if this doesn’t work, if this round is still on the floor, we realize that it’s not working or it doesn’t cut properly, exactly as we wanted. Can we cut to something else? If we were to cut to something else, what is it? Whatever that is, is it going to be as exciting and is it gonna keep the pace going?” It becomes natural the way you think like that? Once you’re in it these considerations become very part and parcel of the whole. It becomes natural just like driving a bicycle.

David Read
I watched Children of the Gods the final cut and I’m interested in your take on it if you’ve seen it. I couldn’t believe and how much there was shot that we didn’t see. One of my favorite new scenes in that is when Teal’c and the gang are leaving back to the Stargate and you do this pan along the side of the gate as they’re going through and there’s no one on the other side. You really get a three dimensional feel for what is occurring. The camera’s not locked off, you see the Stargate in all of its cool glory. It has eaten those people up. That wasn’t in the original broadcast version for whatever reason, but in the final cut there it is and it’s freaking cool.

Mario Azzopardi
Yes, I remember. There are things in the re-cut, I started to tell you, the opening shot…jesus, I bled for that shot. We worked for that to see it destroyed. On the first shot of the re-cut I was already incensed. I don’t think I enjoyed the re-cut as much as I enjoyed the original but the re-cut they re-did all the the special effects which was very nice, which is very good. I remember feeling a bit sad.

David Read
Brad himself said in his special features interview, this is not erasing the old one, this is a valentine for fans who went through the whole 10 seasons of that show. It was a chance to update the effects, Teal’c audio is redone. There’s a few things that I think are frankly an improvement to it in terms of that. That’s the benefit of 10 years of time, the puddles are all consistent for one thing. You had three different vendors for the pilot. You were in the trenches for that show, pre-production alone, like you said, for months. The benefit of time is the benefit of time.

Mario Azzopardi
Yes, of course. Again, playing with such toys. We’ve got the gate, what better toy do have? Do remember that shot where the first attack had just gone and the camera is behind the gate, the water is still there then suddenly the water disappears and we come down, we go through the gate…

David Read
To Don.

Mario Azzopardi
To see the actors coming in and they’re all…that was one [inaudible]. Again, we had to move the crane so much back in order to be able to come down and move the…At the time we had to give the time so that the effect would disappear and then the camera moves. Simple one of course but those were considerations that were all there on paper, on the storyboard that we created.

David Read
Can I hold on to you for 10 seconds here? I want to show you something real quick. Be right back. So in my hallway I have the entire storyboard sequence for the opening of Children of the Gods.

Mario Azzopardi
Oh my goodness!

David Read
So shot 37, “the soldiers stop shooting, staring slack jawed, wide eyed, horrified. Five human soldiers and two aliens lie dead.”

Mario Azzopardi
Oh my god.

David Read
“General Hammond, whose face says that he knows mankind could be in deep shit.”

Mario Azzopardi
My goodness, that is fantastic. I have somewhere my script. Send me your your email, your address and I’ll send it to you.

David Read
I would love to see it Mario. I would absolutel love to.

Mario Azzopardi
I don’t know where it is but it’s here somewhere.

David Read
That would be such an honour sir.

Mario Azzopardi
It’s got the red, blue, green pages.

David Read
Wow, I have no words. The things that you pulled off! Don S. Davis as Hammond, that crane shot coming through the gate and then coming up kind of underneath him. That is a great hero shot for him. It’s a great “oh shit” moment but it’s kind of establishing him as the father of this team for the rest of the show.

Mario Azzopardi
What a great actor.

David Read
We lost such a giant.

Mario Azzopardi
He was so polite. Never a peep, just “yes sir.” He answered militarily. He came in very, very well prepared, very spick and span, hair, whatever hair he had left, in perfect position. Asked for the directions that I wanted of him and he went and prepared and he did it.

David Read
Wow. Yeah, he was a captain in the army so he definitely had that texture already. He was brilliant for the next seven seasons, Don was one of the greats.

Mario Azzopardi
Yeah.

David Read
I have a couple more fan questions, is that okay?

Mario Azzopardi
Please, please, go ahead.

David Read
I don’t want to abuse your time.

Mario Azzopardi
No, no, no, I’m enjoying this. I’m really enjoying this.

David Read
I’m loving having you on. Philippe wanted to know – was there anything in particular that you, and this has more to do with your process, was there anything in particular that you pulled out of the feature film? They were like, “okay, yeah, I want to leverage this here.” Did you study it in a certain way or was it “this is our show, we’re going to break the mold.” When you’re creating a follow up, Children of the Gods is essentially Stargate 2, how does that work?

Mario Azzopardi
I tried to get in touch with Emmerich and…

David Read
Dean Devlin?

Mario Azzopardi
They didn’t want to talk, they didn’t want to have anything to do with us. But I tried, I tried to get in touch. They didn’t want to have anything to do with us. I understand there were some recriminations between them and the studio.

David Read
They had plans for two more films.

Mario Azzopardi
But yes, of course. I think the one that I stole most was the doughnuts, the transportation doughnuts. I didn’t steal it, it was the property of the studio so I could use it again. I enjoyed using that. The whole mechanism of the Stargate was so sublime, why change it, you know? What they created was superb, man. That effect, I think from all their films, that is the best effect ever created in all their films. That’s my opinion. The creation of the Stargate is cinema history man, it’s cinema history, so who am I to change that? right. I enjoyed using that. We also kept certain peculiarities of the characters. Samantha’s line, which many wanted out, eventually in the re-cut it was removed, when she talks about her genitals, the difference between genitals because mine are in and yours are out is that why…? That was lots of fun, unfortunately it was cut in the re-cut. You mentioned it was a valentine, in certain parts I thought it was a bloody valentine because of these omissions, which were unique. Even the nudity in the re-cut was hugely reduced if I’m not mistaken.

David Read
The rest of the show didn’t have it. We could have a long conversation about this but yeah, the show goes on to become its own thing. You go in the directions that you go for a decade.

Mario Azzopardi
I had my very young children at the time in those scenes, in the scene of the banquet.

David Read
Oh, they’re in there?

Mario Azzopardi
Both my son and my daughter and her friend are there. The pyramids, of course, when they come out and they see themselves in the pyramid. That was eventually repeated many times, eventually the series. What else?

David Read
Have you watched the show? Have you watched all of SG-1?

Mario Azzopardi
I’ve watched all of the first season and I’ve watched my episodes. Believe me, between watching what I have to watch and watching what I would like to watch is a big difference. I have to watch a lot of stuff to keep abreast of things.

David Read
Jay Francois – in response to the conspiracy theory talk, I have no doubt there is intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy. Do you think we’ve been visited yet and if not, how long until we are? What are your thoughts on that? I guess it goes back to who created the pyramids?

Mario Azzopardi
Do you really think I can answer that or I can even dare answer that.

David Read
What’s your opinion?

Mario Azzopardi
My thinking is, “if we’re alone, what a waste of space.”

David Read
You’ve watched Contact.

Mario Azzopardi
That’s a lift. Number 2: why can’t there be more civilizations? Number 3: if there were other civilizations here, why don’t we have proof of that? Why is it that we don’t have absolute proof?

David Read
Fermi paradox.

Mario Azzopardi
If it’s been kept secret by…I mean, come on. Hundreds of people worked for years in this place, they’re keeping secrets, they come out and they are refused to sell the rights for a book that will make them millionaires after a career in the military. There are so many theories about the pyramids, what they were really for, I would believe, yes, civilization was much more advanced than we think it was in the past. After all, remember that’s why they called the Dark Ages, “the Dark Ages.” At the time humanity went down so much. When the Visigoths burned the libraries in Spain, then Constantinople, it is said that humanity went the back one thousand years because of the sun. Arab science before Islam took over in the way it is today, Islam at first was extremely scientific. I mean, they had mathematics, what is algebra? Algebra is algebra [arabic], it means “the collection, the collection of.” Algebra is the collection of all sciences. Writing, the navigation by the stars, the numbers, there is so much that we today in our arrogance think that we are the innovators of. We’re not, we’re not, really we’re not. I would think that there were civilizations that we have forgotten, that we have absolutely destroyed in our… I live in Malta, a small island in the Mediterranean. One of the biggest problems in Malta is to dig in order to develop a piece of land. One of the big risks that you take is that the minute you start digging, you’re going to find Neo…We’ve got Neolithic temples here that’s 3000 years before Christ. When the Roman Empire looked upon these temples they were looking at something older than how we see Rome today. These are Neolithic temple, again, made up of these huge, enormous bigger stones than any stone found in Egypt. How did they transport these? They must have dug them somewhere and created these temples, but then there are temples dug in the rock. These are temples that the hypogeum, in order to go and visit them you have to make an appointment that takes you about two years to be given the tickets to go in and see them. The queue of visitors, they only allow a small amount of people every day to go and see them. These are temples beautifully carved, perfectly symmetrical, in the living rock. There’s no tools that we know of that they could do this with. Now, the excitement grows, “oh my god, this is da da da da da aliens.” Calm down, calm down, calm down. Man was much cleverer than what we think he was. Remember that Rome had a million people and once Rome fell it took 1000 years before the next city had another million people in it. 1000 years! Then the Dark Ages and the plagues that happened…

David Read
It’s wild. We’re talking about a civilization that could make concrete that set underwater and we don’t know how they did that.

Mario Azzopardi
The Colosseum, the floor of the Colosseum, was concrete. They could flood the Coliseum, they could open doors and water from the Tiber would flow into the Colosseum. The water would rise about two feet and they used to have sea battles in the Colosseum. Underneath, once the bottom was drained, they had lifts in order to bring the animals up and down. They had lifts…

David Read
On pulleys.

Mario Azzopardi
The ingenuity! If you were to go to Leptis Magna in Libya, these are the best preserved Roman…how many of you guys know about Leptis Magna in Libya?

David Read
I’ve heard of it.

Mario Azzopardi
Leptis Magna is the best contained remains of Roman architecture in the world, better than Rome. The streets and the houses there, they have drainage systems underneath. I’m sure many people don’t know about these and that is how history has been forgotten. If we have been visited…

David Read
It’s buried under the earth.

Mario Azzopardi
One day we’re going to discover something that’s going to revolutionize the way that I think. One reason why we don’t know more is the fear of huge, cataclysmic social changes that I don’t think we are ready for. One of the things that people are not ready for is the negation of religion, that plays a huge part. Once aliens are established, everythingthing that we believe in, every religion that we have, falls to bits.

David Read
I think a huge number of people will just, the proof could be standing right in front of them and they won’t believe it. “It’s a trick, it’s not true.”

Mario Azzopardi
That’s one of the biggest problems in accepting. Are we ready to accept defeat? What do you do to these people whose life depends on their faith? Is it okay to destroy it? What do you fill it up with? Do we fill it up with anything? Do we need to fill it up with anything? That is not a question that any young punk who is ready to say, “I don’t care,” we can answer. I believe we’re gonna have to live peacefully. In the social contract, we have to care for each other, we have to care for each other for our own survival. That means that when the time comes for us to fight each other in order to save ourselves, we do that because that’s humankind.

David Read
There’s an SG-1 episode called The Road Not Taken in season 10 where a situation, a crisis, forces the Stargate to be revealed and it nearly destroys the planet. It brings the world to heal. People are unpredictable and we believe in things so severely that many will be willing to die for them or couldn’t continue to live with the knowledge that they were wrong and kill themselves. It’s a broader conversation.

Mario Azzopardi
It’s a big conversation, it’s very tough. Now you put yourself in that situation, “do I let it be known? Am I going to take this responsibility?” You know the incident in England during the Second World War where I think it was, is it Canterbury? I don’t know. But the Enigma machine…

David Read
Oh the Enigma machine, yes, with Alan Turing.

Mario Azzopardi
The Germans sent in a message saying, because they were suspicious that the British had cracked the Enigma machine, so they said they were going to bomb Canterbury, something like that. They were watching to see, I don’t know whether it’s Canterbury or not or some other place. They were watching to see because if people were brought out it means the British had cracked it. One of Churchill’s ministers, his family was there. Churchill brought him in and he had him arrested and placed in isolation because he did not want him to inform his family. His family perished. Now put yourself in Churchill shoes, are you going to decide to destroy… This is the beauty of Stargate, right? The questions asked were always of cataclysmic effect that involve other people, not the characters, it involved other people and other civilizations. The choice that you make is going to have huge repercussions and that is why it kept us for those 17 years. Now this is same thing with horror movies. Why do we like horror movies? We like horror movies because we love to be in danger knowing full well that nothing can happen to us. That feeling of feeling danger, feeling horror, knowing in the back of your mind that this is just a movie, it’s entertaining.

David Read
There is something to be said for exploring the limits of our sensory perception through entertainment. It helps us feel more than what we normally could in our normal everyday circumstances

Mario Azzopardi
And Stargate and also Outer Limits did that every single episode, every single episode.

David Read
Yeah, Brad blew up the Earth a few times in Outer Limits, some of my favorite episodes. He was very good at blowing up the planet.

Mario Azzopardi
I did about 25 of course, my goodness.

David Read
I’ve got a couple more for you Mario.

Mario Azzopardi
Tell me, tell me, tell me.

David Read
Tracy says – you have such an impressive background with projects that you’ve worked on in your career. Are there any other, and I think you’ve alluded to them a little bit, are there any other projects that you would want to work on that you have not yet had the opportunity, that you’re waiting for the time and place?

Mario Azzopardi
You ask that to any director and the director will say “I have got dozens of great stuff. They don’t want to give me the money for it!” Of course, yes, yes. I am now living in Malta, as I said. Malta has one of the best rebates that exist in the world. It’s not a tax rebate. Basically our system is “you come to Malta, you spend $100 in Malta, we give you 40 of that back. 40% of whatever you spend in Malta, we give it to you back.”

David Read
Yeah, Game of Thrones did very well in season one.

Mario Azzopardi
Gladiator too did extremely well. Millions and millions and millions of dollars that are going to be given back to them. Number 1 was shot here and number 2 was also shot here. Now it’s time for Malta to start telling its own stories because so far we’ve only been a service industry. Now we’re looking for opportunities with two or three of our stories where we can produce movies with this rebate plus grants from the arts council and grants from the Malta Film Commission. Basically, a $5 million movie becomes something like $2.8 million when all is said and done. But we don’t want just to service movies, we want to have our own scripts in co-production with Canada mostly. I’ve done three movies with Canada, co-production, and they did very well.

David Read
Like you say, you’re standing on so much history. I went there and I came away and people were like, “what was it like?” I’m like, “well, a: Malta is a windy rock in the ocean and two, it is one of the most beautiful places on Earth that I’ve ever seen.” Anyone within the sound of my voice, go visit, you will be blown away. The culture, the food, the architecture was amazing.

Mario Azzopardi
Yes. As I was telling you, if you want to develop land in Malta it’s always a big risk. Once you start digging you’re going to find something and if you find something then the historical department is going to come and say, “uh oh, you can’t touch this land because it’s going to take five years to see what’s underneath.” They keep discovering stuff. In Turkey two weeks ago they discovered this huge, enormous mosaic that is so beautiful, so beautiful, a Roman mosiac in Turkey. It was a field that was worked for hundreds of years and the owner of the family decided to sell it and once they started to dig they lost the land because they can’t touch it.

David Read
Wow. Don’t open a gift horse’s mouth! You’ll find gold and they’ll take it from you.

Mario Azzopardi
Every old house here has its mysteries and treasures. The whole of Valletta, you went to Valletta of course if you were here, it’s a whole other city. There are halls of interconnecting underground rooms. It’s huge, it’s huge.

David Read
It’s everyone’s cultural heritage. If you come across something it needs to be shared.

Mario Azzopardi
Per capita, Malta, per square foot, Malta has the most United Nations International Heritage sites than the whole world. When you consider the size of the island, per capita, the number is big.

David Read
Yeah, in terms of any EU country it’s got the most people living on it per square kilometer. Game of Thrones, I saw season one, it’s like, “okay, I’m going there.” Last question for you, Philippe wanted to know – would you come back and direct? Once MGM and Amazon get their crap together and figure out what next Stargate they’re going to do, would you be willing to come back and direct some of it?

Mario Azzopardi
When can I pack?

David Read
Yes, sir.

Mario Azzopardi
Of course, of course. The problem would be when because the next five years are chock full already. It’s always that but hey, listen, this is such a great job man. If you’re lucky enough to be involved, if you’re lucky enough to have people believe in you and trust you with lots of money. This responsibility is huge because you’re talking millions of dollars. I don’t know how much the full set cost but it ran into the millions, just the set of Stargate. That’s before you even started, that’s just the set. To bring the wheel up to Vancouver, have it work, the whole thing is a lot of investment. You have to respect that, you have to respect that. To have people trust you with all that investment and to make it, it’s quite an honor and quite a privilege. I wish I knew this when I was younger, I wouldn’t have been so arrogant sometimes.

David Read
Mario, your career as a director, I could go for hours with you on this. In terms of Stargate, your legacy, the fingerprints that you left on the show are so important. This has been an honor to sit down and talk with you and explore some of the facets of this. The show wouldn’t have turned out exactly as it was without your creative input. Yes, it does take the whole group but you were steering that ship for that first episode and you set its star. That along with Brad and Jonathan and all the work that you guys all put into it helped establish a franchise that people are continuing to discover year after year. It’s been part of my, now life’s work, to help mine those stories and preserve them for the future. Thank you for this opportunity.

Mario Azzopardi
Thank you very much, you are very generous in your expression. Thank you very much. I enjoyed it. I’ll end with this, whenever I have an argument with my wife she always reminds me “yeah, but you like your job,” comparing it to mine. “You like it but I don’t like what I have to do but you like it so you can’t talk.”

David Read
It’s a blessing and it’s important to count your blessings.

Mario Azzopardi
Yes, I do. Honestly I do, I do. Thank you very much, guys, it was fantastic talking to you all.

David Read
Thank you. Mario Azzopardi, I appreciate your time sir. I’m gonna go ahead and wrap up the show. Be well.

Mario Azzopardi
Okay, goodbye.

David Read
Mario Azzopardi, director, Stargate SG-1’s Children of the Gods and a number of additional episodes for SG-1 and Atlantis. You can check out his Stargate command Wikipedia page and see all of his specific shows. I would love to have him back next year for season four when we return after the new year. This was a fantastic discussion and I’m so privileged that he gave us two hours of his time, there’s a lot to mind there. I’m glad that we took some tangents into some different directions with philosophy and with alien life and everything else because it all comes together in this massive franchise that they all created. My thanks to my moderating team, Tracing and Antony, you guys are rock stars. Antony, he’s over in the UK, I’m sure he’s got to get up for work tomorrow morning. Guys, thank you for moderating this episode and thank you all for submitting questions. This was a great time. My appreciation must also go out to Robert C. Cooper for making this interview possible. He helped me get in touch with Mario and this would not have happened without Roberts aid so thank you sir so very much for that. Linda “GateGabber” Furey, my producer. Frederick Marcoux, my webmaster at ConceptsWeb. Go to dialthegate.com, we’ve got a number of other episodes heading your way. Michael Adamthwaite is coming this afternoon, Cameron Bright on Tuesday and we’ve got a few more also. I’m just lining up, I’ve got some emails to respond to right now. I am truly blessed for the the attention that the show is continuing to get and my fortune for having so many of these amazing talent on to discuss…I have no words. My name is David Read for Dial the Gate and I will see you on the other side.